Zuko lacks a fundamental need for expressing and desiring affection from others. He stays emotionally and physically distant from every person he ever came in contact with except for his mother when she comforted and embraced him at the turtle-duck pond. Iroh sometimes attempts to reach Zuko with compassion, but he often only got half-hearted returns from him. He stays more distant from others like Song (The Cave of Two Lovers) when he stops her hand from touching his scar. Perhaps his greatest act of affection came when he and Iroh worked in their own teashop though his optimistic mood seemed cheesy and melodramatic to suggest the phoniness of his state of mind. At different points during Season Two he slowly emerged as a more open person when he showed Lee how to use Twin Broadswords (Zuko Alone), momentarily returning Jin’s kiss (Tales of Ba Sing Se) and telling Katara about his mother (The Cross Roads of Destiny). His block of affection damaged the relationships he fell into with others and enlivened the demons consuming the good he had left. That inability to relate and open to people hints at the reasons for the intrigue of his character.

Every battle he fought up to this point in the story either ended in failure (Bato of the Water Tribe) or felt bittersweet (Zuko Alone, The Crossroads of Destiny) because he fought to prove a point to himself. He fought without his heart, ignoring his conflicted emotions like they never existed. It looks plain how troubled he really is when he falls ill (The Earth King) and sees the image of himself as the Fire Lord because the fever induced dreams struck at the heart of his inner turmoil. Azula, as the Blue Dragon, tells him, “Sleep, just like mother!” Then he sees Ursa calling out to him, “Zuko, help me!” The euphemism, “sleep” infers “die” suggesting Zuko thinks his mother is dead, yet the very next line contradicts that notion when Ursa calls out to him. Katara tells Zuko when they are trapped in the cave, “The Fire Nation took my mother away from me,” and he replies, “I’m sorry. That’s something we have in common.” Katara infers that her mother was killed, but it is unclear whether Zuko ever learns this. Without clarification, it remains unclear if it means Zuko thinks Ursa is dead or alive. Keeping his mother’s ultimate fate a mystery locks the audience’s understanding in with Zuko, so the dilemmas in his heart feel understood.

The death of a loved one strikes tragedy and misery in every person it consumes, but perhaps even more agonizing is losing someone when they are still alive, or not knowing whether they truly have passed on. Zuko confronts the suffering of either accepting Ursa is gone or holding on to the possibility she may still be alive. Not knowing her fate keeps Zuko from going into true grief and moving on with his life, if she were dead while the possibility of her being alive clings him to a hope that may only be a shadow. Since her disappearance, his conscience has hung by his hands on a ledge over a dark chasm contemplating the risks of either holding on until someone comes to save him or letting go and finding out if it is as deep and dangerous as he thinks. In essence, he will never be able to move forward till he knows what ultimately became of Ursa.

The turmoil over his mother strained the relationships he had and made with those throughout his life, and the consequence lead to a point where he became distant, alienated and indifferent to almost everyone he met. Sympathy, angst, confusion, disappointment, hope scour the reaction to who Zuko is and who he may or may not become; his future waits, hidden and unknowable till the conclusion. It may come that the proof of his triumph over those inner conflicts will appear when he acknowledges the one he cares for most with the three simple words, “I love you.”