r/TheLastAirbender • u/urusai_Senpai • 7h ago
Discussion What do you think of Zuko's fever, personally? Was it just a fever or something more?
When I watched this as a kid I immediately thought the fever came on because of Zuko's inner battle/turmoil came into a culmination.
I read some posts and comments talking about this, most people see it that way too.
But, now as an adult I've started to gain a new perspective. That maybe we just added some additional layers into this scene, because that's how we wanted to view it. In either case, that part doesn't really matter, we each choose for ourselves the story we want to see.
Without getting too much off topic. This notion, that I've had as younger, but now focused more on as an adult. Maybe Zuko was already sick and with fever; his rage and "never giving up", all the pain inside him just kept him going, even when he was ready fall on the ground. Now that he's finally let go of all of that, he collapses to the ground.
Both interpretations work in this scene, there could be more ways to interpret, so please tell me if you have them. But, the latter one I talked about imo adds a lot more emotional weight to the situation; than just Zuko feeling the physical effects of his inner battle.
But, one doesn't need to exclude the other. Tell me how do you view this scene? Is it Zuko letting go of rage and feeling effects of ongoing fever, or is it something more? Something spiritual?
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u/Livid_Jeweler612 7h ago
Yes it is something more. It is Zuko at odds with himself manifesting in physical symptoms. As Iroh spells out in the episode. His idea of himself that he wants to be i.e. honourable fire nation prince and capturer of the avatar fundamentally conflicts with his lived reality and deeper moral compass which he knows those things would be wrong. Have a strong enough sense of self be broken and you'll experience this too. Its not actually a magical phenomenon, people IRL have been known to experience that as well.
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u/urusai_Senpai 7h ago
Yeah, his Uncle says as much. "You're going through metamorphosis, my nephew."
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u/Smeagol15 7h ago
I will say that sometimes intense stress and poor mental health can manifest into physical symptoms. Zuko has been under a lot of stress for so long. Letting Appa go added an additional layer of inner turmoil that caused his body to finally crack under the pressure.
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u/erineline623 7h ago
My guess is that his emotional stress made him sick. I mean, it happens in reality. Tho I've never heard of getting a fever from the distress
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u/Kooky-Sector6880 Republic City is rightful EK clay 7h ago
I think it was partially an actual fever and partially him feeling conflicted making him sick since it was a very thematic sickness.
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u/BarelyInvested 6h ago edited 6h ago
Its not rare for people to get sick/nauseous after doing something that goes against their code, with the intensity varying on how strong the choice was
In Zukos case, he was masking A LOT of damage by sticking to an honor code, for a long time, so once he did something against it his honor mask dropped and all of that blocked pain came out immediately, making him nauseous, weak, and in pain. Its also why he “suddenly” started being nicer and polite after the metamorphosis, he allowed the pain to process, which means he wasnt being controlled by it anymore, which is a common form of trauma and phobia treatment, facing the undesirable thoughts and feelings(and Iroh was a great partner thru his shift)
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u/GatePorters 6h ago
Stress weakens the immune system. Feverish thoughts weaken the psyche.
Cognitive dissonance from identity crisis straight into illness with feverish thinking.
It is within the realm of possibility to have nothing to do with spirit/destiny.
It can arise with mundane explanations.
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u/reverse-tornado 7h ago
All bending has deeply spiritual ties in avatar and its shown that fire benders regulate their body temp consciously with their bending . My head cannon was zuko was dealing with his firebending " rewiring" itself because of him letting go of the rage that fueled him
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u/Blep461 7h ago
I figured it was the sheet emotional weight he had suddenly had placed on him. I’ve thrown up and hallucinated from stress just because of tests. It seems like a logical step that something as heavy as what Zuko as going through could take such a physical toll on the body. And, in a meta way, a fever is a pretty good way to show the audience what’s going on in a characters head. Where internal monologues are not available, internal conflict has to be shown in a visible way
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u/Sharp_Mathematician6 6h ago
He was stressed. 😫 put his body through so much that whatever he got sick 🤒 with weakened him bad.
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u/Wintersneeuw02 4h ago edited 4h ago
as somebody who went through a burn out due to a job that constantly questioned my morals on a daily basis, fever/migraines/nausea/poor sleeping were all physical signs this manifested. heck a small case of the flu developed into full blown bronchitis because i was under so much stress my immune system could not fight anything off. i feel like the show portrayed something similar with zukos arc
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u/LobsterHead37 6h ago
I always thought it was just a fire bender thing, like the same thing happens to every fire bender that goes through a transition in life. That’s just my head-canon tho.
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u/smugfruitplate 5h ago
It's a character development coma, which is a well trodden trope in fiction. I think they did it pretty well.
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u/Deceptifemme 5h ago
He had a severe and lengthy panic attack? I mean those symptoms can line up with it. Especially the immediately being better the next day, with only exhaustion as a remaining symptom. That was always my take
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u/apatheticchildofJen 5h ago
If the medical dramas I watched are in anyway close to accurate, I’d say it’s likely some form of conversion disorder, where the brain converts psychological desires or emotions into physical symptoms
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u/Noktis_Lucis_Caelum 5h ago
I think the inner conflict.
AS far AS i know, These Kinds of immer conflict can cause the Body to get fever
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u/enchiladasundae 5h ago
My personal theory is that all benders have a physical component or effect on their bodies outside of just having the ability to bend. Realistically Zuko should have died or at least had severe pneumonia after swimming underneath those under water caverns, then later being frozen solid and buried in snow for a bit. Yet afterwards he just feels kind of sleepy and that’s it
We know fire bender’s emotions, specifically rage and anger, can be used to enhance the power of their fire. You’re not supposed to do it but fire benders of their time learned to harness that for extra power. Zuko is completely at odds with himself and his goals here. He lived a good few years consumed with the desire to hunt down Aang and nothing else. Doing something counter to that must have had a profound physical effect on him. A fire fed with a fuel of hatred and single minded destruction now starved turns on the one who fed it to keep burning
That aside he could have just been malnourished or unpracticed and over exerted himself. They aren’t exactly eating good food all the time and realistically he wouldn’t have had much time or opportunity to brush up on his skills. Maybe even the Dai Li had poison and he was purposefully hit with it or ran into some poison trap. Fire benders draw strength from the breath so instinctively he would have breathed in a lot while fighting. The air beneath Lake Laogai could also be a bit stagnant or devoid of plentiful oxygen
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u/LetTheDarkOut 5h ago
Bro went so against his own desires that he had a psychotic break and recovery and came out a totally different person. You would only question the fever if you were naïve about how interconnected the human body is with the mental state of the person. Why would they be separate and disconnected? They are all part of the same body.
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u/Zeth22xx 5h ago
It was more like a massive crack, nothing that would change him. But pave the way to the ultimate change after he reunions with his father.
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u/Spirited-Swordfish90 5h ago
I've gotten sick from emotional stress before. It's not usually a fever because that's caused by a viral infection. But you can have your body temperature rise, get bad headaches and have no energy, it kind of feels like a fever. I think a fever is just a better way to summarize how zuko is feeling even though that's not how it works.
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u/IncubusIncarnat 5h ago edited 4h ago
Bro hit a point where Rage, Anger, Stress, etc was literally killing him. It wouldn't have stood out as much to just have him collapse from a heart attack, especially to a pre-teen/Teenage audience. (Even though people in and below my Graduating Class died from Massive Heart Attacks and Strokes.) I'm at a point where my health has taken similar turns for similar reasons (maybe not hunting down another person, but the rest was always eerily relatable.).
Showing how much stuff like that can affect you at a young age was a smart move on the writers' part and is a callback to Old School Medicine/Cautionary Tales. The fact that he doesnt really start to improve until he has an epiphany that led to Tangible Change was a Master Class in "Turning Evil to Good" without being all "We just talked and shook hands" about it.
ETA: At the risk of adding too much personal context, I basically got to a point where I was having irregular heart beats, nosebleeds, horrid Night Terrors (still do), teeth rotting in spite of pretty solid dental care, etc. The Human Body can either adapt or collapse in crazy ways. It's basically the issue of the people working their entire lives then dying months into retirement. I'm actually afraid that the day the struggle actually ends for me, ill probably just drop dead. Cause that shit happens a lot.
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u/Dragon_Tein 5h ago
People ask this like they never been drained of all their strength after tough talk with their family, or life decision. Add to this physical strain, and catching a cold or a flu becomes very likely
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u/mannmy 3h ago
Extreme mental and emotional stress really lowers your body's resistance. I'd say it's actually pretty realistic with his situation, in my case I get excruciating migraines if I spend too much time stressing over something - one time, the stress made my body feel weaker and more vulnerable, I had a cold and then a quick fever after.
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u/TheLion725 2h ago
I think it was a release of energy. Recently I had special emotional release done and the next day I got sick out of nowhere. I released negative energy, but it needed somewhere to go and a way to leave. It left my body as being sick. By not kidnapping Appa Zuko had a major energy shift and release and it needed a way to leave. It left as a sickness and fever dreams. We saw how much he changed after he woke up. He went through an energy shift and release.
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u/Archius9 1h ago
What I find more egregious is after Zuko had been out for days breaking fever, when he comes to Iroh is cooking food that he’s sure Zuko won’t like. Bit rude.
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u/Important-Contact597 7h ago
It has never made much logical sense to me. So I don’t try to logically explain it.
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u/urusai_Senpai 7h ago
If not logically, have you looked at it spiritually or mentally?
There's logic to be found in this too...
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u/Ledd_Ledd 7h ago
His fever comes on because of the stark change he makes which effects his spirit, physical and emotional health. He lived in a constant existence of rage and hate which conditions his cells and his body to become accustomed to that environment. When he chose to do good and allow healthy emotions to surface, it was such a stark change to his chemistry that it threw his body into shock as his body was now clensing all the negative energy he's been storing for years.
Think of jumping from a tub of near boiling water your body temperature became accustomed to then immediately driving into glacial water; enough to throw your body into shock. He basically had that experience emotionally and spiritually