Revisiting Uncle Iroh’s Wisest Quote From Avatar: The Last Airbender 20 Years Later

Avatar: The Last Airbender is full of heartfelt moments, from Aang reassuring a despondent Toph in the desert to Ursa’s parting words to Zuko before she disappears in the night. Uncle Iroh is at the center of many of the series’ most moving scenes. He begins as Zuko’s wise mentor and becomes much more, offering guidance when his nephew needs it most.

One such moment comes in “Lake Laogai,” the 17th episode of Book Two: Earth. Zuko and Iroh have left their royal titles behind and settled into daily life in Ba Sing Se under the names Lee and Mushi. Away from his father and the Fire Nation regime, Zuko has a chance at a normal life. But when he learns that Appa is imprisoned somewhere in the city, he takes up his Blue Spirit disguise again, hoping to capture the Avatar’s sky bison and restore his family’s honor.

In the caverns beneath the lake, Zuko finds Appa’s cell. Iroh appears and confronts him. Usually easygoing and fond of tea, Iroh shows his frustration as he challenges Zuko’s impulsiveness. He reminds Zuko of the time he captured the Avatar at the North Pole and nearly froze to death. Zuko turns away and insists he has no choice. He believes capturing the Avatar is his destiny.

“I’m begging you, Prince Zuko! It’s time for you to look inward and begin asking yourself the big questions,” Iroh says. “Who are you, and what do you want?”

The collision of identity and expectation

Until this point, Zuko has defined himself through other people’s expectations and the trauma he inherited. His father, Fire Lord Ozai, scarred his face, stripped him of his title and banished him, leaving him with the task of capturing the Avatar or remaining in exile. Desperate to regain his birthright, Zuko has pursued the Avatar as both a prince and a masked vigilante, treating obedience as a path to honor.

Life in Ba Sing Se offers him an alternative, but his old habits are difficult to abandon. Iroh’s questions ask Zuko to look beyond the titles and expectations imposed by his father and consider what he wants for himself. They challenge him to distinguish his pursuit of the Avatar from his longing for peace and connection.

After releasing Appa, Zuko follows Iroh’s advice and drops his Blue Spirit mask into the water beneath Lake Laogai. In the next episode, he develops a severe fever. His illness reflects the upheaval of confronting his father’s influence and beginning to make a different choice. The questions Iroh asks will stay with him: Who are you, and what do you want?

The scene also stands out for Mako Iwamatsu’s performance as Iroh. “Lake Laogai” was among the last episodes he recorded before his death in July 2006. An acclaimed stage and screen actor, Iwamatsu earned an Academy Award nomination for The Sand Pebbles and voiced Demon King Aku in Genndy Tartakovsky’s Samurai Jack.

After Iwamatsu’s death, Greg Baldwin took over the role of Iroh starting in Book 3 and later voiced him in The Legend of Korra. The creators of the latter series named the firebender Mako after Iwamatsu. In “Lake Laogai,” Iwamatsu gives Iroh’s plea the force of a man whose frustration comes from his love for his nephew.

Two decades later, Iroh’s words still resonate. Before the Avatar universe imagined the Seven Havens as refuges from a world at war, Iroh offered Zuko another kind of shelter: the chance to find peace within himself. Zuko’s search for his own identity begins when he starts questioning the role his father chose for him.

Source: Polygon