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@karthmin

Without doubt, Zuko from Avatar: The Last Airbender(the Nick show, not the movie). His arc from a sympathetic antagonist to eventually switching over to the protagonist’s team is something I’ve always loved, especially because of the amount of character growth involved. What’s more–he makes mistakes. I’ve yet to find a better redemption/positive arc that involves mistakes like Zuko’s does. It’s excellent on all levels–the complexity of his character, his motivations, worldview, and history, and as I mentioned before, the mistakes. The creators allowed him to grow by making mistakes, and lots of them. He doesn’t get a “talking too”, or a near-death experience that makes him suddenly switch sides. Rather, it’s a slow build up of many things over the series that eventually grows to be too much conflict in his mind, forcing him to confront his changing worldview and beliefs completely, on his own.

I can’t stress this enough, but it annoys me to no end when anti-heroes or antagonists are treated like the “good guys who just need a little sense knocked into them”, if you know what I mean. No one does something for no reason–every voluntary action has a purpose. If you treat an anti-hero or antagonist as simply a misguided hero who turns good as soon as someone tells him/asks him too, you take an essential piece of character away from them–the ability to have a complex and intriguing reason for doing what they do, or a motivation, other than a clear cookie-cutter, black and white idea.

Zuko’s arc is so great because it allows him to have good, realistic, sympathetic, and even empathetic motivations. (Spoilers for those who haven’t seen ATLA) He wants to capture the protagonist, the world’s last “airbender” and take him to his father, the “evil emperor”, basically, so he can regain his “honor”. But what he’s really seeking is something he can’t ever have, which is his father’s love(which if you’ve seen the series, you know what I mean XD). Throughout the series, he’s forced to confront the idea that what his father is doing and what he is doing is not right, and that he can’t ever receive his father’s love. It’s a very interesting process to see the main antagonist go to a protagonist over three seasons.

(Also, can I just say, I cannot stress how nice it was to see in ATLA that the MC’s squad wasn’t immediately welcoming to Zuko when he first joined them. In so many books and movies the bad guy is just welcomed in with open arms, leaving us to wonder how someone could be so welcoming to a person who was literally trying to kill/capture them not to long ago.)

Zuko’s arc is by no means perfect. There’s one or two things that I didn’t like and thought were a bit of a cheap trick(the spiritual metamorphosis, for anyone who’s watched the show?), but overall, his arc is by far the best I’ve ever found and I love it. And if you haven’t seen the show, I totally recommend it as a great show to watch for complex characters, great worldbuilding, and very interesting concepts. It has long been known in the writing community to be regarded as one of the best shows of all time. 😉