Zuko’s story in Avatar: The Last Airbender showed that honor wasn’t something another person could give you. True honor comes from living a life that feels honest to yourself and your values. In the show, Zuko restores his sense of self by teaming up with Avatar Aang and overthrowing his evil warlord father.
That was great and all, but now he’s in Fortnite, and I can’t escape viral clips and memes showing the angsty teen doing cute little TikTok dances and getting up to stunt-like shenanigans.
Zuko, Katara, and Toph joined the roster of playable characters in Fortnite on April 9. (Aang is there too, but you can only unlock him as part of Avatar: Elements Premium Reward Track.) Instead of doing the good Avatar thing and bringing balance to the lands of Fortnite, the squad descended upon the game to wreak havoc as I imagine a gaggle of Red Bull-infused children might if granted the power to wield the elements. The results have been some of the funniest videos to come out of a Fortnite collab yet. Look below to see a video of Zuko doing a full backflip on a dirt bike as Katara rapid fires a machine gun into the air.
A lot of the clips get at the inherent humor of having such a serious character in the goofiest of settings. Zuko had one of the most iconic character arcs of modern television on Avatar: The Last Airbender with a deeply moving story. But now players can just get up to shenanigans with him and make him throw his ass back for silly little dances.
Because our boy really goes through it over the course of the series, Zuko has a lot of dramatic character moments with emotional monologues about restoring his honor and fighting back against his family. So, people have, of course, used the audio from iconic scenes and set them to clips of the character running around in Fortnite.
Many of the memes reference lighter points from the show as well. For example, Zuko has several episodes towards the end of the series where we see him bond and connect with Katara, Aang, and Sokka. The only person who doesn’t get a full one-on-one field trip with Zuko is Toph, so people have been joking that Fortnite allows us to see what that trip looked like. According to the person below, the two robbed a bank. We know from The Legend of Korra that Toph becomes a cop, but I think I like the Bonnie and Clyde version of her and Zuko more.
Some of the clips use AI to generate lines that mimic the performances of the original show’s voice actors. Here, we can hear Zuko call someone a “bitch” as he snipes somebody from afar, or Aang scream reactions to his skin. In case it’s not clear, this isn’t actual dialog from the show or game, but it seems to fit the overall vibe of Fortnite.
This is but a sampling of what I’ve seen online. Players can wield all the elements and airbend, firebend, waterbend, and earthbend in Fortnite, and it’s become a real farce to play — in a good way. So if you want to get up to no good, the Fortnite Avatar: Elements quest is live now and runs until in Fortnite is live now and runs until May 3.
