Whenever I look back on the early episodes of Avatar: the Last Airbender, I realize that Iroh was probably acting a little ridiculous on purpose. He knows that Zuko still has fresh emotional wounds from his cruel, uncompromising father and sadistic sister, and the one source of softness and warmth in his life, his mother, is long gone. Iroh always tried to be a friend to Zuko, but now that his nephew has been scarred and banished, he tries to be goofy and funny and carefree so desperately hard because all he wants is for Zuko to smile and relax again. If making a fool out of himself is what he has to do, he’d do it a hundred times over.
