The One Avatar: The Last Airbender Reveal The Creator Vetoed
"Avatar" — no, not that one — "The Last Airbender" is one of the most celebrated cartoons of modern history. This is an American show with the kind of world-building we normally only see in epic fantasy sagas like "Lord of the Rings," with character arcs and a superb eye for action like we typically see in anime. It's also a show Mark Hamill thought was "too smart" for TV.
The story follows a young kid named Aang, who is tasked with saving the world from an evil Fire Lord after being trapped in ice for 100 years, as he learns to control all four elements and take his place as the next Avatar. "The Last Airbender" dealt with some heavy themes for a kids' show, tackling subjects like imperialism, genocide, and grief with tact, never talking down to its audience.
Though the series ended with a truly epic finale that tied up a lot of thematic and plot threads, there was one big question it did not answer: what happened to Zuko's mother. In the finale, we see the newly crowned Fire Lord Zuko confront his father about the fate of his mother. Though we would later learn the answer, we almost saw it animated in the finale itself, until a co-creator stepped in.
"I will take full responsibility for everyone who is mad that we don't know where Zuko's mom is," co-creator Michael Dante DiMartino said in the audio commentary for the finale. Indeed, at a Comic-Con panel in 2008 (via IGN), director Joaquim Dos Santos confirmed they storyboarded a scene that explained what happened to Zuko's mother, but it was "quickly vetoed by DiMartino."
A tragic past
Zuko is one of the best-written characters in all of fiction and arguably the best example of a face turn, as he goes from a despicable antagonist to one of the show's greatest heroes.
In the episode "The Storm," which changed everything for the series, we find out the tragic story of Aang and Zuko, and how the latter went from a gentle kid to a hateful prince after being forced to fight his father in a mortal duel and getting his face burned. Throughout the cartoon, we find out more about Zuko's toxic family, and how his mom, Ursa, heavily favored him over his sister Azula (who grew up to be a monster).
We also discover how Zuko's father, Prince Ozai, trying to take the throne from his older brother, Iroh, led to Zuko's grandfather, Fire Lord Azulon, punishing Ozai by making him sacrifice Zuko. Upon learning this, a shocked Ursa made a deal with Ozai to space their children by helping him become Fire Lord — and murdering Azulon. Though they succeeded, Ursa was forced into exile, and the last we see of Ursa is her saying goodbye to Zuko.
In the finale, we see Zuko ask Ozai about what happened to his mother — the only hint audiences got that this plot thread hadn't been forgotten. Though we didn't get an answer in the show, at least we got this scene, not thanks to DiMartino.
"I will take full responsibility for adding this scene," co-creator Bryan Konietzko jokingly said in the audio commentary for the finale. "Not only did I want Zuko to address where is his mother. To me, it's not so much the information, where she is, it's the fact that their positions are reversed now, and Zuko has control over his father."
Mystery solved
The actual answer as to what happened with Ursa was properly told in the "Avatar: The Last Airbender — The Search" graphic novel, released in 2013. In it, we follow Zuko's search for Ursa, as we learn about her complicated past and her relationship with Ozai. In short, we learn she was forced into marrying the fire prince to fulfill a prophecy (Ursa is a descendent of the previous avatar, Roku, who was best friends with a former Fire Lord), and upon marrying, Ursa was forbidden from contacting her family and old friends by Ozai.
In the present, Zuko and team Avatar find out that Ursa returned to her hometown, where she met The Mother of Faces, a powerful spirit who gave Ursa a new face and identity, allowing her to be reunited with an old flame. The problem is that she also had her memories erased in order to forget all the pain from leaving her children behind. Upon meeting Zuko, and thanks to a freed Azula trying to kill them all, Ursa decides to ask the Mother of Faces for her memories back, finally reuniting with her son, returning to the Fire Nation capital, and even confronting Ozai.
This is the biggest loose thread from "Avatar: The Last Airbender," one that we almost saw in animated form but had to wait a few years to finally see realized. To DiMartino's credit, however, it really would have added too much to an already overly long finale.