When I pretend everything is what I want it to be

You could have at least looked me in the eye when you ripped out my heart.

This one doesn't work for me.

I'm not necessarily against pairing Zuko off, and, though I'm not particularly fond of the relationship as it actually occurs, I'm not even necessarily against his canon pairing with Mai.

What irks me about it has less to do their compatibility issues and much more to do with the fact that, up until season three, it's been made very obvious that Zuko's intimacy issues run deep, and he's total crap with the ladies. He shows absolutely no interest in June, and seems embarrassed—er—disgusted that Iroh does (S01E15, "Bato of the Water Tribe"). He's certainly not winning any affection from Katara at this point, treating her as a means to an end (Aang) and condescending to her even though she can kick his butt (S01E19, "The Siege of the North, Part 1"). While he seems genuinely distressed to find that Song, a young Earth Kingdom girl he meets while he and Iroh are hiding out, has been injured by the Fire Nation, he keeps his distance and won't let her touch him (S02E02, "The Cave of Two Lovers"). And the only real "date" he ever has was basically forced onto him by Iroh, and Zuko's rather awkward about the whole thing, though he does admit later that it was "nice" (S02E15, "The Tales of Ba Sing Se"). Given this rather, er, rocky past with the opposite sex, the idea that Zuko and Mai would suddenly be all touchy-feely isn't very believable.

Sure, I get that Mai's had a crush on Zuko for a long time, and they obviously have a lot in common: crappy family relationships, few real friends, the desire to live up to expectations (even at a cost to oneself), a general feeling of discontent. There are plenty of opportunities here for them to really bond over their combined Screwed Up Quotient.

But instead of displaying any interesting, gradual development, their romantic relationship is basically thrown on us in the period of one episode (S03E01, "The Awakening"), after which we're expected to believe that this is True Love.

Well, okay, it's actually played for laughs, mostly. Zuko and Mai are that goth/emo couple you knew in high school who sit around pretending to be bored and annoyed all the time. That's funny, of course (see S03E05, "The Beach"), but it's not nearly as engaging as a fully realized and developed relationship would be (and just like those aforementioned high school relationships, you definitely don't expect it to last). After we've spent two seasons really getting to know Zuko as an intricate, complicated character, it's pretty disappointing to see his one real romantic relationship portrayed as fairly flat and cliché.

I might've bought the relationship with Mai as part of Zuko's failed attempt to have a "normal" life upon returning to the Fire Nation, but obviously we're meant to infer that there's real feeling there. Zuko "breaks up" with Mai to protect her when he finally (FINALLY) leaves the Fire Nation to help Aang (S03E11, "The Day of Black Sun, Part 2: The Eclipse"). And Mai, though she knows Azula will be dangerously unhappy, fights back to protect Zuko even after he's "left" her (S03E15, "The Boiling Rock, Part 2").

And Mai in particular certainly means well where Zuko is concerned, though she's sort of a brat about showing it. When Zuko tries to talk to her about his issues with returning home, she seems extremely uninterested and brushes him off (S03E01, "The Awakening")…though she does tell him not to worry so much. Probably we're supposed to equate her awkward attempts to connect with Zuko's similarly awkward people skills, but somehow it doesn't work as well with her.

So despite their dour exteriors, Zuko and Mai really do care about each other.

But the question is...why?

Mai definitely doesn't have the character development that Zuko has (which is disappointing, since she has the capacity to be a really interesting character). She's basically a bored, emotionally stunted rich girl who's got a lot going on underneath the surface, but never really rises above her mild interest in hurting and ordering around other people. She encourages Zuko to be a snob (S03E09, "Nightmares and Daydreams") but also hints that she's in a lot of pain after years of restraining herself to fit in with her family--though we see none of this in the one episode in which we actually see her interact with her family (S02E02, "Return to Omashu"). However, rather than developing her inner layers over the course of the series, we get an info dump in S03E05, and thereafter are supposed to buy that Mai is a Complicated Person.

Don't get me wrong. This isn't about Mai being "good enough" for Zuko (who, let's face it, is not exactly a prize catch, much as we might love him); it's more about two characters earning their relationship in a believable way. Given how great the writing in this series is, I'm kind of surprised this element fell through.

So sure, Zuko and Mai are funny and ridiculous, and it's nice that they seem to be more or less happy together in the end. But ultimately I found their relationship to be one of the few really disappointing elements of the show.


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