Everything that you thought I would be

That's what moms are like....If you mess with their babies, they'll bite you back.

So much of what's really going on with Ursa is up in the air, particularly at the end of the series.

This much we know is true: Ursa loves Zuko dearly, and the two are really close. Ursa sees how easy it would be for Zuko to go off the deep end like Azula and Ozai, so she seems really bent on reminding him to stay true to himself. While Ozai, Azula, and Firelord Azulon basically think Zuko's a loser, Ursa acts like a devoted mother to him, supporting him and appreciating the fact that he tries his little heart out.

When Azulon orders Ozai to kill Zuko, it's Ursa who steps up to the plate. What she actually does is never described fully, but that night she disappears, telling Zuko to always remember who he is.

Zuko never sees her again.

Ursa is still very much present in Zuko's life, though. While Zuko is ashamed of having betrayed Iroh, he seems even more concerned with having strayed from his morals, apologizing to a picture of Ursa before leaving the Fire Nation to help Aang (S03E11, "The Day of Black Sun, Part 2: The Eclipse"). Like Iroh, or perhaps even more so, Ursa is a center of emotional support for Zuko; so letting her down really tears him up. One important factor of Zuko's final sideswapping, I feel, is his desire to do right by the memory of his mother.

While Zuko has been led to believe Ursa's dead, Ozai lets slip toward the end of the series that she is quite possibly still alive (S03E11). In fact, once Ozai is defeated, we actually get a short scene where Zuko visits him in prison and demands to know what happened to Ursa.

And that's it. We never know where she is, what she actually did to save Zuko, how much of a hand she had in Ozai's assassination of Azulon, or if she and Zuko are ever reunited. That's a glaring bit of shoddy storytelling there, unfortunately, but at least it could conceivably lead to some interesting post-series fanfiction....


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