I'm waiting until the upper hand is mine

Even in exile, my nephew is more honorable than you.

Arguably, the real villain in season one is actually Zhao, who is an ass with very few redeeming qualities, except perhaps that he's very clever. Mostly he's just very ruthless. He knows exactly what buttons to press to piss Zuko off (your dad doesn't love you, your attempts to find the Avatar have all failed, you're a loser with a wonky scar, etc.). So there's plenty of animosity between the two. Zhao thinks Zuko's worthless and easy to manipulate; Zuko thinks Zhao is an ass who needs to be beaten down. They're both sorta right about each other.

When Zhao gets in Zuko's face about his scar and his incompetence, Zuko challenges him to an agni kai. Though at this point Zuko's firebending isn't too great, he manages to take Iroh's teaching to heart and beat Zhao…and then decides not to kill him (though he threatens to do so next time Zhao gets in his way, but methinks that's just the testosterone talking). When Zuko's back is turned, Zhao tries to kill him, but Iroh, as always, has Zuko's back, and tells Zhao that "even in exile, my nephew is more honorable than you."

Zhao thereafter pretty much does everything he can to spit in Zuko's face, and Zuko has to be much trickier about how he goes after the Avatar. Zuko does manage to steal Aang out from under Zhao's nose several times (S01E13, "The Blue Spirit;" S01E19, "The Siege of the North, Part 1"), and when he faces Zhao for the last time, Zuko pretty much has the upper hand. Ultimately it's the ocean spirit who takes care of Zhao, but Zuko actually tries to save him at the last minute. Zhao refuses to be helped, though, even when his life depends on it.

Zhao really represents a contrast to Zuko in styles of villainy. Neither is a particularly good person at this point, and both are both dangerously single-minded and dangerously out of control; but where Zhao is totally fine with killing people and fighting dirty, Zuko still has enough of his honor (as in real honor, not what he thinks of as honor) left intact to be a fair opponent.


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