Many fans re-watch Avatar: The Last Airbender so much that it is a wonder there are still details yet to catch. Not everything is a hidden Easter egg or a callback to an earlier episode, however, and sometimes it's simply a genuine pleasure to sit back and enjoy the little things that aren't so immediately apparent. Case in point: Zuko's ship has some of the best character details in the entire series.
When Zuko's ship, a steam-powered Fire Nation cruiser made of solid iron, first appeared at the South Pole in the series premiere, it was immediately apparent the vessel perfectly matched the Fire Prince. The menacing ship crashed into the remains of the Southern Water Tribe, its spiked bow tearing through the ice and destroyed the meager fortifications Sokka built around his village. Zuko descended from the ship in his armor every bit the villain. But, of course, it would turn out he was a much more complicated a character than he first appeared. And so, apparently, was his ship.
Not long into the series, we discover Zuko was disgraced after his banishment by his father, Fire Lord Ozai, and that hunting down the Avatar was seemingly his only means of regaining his honor and returning home. But the more the audience learns about Zuko and his relationship with his father, the clearer it becomes the quest is a fool's errand he was never intended to accomplish — and the first sign of Ozai's contempt for his son comes in the very ship Zuko sails.
While the ship seemed ominous and powerful in comparison to the fragile Southern Water Tribe, it turns out it is a severely outdated class of vessel used more than 60 years earlier. The vessel frozen at the South Pole that Aang and Katara first explored matches Zuko's ship perfectly. In the intervening years, the Fire Nation drove progress ever forward, massively improving its technology and leaving such relics to the past.
Except, that is, for the disgraced prince who had no claim to a better ship. When Zuko's rival Zhao is introduced, for the first time the prince's ship sits next to other, more modern Fire Nation vessels -- and they absolutely dwarf the smaller cruiser. Other points of comparison emphasize its inferiority over the course of the series, as it turns out Zuko's ship has only one catapult, versus other ships' standard four or five trebuchets. Zuko was terribly equipped for the wild goose chase ahead of him, and yet, in a way, it worked perfectly to his advantage.
Although nobody could have ever predicted it, Zuko's small and lighter curiser was the perfect vessel to track the Avatar around the world. While Aang and his friends fled from site to site on the back of a sky bison no vehicle in existence could hope to match, Zuko's came the closest while allowing him enough discretion to get closer to catching the Avatar than most anyone else in his time. It even came equipped with a riverboat that allowed for navigating inland discreetly, and much like the rest of his life, Zuko used every scrap thrown to him to forge the best possible outcome he could.
Particularly compared to Azula's royal sloop, the outdated nature of Zuko's ship is apparent, and that's what goes perfectly with the seminal Zuko quote: "I don't need luck. I don't want it. I've always had to struggle and fight, and that's made me strong. It's made me who I am." With characterization packed into his every detail, it turns out that ethos applies as much to Zuko's means of navigation as anything else.
