YMMV / The Stalking Zuko Series

• Alternate Aesop Interpretation: The backlash against Aang not killing Ozai is supposed to essentially read as "You must listen to what others have to say and compromise your ideals for the greater good," but it can also be read as "It's sometimes easier to kill your enemies than to leave them alive and have them face justice for their crimes."
• Alternate Character Interpretation:
  • Katara: justifiably critcal and frustrated with Aang's idealism and with trying to maintain their friendship despite being really uncomfortable with his unwanted advances, or always assuming the worst of Aang because she's too caught up in how frustrated she is with his flaws to recognize validity in his perspective?
  • Some reviewers do this with Arnook- depending on who you ask, he either willingly arranged for his daughter to marry Hahn without any regard for her desires, did so while Hahn put on a pleasant façade around him or realized that the marriage was a bad idea but couldn't back out.
• Arc Fatigue
  • Arc Stall: Most of Not Stalking Zuko, the longest installment in the series, takes place on Ember Island, and it takes almost half that fic to get up to "The Ember Island Players."
  • Myth Stall: Zuko and Katara are hesitant to go forward with their romance for several reasons, including that the war is still going on. When Katara finally makes an Anguished Declaration of Love, Zuko soon forgets it as a result of the trauma of getting hit by Azula's lightning in their Agni Kai, and Katara doesn't try again until near the end of the series.
• Base-Breaking Character: The author's portrayals of a few canon characters are controversial.
  • Aang. Some agree with the author that he was wrong to run away in the Grand Finale, and should have had to own up to his mistakes, give up on pursuing Katara and learn other lessons he never did in canon. Others believe the author isn't being fair to Aang (for example, since he essentially got kidnapped by the lion turtle, the author shouldn't accuse him of running away).
    • Is the fic's characterization of Aang Flanderization or accurate? The author brings their receipts and reasoning to their post-script notes but it hasn't stopped readers from having differing opinions.
  • Mai. Some argue that the fic treats her relatively well while still showing why her relationship with Zuko wouldn't work out. Others believe that she's suffered Flanderization into a one-note even more snarky jerk with little of her canon depth who essentially uses emotional blackmail to restart her relationship with Zuko. Still others think she's actually been Character Rerailed in comparison to the comics while still given enough to maintain an element of complexity to her character. Which opinion the reader takes generally relates to how they interpret her character in canon, because Mai is already subject to many an Alternate Character Interpretation in the fanbase as a whole.
  • Jet. The main point of contention is not the fact that in the fic, he didn't die under Lake Laogai, but that he's representative of the more "cracky" parts of the fic, and whether or not readers like his portrayal here depends on whether they think those parts are good.
  • Iroh. As popular as the character is, some reviewers dislike how his more eccentric parts tend to be significantly more prominent here. Some find these scenes hilarious, but others believe this takes away from what made him so appealing in the first place.
  • Hakoda. The fact that he's not fond of relationships between the Water Tribe and Fire Nations leads him to initially oppose Zuko getting together with Katara and Ming with Bato, to the point of suggesting to the Fire Nation halves of those couples that they break up. Some fans understand his perspective, even if they don't agree with him, while others find the way he goes about dealing with the situation to be entirely inappropriate (granted, he does get called out on this in the story). His initial unwillingness to support Katara's desire for more women's rights in the Water Tribe or even understand where she's coming from gets a similar reaction- some conclude that he naturally would have a hard time understanding how much Katara's changed while he was away, while others see him as almost as sexist as the rest of the men in his tribe.
  • Arnook. He's portrayed in a much harsher light than in canon, particularly mourning his own losses while caring little for the Southern Water Tribe and rejoicing over the deaths of his foes. Some people take issue with the fic characterizing him this way, while others dislike him but don't see his portrayal as a point against the fic (believing that it's a valid interpretation and/or that it fits the story).
• Broken Base
  • The length of the author's notes draws a certain amount of controversy. Some people enjoy hearing the author's thoughts, while others wish that she'd shorten them or post them elsewhere.
  • The pacing is also divisive. Some readers are highly critical of how long it takes for Zuko and Katara to finally acknowledge their feelings for each other, and believe that all the side plots only drag out the romance arc while adding little to the fic. Others, however, are glad that the romance isn't rushed when it wouldn't be in character for either of them to quickly get together, and like the worldbuilding and Character Development for the rest of the cast.
  • As reflected in the Alternate Aesop Interpretation, should Aang have killed Ozai? The debate boils down to whether you think someone's past actions and intention to hurt others in the future are good enough reasons to consider their life forfeit, especially if they can be (and are) successfully imprisoned and partially depowered, and whether you think Aang should be condemned as hard as he is for having a difference of opinion on this moral question.
    • Those against killing him have implicitly compared doing so to vigilantism and claimed that having him live to face legal justice is right and one shouldn't condone murder as a solution. In fact, while Zuko and other characters complain about Aang's decision, they choose not to have Ozai killed, even when they realize that he's plotting a coup from his cell. Some also observe that the narrative seemingly goes out of its way to paint Aang's decision in the worst light possible, to emphasize the negative effects of the decision and portray him, the only one in favor of the course of action, as selfishly putting his beliefs above the good of the world. The fact that the author is very vocal about her dislike of Aang's decision and desire for him to learn a different lesson can be seen as her letting her biases guide the narrative.
    • Those for Aang killing Ozai argue that there is no proper justice system to deal with a murderous absolute monarch in the Fire Nation and that the story made clear that no one with the legal authority to use what system currently exists can pass judgement on Ozai without damaging political consequences that would defeat the very purpose of punishing Ozai in the first place (peace and an end to the constant state of war), and that the fact that Ozai was functionally above the law is the very reason it was important for Aang to be the one to deal with him. In this view, Aang sparing Ozai is essentially pushing the Ozai problem onto those less equipped to manage it. Further, Ozai openly intends to continue hurting as many people as possible while he still lives, abuses every act of decency he's shown, and laughs at the idea that he'd want redemption, even proving his threat potential by trying and almost succeeding in killing Toph after Aang spared him, and so sparing Ozai and insisting he should be treated well can be seen as protecting one of the biggest threats to Aang's own loved ones and the world at the expense of those loved ones and the world.
• Contested Sequel: Not Stalking Firelord Zuko. While its popularity is comparable to the other two installments, and people like it for the same reasons, it also has drawn criticism for the pacing and portrayal of some characters, like Mai and Jet.
• Die for Our Ship: The fic's portrayal of Aang is quite harsh, showing him as a lazy, immature and overly idealistic "nice guy," and arguing that the creators only hooked him up with Katara as a reward for being a "good boy." His ideology is heavily deconstructed and shown to be something he'll have to learn to compromise on, with no one else's ideology being so heavily scrutinized. The rest of the Gaang can be surprisingly cold to him at times, almost treating him like The Friend Nobody Likes. Word of God argues this was done to "fix" Aang's unhealthy attachment character arc that was aborted in the show, but some viewers see Aang's treatment as coming from the author preferring Zuko as Katara's love interest.
• Franchise Original Sin: While reviewers started complaining about the pacing in Not Stalking Firelord Zuko, the first two installments had a relatively slow pace, often taking many chapters to get from one canon event to another. Readers didn't mind as much back then, considering the author's stated goal of remaining true to The Stations of the Canon apart from having the ultimate goal of pairing Zuko with Katara, and the fact that Katara wouldn't seriously consider going out with Zuko while the war was still going on. However, near the end of Not Stalking Zuko, Zuko not only forgot Katara's Anguished Declaration of Love, but also got back together with Mai for the sake of honor. This, combined with Hakoda discouraging Katara from seeing Zuko, ended up undoing a significant amount of the slow but hard-earned progress in Zuko and Katara's relationship, much to readers' frustration.
• Harsher in Hindsight: In Jet's Troubling Obsession Jet's plan for providing for Smellerbee and Longshot is to capture "Lee and Mushi" and drag them to General Fong, who gives monetary rewards for the capture of war criminals. We later find out in Not Stalking Firelord Zuko that General Fong is himself a war criminal, having subjected his Fire Nation prisoners of war to extremely inhumane living conditions as well as torture and murder.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • The fic accurately predicted the tension between the Northern and Southern Water Tribes a year before season two of The Legend of Korra, down to how they viewed each other. This is further reinforced upon the release of "North and South," when Gilak is especially bitter about how the Northern Water Tribe didn't help while the Fire Nation invaded the south, and is imposing its culture on the South now that there's peace- in the fic, the South also has that complaint, while there's tension as a result of the North trying to persuade them to adopt their culture.
  • At one point in Stalking Zuko, Katara makes a comment about how Zuko is "the most stalk-able person I know." Later additions to the series—notably, Jet's Troubling Obsession and Not Stalking Firelord Zuko—show that while Jet is an obvious example of this, Jet also implies that Jin followed Zuko around a bit before asking him out, and the information Mai gave Azula while spying for her implies that Mai stalked Zuko on his visits to his uncle's prison. Then you add in the stalker fangirls who wait outside the palace gates, and suddenly Katara's statement isn't even hyperbole; every person in this series who's shown even the slightest romantic interest in Zuko has either stalked him or been accused of stalking him.
  • The "Christmas Future" portion of An Avatar Christmas Carol reveals that Zuko's and Katara's infant children call Azula "Zuzie." Considering Azula calls Zuko "Zuzu" partially because Zuko finds it pejorative, the childrens' nickname for their aunt is pretty funny.
• Informed Wrongness: Depending on what side of the Broken Base you're on, Aang can be this. He gets treated fairly harshly by the narrative and the other characters for letting Ozai live, with characters dismissing that 1). his decision succeeded in stopping Ozai from destroying the Earth Kingdom, and 2). it's possible to execute Ozai or imprison him while cutting him off from any possible supporters. Interestingly enough, while Aang gets kicked out of one meeting for reacting poorly to a proposal to arrange an "accident" for Ozai, the characters present rule out that course of action as no longer pragmatic not long after he's gone. To be fair, the other characters have reasons for being dissatisfied with the option Aang chose, but whether these reasons are valid enough to warrant Aang's treatment varies by reader.
• Padding: While Zuko and Katara are the main focus of the fic, the fic also includes several other plotlines, and some people who believe they are extraneous to the plot consider them to fall into this trope. On the other hand, greatly expanding the storyline is arguably necessary for Zuko and Katara's relationship to proceed at a realistic pace, especially since there is only one canon episode (a recap episode, at that) between Katara forgiving Zuko and the Grand Finale.
• Tear Jerker:
  • Katara having no idea what to do after Zuko is electrocuted and her nearly having a Heroic BSoD over it. Just her helplessness about it.
  • The entire chapter Deeper Scars.
  • While Aang can be insensitive and self-absorbed, his deep fear of not only fighting the Firelord, but having to kill him, an action he rejects wholly with his entire being and the contemplation of which causes him to despair and cling to Suki like a terrified child, begging her and Sokka to think up some other option for him, is truly painful. Suki's heartbroken response, "I'm sorry, sweetie, I really can't," is equally tragic. This moment really highlights that Aang is a child forced into a war and that no one can really protect him from it.
• Unintentionally Sympathetic: Aang. Katara and the author often take the least favorable interpretation of his actions and motives, such as suggesting that he deliberately ran away and spared Ozai only to keep with Air Nomad teachings. While Katara claims to view Aang as a friend, she often seems to view him with pity but is portrayed as uncomfortable with his fawning Dogged Nice Guy behavior to the point of intentionally creating distance between them, which some readers feel is a disproportionate response. As a result, while some readers believe this is necessary for Aang's Character Development, others believe that the story is too harsh on him.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic: Toph's parents are said to love her, but are very overprotective of her. While they do come around, Poppy's first letter to Toph essentially belittles her, accuses her of being selfish and plays the victim card to get her to come home, which borders on emotional abuse.

---