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This Article Contains Spoilers - WARNING: This article contains major spoilers. If you do not wish to know vital information on plot / character elements in a story, you may not wish to read beyond this warning: We hold no responsibility for any negative effects these facts may have on your enjoyment of said media should you continue. That is all.

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After I finish this article, the world will be mine! MWAHAHAHAHA!

To Your Supreme Eminence, the great flame of the world, I am but a humble servant in the Southern Seas. But I have news for you of a critical nature. I know this information may arrive as a shock, and you might be tempted to dismiss it as rumor or delusion, but rest assured, I have witnessed these events with my very eyes. That is why I can report an astounding development. One that could change the future of the Fire Nation.
~ Zhao wrote a letter to Ozai to inform him about the return of the Avatar.
Spare me your empty threats. This can still work out for you, Iroh. Once I take my place as the new Fire Lord, you can stand by my side. Your presence will lend legitimacy to my claim. The Dragon of the West can rise again. As long as he bows... before Zhao, THE MOON SLAYER! I AM A LEGEND NOW! They will tell stories about me! For generations, Zhao the Moon Slayer...
~ Zhao boasts about himself when he's about to kill the Moon Spirit.
Who do you think was my ally... through all this? Who convinced the Fire Lord to send me the Yuyan archers? Who identified the Blue Spirit's swords as yours? Azula told me everything I needed to know. You are the fire in which her iron was forged. That's all you were.
~ Zhao reveals to Zuko that Azula is the one who's behind his entire actions, also his last words.

Commander (later Admiral) Zhao is one of the two secondary antagonists (alongside Azula) of the 2024 Netflix adventure fantasy series Avatar: The Last Airbender, based on the Nickelodeon 2005-2008 animated series of the same name.

He is a ruthless and dishonorable Fire Nation naval officer who serves Fire Lord Ozai. When his master decides that the Avatar Aang poses a threat to his world-conquering plans, Zhao takes the opportunity to beat the disgraced Prince Zuko out in the pursuit for the Avatar in favour of his own goals.

He was portrayed by Ken Leung, who also played Sang in Rush Hour, Quill in X-Men: The Last Stand, Miles Straume in Lost and Darren in Velma.

Biography[]

Past[]

An officer of the Fire Nation during Fire Lord Ozai's rule, Zhao was known for having failed his official training three times in a row before somehow going through the ranks to the rank of Commander, being stationed on the Ketu Harbor naval base with his men. He presumably heard stories about General Iroh, Ozai's brother who was known as the "Dragon of the West".

At some point, Zhao became acquainted with Princess Azula, Fire Lord Ozai's daughter, and assisted her in her plot to disgrace her brother in order to become her father's heiress, being aware that Ozai had given Zuko the mission to find and capture the Avatar as a distraction actually.

Avatar: The Last Airbender[]

Warriors[]

Zhao meets Zuko and Iroh

Zhao first meets both Zuko and Iroh.

Zhao becomes aware that Zuko and Iroh are at Ketu Harbor when he overhears Zuko demanding one of his soldiers to provide him with any surveillance reports and nautical maps in his search for the Avatar, with Iroh passing off their mission as wishing to track down schools of jumping shark squids, to which Zhao promises to wait until tomorrow to gather the information they need. The following day, however, Zuko and Iroh find out that Zhao has sailed with his men to Kyoshi Island under the pretext of seeing a flying cow, with Zuko deducing that Zhao somehow found out about the Avatar being there, prompting him and Zuko to sail in pursuit of him.

Zhao always fired up

An enraged Zhao attempt to kill Suki.

Zhao and his forces arrive first and demand the village leader and the Kyoshi Warriors to surrender Aang, who is communicating with Kyoshi's spirit, after dismissing their lies of no foreigners other than them being there, leading Zhao to order his men to check the village, prompting its inhabitants to attack them. During the attack, Zhao nearly kills Suki, but Sokka saves her, leading Zhao to go after him. In the end, Aang manages to save the day by letting Kyoshi possess him and force Zhao and his men to retreat.

Zhao makes a deal with Zuko

Zhao makes a "deal" with Zuko in order to work together to capture the Avatar.

He then apologizes to Zuko and Iroh due to "misunderstanding" the situation but offers his help in the search, which Iroh accepts despite Zuko's reluctance. In spite of Zuko's orders to not tell anyone, Zhao notifies Ozai through a message he sends a falcon to deliver to.

Omashu[]

Zhao offers to Zuko and Iroh to ask his Northern contacts from the population center if they see Aang and his friends, but Zuko dismisses his suggestions to not alert anyone more, yet Zhao insists that he can ask for help without being too specific. Lieutenant Jee then informs him that his ship is ready for him, so Zhao leaves Zuko's ship for his own. He then offers to dispatch two of his men to Omashu to see if Aang is there as he has been told by spies, but Zuko decides that he and Iroh are going there instead, to which Zhao says that he is okay with that but that he can't help them if anything happens there. After he received a letter from Azula, Zhao orders Lieutenant Dang to bring him Lieutenant Jee to him since he's the one who slipped him the information about the Avatar.

Spirited Away[]

Zhao's grin over his promotion

Zhao's sinister glee as he discovered that he was promoted into an admiral.

Zhao's moves lead Ozai, at Azula's suggestion, to provide him with more resources by sending Colonel Shinu's Yuyan archers to assist him. Meanwhile, worried about Zhao taking over the operation and getting the credit for the capture of the Avatar, Zuko hires the bounty hunter June to capture Aang for them before Zhao can do it. At the end of the episode, Zhao receives the archers with the message notifying him of his new authority over them, which he gleefully accepts.

Masks[]

Zhao threatens to hand over the Avatar

Zhao threatens Zuko and Iroh to hand over Aang to him or he'll let the Yuyan Archers to attack them.

Zhao surprises Zuko as he asks Lieutenant Jee why he isn't following his orders by changing the ship's course that he is now in charge and thinks it's a better idea to change strategy, informing Zuko that Ozai has promoted him to admiral and is now the leader of the mission, though he "accepts" his help when necessary, taunting him that he will need it to have all resources available and to meet him later to make some changes within the personnel, angering Zuko especially after Jee tells him that he can't change back to their original course or they will be punished by Zhao. Once June retrieves Aang and delivers him to Zuko and Iroh, Zhao and his men ambush them and force them by having the archers point at them to surrender Aang to them by threatening to inform Ozai of them defying his orders. With no options, Zuko and Iroh let Zhao take Aang to the Pohuai Fortress before taking him to the Fire Nation's capital city.

ZhaoNetflix

Zhao while confronting the "Blue Spirit".

With Aang chained, Zhao has an aide write about his supposed role in capturing the Avatar to get credit for it before asking Aang for his thoughts on the situation. Aang pleads him to let him go to save his friends, but Zhao taunts him by saying to think more about his future than his past, as he intends to keep him alive to prevent the Avatar from reeincarnating, but promises to make him suffer, to which Aang blows him some feet off out of spite. Zhao then tells his men to celebrate over their victory and their future achievements, but it's during their celebration that a disguised Zuko sneaks into the fortress and rescues Aang, leading Zhao and his aide to find out as they keep talking about what to write about the mission and alert the soldiers. Cornering them, Zhao sees how Zuko threatens to slit Aang's throat, so he lets them go but has one of his archers shoot Zuko on the head, prompting Aang to summon fog to buy time for them to escape to safety.

The North[]

Smug Zhao Netflix

A smug Zhao after Zuko is seemingly getting blown up by a blasting jelly.

Zhao orders his men, led by Lieutenant Dang, to arrest Zuko under the charges of treason to take him back to the Fire Nation's capital city to be tried for treason, which Iroh theorizes as Zhao having convinced Ozai of his son being a traitor. Because of this, Jee and Iroh help Zuko escape in a boat from their ship, but unknown to them, Zhao and Dang had expected them to do that: in reality, Zhao had filled the boat with blasting jelly, which blows up the boat and seemingly kills Zuko, after which Zhao decides to offer his "condolences" to Iroh.

He swears to deal with the "villains" that killed Zuko, to which Iroh feigns ignorance by theorizing that Ozai was the one who killed Zuko. Zhao assures that he understands it, but now he is in charge of wiping out the Northern Water Tribe. Iroh tells him that he wasn't the first candidate for the mission, but Zhao remarks that while he may not have many experience in the battlefield, he has no failure track record of failures either. As he approaches the Northern Water Tribe, Zhao wonders how he will be named once he wins the battle, but Iroh asks him how he thinks he is gonna win with the city's defenses, to which Zhao reveals that he has something they don't, holding a wooden box while claiming it has "destiny" inside. Unknown to Zhao, Iroh notifies a surviving Zuko about his intentions. At the end of the episode, Zhao's attack starts as ash starts falling off to Agna Qel'a from the sky.

Legends[]

Zhao reveals to Iroh that his ship can fly thanks to balloons that Sai, the mechanicist of Omashu, implemented on a design he made with Zuko only to give it to the Fire Nation's spies, allowing them to get into Agna Qel'a by air. As the night comes, Iroh advises Zhao to call off the attack until the next morning because the moon gives more powers to the Waterbenders, but Zhao reveals that he knows about that, but because tonight's moon is the Ice Moon that opens the barriers between the physical world and the Spirit World, he plans to kill the Moon Spirit as it takes a physical mortal form to destroy the moon and deprive the Waterbenders of their abilities, enabling the Fire Nation to defeat them with ease.

Zhao kill the Moon Spirit

Zhao killed the Moon Spirit by stabbing it with Kuruk's knife, thus throwing the entire world out of balance.

Zhao and his forces land on the North's sacred garden, where the Spirits of the Moon and the Ocean swim as fishes in a lake. He demands Iroh to help him identify the spirits, but Iroh says they can't know, so he threatens to burn down the forest until he realizes that they are fishes because he was told they were like the yin and yang. Iroh warns him that without the moon, the world will unravel in chaos and that even Ozai wouldn't wish that, but Zhao says that Ozai lacks vision and instead offers Iroh to serve him once he overthrows Ozai. He captures the Moon Spirit in a bag but then Aang comes to try to stop him after failing to reason with him, even assisted by Iroh, but Zhao gets to stab the Moon Spirit anyway. This leads the Waterbenders to lose their abilities and start getting massacred by the Fire Nation, so Aang merges with the Ocean Spirit to restlessly destroy the Fire Nation's forces for eternity, leading Zhao to cowardly run away.

Zhao's burnt corpse

Zhao's burnt corpse after getting killed by Iroh.

However, Zuko and Iroh comes across him and the former engages him in a fight. They duel in a bridge and Zuko emerges victorious, so Zhao opts to reveal the truth behind Zuko's mission: he was never meant to come back and he was just used as a "motivation" for Azula, who got the Yuyan soldiers for him and tipped him off about Zuko breaking into the Pohuai Fortress. Incensend, Zuko leaves Zhao alone, so Zhao tries to strike him from the back, but Iroh saves his nephew by fatally blasting Zhao off the bridge into the lake below, leaving his charred corpse floating in the lake as they proceed to escape while Princess Yue gives up her life to restore the Moon Spirit, bring Aang back and prevent any more damage from Zhao's actions.

Personality[]

To be added

Appearance[]

To be added

Powers and Abilities[]

To be added

Quotes[]

To be added

Gallery[]

Trivia[]

  • Zhao used his firebending to kill Tui in the original cartoon, but here, his weapon is a knife, akin to how his Shyamalan counterpart killed her.
    • The Netflix TV series also claims that Kuruk made this knife to fight dark spirits.
  • This is the second live-action version of Zhao, following the one from M. Night Shyamalan's The Last Airbender film.
  • In accepting the role of Zhao, Ken Leung mistakenly assumed that he would be playing a Na'vi due to thinking Avatar: The Last Airbender was part of James Cameron's Avatar franchise before finding out it was a total different thing.
  • Unlike his original version, who was later confirmed to have been trapped post-death in the Fog of the Souls as seen in The Legend of Korra, there's no indication this happened to Zhao in this continuity, seemingly dying normally at the show's first season finale.

Navigation[]

           Avatar The Last Airbender logo Villains

Fire Nation
Royal Family
Fire Lord Ozai (The Last Airbender | Netflix) | Fire Lord Azulon | Fire Lord Sozin (Netflix) | Prince Zuko (The Last Airbender | Netflix) | Princess Azula (The Last Airbender | Netflix)

Military
Admiral Zhao (The Last Airbender | Netflix) | War Minister Qin | Bujing (Netflix) | Mung | Lieutenant Jee (Netflix) | Lieutenant Dang | Southern Raiders (Yon Rha (Netflix)) | Offshore Prison Warden | Boiling Rock Warden | Rough Rhinos (Colonel Mongke) | New Ozai Society (Ukano) | Yuyan Archers | Royal Procession

Other members
Combustion Man | Ty Lee (Netflix) | Mai (Netflix) | Vachir | Chaejin | Loban | Lo and Li | Circus Trainer | Jailer | Great Sage (Netflix) | Keung

Earth Kingdom
Rulers
Earth Queen Hou-Ting | Chin the Conqueror

Dai Li
Long Feng | Dai Li Sergeant

Freedom Fighters
Jet (Netflix)

Sandbenders
Ghashiun

Earth Empire
General Kuvira | Baatar Jr. | Commander Guan | Dr. Sheng

Other members
Liling | Ru | Yaling | Jianzhu | Yun | Mayor Tong | Biyu | Ganbat | June (Netflix) | General Fong | Xin Fu | Master Yu | Gow | Earthbender Consul

Water Tribes
Northern Water Tribe
Tarrlok | Noatak | Yakone | Chief Unalaq | Eska and Desna | Judge Hotah

Southern Water Tribe
Hama | Varrick | Zhu Li | Gilak | Thod | Lirin | Thod's disciples

Air Nomads
Jesa | Afiko

United Republic of Nations
President Raiko | Wonyong Keum | Jargala Omo | Tahno

Triple Threat Triad
Tokuga | Lightning Bolt Zolt | Shady Shin | Viper | Two-Toed Ping | Zhen

Equalists
Amon | Lieutenant | Hiroshi Sato

Red Lotus
Zaheer | Ghazan | Ming-Hua | P'Li | Aiwei

Daofei
Xu Ping An | Mok | Wai | Jesa | Four Shadows Guan

Spirits
Vaatu | Dark Spirits | Hei Bai | Wan Shi Tong | Koh (Netflix) | Kemurikage | Old Iron | Father Glowworm

Other Groups
Yellow Necks | Saowan Clan | Pirates | Fifth Nation | Agni Kai Triad | Chou Family

Individuals
Tagaka | Lian | Hundun

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