Since I’ve posted more than I ever thought I would, I guess I’d better introduce myself and what you’re likely to find here.
Who Am I?
My name is Amirazat, and for now I’m going to be posting about ATLA. I watched the show as it released while growing up and it’s something I always come back to when I need a comfort watch. This is my first time being active in the fandom, though, so I don’t know all of the past fandom politics.
What are you likely to find here?
- Analysis of the show and its writing, including criticism
- Positivity about all the Gaang members
- Positivity about Zutara (my favourite ATLA ship)
- Positivity about ATLA’s platonic relationships
- Positivity about most other ships (canon and fan, including Kataang)
- Criticism of the way Kataang was executed in canon
- Criticism of Aang’s character writing in season 3
How can I be positive about Kataang and also critical of its writing?
I have no problem with Kataang in theory. I think there’s a lot of good potential there with their mutual experience as genocide survivors, and I like the idea of Aang helping Katara to reclaim her childhood, even if I don’t think this worked in canon.
I also think that the way their romance was executed in canon was an absolute train wreck and actively lowered the quality of the show, but I’m interested in other ways their story could have been told.
About Asks:
My asks are open (if anyone is actually interested), and I’ll try to get to answering anything (civil) as soon as I can, but I don’t plan to post every day.
About Tags:
I’m going to do my best to tag appropriately, but in some cases I don’t know exactly which tags are right. (E.g. if I write something about how I think an aspect of Kataang’s canon romance was bad, and propose an alternate scene that I think would have made their arc better, do I tag that as Kataang or anti-Kataang? Or both?
There’s a lot to be said about the contrast between Zutara and K@taang, and a lot of people have said it more eloquently than I ever could, but I think I can sum why I personally find Zutara a lot more compelling in one sentence.
Zuko treats Katara’s friendship as a status to be earned and treasured, whereas A@ng treats it like a consolation prize, if that.
I want to talk about why the idea of Katara being known (primarily) as a healer bothers me.
First off I’ll say that we don’t know exactly how much combat waterbending Katara does as an adult. I haven’t seen the new movie but I’m assuming she’s still a full combatant in that. And we also know that Katara is Korra’s waterbending master. But outside that we mostly see Katara revered as a healer.
Here’s why that bothers me.
Katara is a genocide survivor. She’s the last waterbender of the Southern Water Tribe, and she is incredibly invested in reclaiming her Tribe’s waterbending culture. We can see this very clearly in how excited Katara is to meet and learn from Hama in The Puppetmaster.
The biggest difference we are aware of between the Northern and Southern styles within the show is that bending in the North is gender segregated. Women are only allowed to heal.
This is clearly not true in the South. Beyond what we’re told about the difference in betrothal customs, we also explicitly see a young Hama doing combat waterbending before she’s captured.
Katara fights not only for the right to learn combat waterbending for her own sake - although she clearly enjoys being able to fight - but also as a means of carrying on the Southern tradition. She doesn’t want her tribe’s waterbending culture to be subsumed by the North’s.
That’s why it stings when Katara is known primarily as a healer. She was the genocide survivor who brought back the culture of Southern Waterbending just as much as Aang brought back Airbending. She should be recognised for that, and that necessarily involves being a great combat waterbending master - which Katara clearly is in the original series.
Instead the list of achievements we get for Katara, aside from specifically training Aang and Korra, could just have easily have been the accomplishments of a traditional Northern female waterbender.
(I suppose the other notable achievement is banning bloodbending - the only style we know is exclusive to the Southern tribe, if only through Hama).
Just had an anon tell me to “just kys if you hate kataang”
Presumably in response to my post where I specifically said that Aang didn’t need to stop loving Katara, he just needed to be open to the possibility of rejection, based on timing.
What is wrong with these people?
ETA: what is wrong with the subset of KA fans who say things like this. I don’t have a problem with KA fans as a general category
I want to talk about what the guru meant by “letting Katara go”.
Aang, and a lot of KA shippers, seem to interpret letting Katara go as no longer loving Katara. However, as Aang himself points out “three chakras ago love was a good thing”, so we know that love itself isn’t the problem.
Let’s look at how the guru says that love is a good thing.
When unlocking the 4th chakra, we’re told that this chakra deals with love and is blocked by grief. We’re not told that Aang should not love the Air Nomads. We’re told he needs to let go of his grief about their being gone and see that their love is still in the world. We then see Katara’s face, showing that it is her love for Aang which is helping Aang recover from the grief of his loss.
This perfectly connects to the way we’ve seen Aang lose control of the Avatar state. In The Southern Air Temple, Aang loses control because of his grief at their loss.
We see in that same episode that Aang’s realisation that he still has people who can be part of his family is what helps Aang come out of the Avatar State.
The guru isn’t saying that Aang shouldn’t love the Air Nomads. He’s saying Aang needs to be able to carry on in the face of their loss, and be open to new love.
But the loss of the Air Nomads isn’t the only thing to trigger an emotional Avatar State from Aang. We see this again in The Avatar State when General Fong buries Katara.
In order to be able to control the Avatar State, Aang needs to be able to deal with the potential loss of Katara.
But it’s not only the potential loss of Katara’s life that Aang needs to deal with, it’s also the potential loss of her as a romantic prospect.
In The Ember Island Players, Aang tells Katara that if his chakra wasn’t blocked he’d probably be in the Avatar state because of an on stage depiction of Katara and Zuko in a romantic setting.
We are told in canon that Aang is so attached to the idea of his relationship with Katara that it causes him to be unable to control his emotions, and therefore the Avatar state. That’s not healthy, with or without implications about his ability to save the world.
So, what’s the solution? It’s clearly not that Aang cannot love Katara. We know of multiple previous Avatars who fell in love and had happy relationships.
I think that when the guru tells Aang that he needs to let Katara go, that doesn’t mean he needs to stop loving her. It means, as with the Air Nomads, he needs to be able to find peace with the idea of a life without her. He can want her to live, and fight for that with all his might, but if she dies he needs to be able to keep going. He can want to be with Katara, but he needs to be able to accept it if that’s not what she wants.
Aang doesn’t need to give up on the love he has, but has does need to be open to the possibility of new love. The only person who can decide whether Katara is Aang’s “forever girl” is Katara, but if she turns him down, that doesn’t mean that there will never be another love for Aang.
I see a lot of discourse about how having to repopulate the Air Nomads wasn’t fair on Katara, but I want to talk about how having to repopulate the Air Nomads wasn’t fair to Aang.
Sure, this worked out in canon because Aang was a straight guy who wanted children and was able to have them. But what if he wasn’t? What if Aang were gay, or asexual, or bi but fell in love with a man, or just plain didn’t want to have children? With the show’s setup, Aang really had no choice but to have children with a woman, otherwise Airbenders would die out and the Avatar Cycle would break when it rotated back to air.
As a queer person that setup is horrifying.
And the nightmare isn’t over once Aang has had children. What if Tenzin had been gay or ace etc? Would he have felt like he could live his own life the way he wanted to without wondering if his decision to do so was going to have drastic consequences for the world?
Until they managed to get a sufficiently large crop of airbenders, there wouldn’t be any of them who didn’t feel some sort of pressure to reproduce.
And this problem did not have to exist.
It would have been so easy for the show to come up with something about how air bending is fuelled by freedom of spirit and so the airbenders who survived the initial genocide lost their ability to bend because they were forced to hide and conform, to the extent that 100 years later the descendants don’t even know about their heritage.
And then, as people get out from under the pressure of the war, air bending children start cropping up here and there. The parents take their kids to learn from Aang, and in listening to his lessons some of them start airbending too!
Aang could still have been the sole link between the past and the future of his people by being the one to restore the Air Nomads culture, and his kids could have been part of a larger group of kids learning about their culture, some of whom would no doubt have been the non-bending or other element-bending siblings of airbending children from other mixed families. They could have had a community.
Instead we got a narrowly avoided horror story that remains that way by pretending that queer people, and people who don’t want kids, don’t exist.
Zutaras that have your crap ship get together at the expense off aang, only for aang to later give his blessing like some pathetic cucked atla version of will Smith.
And then have aang get with toph as some shitty second choice. Way to disrespect 3 characters at once.
I bet your favorite disney movie is hunchback isn't it.
This is such a disgusting incel thing to say, like wtf.
I can see how it would seem "disrespectful" to portray Aang being happy over his friends finding love if you projected your own rage at women for not choosing you onto him.
What I’m getting from OP is that he doesn’t respect Aang or Katara.
He doesn’t respect Aang because he thinks Aang is selfish and immature enough to be unable to be happy for Katara finding happiness with someone else (which is demonstrably true at the end of the series but I believe he’d mature).
He doesn’t respect Katara because he thinks she deserves to be with someone that selfish and immature.
If Aang can’t make peace with Katara being with someone else then he doesn’t deserve her.
Also, OP, for reference, my favourite Disney movie is Mulan. You know, the one where the heroine gets to be a badass in her own right. Who gets a love interest who respects her for who she is rather than what society expects her to be. Who comes to Mulan hoping to be given a chance, not expecting to be in a relationship with her.
I find it hilarious that the TRAILER for s2 of the NATLA seasons is making antis think this means that Zutara is somehow going to be canon??? like who said that??? this is only s2????? hello???? why do they think it's going in a different direction? I don't really understand it. I feel like they are getting all up in arms about nothing.
The thing that gets me is that the tone a lot of them seem to be taking is that Zutara being canon would ruin the show.
To be clear, I think it’s unlikely that Zutara will explicitly be canon in NATLA. I think it’s far more likely that they leave the ending ambiguous when it comes to relationships, with maybe some hints towards future K@taang, and the ambiguity is only likely because the age gap is more conspicuous with live action actors, and they don’t want to ask their child star to kiss an adult on screen…
But Zutara being canon to NATLA would not inherently ruin the show. Even if it was poorly written, it wouldn’t necessarily ruin the show. After all, badly written K@taang didn’t ruin the original.
The core of ATLA is the friendships and character development. That’s what the writers of NATLA need to capture. Seeing people freak out over shipping to this extent makes me wonder if we even watched the same show.
I realise that from a lot of what I post on here, it may seem like I am a Zutarian, which isn't exactly true, so I thought I should, I don't know, clear the air or something.
Long story short, I ship both Zutara and Kataang. Let me explain.
I like Zutara for the reasons most Zutarians do. In the main series, they are interesting parallels to each other, enhance the show's themes of balance and restitution, and when they finally reconcile, make a pretty good team.
I also like their fanon versions. Ambassador and Fire Lady Katara personally appeal to me as a woc, and from the friendship and understanding we saw them exhibit post The Southern Raiders, I think they'd make a fantastic Fire Lord and Lady as well as future parents.
But if allowed to somehow mind-control Bryke and make Zutara canon in the show or after the series, I would not take it. Because I hate what they did to Kataang.
I like Kataang for the reasons most Kataangers do. They're a sweet pair, often uplifting and supporting one another. They get along great, and there's a level of emotional intimacy between the two that we don't see with another pair in the show.
What I like most of all, though, is the development of their relationship was almost given. In the end of season 2, Aang's attachment to Katara is brought up as a character flaw he must overcome to control the Avatar State.
The nature of his relationship to Katara is brought into question, and it's clear, at least from a writing perspective, that something in their relationship must change for Aang's character to grow. Otherwise, you could just write another reason for that seventh chakra to remain locked.
If Aang were actually allowed to go through the journey of letting this attachment and emotional dependence go, if Katara was also allowed to realise that her coddling and mothering of Aang is more of a detriment to Aang and their relationship than a boon, and if they ended up together with a new and healthier definition of their relationship, I'd be the proudest Kataanger ever!
Alas, none of that happened. Their relationship actually serves none of their character arcs. Aang doesn't strive to be more mature by letting go of his attachment for the sake of the world, and Katara doesn't get over her motherly and sometimes smothering type of love.
That’s why I’m more inclined to criticize Kataang than Zutara even though I don’t inherently think one pairing is superior to the other. I’m usually criticising the writing, and it just so happens that the writer's wrote Kataang to be canon and there are a lot of ways they botched that.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that I cannot fully claim to be pro or anti any of these ships, but I am definitely anti bryke.
I agree with everything here. One of my greatest hopes for NATLA is that it will give K@taang the development it deserved, whether that means a beautiful friendship or a romance that’s actually well executed (although the latter would be tougher given the age difference for the actors).
There is so much potential there. We could have seen them provide each other mutual support as genocide survivors. We could have seen them be each other’s backup in a world which wanted to force them into stereotypes that don’t suit them (Katara wanting to fight and Aang wanting to dance, etc). We could have leaned into the moments when Aang actually succeeds in helping Katara feel like a child instead of compounding her parentification by being another kid she needed to take care of. That isn’t what canon gave us, but there is so much potential.
Being in this fandom and having this kind of opinion feels lonely sometimes. People who like K@taang generally aren’t willing to actually engage with the problems with the ship’s canon execution, and people who recognise the problems with the canon ship generally have other pairings they’re invested in which they’d rather pay attention to. And to be clear, that’s fine. Be in fandom for what you enjoy. That’s the whole point.
But there are a few of us floating around who see the potential and the failure of execution.
Cropped out the poster because regardless of how much I dislike this take I don’t want anyone harassing anyone else.
That said, I really hate this take. The idea that Zuko wouldn’t make a move on Katara because of how close he is with Aang treats Katara like she’s Aang’s property.
If Aang and Katara were in a happy relationship together then absolutely I don’t believe that Zuko would interfere out of respect for both of his friends. But if they never got together or had broken up, then Aang does not get to police who Katara may or may not have a relationship with just because he saw her first.
I respect Aang enough to think that he’d be able to deal with Katara falling in love with someone else, even a friend, once he’s grown up a little.
It Didn’t Really Matter Whether A.ang Was Right Or Not
TW: There’s a brief mention of weight loss in this post, so just a heads up for anyone who might need it.
Whenever it comes to shipping discourse in regards to The Southern Raiders, the main topic of a lot of the discussions is whether or not A.ang’s philosophy was right or Zuko’s. But frankly, I actually don’t think it really matters all that much in the grander scheme of what Katara needed from the people around her in that episode.
Let me use an analogy; Imagine a woman with a husband. She recently just gained a considerable amount of weight, maybe she just had a kid or just general weight fluctuation as you age. She’s feeling quite insecure about her body, some of her clothes don’t really fit anymore so she’s just wearing more baggy clothes instead.
She’s not going out as much and generally just feels sad all the time. But her husband……doesn’t notice. She’s been upset for weeks at this point and he hasn’t taken note of anything. Then one day, while she’s researching ways to lose some weight, her husband notices what she’s searching and then says something like:
“oh you’re trying to lose weight? Here’s what you should do, just cut back on all that candy you eat and you’ll be good to go”.
And fine, let’s say he was actually right, let’s say cutting back on candy would help her lose the weight that she wanted……but does this woman love or appreciate her husband more because of it? Does she feel like she was loved and supported as she was having a hard time with her body? Does she feel closer to him at all?
The answer to all these questions is a resounding no, she doesn’t. You see, this is my biggest issue with A.ang’s approach to Katara’s situation in TSR. I personally believe in forgiveness and I’ve seen a lot of people who’ve said they believe in forgiveness as well, but for some reason, A.ang’s behavior in this episode just annoyed them, and I understand why.
Katara’s grief over losing her mother was unprocessed all throughout the show. A.ang travels with Katara and Sokka everyday for almost an entire year. All throughout this time, he never once thinks to ask about her mother, what happened, how’s she’s dealing with it and if there’s anything he can do to help.
In The Southern Raiders, Katara is very visibly upset during the campfire. She’s uncharacteristically quiet, she sent a mean remark Zuko’s way and then walked away to go isolate herself from her friends. A.ang saw all of this and made no attempt to go after her and find out what’s wrong.
But this wasn’t what did it for me, it’s what happened the next day. Everyone talks about A.ang accusing Katara of acting like Jet or comparing his temporary loss of Appa to the permanent loss of her mother, but the first thing that got me annoyed was this being the first line that comes out of his mouth:
Katara: I need to borrow Appa. Aang: [Jokingly.] Why? Is it your turn to take a little field trip with Zuko?
Seems like nothing, right?…..wrong. Even though I was slowly beginning to dislike A.ang in Book 3, at this point, I still believed that he was generally a nice kid. When Katara walked up to him and asked for Appa, it seemed like it was the first time he was seeing her that day, since we saw her just waking up a few moments before. I expected him to say something along the lines of:
“Oh hey, Katara! Uh…..you seemed upset last night, are you okay?”
But instead he just makes a joke, as though he didn’t register that she was upset yesterday, as though he just forgot or didn’t care. Maybe I’m too sensitive, but this elicited a deep frown from me. He then proceeds to say this after Katara says they’re going to find her mother’s murderer:
A.ang: Um….and what exactly do you think this will accomplish?
And the frown got deeper, why in the world did he listen to Katara say she’s going after her mother’s murderer and his first approach is to give her condescending attitude? Do you know what kind of context this kind of questioning is used? This kind:
Imagine a kid got a bad grade on their test and gets so angry about it that they decide to go vandalize their teacher’s car. The kid’s mom catches them, the kid reveals what they plan on doing and the mom goes, “And what do you think this will accomplish? (places hands on hips)”
He asked that question as though she was being irrational and stupid, he proceeds to immediately assume the worst of her and spends the entire conversation moralizing her situation, judging her and then telling her what she should do and then denied her a chance at processing her grief until she had to go behind his back and attempt to steal Appa.
It was morning when Katara first came to ask, he refused and just let her continue to stew in anger all day until night time. I’m sorry, but does this mean that even after hearing her very clearly express that she hadn’t even processed her grief over losing her mother, he was still just fine with her sitting on her anger ALL DAY?? So, if Katara hadn’t tried to steal Appa later that night, he wouldn’t have cared that she just went back to suppressing her anger.
What makes him think he has any say in her situation at all? What makes him think he gets to act like some moral authority after he failed to even notice what she was going through all this time? The audacity to not notice what Katara was going through, but then try to tell her what to do?
Because of this, I frowned at every line that came out of A.ang’s mouth. The fact that Katara’s grief was unprocessed and it flew right over his head should have caused him to have some humility and guilt and speak to her with such.
You can’t just not notice what your loved one is going through and when they try to fix their situation, you insert yourself into the conflict and act like you have any say after what you did.
Despite the fact that Zuko actually does the emotional work with Katara in this episode, he still didn’t believe he had any say in what she should or shouldn’t do. And chances are, had he offered his opinion somewhere later into the episode, Katara would’ve likely been far more receptive towards him.
I expected A.ang to speak with some degree of guilt, humility and carefulness since his friend and supposed “forever girl” was clearly dealing with a lot and he didn’t notice.
Because unlike A.ang, regardless of what you think of Zuko’s intentions, he did make Katara feel like she was cared for and like she wasn’t irrational or not thinking straight for wanting to confront her mother’s murderer.
Your heart will undoubtedly be softer and more receptive towards someone who made you feel cared for and loved, then someone who didn’t even notice what you were going through, felt no guilt about not noticing and then proceeded to judge you and tell you what to do.
He could be the “rightest” person in the world and quote the entire air nomad code of ethics for all anyone cares, but no one likes a clueless sanctimonious jerk.
Even at the end, he runs up to her, yelling her name while she’s very clearly in a somber mood. And then says this:
A.ang: Zuko told me what you did. Or what you didn't do, I guess. I'm proud of you. A.ang: You did the right thing.
The distinct lack of humility and/or guilt over what he did wrong is so annoying. He still continues to speak as though his approval or opinion is in anyway important in her situation.
No, just no. You don’t get to not notice what she was going through, completely ignore how visibly upset she was the day before and then act like your opinion or approval of her situation has any weight. You can’t just do that.
Have all the wisdom in the world, have all the knowledge in the world, if there’s no love in the way you treat people even when you disagree with them, then it all amounts to nothing.
And no, the problem isn’t that A.ang disagreed with Katara morally. Friends, couples and family members disagree, especially on moral issues, all the time, it’s the way he handled the entire thing. There are ways he could’ve disagreed with her and that would’ve shown far more humility and care in her situation.
He could’ve started by asking if she was okay after what happened the night before, he could’ve just asked her what she was going to do and let her explain herself instead of telling her what he thinks are her intentions and assuming the worst of her.
If he asked and she gave any indication that she was actually going to kill him, he could’ve then said something like this:
“Uh Katara? I know you’re upset, and you have every right to be. What happened to your mother wasn’t fair and whoever did it doesn’t deserve to get away with it. And don’t get me wrong, you’re allowed to do whatever you want……..but…I really don’t think you’re going to get the peace you’re looking for this way.”
Then she would’ve likely responded like this:
“Thanks for your concern, A.ang [maybe a smile]. But this is something I need to do, I’ll be fine.”
Simple! Sim👏ple👏! No conflict, no offensive comparisons, no making things about him, no judging, no excessive moralizing, no pushing her to do what he wants, but instead, far more caring, empathetic and considerate while still sticking to his beliefs. Less moral authority, more concerned friend.
A.ang is the reason for the conflict between him, Katara and Zuko. This didn’t need to play out the way it did between the three of them, but it did anyway and it’s primarily because of him.
I like how at the end, she doesn’t show him any appreciation, thank him for anything or give him any credit for her decision. She doesn’t even crack him a smile, and yeah, that’s because he doesn’t deserve it.
By the end of this episode, Katara felt closer to Zuko than she felt towards everyone else. And understandably so, he did everything right with her in this episode. And fun fact, Zuko was the only character Katara smiled at in this episode.
And the funny thing is, A.ang was never this judgmental in the first two seasons, Katara’s most emotionally heavy episode is when they decide to make him the most judgmental he’s ever been. What exactly were they thinking??
I’ve always jokingly said that A.ang’s behavior in this episode was either written by a woman with the intention of actually portraying him as inconsiderate, judgmental and self-righteous or by a highly tone-deaf and clueless man who genuinely thought that the way A.ang was being portrayed would be appealing to Katara or the audience🤡
I have my criticisms of A.ang’s morality, I don’t agree with coerced and premature forgiveness in traumatic situations and I disagree with his absolute pacifism and his view on revenge and justice, but before he even revealed his moral positioning, I was already displeased with him.
He didn’t treat Katara well in this episode to me, and maybe I’m just too sensitive, but I’m pretty sure anyone would be upset if they’re friend acted like this. I hope he enjoyed Sokka calling him wise and Zuko (inaccurately imo, but that’s a take for another post) telling him that he was right, because he really wasn’t a good friend here.
And I already know what the defence is going to be, “He’s twelve!”. Katara started mothering her older brother around eight years old, is it too much to ask a twelve year old to act like a decent friend? And if he’s too immature to know how to properly handle an emotional situation such as this with Katara, then he’s too immature to be in a romantic relationship with her.
His approach to Katara’s situation was really bad, then the next episode (EIP) had him agreeing that Katara was his possession (when actor!Zuko called her the Avatar’s girl), throwing a nice guy tantrum at the thought Katara only seeing him as a friend, saying the dumb play would’ve made him go into the Avatar’s state, him ignoring once again how visibly uncomfortable she was having this conversation and then proceeding to force a kiss on her.
Then in the episode after EIP, the first part of the finale, his last spoken interaction with her was him yelling at her for something that was not her fault. If Ka/taang was written with a consideration for Katara’s perspective at all, even if Katara started to have some feelings for A.ang, they would know that having A.ang display all these behaviors BACK-TO-BACK in the last half of the show, with no apologies and no attempts to make up for what he did would’ve drained every last drop of interest out of her.
They spent the last half of their show doing everything in their power to make Ka/taang as unappealing as possible and then acted surprised as to why so many people rejected it.
I finally understood why I hate Kataang so much. It feels like Katara's death. You just watch it and can't do anything about it (in a canon sense). This is the fear of most women in toxic traditional societies, who are afraid of being married to a man they don't love. Here it is, the demise of a woman. Yay, the 12-year-old nice guy who kissed teenage Katara (rep for FEMALE viewers) without her permission several times is happy! And then she suddenly falls in love with him in the next move. And they get married. It sounds heartbreaking and terrible. But of course, no one notices because Aang is the main character and he's the favorite, and no one questions how this reflects on the fanbase of girls and Katara. Suki and Sokka had a good relationship, but it's not shown. Why? This show has terrible writing and a terrible message for the audience. People absorb the media they interact with. And one of the main problems girls in such situations face from poor traditional societies is portrayed not in a negative, but in a positive light. And Katara stayed with him for decades, rather than divorcing him in the canon. This is truly the worst thing.
This is why I feel so passionately about this ship in particular. People may say “it’s just a kids show” but the fact that it’s a kids show is the point. I don’t care what kind of unequal relationships people want to enjoy in adult media, or in fan media. They’re adults. They can make their own choices.
But ATLA isn’t for just for adults. it’s a really, really good kids show. A good enough show that it’s still finding new audiences decades later. And a popular kids show is how kids learn about how to manage their romantic relationships.
Kat@ang teaches boys to:
- Not be discouraged by her apparent disinterest. She’ll come around.
- Be possessive of your female friend/crush and get angry when they show an interest in someone else (EIP)
- Kiss them without their consent, even when they’ve just told you they’re not interested in a romantic relationship right now.
None of these behaviours from Aang are discouraged by the show (aside from the Guru’s attempt which is promptly forgotten for the rest of the show) and are in fact rewarded when Katara changes her mind without any positive interactions between the non-consensual kiss and the big ending kiss.
It reminds me of a lot of the boys I was friends with growing up. The ones who questioned me when I got a boyfriend. Who broke off our friendships when it became apparent I was never going to date them.
To be clear, I don’t blame Aang for this. He’s overall not a bad person. He’s 12. He’s allowed to make mistakes in how he approaches his love life. Especially under such pressure.
I blame the writers who decided that the narrative would not treat these actions as mistakes to be learned from, but would simply reward Aang with his forever girl as soon as he had finished the main quest.
Katara deserved better. And so does every young girl who grows up loving this show, past and future. They deserve male friends who view them as friends before they are romantic prospects. When they grow up they deserve partners who respect their boundaries and act as equals in a relationship.
More than that, Katara and Zuko defeated Azula when Zuko used a water bending move (redirecting lightning) in order to protect Katara, and Katara used a fire bending move (breath of fire/steam) to protect Zuko.
Saw your post about the Avatar state vs Katara’s anger at Yon-Rha, it was so civilly handled and well written! I’m scrolling through your blog now, and see you mentioning that you got ideas for how KA could have been written differently. Care to share? I am starved for fan content where Aang gets actual character development instead of being either perfect or the devil.
Thanks so much for your ask!
I actually have a lot of ideas for re-writes and additional scenes to help bolster Aang’s character development and, relatedly, the development of Kataang. I’m happy to share more of them if people are interested, but I figure I should probably start with something (relatively) short easy to digest. I hope I deliver on your expectations!
Since I was on the topic of “The Southern Raiders”, let’s start there. I think there’s a lot of nuance in the way that Aang approaches his discussion with Katara that’s easy to miss (which I expand upon at length in I this post) and I would have loved to have seen a scene at the end of TSR where Aang actually talks to Katara about what happened, and they become closer as a result. In my opinion, this would have made their romance arc a lot better, since I think one of the biggest problems with the way Kataang works out in canon is that even though they get on well for most of the show, they seem to spend the last few episodes having unresolved fights… then they kiss.
I had three main goals when writing this scene
1. Allow Aang and Katara to reconcile after their fight, showing a healthier friendship and making it seem more natural when that friendship transitions to romance.
2. Flesh out Aang’s motivations in this episode, and allow him to reflect on his mistakes
3. Write Katara showing an interest in Aang in a context where the text indicates to us (part of) why she’s interested in him romantically. We hear a lot about why Katara loves Aang, and we see that she’s interested in him romantically, but these scenes don’t tend to coincide so it ends up being difficult to relate to Katara in the romance.
Here’s what I’ve got:
(Some lines are taken directly from the show because I wanted to keep things as consistent with canon as I could while keeping to my goals.)
Instead of having Katara talk to Aang and Zuko on the dock after they get back, we instead have Katara and Zuko reconcile with a “thank you” and their hug while they’re still alone. Later, when Zuko brings the others to Ember Island, Aang approaches Katara by herself on the dock, giving the two of them space to have their own reconciliation.
Aang approaches Katara on the dock, sitting down next to her.
Aang: Katara, Zuko told me what you did. Or what you didn’t do, I guess. Are you alright?
Katara: I’m getting there.
Aang: I want to be here if you need me. I know that forgiveness isn’t easy.
Katara, sharply: I didn’t forgive him. I will never forgive him.
Aang looks at Katara in surprise.
Aang, tentative: But you let him go? I thought you needed closure.
Katara, staring out over the water: I did. And when I saw him, I wanted to do it. I wanted to take out all my anger on him, but I couldn’t. I don’t know if it’s because I’m too weak to or because I’m strong enough not to.
Aang sort of wilts in on himself.
Aang: When I saw you that angry, all I could think about was how I acted after I lost Appa. I yelled at you all. I went after the sandbenders. I wanted to…
Aang takes a deep breath and refocuses.
Aang: I wasn’t strong enough to not take my anger out on those around me. I needed to forgive in order to move on. Like the monks taught me. If either of us is weak, it’s me.
Katara, turning towards Aang and placing a hand on his shoulder: Aang, no. You’re one of the strongest people I know. You lost your entire culture to the Fire Nation, but you’re still here, still loving life, and you’re doing everything you can to save the whole world. That’s amazing.
Aang blushes and looks at Katara shyly.
Aang: I think you’re pretty amazing, too.
Katara also blushes, and leans her shoulder slightly against Aang. We fade out as the two watch the sunset together.
I want to talk about why Aang says what he does to Katara in “The Southern Raiders”, because I think that it goes deeper than just repeating lessons he learned from the monks.
When he’s trying to relate to Katara, Aang says “how do you think I felt when the sandbenders took Appa?” And that’s an odd choice for him to make. Thinking about Katara’s situation, the more logical comparison to make would be to when Aang found Monk Gyatso’s body. Gyatso was Aang’s parental figure, and like Kya, he was lost to the fire nation, so this is actually a reasonable reference point. So why choose to talk about Appa instead? I think it’s because Aang’s feelings about his own behaviour when he lost Appa are driving what he’s saying to Katara.
When Aang lost Appa, we saw him at one of his lowest points in the entire series. He yells at his friends and makes unfair accusations.
He seems to genuinely wish harm to the sandbenders in a way that’s very uncharacteristic for him. He even (probably) kills a buzzard wasp, which is I think the only occasion when we see Aang deliberately kill anything.
If Katara hadn’t pulled Aang out of the Avatar State, he may well have killed some sandbenders too.
If Aang regrets the way he reacted to Appa’s loss, and that regret is informing his words, it makes sense that he would see Katara’s anger and become focussed on trying to keep her from making the mistakes that he himself made (and almost made).
This focus on his own regrets would also explain why he managed to miss the mark when it came time to actually helping Katara process her rage. Aang wasn’t really focussed on Katara’s situation, and as a result his attempts to help just made Katara angrier. Sometimes you’re too close to a problem to see the solution.
No, Shipping Zutara Is Not Supporting Amatonormativity (Please Use Some Fucking Braincells For Once)
- a treatise by a severely pissed off aroace zutara shipper
since words don’t mean anything anymore (if they ever did on the esteemed piss-on-the-poor website), let’s start with a definition.
amatonormativity: the set of social assumptions that everyone prospers with a romantic relationship, thereby positioning marriage as a universal goal of adult life. amatonormativity forms the basis of several institutional structures that are built to cater to romantic bonds over all others, also manifesting in social pressure on individuals to find a romantic partner by pushing the false narrative that those who do not experience romance are automatically lonely, unhappy and unfulfilled. it is usually characterized by the prioritization of romantic love over other forms of love, particularly platonic.
the anti-zutara argument based on this is as follows: wanting zutara to happen is amatonormative because it a) devalues zuko and katara’s platonic bond b) pushes the idea that men and women can’t be friends and c) doesn’t align with the themes of the show, as romantic love was never the point of atla.
i would like to take the time today to tell you that this is some fucking bullshit, for the following reasons:
one, this may come as a shock to some of you, but zutara shippers did not invent the concept of romantic love in avatar: the last airbender. you are more than welcome to criticize the pairings of suki/sokka, katara/aang, mai/zuko, yue/sokka, jin/zuko, jet/katara, and even kanna/pakku for perpetuating amatonormativity through their unnecessary romantic subplots. and if you don’t have anything to say about any of those pairings, then here’s a word for you: hypocrite.
zk shippers are not introducing the taint of romantic love into some kind of wholesome platonic utopia where it never existed. when we say zutara should have been canon, it is a statement that ends with the implicit instead of kat.aang and mai.ko tacked on at the back because if we were going to get a romantic relationship anyway, it might as well have been one that was well-developed, narratively impactful, and thematically relevant.
two, saying zutara is amatonormative is fucking rich when the main “romance” of atla is a three season long struggle to get out of the friendzone. aang’s desire to be in a romantic relationship with katara is one of his primary motivations throughout the show, and not once does either he or the narrative ever entertain the thought that just being katara’s friend might be enough. to the contrary, aang’s crush and the potential of its reciprocation is a fundamental part of how the story gets its audience to invest in both his character and the kat.aang relationship. they want you to want him to get the girl, and that’s the driving force of the ship’s development from start to finish.
you can see the influence of this in the way people defend why kat.aang had to happen: “aang would be crushed!” “it would break aang’s heart!” “aang deserves to be happy!” and that in and of itself is more amatonormative than any version of romantic zutara, as if this idea that aang is somehow doomed to a life of misery and loneliness just because he can’t be with the girl he likes isn’t inherently based on the assumption that platonic love can’t be as meaningful and satisfying as romantic love.
three, let’s be so fucking fr: a show written by cishet men in the early 2000s was not “subverting amatonormativity” by not making zutara happen, especially not when they went for the fucking olympic gold of romantic cliches — the hero gets the girl trope — instead. otherwise, why did the entire show end with an uncomfortably long liplock? if romance would’ve devalued zuko and katara’s platonic bond, then what the everloving fuck happened to their friendship in the comics and the legend of korra?
it is blatantly false to say that zutara shippers are the ones devaluing their platonic bond when the creators did it first. they evidently don’t view zutara’s platonic bond as equal to kat.aang’s romantic one, judging by their treatment of both relationships in the comics and LOK and the fact that they talked about kat.aang “winning” the ship war in the first place. because if the two relationships were of equivalent standing, why would there be a winner and a loser at all?
amatonormativity is baked into the DNA of atla, and while some people choose to reject this framework entirely (zk friendship >>> ka romance anyday), it is also not wrong for zk shippers to be annoyed at the treatment zutara received within the context of said framework. since the creators clearly thought a romantic relationship was better than a platonic one, they could at least have picked the couple that actually made sense instead of adding insult to injury by making that romance kat.aang. it is not amatonormative to acknowledge that zutara was not afforded the distinction it should have been in the eyes of those who wrote it, because it’s obvious that the decision to keep zuko and katara’s relationship platonic wasn’t to respect their friendship, but to position them as inferior to kat.aang.
four, detractors of romantic zutara often argue that their platonic relationship is inherently better & i’ve discussed before why that isn’t the case, but i also hate this argument because it’s perpetuating the very thing that aromantic people are trying to get rid of in the first place: the hierarchization of love. it is not the “gotcha!” you think it is to genuinely state that platonic love is better than romantic love, because it’s still buying into the idea that there’s some kind of order to categorizing human relationships. the solution to amatonormativity isn’t changing what form of love gets to be at the top of the list — it’s doing away with the hierarchy entirely.
i ship zuko and katara because canon already gave me their friendship. i already know what their platonic relationship looks like and that gives me more room for imagination in developing their romantic one because it’s a place canon didn’t go.
at the end of the day, friendship and romance are just different avenues of exploring intimacy. neither is inherently more valuable than the other, and neither is inherently more problematic. and if you truly believe in dismantling amatonormative beliefs, you would recognize that making a distinction between the two is only perpetuating the problem, not challenging it.
This, and platonic Kataang would actually have been an incredible rebuke to amatonormativity. The hero of the show pines for his female friend from day 1, but realises when she doesn’t reciprocate that their platonic relationship is just as significant? That would have been such a good message to send to young viewers.
To really drive that message home, Katara could have ended up with someone else, but the show could still have ended with a scene of Aang and Katara because their relationship not being the romantic relationship in their lives doesn’t change the fact that it was one of the most important relationships to the story, and to them.
I’ve seen a few K@taang fans say that Aang telling Katara to forgive Yon Rha in The Southern Raiders is a parallel to Katara helping Aang leave the Avatar State. I really don’t like this take, for a simple reason:
The Avatar State is a supernatural uncontrollable rage. Katara’s anger is not.
On multiple occasions, Aang states that he regrets his actions while in the Avatar state, and he doesn’t like feeling out of control in that way. We even see his rational spirit’s reaction to the Avatar State when it detaches from Aang’s body to speak to Roku in “The Avatar State”.
Aang wants to be stopped when he is in this state. When Katara reaches out to him, she is not trying to change his mind, she is trying to allow his rational mind to regain control. She is giving him agency, not denying him agency.
By contrast, while Katara is angry in The Southern Raiders, we’re never told that her rational faculties aren’t still operational. She’s determined. Not possessed.
At no point does Katara say that she regrets acting in anger. Instead, we see her exercise judgement and mercy even when face to face with the man she saw kill her mother.
This is not someone who is out of control.
(Not that she necessarily would have been out of control if she did kill him.)
The fact that Katara wasn’t out of control and didn’t need to be stopped is further reinforced by the fact that, unlike Aang who agonises over his actions in the Avatar State after the fact, Katara doesn’t express regret at her actions or relief that she didn’t kill Yon Rha. Instead she re-states her initial position that she will not forgive him.
All of this makes Katara’s anger at Yon Rha very different from the Avatar State. She is in control of her actions and does not want or need to be stopped. Trying to stop her isn’t helping to reassert her own control over her actions, it’s questioning her active decisions. It’s denying her agency instead of enabling it.
An emotional woman is not the same thing as an irrational or out of control one.
