Over the hills...

Insanity is best served hot with a side of sarcasm

[steambends-deactivated20200922]

Zuko is the only person Katara felt comfortable enough to let in about her mother’s murder- twice.

Katara is the only person Zuko get comfortable letting in about his father’s abuse.

There’s so much mutual trust, empathy, understanding, and communication with these two on screen. Their compatibility has nothing to do with what people often dismiss as some kind of “dark” ship or “hot couple” or whatever. It’s not that at all, it’s so much better than that false perception.

[halledean]

Happy Birthday to @rachel82493!! Because of you, I shipped Zutara before I even watched the show! Black Copic Multiliners Sketch Copic Markers

deviantArt

[paintedfirelady]

And clouds full of fear And storms full of sorrow That won’t disappear Just typhoons and monsoons This impossible year

Have some slow dance-melancholic Zutara I made while listening to this song on repeat

[kciemoo]

Zutara!!!! Inspired by getting to meet Dante Basco at Rose City Comicon and gushing over my OTP with him.

[avatarsymbolism]

I was going to save this for midweek, but now seems like just as good a time as any  to post it.

Here’s Dante’s impression of novelistic Zutara fic.  

[vickieschau]

ZKWK16 - D5 - Fever by zutaraxmylove

My final year drawing for Zutara Week. Last drawing of the week. Only doing 5 days. Overall theme: The unfinished Firefly Lantern project.

also on facebook

[justzukothings]

[watermistress]

A holiday gift to all my followers—Zuko being a sassy pants complete with scarf. I’m sorry that I fail at animation, I’ll just go sit in a corner and die.

[zuzusexytiems]

Ship has been sunk by heysoohee

[peacockarehot-deactivated201707]

Why I Feel Zuko’s Betrayal Was To End Zutara

I touched on this a little in my last analysis, but I suggested the idea that Zuko’s decision to join Azula in Ba Sing Se was not the natural organic progression of his character arc, but something Bryke decided upon later to eliminate the possibility of Zuko being Katara’s love interest. It’s a pretty bold claim, so am I just a delusional Zutarian? I pointed out some of the things that didn’t make sense about Zuko and Azula’s actions in that essay that I wanna elaborate on. 

I wish I could believe the betrayal was a purposeful narrative decision to demonstrate the moral fallibility of man…but I don’t. I really do believe it was for the stupid shipping. I hate that I even have to say that, honestly, because it seems so petty to distort a main character’s arc just to allow a preferred pairing to happen. But given how childish and condescending Bryke have been to some of the most passionate fans of their show (myself included), just for enjoying the Zuko/Katara romantic dynamic, I find this entirely in the realm of possibility. They also butchered the concept of opening the Crown Chakra (supposed to be a transcendental spiritual experience in Eastern philosophy) by having Aang get shoved into a rock wall, and lobotomized Katara beyond recognition in the comics, just to pair Aang and Katara, so hey, why not Zuko, too? Speaking of Zuko…

We get an idea of who he is early on in Book 1. This is at the height of his intense obsession to capture the Avatar. He is still a loyal Fire Nation soldier at this point, and still has complete faith in his father, yet when he sees an opportunity to choose between the Avatar and his uncle, he chooses the latter. Early on, the story is trying to let the viewer know what type of person Zuko is and what his priorities are. He is angry, and obsessive, but not coldhearted enough to abandon his family that he loves.

After Zuko nearly gets killed by the pirates, Iroh is afraid of losing him, like Lu Ten.  Again, we see Zuko highly regards his uncle’s feelings. It upsets him to see his uncle get so emotional.

We see this again in Book 2, while he still is devoted to capturing Aang. Zuko temporarily splits up from his uncle in an attempt to fend for himself and he runs into the Avatar and his sister, and fights them. Iroh finally reunites with his nephew in time for Azula to attack him, leaving him very wounded. Although Aang is still in the vicinity and Azula is gone, Zuko completely forgets all about that and nearly has a nervous breakdown. He is literally trembling. Even when Katara offers to heal Iroh, he is so distraught and angry at himself that he doesn’t even seem to hear her offer. He not only loses interest in the Avatar, he wants them to get away from him. 

In the next episode he stays by his side and tends to him until he is recovered. And a few episodes later we see that Zuko is sensitive to his Uncle’s pain, and he stops when he hears Iroh uncomfortable. He clearly has empathy for Iroh. The story is literally going out of its way to tell you how much he cares about his uncle.

After making the moral decision to let Appa go, Zuko has a crisis of conscience so intense it results in psychosomatic illness. He has to confront who he really is. He has eerie dreams that symbolize his biggest fears. His sitting coldly and distantly on the throne symbolizes his fear of becoming like his father and grandfather. The two dragons representing Iroh and Azula symbolize his fear of making the wrong choice. His mother crying symbolizes his fear of disappointing her last request to him and losing himself.  And finally, him seeing himself as Aang in the mirror represents perhaps his greatest fear: that his sworn enemy might not be so different from him after all. The end result of this experience?

He is happier than ever! I have heard people say that Zuko behaved out of character in this episode. I would say they are completely missing the point. His happy demeanor indicates that he has made peace with the decision to let Appa go, and is no longer going to obsess over his old life. His relationship with Iroh is warmer and closer than ever.  

Now we see Zuko genuinely start to bond with Katara. He knows she is the Avatar’s best friend and still opens up to her, something he has an extremely difficult time doing to anyone. He tells her his old destiny felt like a curse to him, and he’s realizing he can change it. He even lets her touch his scar. If he had any lingering desire to capture Aang at this point, this behavior makes no sense whatsoever.

These are all obvious attempts to let the viewer see into Zuko’s mindset, and if the story was intending to foreshadow some kind of eventual betrayal, they did an absolutely horrible job. Large plot twists that completely change the trajectory of a character’s personality should not come out of nowhere like they did in this episode. I get that characters don’t always progress upwards. They hit bumps and plateaus. But this isn’t backsliding. But this is falling off the entire damn mountain and into a 100 foot ditch.

Yet another strange inconsistency I noticed had to do with the comic, Going Home Again, which takes place after the Crossroads of Destiny. In the catacombs, Zuko obviously must have wanted to go home really badly; enough to betray his uncle. Yet in the comic, which did have some involvement by Aaron Ehasz, Zuko is adamantly opposed to the idea. Azula tries to manipulate him to come back, using Mai, but she’s unsuccessful. It’s only when Iroh is seen by Zuko in chains that he decided to return again. So my question is: Which is it? Is he motivated by restoring his honor, or his love for his uncle? Why is this so confusing!? It’s things like this that have me utterly convinced that the original story was going to have Azula manipulate Zuko to come home against his will, and this comic has shades of that original intent.

This is why I believe it was Bryke’s idea. Their poor, out of character writing in the comics and in Korra, like having Aang and Katara agree to kill Zuko, one of their best friends, when Aang couldn’t even kill Ozai, leaves me no choice but to think this. Like I said in my last analysis, there were far more sensible ways, more consistent with both Zuko and Azula’s characterization, to get Zuko to go back to the Fire Nation. What could possibly have been the need to take such a drastic change of course to a main character’s personality in stark opposition to literally all their previous development? Plot twists like this are not made without an author’s intent to fundamentally alter aspects of the story. What did Zuko’s betrayal actually accomplish narratively that him being forced to return (like I think he originally was going to be) wouldn’t? Let’s start with some possibilities.

1. Demonstrating Zuko’s Flaws

As if that were at all necessary. Zuko is the most flawed character in the story already, and has more than enough reason to need the Gaang’s forgiveness, even without the betrayal. He chased Team Avatar for an entire season, stole a nice woman’s ostrich horse, and even left his uncle all alone and worried about him for several episodes. I highly doubt the reason Zuko betrayed them was to demonstrate his imperfections. We already know Zuko has done bad things to the Gaang and his uncle. At that point, it was redundant.

2. Combustion Man

Now here’s a villain with a whole lot of thought put into him. No name, no backstory, no dialogue, no explanation of how Zuko finds him or how he’s able to track Aang or why he wasn’t hired a long ass time ago if everyone’s so confident he can kill the Avatar. Who needs Zhao or Azula when you’ve got this guy, right? He’s barely even a character. Gee, it’s almost like he was an extremely late afterthought to the story to show how “bad” Zuko has become. Or maybe Zuko’s little joke that Azula would have hired him was gonna be true? Who can say. What does he accomplish for the narrative? Well, he has a few fight scenes, but he is hardly indispensable to the plot. Other than that, he serves as a way for Zuko to demonstrate his intentions to the Gaang by protecting them. And in that respect, I’d argue he actually accomplishes the opposite. Zuko’s betrayal nearly resulted in Aang and Katara’s deaths; and then later hiring an assassin to finish the job, it actually makes the Gaang’s decision to trust him so fast and then letting Aang go travel alone with him in the very next episode, completely implausible.

Again, If Zuko never betrayed anyone, he wouldn’t even be necessary for that purpose and everything would make a lot more sense. Exactly why I think the original version of the story had to have been different and all of this was tweaked later on. It’s just too nonsensical.

3. Zuko’s Relationship With Iroh

Zuko’s reunion with Iroh is a very touching and emotional scene. Iroh forgives Zuko so fast, you would almost think he had never even thrown him in jail in the first place. Hmmm. Could that have been the original script? He instantly embraces him and then goes on to call him an “idealist with a pure heart and unquestionable honor.” His relationship with his uncle is unchanged from before and his reunion would be just as, if not more, emotional without the betrayal. I doubt the decision to have Zuko join Azula in Ba Sing Se had anything to do with demonstrating how forgiving Iroh is. We already knew that from the Book 2 premiere when he forgives Zuko calling him a “shallow, lazy old man who’s always been jealous of his brother” and when he forgives Zuko for taking off on his own leaving him behind. So what is the one thing to be significantly impacted in the story by Zuko’s betrayal?

4. Zuko’s Relationship to Katara

Sadly, I think we found our answer here. Katara hates Zuko until pretty much the very end of the story. Of all the things to result from his betrayal, this is the only one that really has any meaningful impact. I really doubt this is a coincidence. It’s hard not to come to the conclusion that this was about shipping and that they knew that if Zuko didn’t “go bad”, he’d simply be too much competition for the hero as a love interest. And that is really sad. Gotta make sure Zuko and Katara get as little positive moments as possible.

This could have been such an impactful moment with a lot of meaning. Zuko choosing not to tell Azula about the Spirit Water. Unlike when interacting with Mai, Azula, and Ozai, the unscarred side of Zuko’s face is shown when thinking about Katara in this episode. It could have (and likely originally was going to since Aaron Ehasz wrote it) symbolized his desire to protect her and Aang, having some lingering grateful feelings for her extremely kind gesture to heal him. Something that would have meant a lot to Zuko, considering how much the scar made him feel like he was “marked.”

In the Boiling Rock episode Zuko helped rescue her dad, and they might have had a nice connection here. Look how happy she was. And him, too! Ironically, in the next episode she hates him and is angry with him for the death of her mother. A weird choice of place, story-wise. Almost as if the original version of the story may have been different. I guess we’ll never know.

Maybe some people would wonder how the events of The Southern Raiders would have transpired if not to involve Katara forgiving Zuko for Ba Sing Se. Well, it wouldn’t have been too hard to come up with a slightly altered scenario to accomplish that. Perhaps it would be near the anniversary of Katara’s mom’s death, and Katara is in a pretty bad mood in general remembering it. Zuko tends to take things personally, so he starts thinking Katara hates him and asks Sokka for help (funny scene and all). He finds out about her mom, and immediately feels guilty. After all, at one point as an enemy he used the last remaining memento of her deceased mother to try to capture Aang. It would then be natural for him to want to make up for this and help her find closure. It could have been a nice bonding episode like Elizabeth Ehasz wanted it to be.

Well, this has been a pretty long rant, but Zuko and Katara are two of my favorite fictional characters of all time and it saddens me to see how much Bryke squandered their potential, not even just as a couple, but as characters, for their inane shipping agenda. It’s just a shame.

[kataraandzuko]

I really like your essays but Bryke never came up with the idea of Zuko betraying Katara, it was Ehasz himself.

[blowingoffsteam2]

Zuko’s betrayal was necessary for him to discover for himself that even when he got back everything he thought he had wanted- his honor and throne-, he still wasn’t happy and didn’t feel like himself.  Iroh had told him essentially the same thing, but in classic Zuko fashion, Zuko had to find this out through experience.  It makes the moment when Zuko finally stood up to Ozai that much more powerful, because Zuko finally had it all, and HE chose to give it all up to do what was right.  When Zuko was a fugitive, it wasn’t his choice to have lost every comfort he had previously known, so it would have not been much of a sacrifice to join the avatar at that moment.  Zuko’s decision in the s2 finale was a crucial part of what makes his journey stand out so much from other similar stories of “bad guys” turned good.

[elysiumnox]

Zutara Week 2016 (Day 5) - Fever 

Perhaps during a sparring match, with emotions running as wild as the approaching storm they are too overcome with feelings to ignore what their hearts desire any longer. @zutaraweek // Please do not repost!

Other days (x)

Fever

You’ve set my skin ablaze A fever that I cannot shake This fever has no cure Nor would I want a cure Again and again I feel this heat From my head, all the way down to my toes This fire comes from within And you are the one who lit the match

[elledix]

So! The good news is that my laptop is, more or less, working again. I've recovered all of my writing, so I can FINALLY finish Edge of the World!

[araeph]

Hi there! I'd like your opinion on the issue with Katara and Fire Nation clothing/being referred to as the Fire Lady. Some see it as Katara abandoning or being stripped of her nationality. I personally don't see it but maybe I'm missing something...

Hello, Iroh. You look very happy wearing green today. Although you grew up in the Fire Nation, you found peace and a home in the Earth Kingdom, which helped heal some of the old wounds left by the death of your son. You made a deliberate choice to live in another nation for the rest of your life and dress in the colors of a former enemy, yet no one says you are stripped of your heritage or abandoning who you are.

Still, there are those who would say Katara would be abandoning her culture by moving to the Fire Nation because it would be due to Zuko, rather than being something she wanted for herself.

But are you sure?

What is the first major fight that Katara has–one that defines her as a person? It is against Pakku at the North Pole, when she is fighting Water Tribe sexism. And lest you think that this is only a northern problem, notice that Sokka is also quite sexist at the beginning of the show–because it is part of his culture. By contrast, the Fire Nation has no problem with women in the military or seeing Azula as the heir to the throne over Zuko. Katara would undoubtedly face discrimination as a Water Tribe member in the Fire Nation–but she would have faced discrimination in her homeland anyway.

What about Katara’s people, though–won’t she miss them? Yes, but let us not forget that Katara doesn’t let cultural boundaries define who she thinks of as her people or her family. She called Aang her family, even though he was an airbender, in the third episode of the series. She mothered Toph even though the latter expressed frustrations about it. And then there’s this:

Katara has already defended people in the Fire Nation as if they were her own. Fans who think that she couldn’t get over her hatred of firebenders to see them as part of her community are vastly mistaken. Not to mention, Water Tribe and Fire Nation cultures have a lot in common. They value loyalty, they prize their navy, they have a warrior culture …  they even have a meat-heavy diet. And oh yes: they are both surrounded by water. 

Water is the element of change. The people of the Water Tribe are capable of adapting to many things. Katara’s grandmother left her own tribe when she was around Katara’s age, and trekked to the other side of the world to build a life for herself where she would be more independent. Was Kanna “erasing” her heritage as a Northern Water Tribe member, even though she kept the necklace with her? On the contrary: being willing to change her circumstances in order to find where she truly belongs makes Kanna, and Katara if she chooses, the most Water Tribe of all.

[shivisdivis]

[treycain03]

This. I don’t want to be salty to those who kept telling me my art for the married Zutara is against their views of Katara not wearing anything but blue, but clothing is not what defined her. The color blue is not what makes Katara, Katara. If you remember in the episodes of ATLA the whole gang had chosen to don clothes based on the respective nations they’re in. Was her culture and bending different? No. So I don’t get why everyone is so adamant about Katara wearing nothing but water tribe clothing.

[small-town-dreamer]

Daddy’s Little Girl by beanaroony

[mintymido-deactivated20201122]

DID YOU GUYS KNOW #shiptember is a thing?? Well I just found out about it lol thanks to @archibald.art so i just wanted to contribute by drawing one of my old favorite ships ZukoXKatara aka Zutara <33 don’t get me wrong I’m so happy Katara ended up with Aang but I definitely enjoyed all the moments with her and Zuko huehuehue — also I’m curious, What’s YOUR favorite ship/OTP?

#ATLA #atlafanart #avatar #avatarthelastairbender #zuko #katara #zutara #zukoxkatara #ship #atlaship #shiptember2016 #fire #water #bending #otp #sketch #drawing #art #instaart #instaartist #red #blue

[worldwide-bt7]

Zutara Week

Day 6: Coffee

Page 4

Read LEFT to RIGHT

I’m still working on the rest of the week’s prompts~ I’ll keep posting pages like this though until PRE-SALES open up!! :)

[plasticbaggy1-deactivated202212]

Zutara Week 2016 Day 1: Dragons

A dragon is not a slave