I’m going to respond to these comments from @dakln1995 in a reblog from my last reblog of this post, because I feel like some of what I already said there can be applied here.
Look, I'm all for freedom of shipping. If you wanna ship Kataang, great. If you wanna ship Zutara, great! I love all ships, ships are wonderful.
I agree that you should be allowed to ship Zutara if you want to, Kataang if you want to, both, neither, or whatever.
"But like, this is a bad example to put down Aang for being unempathetic."
Regarding "putting down" characters, let me just say that I tagged this post as "aang critical" for a reason. When you tag a post as " *insert character here* critical," it means that the post is going to be criticizing that character for something. If you do not like posts criticizing Aang, why were you looking at and responding to my post tagged as "aang critical" ?? I would suggest blocking the "aang critical" tag if you do not like posts that hold Aang accountable for his actions. I love Aang, but I do think that there are times when his actions should be criticized.
Think about the situation; he's just been woken up after a hundred years, and doesn't yet fully grasp the scope of the war, and isn't aware of the genocide of his people yet. He's also 12. He's been friends with Fire Nation peeps. To Aang, what Katara is describing is completely ridiculous, and he's in denial of the situation. Again, he's also TWELVE.
I’m aware that he is 12. It shows in his maturity level during many instances throughout the show. And I agree that he just woke up, doesn’t fully understand the scope of the war, and isn’t aware of the genocide of his people. Aang is as upbeat and alright as ever right then, so there is no excuse for him not even offering Katara an "I’m sorry for your loss" in this scene.
So, in this moment, he does brush off the comment that "they killed my mother" because it's not a reality to him yet. He doesn't understand, the facts are in conflict with what he knows.
Are you seriously trying to argue that Aang doesn’t even respond to Katara saying that the Fire Nation murdered her mother because "it’s not a reality to him yet"? That it’s not yet a reality to Aang that the Fire Nation killed Kya, even though it’s literally what Katara just told him?? I think that what you are implying when you add on to this, saying "the facts are in conflict with what he knows," is that Aang doesn’t actually believe Katara when she says that the Fire Nation killed her mother. Which is...quite the reach, to say the least.
Why the heck would Aang not believe Katara when she tells him that her own mother was killed by the Fire Nation? I mean, do you really think that in this scene, Aang thinks that he knows more about whether Katara’s mother is dead or alive than Katara herself?? There is no evidence that what is "not a reality to him yet" is Kya’s death. What is not a reality to Aang yet is the genocide of his own people, as Aang states. He never expresses any disbelief that the Fire Nation killed Kya, he expresses disbelief that the Fire Nation killed his own people. So, no, you cannot excuse Aang’s actions here by saying that he had disbelief in the fact that Kya was murdered by the Fire Nation, so he didn’t respond to Katara saying that.
Does that mean he lacks empathy? In that moment, yeah, but later on in that very episode, that attitude changes right away...
I’ve already disproved the "that" in your question "does that mean he lacks empathy?" when I disproved your argument that the reason Aang didn’t respond to Kya’s murder by the Fire Nation is because he was in disbelief of Kya being murdered by the Fire Nation. So I’m not going to respond to that question.
And no, I don’t think that you can argue that "that attitude" changes later on in that very episode. Katara again brings up the murder of Kya only once more in the episode, at the very end, when Aang was too caught up and unstable in the Avatar State to respond to it. So, to be fair to Aang, he could not exactly empathize with Katara while he was in the Avatar State. But if he wanted, he could’ve afterwards, when he got out of the state. But he didn’t. Aang said "sorry" at the end of the episode because of him going into the Avatar State and almost blowing Katara and Sokka off of a mountain. That "sorry" was not in response to the murder of Kya. There was no "I’m sorry about the loss of your mother, Katara" or similar by the end of the episode to show Aang empathizing with Katara on the topic of Kya’s death. It was yet again Katara who brought up Kya’s murder at the end of the episode, and it was yet again Aang who did not address it. Because he did not even address the murder of Kya later on in that episode (not that he did at the beginning of the episode either), it is safe to say that Aang does not prove later on in the episode that he is now empathetic towards Katara on the topic of the murder of Kya. So where is the solid evidence for this "change in attitude" that you speak of in terms of Aang showing compassionate empathy for the murder of Kya?? We certainly don’t see any effects of such a thing in TSR, when Aang was rather insensitive to Katara’s feeling when she wanted closure for her mother’s death. Speaking of that, let’s move on to the last point.
It's almost as if character growth like that was the whole point of the damn show
Character growth like what? Aang going from ignoring Katara mentioning Kya’s murder to him for the first time in "The Southern Air Temple," to Aang being judgmental of Katara and not giving her the emotional support she needed when she wanted to get closure for the murder of her mother in "The Southern Raiders"?
Character growth indeed. You can tell by the way Katara glares at Aang, and the relief on her face when she looks away from Aang and towards Zuko at the end of TSR (the episode that focuses on Katara processing her feelings about Kya’s murder) that she felt like Aang ended up being very empathetic to her when it came to her mother’s murder (/s).
