yknow out of every show/movie/whatever thats tried to do the whole ‘girl power’ subplot, ATLA is the the only one I’ve seen stick the landing. cause like, they didn’t try and condense it down to a one episode problem then never speak of it again, but they also didn’t subject us to constant misogyny during the entire series. and they were also realistic about it! the point they wanted to make was that gender has nothing to do with a persons capabilities, and that is the point they wound up making every time!
probably the best example is the katara vs pakku fight, cause like. any other show would probably have katara kick his ass, and that would convince him to teach her and also drive home the girl power theme. the conflict of the story is katara not being allowed to fight bcause girls are considered too weak; if she loses a fight to a man, then it just proves him right, she has to win. but that’s why the message always falls flat in other stories, because it wouldn’t make any sense for katara to beat pakku in that fight. she’s a teenager with literally no training, and has spent all season struggling to teach herself the basics, while pakku has decades of experience and is one of the most skilled waterbending masters in the world. if katara won the fight, it would be contrived bullshit, and make the intended feminist themes painfully heavy handed, and a blatant token effort. but instead, we get a hardcore two minute smackdown of katara trying to murder the everloving shit out of pakku, and making him work to kick her ass. like yeah she loses, but it’s a vicious fight, she manages to hold her own despite all the odds stacked against her, and it’s the first real display of intense combat waterbending in the show. and despite losing the fight, she still wins the overall argument, because she successfully gets through to pakku about the patriarchal system being damaging to everyone - up to and including him.
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