Pedestaling of Aang
was watching this tiktok earlier today about why the op felt katara and aang were incompatible (here) and it remind me of something.
in the tiktok, op points out that katara suppresses her negative emotions because she has a subconscious desire to emotionally shield aang. she references the waterbending scroll where katara tells aang to shut his air hole and how his reaction (wide eyed and tearful) makes katara immediately remorseful about her words. after that point, she pretty much never gets angry at aang, even in moments where it would be reasonable to do so (i.e. in the desert episode where she is yelled at).
it made me think of the episode where aang "learns" to firebend from jeong jeong, and accidentally burns katara. canonically, katara is decentered from that experience almost immediately, when she has to reassure aang that she's okay. additionally, she doesn't have any residual thoughts about it at any point in the series after that episode. we are meant to empathize with aang in this scene - how apologetic he is and how sad it is that he is being thrown to the ground by sokka. it becomes this penance that aang fans praise him for, and even find it romantic that he refuses to firebend again -- despite the fact that katara doesn't agree.
over the years, i've seen disturbing comments from people including blaming katara for "not getting out of the way" or "using waterbending to block." arguments like this (as well as overemphasis of the context/how aang feels after) always come from a compulsatory need to protect aang from criticism. which is why i find it ironic that aang/ka fans cannot fathom the idea of katara pedestaling aang when they do it in fandom constantly. Compared to when zuko accidentally burns toph, the emphasis was on toph's feelings (the impact) and not the intentions. Aang asks her directly how she feels about zuko joining the gaang, and toph says it'll give her time to get back at him for burning her feet (lol).
i also agree with a point in the tiktok where she describes that it is not nearly emphasized enough that katara is the last SWT waterbender and she did not get to grow up with masters surrounding her in the way that aang did for 12 years. within canon and even within the fandom, aang's experience as the last airbender is meant to be heavily centered to wash away any critiques. If not, you're being insensitive and (for some reason) antis start to conflate irl and assume that you can't possibly be pro-Palestine.
when katara tells aang, he doesn't understand how she feels in TSR, people have continued to hate on her for that comment FOR YEARS. when aang says the same thing in the new aang movie, "it's valid." the imbalance in the way some kas handle katara and aang's trauma often seems to favor pedestaling aang despite the fact that their trauma is often referenced as something that ka can bond about.
