An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
I wrote a tennis!azutara fic on AO3 and look at the sick art @depresed-duck made!!! wtf!!! if you're curious about what any of this means and have time to read a 80k unfinished fic about tennis, check it out!!!
The horse is dead and decayed at this point, but I see it rather topical, so going to throw some of my rings in.
The Southern Raiders, first and foremost, is about Katara's grief. It's one of the few episodes focusing on her as a character and her emotional journey. It is the emotional climax of her entire backstory and trauma throughout the series.
From the narrative, we see a subtle framing even to recenter male perspectives in a way that is extremely annoying to me, as a feminist. Yes, of course, Katara's relationships with the male characters: Sokka, Zuko, and Aang are all important, but their opinions should be irrelevant in this episode.
This isn't about Zuko's trauma, Aang's trauma, or even Sokka's trauma. This is very specifically about Katara's, even if Sokka suffered through the same tragedy. She was harsh, but not incorrect when she said it was different for her. That's why she has an episode grappling with her mother's death and Sokka does not. She was forced to fill her mother's role for Sokka, which added a layer of grief for her that Sokka did not have.
It's strange seeing some say that Katara took on a motherly role out of strictly love and community minded beliefs. It's true, Katara was motivated by love and she is very focused on her community. But she is a child in this series. She is the age of an American high school freshman. She's fourteen and turns fifteen, and she has been parentified long before this too. Her father is gone and her mother is dead and she is pushed into this position because of these circumstances and being an eldest daughter.
She also has a unique trauma because she was the one her mother died for. Kya did not sacrifice herself for Sokka, she died for Katara. Katara is very aware of this. She also likely saw her mother's charred remains as she went to get her father, and he ran back to his wife, and almost certainly Katara followed. In the flashback, Sokka is nowhere to be found.
This creates a unique trauma for Katara that is not worse, but very different than Sokka's trauma. It has many layers.
Katara's character also has many layers (cue Shrek onion joke). It's bizarre to say she's out of character or not being her true self in this episode. It's her rawest rage, anger, and fury. That's a part of her. She is usually angry, but not vengeful and enraged, but that is a part of her. This tragedy and great offense against her has brought out the deepest and most raw feelings of rage, vindictiveness, pain, and wrath. Those are all fully Katara, just as her sweetness is, too.
People are multifaceted, even the best of us, and there are "ugly" sides even to the most loving people. For all the deep, evil imperialist harm done against Katara, I believe her wrath is entirely valid and understandable. I think that her desire for revenge, even, is understandable. I think if she wanted to enact revenge, she'd be morally justified.
To me, whatever she chose to do would be her choice in the end and would be valid. She suffered immensely at this man's hand, as did her entire family. He ruined her and her family's lives. If she wanted to beat the loving shit out of him, or end his life even, I don't think in this universe, she'd be wrong to do so.
The question is, would it haunt her? I think bloodbending him and beating the shit out of him? No. Killing him? Probably. But that would be her choice and burden to carry. She's likely thought about facing this man for years. Anger makes you rash, yes, but she wasn't out on some whim here either.
Aang or Zuko aren't "right" or "wrong". The point is their opinions are irrelevant. That's why I think this whole discussion is infuriating. Who cares what either of them think. The narrative even posing this question and framing it this way is so unbearably male centered and irritating.
The episode was written by Elizabeth Welch, but I have no doubt the male creators had their say in adding in the moral judgments over Katara's shoulders by the male main character.
It has no place in the story. It does not matter what Aang thinks about revenge! We, the audience, should not have to care! This is about Katara! Her trauma! Her grief! I don't care what Aang's culture teaches him, this isn't his choice or his grief or his trauma. When he has to grapple with taking Ozai's life, that's at least his destiny, his life, his mission, so it's his place to put his culture and values on that.
This isn't, and shoving it over to loom on the whole episode was a very annoying writing decision.
Even at the end, Zuko is infuriating by validating this by saying "You were right about what Katara needed, violence wasn't the answer," to Aang.
Like boy, if you don't SHUT the fuck up…
No, Aang was not "right" about what Katara needed. Katara just beat the bloody shit out of the man she thought killed her mom at first. She was caught of guard by how pathetic he was later, but people tend to forget, she had a grand old time bloodbending the guy she thought killed her mom and scaring the shit out of him! Remorselessly, I might add! So, not even accurate, Zuko! Not "right about what Katara needed", Aang!
The line feels so incredibly forced after the episode too, like a way to sort of downplay the ZK aspects of the episode. It feels ooc and bizarre after everything, but they did have Zuko say it, so to that I say, annoying Zuko!!! Not your place!! Shut up!
Aang is not a moral beacon of light for Katara. No one should be. The writers choosing to have this is so male centered and demeaning to Katara's character. In different cultures in real life, getting honorable vengeance is an important thing. Some cultures differ in their presentations, and not everyone values pacifism. I have even seen discussion by some Buddhists saying that the faith is misrepresented here. It's a very Christian notion of "turning the other cheek". Not to say the religions can't or don't have crossovers.
But many cultures across the world had a moral code and legal system where an unjust killing was met with a moral duty and obligation by the wronged's family to avenge them. Completely denouncing this perspective and demonizing it as barbarically unthinkable or entirely awful seems very modern U.S. centric and discounts years of ancient customs based on honor and family loyalty.
I think this is a reminder that the show was written primarily by white Americans, who were inspired by Asian cultures and religions, but ultimately have their perspectives shaped by Christian culture.
The episode should not be about Zuko, Sokka, or Aang, however, I think it is a disservice to Zuko's character the way he is often framed on behalf of ship wars. Which, is often claimed in reverse as well, but K/A is the endgame pairing. This episode is the main one in which Katara and Zuko do interact. I think that this episode is first and foremost about Katara and her trauma. However, the B plot is Katara forgiving Zuko and becoming his friend.
Many try to say that he was only doing this out of selfishness, but that completely would negate the point of Zuko's entire arc with the gaang, including Katara. He needs to earn all of their genuine forgiveness out of a sincere change of heart and selfless desire to do what's right. If he's doing this for selfish motivations, his arc no longer makes sense. I think a lot of framework around arguments for this series fail to recognize that these characters are not real. They are written with intentional storylines by different people, and a team of writers, with rumored different motivations themselves.
Additionally, Zuko does not push Katara to do anything in this episode. He gives her information and follows her around as her yes-man and backup defense. Even when Aang is insisting Katara not choose violence, Zuko is backing up Katara, one because he knows exactly how she feels (his mother also died for him, as far as he knows at this point and as far as the writers decided at that point), and two because he's on backup mode for her. Katara wants to do this and is put immediately into defense mode by both Aang and Sokka and being made out to be a monster by them, ie: "you sound like Jet." (Who's a monster in the narrative… another conversation for another time).
Framing Zuko as egging Katara on or being "bloodthirsty" is a bizarre misreading of what's going on in this episode to the point of me thinking it has to be intentional.
As far as Sokka goes, I think he falls into the same boat as Aang. I think Sokka, in character, would want revenge at least as much as Katara. Sokka almost beat Aang to a pulp for accidentally burning Katara. The man who MURDERED his mother? I can't see Sokka not wanting to at least confront this man and dole out violence against him. Sokka has never once been against violence towards bad people. Even a few episodes later, he wants to kill the fire lord. As far as Sokka knows this far in, Yon Rha is still out terrorizing people and enacting violence. It makes absolutely no sense for Sokka to not want revenge on this man, even if he doesn't want to kill him.
Which, for the record, Katara never implied that was what she wanted either. Perhaps what she wanted was to bloodbend him until he begged for mercy? As such, I think, would be her right! And Sokka's to cheer her on, too!
But, the explanation for Sokka's strange behavior, I think, is Doylist. This episode's whole culmination of a B plot is Katara forgives Zuko. So, Sokka can't come. Also, for the A plot, this is Katara's trauma in this episdoe. We cannot be side tracked with Sokka's trauma horning in. So, they wrote him acting, in my view, entirely out of character because he couldn't just NOT be involved.
Unlike… Toph and Suki. They also are missing from the conversation for Doylist reasons, in my opinion, but it makes sense they can be gone. Sokka can't. It's his sister and his mother too. So he's just OOC. But Suki and Toph? Toph not advocating for at minimum beating this man to a pulp would just be so vastly unbelievable she could not be around to contribute to the conversation. And Suki? She's a KYOSHI Warrior. She'd definitely be all in favor for avenging a murdered loved one. So, no Suki either for doylist reasons.
But at the end of the day, demonizing Katara's desire for revenge or even if she enacted it, I find reductive. Even more reductive is trying to argue about if a male perspective was "right" for Katara.
I don't care what men think about women's trauma!! Even fictional ones! It's an annoying thing to see a male character presiding over the female one as a voice of reason in any capacity by the narrative. It's not so much Aang acting this way that bothers me, so much as the narrative framing it as the. morally sound, correct conclusion to draw, and that his character knew "best" for her all along.
It's so patronizing to Katara's character and feels so antifeminist. The episode is fantastic, and one of my favorites for biased reasons, but also because I love Katara (which, also biased lol). But I think it really does a good job at depicting long term grief and trauma. And, I love how at the end of the story, Katara is NOT made to forgive. She is allowed to hate. She can hold onto her anger. She is not made to let go. I just strongly dislike this male centered framing that looms over the moral of the episode's story.
