don't let's do that again @ripelypine - Tumblr Blog

You seem to have a pretty good grasp on Katara's characterization and wanted to know if you have any thoughts on why Katara cries in the Runaway? Specifically when Sokka confesses that he sort of relies on Katara's "maternal nature" to Toph, while Toph cosigns. I feel like the answer should be obvious but the previous episodes don't portray her as having some type of complex about it, which got me thinking about what the angle there was. Even with more contex given in the jail cell between her and Toph, without watching every episode before this one I imagine the average viewer would think she may have been bullied or ostracized because of her needing to mature faster and her personality being altered as a result? But she's quite evidently the oldest girl in the village and likely had no peers to push her into any designated outgroup so what gives?

Also it's a bit off topic but I'm a bit curious on your opinions on Zuko likening the disappearance of his mother to the explicit death of Katara's mother. I knkw you spoke on this a while ago while talking about TSR, pointing out how he does a lot of projecting in that episode, but I've always just chalked that up to him just generally being self centered when he's around women so it's really just a knee jerk reaction (I am being so serious I don't recall him ever making an effort in acknowledging the inner world of the girls he meets in the show at least in the way he eventually does for boys.) Please feel free to respond to this privately too if it's an ask you don't feel like replying to on your page :)

I’ll answer your ask in two parts, since each paragraph is distinct in character:

1. firstly, I think the assumptions you’re making as to the “obvious” reasons for katara’s weeping rely on premises that aren’t actually established in the text, while ignoring the more overt (sub)textual cues here. something really crucial I think most people dismiss when discussing katara’s characterization in “the runaway” is that the reason she disapproves of toph’s scams isn’t actually because she’s more mature and rational and level-headed than the rest of the group; it’s because toph excluded her, and aang and sokka let her. she masks her hurt with disapproval over their schemes because that’s a normal human instinct to feeling left out: “it’s fine that you didn’t invite me; I didn’t want to come anyway, and in fact, I’m actually better than you for staying home, even though you didn’t actually give me a choice in the matter.” katara is a fourteen year old girl and a well-written character. the episode never explicitly spells out that she’s mad at toph for this reason, but it shouldn’t have to.

we know from prior episodes that scamming jerks is the kind of thing katara would find righteous and thrilling (she and toph literally once drowned three girls in a river for mocking their makeup, lest we forget). she loves getting into all sorts of dangerous shenanigans! we know from later in the episode that her idea of making up with toph isn’t talking things out, but rather, trying to include herself in the fun. the thing is, while toph did knowingly exclude katara from their scams, i don’t think it was deliberate, at least not at first. she didn’t actually go into town with the plan to outcheat that street scammer; it just sort of happened. but when your only friends go out for groceries and come back bonded over a delightful experience you didn’t take part in, it’s instinctual to get defensive.

when katara feels hurt, her first instinct is to lash out, get hostile. she often gets angry and positions herself as morally superior, even when she’s not actually in the right. a lot of people who don’t understand katara don’t seem to understand that just because katara is frequently displaying righteous anger doesn’t mean she’s actually always right. unfortunately, a lot of people who don’t like katara do seem to understand this, but they draw conclusions regarding her flaws that I simply do not agree with (such as, that they make her unlikable, unsympathetic, or a bad character; when in fact, they make her more likable, more sympathetic, and the best character ever). in this instance, katara’s hurt over being excluded is completely understandable, and she is correct that their behavior is imprudent, but that’s not actually why she’s admonishing them, and if it was, she’d be a massive hypocrite, because as we’ve already established, that’s exactly the kind of rash behavior she is constantly initiating.

moreover, katara’s clash with toph in “the chase” is similarly not a matter of katara being mature and maternal while toph is an irresponsible slacker. katara may act morally outraged by toph’s behavior, and therefore in her mind she is justified to scream at her and mock her blindness and such, but really, katara is the one being unreasonable and petulant and failing to understand toph’s side of things. while toph was in the wrong in “the runaway” for excluding katara from her fun (but not for pulling those scams, she’s awesome for that), katara is in the wrong in “the chase,” which is even explicitly stated in the text when sokka (acting as audience surrogate) tells her that she was being a jerk. which she was! and generally speaking, katara is not more mature than toph. they both possess mature and immature qualities—and toph is mature, wise, emotionally sensitive, thoughtful, and nuanced in her worldview in ways katara, with her stringent black and white dogmatic thinking, often lacks.

when toph mocks katara for being motherly, it’s not because she thinks katara acts too adult for her age; it’s because she thinks katara is too prissy and feminine. toph wants to be “one of the boys,” and so she excludes katara from their initial excursion because she is deliberately aligning herself with sokka and aang—the lads, if you will— instead of madame fussybritches, who thinks toph needs to spend less time rolling around in the dirt and more time at the fancy lady day spa, just like her stupid mom. for the record, toph’s internalized misogyny is one of her immature qualities, but it also stems from a genuine fear of having the kind of restrictive femininity her mother performs imposed on her. she associates femininity with lack of freedom, autonomy, authenticity, and fun because the femininity imposed on her by patriarchy growing up was characterized in this way. she’s wrong to project that onto katara, who values freedom, autonomy, authenticity, and fun just as much if not more than she values her own femininity, but for a kid who was raised in the stifling, ableist conditions she was, I can’t help but sympathize with her reasoning, as misguided as it is in this instance.

when toph says that katara sees the real her and supports her unlike her parents, she’s thus acknowledging that aligning katara with her oppressive parents (and in particularly, her restrictive, hyper-feminine mother) is unfair to her. just because katara is feminine, does not mean that she adheres to the values of poppy beifong (she actually couldn’t be more different from poppy beifong in every single one of her values), and she’s acknowledging what sokka is telling her, that projecting her own baggage with her mother onto katara is especially hurtful because it’s insensitive towards katara’s baggage with her mother. toph doesn’t actually know that, though, which is why sokka tells her katara’s side of things. because he knows that once he does tell her, she’s the kind of person who is mature and thoughtful enough to understand the sentiment he is communicating, realize she’s gone too far in their pointless beef, and want to make amends.

and for the record, sokka isn’t saying he relies on katara’s maternal nature. it’s certainly an extrapolation one could make from his monologue, but it’s not actually what he says. he calls her a pain, says she’s been annoying him her whole life, she always needs to be right about everything, but also, he acknowledges that her constant presence throughout their lives is something he relies on, because she’s always been there. he says she took on so much responsibility and had so much strength after kya died. he says that he can no longer picture his mother’s face, and when he tries to, he sees katara’s instead. it’s easy to thus assume that sokka is explicitly saying that in his mind, katara has replaced his mother, that he sees her as his mom ever since their mother died. but he doesn’t. not really.

he’s communicating something rather dark and unsettling here, but it’s not that his younger sister has been made into his surrogate mother. if he felt that way, certainly there would be even a single scene in the show that demonstrates that sokka thinks of her as a maternal figure in any way. but he primarily treats her as a reckless, overbold, impulsive, naive child who refuses to listen to reason. considering he hero-worships his dad and implicitly agrees with everything his grandmother says, I doubt that’s how he treated his mother when she was alive! no, he’s not saying “katara is just like kya and we have some kind of twisted mother-son dynamic,” because they don’t, and she’s not! katara is a kid, and she acts like a kid, and sokka is more aware of this fact than anyone. he often wishes she’d “grow up,” which, at least in his estimation, means being less trusting towards con-artists preying on her open and trusting nature, and suchlike. he does rely on her, but it’s not so much that he needs or even wants her to take care of him the way kya did, but rather, that without her, he would have no reason to exist.

of course, this notion is really only true in sokka’s mind. katara sees sokka as a whole, individual person, as does everyone else who loves him. sokka, however, does not, cannot. sokka defines his existence in relation to [protecting and providing for] others, primarily katara. hakoda ordained as much before he left for war (however inadvertently). “the southern raiders” depicts sokka with his hair down more than any other episode in the show, and it’s also the only episode where kya’s face is depicted—the symbolic language being communicated feels pretty overt. for an acknowledged genius with a practically photographic memory, sokka not being able to remember his mother’s face is not an indicator of carelessness, lack of love or grief, or forgetfulness: it is a deliberate repression. kya’s face—his own face—has been erased from his mind, and katara replaces it.

when katara replaces gyatso in the vision wherein aang is confronting his grief, the implication there isn’t that she and gyatso have the same relationship with aang, but that his grief over the loved ones he’s lost can take the form of new love, and that new love renews his sense of purpose as a human being. when katara replaces kya’s face in sokka’s mind’s eye, it is his love for her instilling him with a sense of purpose after the crushing grief and depression he experienced upon kya’s death. but, of course, there is also the added symbolic layer that his own face (his selfhood) has been negated this process. sokka is, at the very least, passively suicidal. katara’s love for her family gave him a reason to keep living at the lowest point in his life. their mother, whose face he inherited, died to protect katara. katara is the person he loves the most. his purpose in life is to protect her. her continued existence gives him a reason to live. her continued existence is why he has vowed to die. for her.

so. well. personally, I think that’s much more compelling than mischaracterizing their entire dynamic for the sake of simplicity. it complicates their codependency in a way “katara is my mom maybe????” simply doesn’t. “is my sister my mom????” is trite, boring, played out, passé (I say this as someone who raised her brother. snooze!). “is my sister’s existence my primary raison d’être and my destiny is to die for her the way our mother did so my personhood must be erased in service of being her protector???” well. NOW we’re fucking talking, baby!!!

which is all to say, the reason katara cries upon hearing this conversation is actually very simple: this is the first time she’s ever heard sokka talk about any of this. this is the closest katara has ever gotten to hearing sokka express his feelings on their formative grief that defined their lives, and he’s not even saying it to her. he’s saying it to toph. he would die for her but he would also rather die than have an actual conversation with her.

katara is someone who cries easily: she cries when she’s frustrated, she cries when she’s angry, she cries when she’s happy, she cries when she’s relieved, and of course, she cries when she’s sad. so why wouldn’t she cry upon hearing her infuriatingly closed-off brother actually admit that their mother’s death devastated him, that it was the hardest time in his life, that katara’s inner strength and constant presence got him through that darkness, that he needs her and couldn’t live without her, that his grief over losing his mother was only manageable because her presence and their love for each other guided him through it and gave him a sense of purpose beyond his own suffering? why wouldn’t katara cry upon hearing her friend who excluded her from her fun admit that she was projecting and she actually feels incredibly grateful for katara’s friendship? why wouldn’t she cry knowing that sokka and toph are confiding in each other in a way they never would with her (toph literally threatens sokka never to tell katara any of what she said), and not only that, but talking about her so lovingly and kindly, in a way they rarely do to her face?? it’s a lot to take in. wouldn’t you be emotionally overwhelmed by such a revelation??

katara is a very emotionally honest and sensitive person, and her easily accessible depth of feeling frequently engenders her volatile passions, often leading to outbursts, tirades, impulsive choices. but here, she lacks an audience. she cannot reveal herself, even if her eavesdropping was merely accidental. her reaction can only be that of subdued tears.

2. as for zuko, I completely agree with your point that he never once considers the inner lives of women and girls, and I have enumerated in the past that he truly is an incorrigible misogynist. his disrespect for katara does, in part, stem from his disrespect towards all girls, and his refusal to actually entertain her point of view because of that. ironically, the traits which he finds offputting in her—her brashness, her impetuousness, her loud and unabashed anger—are traits which define him far more than her. but it’s fine when men are angry of course. zuko has valid reasons to angry, of course. never mind that he invaded her home, tracked her across the world, tied her to a tree and extorted her, shot fire at her countless times, captured her best friend and the last hope for humanity, and was directly responsible for his near-death (which would have been permanent had she not had the good fortune of saving her spirit water for a better cause out of sheer luck), and emotionally manipulated her (even if that wasn’t his intention) by relating to her over her mother’s death—that waterbender is just being a hysterical little girl.

so yes, he is behaving in a self-centered manner in “the southern raiders.” he isn’t sacrificing himself to aid her the way he does with sokka at the boiling rock, and he’s not even making himself materially useful to her the way her does as aang’s firebending instructor when they go to visit the sun warriors. his plan to earn back her trust stems from his misguided notion that the reason katara resents him is because she’s conflating her mother’s death with her anger towards him, as if he doesn’t have myriad crimes to atone for that he himself actually committed. yes, she does bring up her mother’s death as one of his sins, but it’s not because she thinks he personally killed kya, it’s because he identified that commonality between them and got her to sympathize with him, and now she’s not only furious at him but also at herself for falling for his display of vulnerability in a moment where trusting him cost her everything. moreover, he had previously taunted her with her mother’s necklace, which is an incredibly important heirloom to her. no, zuko did not directly murder kya, but he does have a track record of exploiting her grief over her death, and she is right to resent him for it.

anyway. zuko understands exactly none of this, because he is an obtuse, misogynistic, myopic teenage boy, and so his brilliant plan for winning back her trust is essentially the equivalent of when a cat brings dead vermin into your bed, except the vermin is intel regarding the whereabouts of her mother’s killer. fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on whom you’re asking), this plan actually does work out really well for him, because zuko’s (lack of) strategy of just doing for/to katara whatever he thinks is best succeeds due to the fact that zuko and katara are too similar for their own good, and so he actually provides her with the opportunity for the vengeance quest she’s clearly been itching to enact since childhood. by complete accident, zuko did actually happen to understand katara’s desires (unlike sokka and aang, who are just so rational and mellow, ugh! gross!! disgusting!!!!) but only because he desires the exact same thing.

so yes, he is projecting. like katara, his mother sacrificed herself to save him (and I will forever maintain that she died for real and the comics are utter bullshit . because otherwise what was the fucking point of that) and he feels this confluence of guilt and grief and rage over losing his favorite person in the world to a violent, egotistical man who only wanted power. he can actually empathize with katara over this tragedy, even if the motives and conditions behind them differed in various ways. and it’s that sincerity, that commonality, that emotional volatility and earnestness and depth of feeling, that shared catharsis, that bonds them. it doesn’t matter that zuko is wrong and that katara is right. in that moment when they confront yon rha, they understand each other perfectly. and it’s that instance of true empathy which lays the foundation for their genuinely caring and profound friendship going forward.

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