Listen, I've heard this all before. Both of these arguments are talking points I'm familiar with. The thing is, to me, they don't read as genuine analyses of the show under any kind of framework (feminist or otherwise) and more of a hastily cobbled defense for liking a ship. I'll start by saying that you do not have to have a moral justification for liking a ship. You can just like it because you find both characters attractive and say so.
The first point, regarding Aang being with Katara as somehow a manifestation of wish fulfillment on the part the creators, is more of a reach to me because it doesn't just rely on the assumption of hetero-patriarchy at play - it also relies on a personal assumption regarding the creators. It reads a lot more like a theory based on a likely assumption rather than the truth. There are theories based on truth, and there are theories based on other theories - the former is stronger than the latter.
Of course it's likely that Bryan and Mike self-inserted into Aang - as a writer, I'm pretty sure all characters have parts of their authors in them. However, I notice that Zutara shippers often talk about Bryan and Mike in relation to Aang as if the show they created was their power fantasy where Aang is their personal shoe-in for themselves in the story who gets the girl he wants. That's the way they prefer to see the creators, as opposed to seeing Bryan and Mike as two authors and artists who went to school for animation and storytelling and who chose to create a strong protagonist, and a strong female deuteragonist, then chose to have them end up together as the two most fleshed-out characters in the show.
The protagonist ending up with the deuteragonist is not an inherently hetero-patriarchal trope - that's just how storytelling works out sometimes, because the protagonist and the deuteragonist are the two most important characters in the show. Even reading some of the behind-the-scenes content, like in the book Avatar - The Last Airbender - The Art of the Animated Series (where I took the excerpt on katara above; the book is on the internet archive for your independent judgement and perusal) Aang doesn't read like a self-insert. He reads like an idea that an inspired author came up with and fleshed out, just like the rest of the show.
A common argument Zutara shippers make for the theory that Aang is the authors' self-insert is because he's bald like Mike, so Aang is based on him, or something? That one is just funny because it was actually Bryan Konietzko who came up with Aang's sketches, not Mike. Bryan's first sketches for Aang and Appa were the very first ever content made for the lore of the show, and Bryan himself states that Aang's sketch was based on a balding, middle-aged man that he reimagined as a child. I do highly recommend reading the book, because it details how they fleshed out the different parts of the characters and gives in-depth insight into how to tell a story, beyond imagining Aang as the authors' self-insert. A lot of the discourse surrounding the "Aang is a self-insert" talking point is based on likely but unverifiable half-truths and some amount of misinformation.
On the second point, where Katara's agency is diminished in favor of making her a prize for the hero of the story - the first part about Katara's agency is simply false, and I'm confused about the argument being made regarding her agency, because she's a fictional character created by the authors and not a real person. When Zutara shippers say "they diminished her agency" what does that mean? Does it mean you think that she, a fictional character, secretly wanted to end up with Zuko but she was "forced" by the creators to end up with Aang? Surely that's not the argument you're making?
Throughout the show, we see time and again that she deeply cares for Aang and shows signs of interest towards him leading up to their kiss by the end of the series. None of the scenes show Katara's agency being compromised at all when she ends up choosing to kiss Aang by the end. Even when Aang kisses her in the Ember Island Play episode, she regains full agency by pulling away, and Aang doesn't stop her. Prior to all that, there were scenes where Katara blushes over Aang, kisses him on the cheek, and she is immensely protective of him over the course of the show. Nobody in the story diminished her agency to be with Aang - it was abundantly clear that it was on her mind prior to her fully reciprocating his feelings.
Let's deconstruct the other part of the statement - Katara as being a "prize" for Aang. Let's get a couple things clear - the hero gets the girl trope is criticized in media for being misogynistic because the narrative collapses the complexity, character arc, and agency of a female character (that or she was a 1-dimensional cardboard cutout in the first place) to make her a reward for the story's male protagonist. The hero gets the girl trope is misogynistic not because the hero gets the girl - it's because they reduce the girl into simple arm candy for the man, because it's less about her as a person, and more about how good she looks hanging off his arm.
Does the show, Avatar: The Last Airbender, treat Katara this way?
Everyone who watched it probably knows the answer, even if there are people who want to lie to themselves. Katara throughout the show is a strong female lead by all measures. She is not written to hold back with her emotions. She is a powerful bender in her own right. She has her own flaws, makes her own mistakes, has her own character arcs and growth. None of these are compromised or erased when she has romantic moments with Aang, and in fact, Aang is pivotal to many of her most important character moments.
The hero becoming romantically involved with the main female lead in the series is not inherently misogynistic. It's misogynistic when it undermines the character of the girl. Katara is not treated by the story as a prize for Aang in any capacity - she is treated as his equal and a hero in her own right.
On a more personal and aggressive note, the fact that Zutara shippers can even manage to see Katara as a "prize" in any way only further solidifies my opinion that many of them do not confront their subconscious misogynistic biases and don't want to think too hard about this argument when they repeat it ad nauseam. The show itself doesn't treat Katara as a prize for Aang but they still manage to see it that way because they themselves treat Katara like she's a prize for Zuko redeeming himself.
Both these arguments aren't analysis of Kataang under a hetero-patriarchy-critical lens. They just seem like intentional misinterpretations of the show and the creators for the sake of a counter-reaction against people who don't like Zutara.
andulkaphoto
prguitarman
titsay
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