Katara and the “Mom Friend” Trope
Both in-universe and among fans, Katara has always been identified as the “mom friend.” While often used as a joke, the trope does reveal a deeper and more tragic aspect of Katara’s character: the way the war has forced her to grow up quickly and take on a parental role at a young age.
This is a frequently misunderstood part of Katara’s character, despite it being central to her arc. Since the show first aired, Katara has been the butt of many jokes and has always been one of the most hated characters by fans. From tasteless jokes about how she talks about the loss of her mother too much to accusations of being too emotional and bossy, Katara’s character has always been under attack by fans.
In past years, and still in certain parts of the internet, this behavior was blatant, but lately I’ve noticed a more subtle spin on this. As it becomes slightly less socially acceptable to say blatantly misogynistic things about female characters—particularly here on tumblr—I’ve noticed fans express the same negative sentiments about Katara, but dressed up to appear more progressive. The most common way I see this sentiment expressed is fans downplaying Katara’s role as “team mom” and trying to make it seem as if Katara is less mature and responsible than she really is.
Of course, these individuals would have you believe that their reasoning for these opinions is that they really care so much about Katara and want to “let her be a kid.” But in reality, when you ignore the way that Katara is forced into a parental role in canon, you also ignore and disregard the context for many of her character traits, leading into the accusations of her being bossy and overly emotional that I mentioned earlier. It erases, and therefore minimizes, a huge source of stress and trauma that weighs on Katara throughout the series.
The idea that Katara fans created the concept of her being a “mom friend” is ridiculous. This is mentioned so much in canon that it’s practically a running joke. Toph accuses Katara of acting like everyone’s mom in The Chase. A similar conflict arises again in The Runaway, when Sokka even admits that he thinks of Katara as a mother figure, despite him being her older brother.
Katara seems pretty hurt by this too, and it’s still never properly addressed again.
In The Headband, Katara actually pretends to be Aang’s mother.
And looking at everything we know about Katara, it’s very clear how she assumed this role. Think about what she says in the exposition of the entire show:
Katara: Ever since mom died, I've been doing all the work around camp while you've been off playing soldier! I even wash all the clothes! Have you ever smelled your dirty socks?
The moment Katara is introduced, the audience is given a critical piece of information about Katara—that she’s lost her mother and essentially assumed her role. While Sokka is more or less playing and occasionally hunting (we hardly ever see him do this in canon by the way), Katara is doing the overlooked, underappreciated labor that keeps everything moving. There is a great post here by @theotterpenguin that details this and the inherent misogyny in devaluing the kind of work Katara does, and how many fans tend to do this.
This trend continues throughout the course of the show. Katara is always the voice of reason who keeps things moving. She reigns in Sokka and Aang, who are constantly getting themselves into trouble.
There are countless examples, but to name a few:
As early as The Warriors of Kyoshi, she’s trying to get Aang to behave and not endanger himself to look cool. And having him mouth off when she gently suggests that he help with a minor chore.
In The Storm, Katara warns Sokka not to take a risky job, which he ignores and nearly gets himself killed.
In The Blue Spirit, Katara is trying the whole time to do something productive via Momo, remaining vigilant despite the sickness wearing her down.
In The Chase, being the one to politely ask Toph to help out, and honestly doing a pretty good job of keeping her cool as long as she did.
The entirety of The Desert episode. While everyone else was drugged up, hopeless, and even outright hostile, Katara kept everything moving and saved everyone’s lives.
Whenever Aang goes into the Avatar State, it’s always Katara tasked with calming him down, despite how dangerous and volatile the Avatar State is when not properly controlled.
Additionally, there are so many small details that add to this picture. Katara is always the one we see getting food, preparing food, doing chores, everything of that nature. Everyone else would be completely lost without her.
And sadly, this is something never properly addressed by the narrative nor acknowledged by fans. There is a great post here by @ecoterrorist-katara explaining the tragedy in this. Katara is constantly burdened with the responsibility of keeping everything moving and doing the invisible labor that is never appreciated but keeps everyone moving, which is the reason why she’s viewed as being in a maternal role. Because that’s what she very clearly is to her friends.
This really wasn’t meant to be a ship related post, but it is kind of the elephant in the room here. I know a lot of the motivation in downplaying Katara’s “mom friend” role stems from shipping discourse, in particular, the hatred of the idea of Katara and Zuko acting as team parents. Some people associate Momtara as a Zutara trope and as a result, relentlessly bash it as they do anything even tangentially related to Zutara. But did you ever consider why it’s a Zutara trope? Because a lot of fans recognize everything I mentioned previously, and enjoy the idea of someone helping to share that responsibility. Sokka, Aang, and Toph clearly didn’t, so that leaves…guess who.
Zuko: You should get some rest. We'll be there in a few hours. You'll need all your strength.
It’s tiring seeing this trend from people who clearly don’t care about Katara or her character. Sure, you might try to act like you’re downplaying Katara’s maternal role and how a huge part of her canon character was the war forcing her to assume that role out of “wanting her to be a kid” but you really aren’t that different from more blatantly misogynistic fans who call her immature and annoying. You don’t recognize or respect the work she’s constantly putting in to protect those around her, and then you have the audacity to get mad at fans of Katara who actually like the idea of someone taking some of that burden off of her shoulders?
Same Katara hate, different font. She is forced into this material role, and refusing to acknowledge this is disrespectful not just to Katara’s character, but all the real life women and girls forced into similar roles who see themselves in Katara.
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