azula’s character is just so fascinating to me— her and katara are essentially two sides of the same coin. both of them are the younger prodigy sister, with two brothers that are considerably less prodigious. they have elements that directly oppose each other, especially since they both learned a dangerous subset of bending from a manipulative authority/familial figure in their life who wanted to benefit from it.
the differences between their characters (other than the obvious) are their upbringings and their personalities that were shaped from them. azula had a very very abusive and dangerous childhood, meaning mainly emotional and mental manipulation (and depending on how u view it, physical too).
she grew up being “perfect”, to the point where she would have rather stabbed someone than be seen as weak to her father. this, and how other people reacted to this (her father encouraged it and her mother was scared of it) shaped her character into the blade it was in the show. her father encouraging her cruelty, the one type of kindness she recieved was definitely not helped when her mother called her a “monster” and chose zuko over her everytime. (seriously, while i understand that she saw ozai in her, she really didn’t have to make it that obvious that she was scared/hated her. it’s not her fault that azula didn’t wake up in the night and thought that her mother only visited zuko before leaving though, that’s just the miscommunication trope) we see her have a mental breakdown, seeing her mother in the mirror when there was no one, sending away loyal staff after being so paranoid it hurt her. ultimately, this leads to her downfall, where she meets her counterpart and her brother.
on the other hand, katara was raised as an equal to sokka, knowing that she was special but never better she didn’t suppress her powers or boast about them, but just saw them as a part of herself and not a weapon. her waterbending at the very start was introduced by sokka saying “weird water stuff” or something similar, and her arguing that it was “waterbending”, something that she was proud of as a part of her culture.
her tribe appreciates her, she’s needed a lot in ways that azula wasn’t. she acts as a mother to a lot of people, and is essentially the “last hope” for the water tribe where azula is the “new hope” for the fire nation’s expansionist beliefs. they both represented completely different things to their people, and this is especially evident in their parents
ozai and ursa either praise or scorn azula for being cruel, liking either her or zuko more, which made azula choose a side early on, whereas hakoda and kya seemed to have loved both sokka and katara equally.
katara grows at such a rate that she rivals the avatar—she beats a master with barely any training, she manages to win against soldiers with far more experience on their belt. this level of growth isn’t just because she was gifted or had a motivation to learn, it was also because she was pushed to be aang’s waterbending master. (pirate scroll episode especially showed her desperation to be better than aang, to not be outstripped by her own student)
even though she was talented and very motivated to win against the fire nation, she shouldn’t have won against a girl who was trained from birth to be the best of the best, a ruthless weapon who took down a city by herself. so basically, the question of the day is why did katara win?
one, her friends. this isn’t to say some friendship is magic bs, because she had friends who taught her. she had an open mind and learned from different cultures, she wasn’t rigid and didn’t stick to just one nation’s discipline. without any formal training other than those weeks with pakku, she had to adapt and make her own style, which allowed for more fast thinking and adaptability.
two, she had a reason to win. while you can certainly argue that azula had a reason to win too, meaning becoming fire lord, azula also thought that her father would definitely win, meaning that it wouldn’t have technically been the end of the world for her to fight against two people that she thought she could win against. (this is kinda handwavey, since azula wasn’t really in her right mind to think that up but humor me) either way, katara had a LOT on her plate that day. her job was to get azula to give zuko the throne, or else the invasion would fail. and when zuko went down? well, any illusion that azula didn’t want to kill her own brother went up in a poof. she basically thought: hmm, well, zuko’s my friend, and azula just nearly killed him. so no holding back or honor agni kai things THAT I SAID NO TO IN THE FIRST PLACE, i need to get back and heal him, so i need to get azula down fast. and she did, whereas azula didn’t have as much of the drive that katara had that day.
three, katara had a stable emotional base. her friends didn’t abandon her or anything, she had a loving family (albeit with an absent dad and dead mom) and while she was under constant stress from the war, she still had friends and people she could talk to. her qi wasn’t as unstable as azula’s, who was basically having a qi deviation (probably didn’t help that ty lee blocked them too) her clear mind helped her think of a way to subdue her, but azula didn’t really think at all. i think honestly azula’s schizophrenia was either realllyyy prominent in the last agni kai, or she had a deviation in her energy (if those exist in the show).
basically, katara is a nicer azula who didn’t grow up traumatised asf and that’s very interesting to me :)