What are some reasons as to why you'd think Zuko and Mai would break up or Katara and Aang would break up? Love to hear your opinions :)
ooh boy prepare for some S A L T against both Mai and Aang. Don’t get it twisted, I love them objectively as characters but NOT with their canon partners, who I believe only bring out the worst in each other
salt and thoughts under the cut:
The logic of a relationship like maiko being cute because they share things they hate over things that make them happy does not resemble our earth logic. You know what happened to me when I had a friendship where we bonded over everything we hate and very little over things we loved? She dumped me out of nowhere because she’d been hoarding/repressing everything I did that made her angry and refused to talk to me about it over a course of LITERAL YEARS until she decided to just randomly dump all the tiny microagressions/misunderstadings on me out of the blue one day and gave me NO option of talking things out with her. Sorry, but that toxic relationship I had rings way too similar re: maiko for me to dig into rn
so like my very basis on hating maiko is they ???? NEVER??? TALK????? They communicate by SCREAMING at each other, and never once do we actually see them talk about their own feelings, EVEN WHEN they’re reunited. Literally the first scene we discover they’re together is when Zuko is rightfully having serious emotional conflict over coming back to the fire nation and she says, in a nutshell “stop whining and kiss me instead” which, yanno, call me a nutcase, is NOT how real problems in a real relationship get solved.
I can understand why they were cranky with each other (he WAS being a little bitch during the first part of s3 and she was refusing to share her feelings). While I find it sweet that she sacrificed her friendship with Azula for Zuko, that very easily could have just been a nice wrap-up on their breakup: she still loves both of them, but she realized in her gut zuko is doing the right thing. Even then, she doesn’t really come around to help him because he’s on the good side, just because she likes him. And then towards the end we see NONE of her conflict over realizing zuko was right about what he sacrificed in their relationship in order to save the world.
Also, the fact they literally had to be /forced to express their problems honestly in a semi-public fight in front of all their friends? Yeah that’s totally what I do all the time in my fiancee and I’s healthy and loving relationship: have screaming matches in front of our friends when we have issues. *eyeroll*
Plus the way mai talks to him even after their reunion (“don’t EVER break up with me again”) borders in super gray/unhealthy territory. Mai has proven she is not able to be emotionally open frequently enough with Zuko (which is NOT ideal if one or both members of the couple are living with trauma), and Zuko needs someone who asks questions. Someone who sees him when he hurts and reaches out to share their feelings with him.
That’s why literally every zutara scene has more actual chemistry and intrigue than ANY MAIKO scene we see on-screen. Mai doesn’t ask how Zuko’s feeling: she just complains about stuff and redirects him when he tries to open up to her. She represses all her anger until letting it loose on the rare occasion she decides to and she expresses it in an EXTREMELY unhealthy way (see: the beach. what does “leave me alone” have to do with their problems? how did they get from “get away from me” to “aw I hate everyone but you’re cool” in the beach, even? Did Mai just happen to relate to the concept of hating oneself so badly that she figured she’d get back together with her bf over it?) And what even was that horribly written and patched-up fight? Watch it and see if you’ve ever seen a healthy couple interact the way they do, I’ll give $5 to someone who can show me canon proof of one (1) time Mai cared about Zuko’s feelings when they weren’t inconveniencing her. Oh right you can’t! Even when he’s openly worrying about the war meeting he got to attend with his father she was like “shut up and order fruit tarts with me”???????? If a partner of mine did that to me I’d straight up walk out on their ass, probably in that very moment. Loving someone includes caring about their feelings, children.
Katara, meanwhile, comfortably opens up to Zuko often in canon, whether she’s pissed off or not, and zuko has ALWAYS been able to speak frankly with Katara. Katara yelled at zuko too, but she did it in a way that, once zuko put the pieces together through sokka, at least made sense towards the end. She yelled in a way that effectively led to their relationship improving because Zuko CARED enough to try and figure out what was going on with her. Zutara’s communication, even when he tied her to that damn tree in s1, was still better than maiko’s. God love them, but those dipshits CANNOT talk to each other and since I see Mai as a prideful type I doubt they’d even try couple’s therapy to work out their issues. A life with Mai for Zuko would be a life never sharing his feelings except when his wife deigns to be in the mood to listen, all the while never knowing if she’s secretly bottling up things that piss her off about him in her head to save for later.
With zutara I can imagine a little fighting between them, but it would always get resolved because katara can’t keep her fucking mouth shut about her feelings (and, make no mistake, I adore her for it). Zuko can never shut up about his feelings either. They’d be the type of couple that’d tell each other their deepest, darkest secrets and relate to each other in almost anything because of all the similar trauma they have. They’d be that couple that has long evening talks about what’s going on with them and how they’re feeling and being honest in the process
and then kataang is just sexist, tropey garbage that was slapped together by a team that was far too divided to please everybody until someone had to come in and suggest the BRILLIANT idea of yet another action/adventure tv show/movie ending with the hero “getting the girl.”
Again, 5$ goes to the first person that can show me undoubtable proof that katara came around to have feelings for aang at any point. No, her blushing after cave of two lovers or their other kisses does NOT count, because it’s a pretty natural response to being kissed (cough*without consent *cough).
I don’t blame aang for springing several kisses on katara out of the blue when she clearly wasn’t into it. He was a 13 yr old kid who had never gotten the consent talk and it’s very clear katara wasn’t left traumatized by the experiences or anything. but does that make it okay? No. The fact it happens SEVERAL times in the show WITHOUT katara showing any desire to kiss him is bad enough. The fact this had to end in a canon relationship? deserves an “ew” at best.
It perpetuates the idea that if you’re “persistent enough” with women you can get any woman to fall in love with you. Katara also shows no signs of loving aang romantically until the very last scene of the show, when they actually kiss. Don’t get me started on that vague shot of her in the crowd when Aang came out. She could have been feeling relief, pride, the urge to poop, happy to see her friends coming together to usher in peace, literally ANYTHING. You cannot prove in a viable, believable context that that one shot, in which katara voiced NO romantic leanings towards aang, “proves” any sort of “feelings” katara has for him. We could have seen her whispering to toph or sokka or someone and smiling before she approached aang at the very very end, to show she was shy/excited to express her feelings for Aang. but instead she just...walks out there with, little emotion. You’d think if you’re about to spill your feelings for the guy you end up marrying, you’d tell a friend, share a smile, or at least look relatively excited when approaching the person. Instead she just walks over to him and kisses him like she’s in a stupid trance of character assassination.
don’t get me started on how unhealthy their relationship/family seemed to be in LOK and how fucking sexist the writing was in LOK for katara. it’s half my reasoning for hating the kataang endgame (which completely betrays katara’s character). The conclusion to how aang acted in a family setting in LOK only makes sense if you realize how much selfishness drove his character in the show, and how he often has a “my way or the highway” attitude.
I’m gonna end here bc i’m getting mad so!! enjoy my salt!
