A blog dedicated to years of bitterness about a ship from a children's cartoon that ended in 2008. ~ THE MASTERPOST ~ But seriously, to this day, Kataang happening the way it did is still one of the only times in a show where I was upset, not because I simply didn't ship it, but because a choice had been made that just seemed blatantly incorrect. Hearing little bits and pieces of what allegedly went on behind the scenes of Avatar to get us here over the years helped me make sense of it. And so here I've tried to gather everything I could in one place -- the rumours, the metas, the arguments, some fanart, and some pettiness (see 'kataang/bryke salt') for good measure. I also made the 'masterpost' linked above -- "Zutara Probably Would Have Been Canon in Season 4" -- that goes through the full story of the rumours surrounding Avatar's potential 4th season and the one-time potential for a Zutara ending.
what’s so crazy abt natla is that the cast is so phenomenal. the show itself absolutely butchers the story in all aspects other than appearance. the heart of the entire show and the entire emotional arc of avatar, the family that the gaang becomes, is no where to be seen within the actual text of the show yet every interaction between the actors behind the scenes and on social media has that heart. it’s so sad to see actors that look exactly like their characters and who understand and care for their characters so deeply be given material that feels hollow and void of all of this. natla has an insane level of untapped potential buried beneath netflix’s terrible handling of the story and that’s what i find the most frustrating and upsetting.
I just realized something, you see, I love the fact that Zuko jumped in front of lightning for Katara cause it shows how Zuko is as a person, not because of the implication of Zutara or whatever. Yes, it’s a beautiful scene, and it shows how strong their friendship has grown. It shows Zuko’s selflessness. But let’s say it wasn’t Katara, like maybe it was Toph or Sokka or even Suki, will Zuko do the same? A 100% yes. He’d do it without thinking, because that’s just how Zuko is.
You know what’s the best part about the Agni Kai that screams ZUTARA? It’s these; Zuko reaching out for Katara even with all the pain he’s in and Katara reaching for him in desperation even with Azula on the offensive.
From a storytelling/storyboarding perspective, these frames show that they were each other’s priorities even in the midst of the chaos.
I don’t know about you all but the Ehasz couple should write a Book 4 and even if it never gets published and stays as fanfiction I would hold on to that just as dearly as I do A:TLA because the Ehasz couple makes pure gold and I would want their work over LoK and the comics.
Me too, fuck the terribly established story in LOK and the comics. I’m so angry that we didn’t get a book 4 because of that atrocity of a movie and because. let’s face it, Bryke are good animators that came up with a great concept- but they’re not writers. Grrrr. I don’t care how many years down the line it has to be, but I hope the Ehasz’s version of Book 4 comes out.
I still don't understand why Avatar is still hailed as a masterpiece of good writing when the main storyline was solved when the protagonist was litteraly HANDED a solution to his problems as a prize for arguing for 10 minutes with his friends about an issue that they made up in the last 5 episodes.
I still don’t understand why Avatar is still hailed as a masterpiece of good writing when the main storyline was solved in such a way that made the protagonist’s accomplishment of one of the most MAIN goals of the entire rest of the show – “learning the elements” – completely pointless.
Hi! I admire your meta! I remembered reading something where someone had heard that br/ke told Elizabeth Ehasz to make TSR darker and less Shippy? Do you remember that? It’s driving me crazy where I heard it from and now I feel crazy lol 😂 I figured if anyone would know, you would! Idk if it was a confirmed thing or a rumor 🤔
The claim comes from the now-defunct blog zephyrita, who according to her tumblr bio worked as an animation color stylist, and whose post can be found here:
A good example is when Elizabeth Welch Ehasz wrote her first script for The Southern Raiders and Bryke thought it had too much “chemistry” between Zuko and Katara so they re-wrote it to emphasize how Zuko was a toxic influence on her (albeit, unknowingly) and Aang was better for preaching forgiveness etc. They told the director, Joaquim about it (also a Kataang shipper) and you can hear their commentary in the DVD about why ~Aang is the best for Katara~ blah blah blah.
I talked to a Korean animator who told me Bryke cut out a scene where Katara is holding onto Zuko because they didn’t like the pairing and I remember laughing with him on the phone about it because it was so typical of them hahaaa.
A lot of her posts are still visible on the Internet Archive here.
the antepenultimate episode of Book 3 Avatar the Last Airbender had such wonderful Zuko and Katara progression and moments where they care and support each other…. and you wonder why we’re still not over Zutara even tho it’s been 12 years since the show ended on Nickelodeon?
Zutara Probably Would Have Been Canon in Season 4 – The Masterpost
| [Intro.] |
If you’ve been around or within the Avatar fandom for any period of time you have probably, one way or another, become aware of one of the most intense shipping wars not just of any children’s show, but possibly just in general, one that is well over a decade old by now, approaching two.
Katara and Aang (Kataang), though canon, are often criticized for being one-sided, bad for each of the characters, and rushed. The creators of Avatar though – Mike & Bryan (collectively known as the entity ‘Bryke’) – have stated in the past that Kataang “was in the DNA of the [show] from the start.” (x)
Statements like the above are one of the reasons Zuko and Katara (Zutara) fans have been labelled ‘conspiracy theorists’ when they claim things that contradict Bryke: namely, that Zutara as a pairing was not only a serious consideration during the show’s run, but the likely outcome if the show had continued on for another season, which it seems it almost did.
(This hypothetical ‘Book 4’ was, for a long time, considered a Zutarian conspiracy theory in itself.)
But let’s back up.
How did these so-called conspiracy theories start?
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| [Intro. To The Rumours + Who Is Aaron Ehasz?] |
For a long time, the only thing that Zutara fans could latch onto were rumours. People who claimed to have worked at Nickelodeon, worked in the artistic community and knew things, met a writer in person, etc. This may not sound promising on its face, but the thing is, most of these rumours were consistent. Most of their content concerned the one-time possibility of season 4, and one man in particular: Avatar’s head writer Aaron Ehasz.
We’ll go into those rumours in depth in a second. For right now, here's a little teaser: (x)
But first, who is Aaron Ehasz (& ex-wife Elizabeth Welch) and what were his contributions to the development of Avatar?
[Who Are the Ehaszs, and Why Does Everyone Bring Them Up?] -- (x)(x)
Bonus: (x) (Note that the poster is Giancarlo Volpe btw, another writer on Avatar.)
Now we can get to the rumours themselves. The two main sources are both now-deactivated tumblr blogs. ‘Kataraandzuko’ is the first one we’re going to talk about. This person claimed to be an assistant writer/intern on Avatar Books 2/3 with inside knowledge of what went on behind the scenes in the writer’s room.
Meet ‘Kataraandzuko’: (x)
Zephyrita, similarly, claimed to be someone who interned and studied at Nickelodeon Studios in 2007 as an animation color stylist (according to (x)). It seems significant to mention that Zephyrita also claimed to not actually be a Zutara shipper.
(Besides reblogs, a good amount of her original posts can be found on the Wayback Machine. I took screenshots of a few of them and posted them to my blog individually with the links to the rest underneath.)
Meet ‘Zephyrita’: (x)
By the way, while I don’t know when the blogs were first started or when the first rumours concerning season 4 were posted, they seem to have been around since at least late 2015-2016. It’s hard to tell with the blogs and original posts being deactivated, but that’s the earliest I’ve seen. (If anyone sees anything earlier, let me know.) This will become important later.
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| [Controversy: (A conversation I had with…)] |
Now, I said we were going to talk about Kataraandzuko first and the post that we’re going to talk about specifically is this one: (x)
In it, Kataraandzuko claims to have had a conversation with Aaron Ehasz in Philadelphia. Why they were both in Philadelphia is not stated in the post. According to what Kataraandzuko wrote, Aaron seems to strongly imply that he had wanted to explore a romantic relationship between Zuko and Katara. This supposed conversation was turned into a tumblr post and written down in a style reminiscent of an interviewer and interviewee.
Being the only well-known rumour post to be written this way meant it, kataraandzuko themselves, and all the rumours generally would come under a lot of fire when Everything changed when Aaron Ehasz attacked Aaron Ehasz himself came out and said this: (x) in September, 2018.
With Aaron himself basically shooting down the idea that a season 4 (and, by proxy, Zutara) was ever seriously considered or planned, people who had viewed Zutara fans’ theories as nothing more than wild, imaginative conspiracies by desperate shippers felt like they had been proved right: (x)
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| [Other Rumours] |
And yet, rumours persisted.
[This (x) for the record, is kataraandzuko’s follow-up post to their ‘Conversation I had with Aaron Ehasz in Philadelphia’ post. I’ve reblogged a number of their other posts too. But fine, Aaron said the interview was fake, so let’s disregard everything ‘kataraandzuko’ said for now.]
Here’s someone who claims to have been present at a class that Aaron gave a lecture at at UC Berkeley: (x)(x)
(this class seems to have been real – here’s a link to people talking about it 12 years ago; the link on the page appears to have changed though: (x) )
Here’s another post concerning that class, though I’m not sure if the person they’re talking about who attended is actually the same person as above. (x)
Other posts from Reddit, 4chan, & Deviantart: (x)(x)(x)
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| [Evidence Against Kataang] |
[Series Bible] Of course, rumours aren’t really ‘evidence.’ And, while it’s hard to find evidence for something that never happened, it’s not hard to take a look at Avatar’s original series bible, or series outline by Bryke, and see that, though indeed, the series bibles only outlines three seasons, it also doesn’t outline endgame Kataang or suggest it being anywhere near ‘the DNA of the show.’ In fact, Aang and Katara & Sokka separate at the end of this version, with the latter two returning home and Aang going off to search for airbenders. (x)
[“A 50/50 Chance”] Off the record, Bryke even seemed to admit themselves that there might have been a back and forth regarding who exactly was going to end up with who. See here (x) an account of a Kataang fan who thanked Bryke at a comic con, only to be told: “Well, it was a 50/50 chance.“
[M. Night Interview] This was confirmed by a third party as well. ~Certain~ movies he’s made may not have lived up to their expectations but I see no reason why M. Night Shyamalan would lie when he says that at the time he talked to Mike and Bryan regarding a potential live action movie, there were a lot of things that hadn’t been figured out yet, including “who Katara was going to end up with.” (x)
And so, with or without a direct confirmation of season 4 by Aaron (when the world needed him most, he vanished), it seemed there had still been wiggle-room at some point in time for the potential of ~certain things~ to have, indeed, been under consideration, fourth season or not.
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| [Aaron Confirms on Twitter] |
BUT THEN.
100 Years passed and my brot—
On April 1, 2019, Aaron emerged, as if from an iceberg, to share some thoughts on an Azula redemption arc (x), confirm this was not an April Fool’s joke, and to state the following: “Yes, I always believed there would be a 4th season.” (x)
Zutara fans, realizing they had been right about this, and wondering what other strongly associated theory they might have been right about, rejoiced: (x)
One half of the infamous Bryke, Bryan Konietzko, did not. And, in fact, indirectly called Aaron a liar: (x)
And, It is worth mentioning, in the interest of giving everyone the full picture, that Bryan is not the only one to question Aaron recently. In late 2019, allegations came out of Aaron creating a sexist and toxic work environment. (x)
(Personally, I think your mileage may very on how serious or substantial you may find these claims.)
But with regards to the topic at hand, the Season 4 claims, someone on a Reddit thread here (x) recounts: “Also I wasn't really sure where to put this but Jean Paul Bondy, an artist who worked on ATLA, jumped in AE's twitter thread to say ‘I don’t remember this at all. Obviously I wasn’t party to discussion you three had. But I was always under the impression we were only doing the three.’”
Just recently, in 2023, Jack De Sena (Sokka’s VA) also answered a question about season 4 at a con: ((x) -- 27:30)
“I’ve heard subsequently that there was like, conversations about season 4 and stuff, but, at the time, it definitely felt like we were only doing three. Like, I was being told at the time like, they had conceived of this like, closed arc, three season… thing. So, while they were planting some seeds for like, here’s other story elements that we could explore in other areas when we have the time, it definitely felt like, ‘okay, this is, this is the journey we’re going on together, it has reached a logical conclusion.’ So, it did feel, to us while recording it, quite final and complete.”
“I was always told it was a set three,” confirms Zachary Tyler Eisen (Aang’s VA)
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| [Discussion] |
So, in a sense, we’re back where we started. Though, I would question how much, exactly, artists and voice actors, who I would assume typically only start working on scripts that have already been decided on long beforehand, would really know about any behind the scenes discussions among the writers about potential trajectories and arcs for the show as a whole (and how long those would take to play out).
And Jack did mention that he’s heard now that there were “conversations about season 4” – I’m assuming he’s heard that from more trustworthy sources than internet rumours. And, if he did, then that directly contradicts Bryan seemingly saying he never had the slightest interest in making a fourth season and was always firm on that.
After looking at everything, it seems clear to me that, to the direct contradiction of a few rumours on my blog, Avatar was probably NOT pitched as a 4 (or more) season show. I do think it was probably pitched as three. But I also think, after the show was greenlit or as it was going on, Aaron saw the potential for more seasons and pushed for them. Maybe those discussions didn’t make it very far out of the writer’s room. Maybe there was a point in time where Aaron felt he had been successful in convincing Bryke to go for a fourth season. Or maybe he always felt like he’d be able to get them there eventually. Maybe the movie finally put an end to any of Aaron’s hopes. I don’t know.
But, it’s kind of irrelevant. If the ‘conspiracy’ is that Aaron was setting up the show for a Zutara ending in season 4, then it doesn’t matter how close, in reality, we were to a fourth season. What really matters is whether or not Aaron thought there’d be one.
“Yes, I always believed there would be a 4th season”
And it seems he did.
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| [‘Zephyrita’, ’Tizuyan’ & the Smoking Gun] |
Now, you may have noticed that there was someone mentioned before that we never talked about: Zephyrita. I waited because I’ve noticed something that I’ve never seen anybody else talk about, and decided it needed its own section.
Zephyrita was, of course, one of the two main bloggers that claimed to have worked/interned on Avatar back in the day and posted things they supposedly remembered from behind the scenes, things that all supported the Season 4/Zutara theory.
Given that Aaron indirectly called out the other main blog as a fraud, causing us to have to disregard them for now, you may wonder why anyone should view Zephyrita’s credibility as any different. Here’s actually a post of someone arguing with her about this and Zephyrita’s response: (x)
“’You can’t prove you worked at Nick!!’
What type of proof do you need? Why do I have to prove something as insignificant as this anyway? Like, working there isn’t some exclusive club and I didn’t write an entire episode, I just interned and studied there but I did get to talk a lot with the staff. I wanted to intern at CN but I ended up with Nick in the end. This was all back in 2007 and I’ve been working in advertising since then. You want me to just ring up Tim Hendricks and ask him how he is after almost 10 years? […] I would post my studio pass as ‘proof’ but that contains confidential info.”
So let’s get into why I believe Zephyrita.
(x) – This is a post where Zephyrita is asked what some of Aaron’s ideas were that didn’t make it into the show. Most of her response has to deal with Zuko and Katara, but it also includes this little tidbit about Aang at the end:
“Aang would leave on a self-searching journey after feeling the consequences of energybending and getting jealous over how close Zuko and Katara had become.”
In another post (x), she shares “my friend yan no longer has tumblr because people on this site are RIDICULOUS but she told she wanted to put in some extra info about the ideas that ehasz had:”
‘Yan’ I’m thinking is another deactivated user – ‘Tizuyan’ – who also used to post about the unexplored ideas Aaron had. (Admittedly, I’m not sure how they claimed to know any of it.)
But Zephyrita shares the ideas that ‘Yan’ supposedly gave her, including this one: “zuko and katara develop an understanding and bond that the other characters can not comprehend. they grow very close and sokka starts to suspect there is something going on between them. aang starts feeling jealous but tries to hide these feelings (ehasz said he would start feeling “weird” lmao). this would play a part of his growing darkness.”
In yet another post (x), Tizuyan herself writes “They would have fit very well within the possible Book 4 where Aang became “dark” and traveled back to the Air Temples for solace (where he examines himself, and finds a bunch of flying bison + winged lemur)”
So, to summarize, there would have been consequences to energy bending that would have caused a growing darkness in Aang. And as said before, all these posts are from around 2015-2016, if you go back and look at their earliest, still-existing notes.
Why is this significant?
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It is significant because in 2019, after confirming he always thought there’d be a fourth season on twitter, Aaron Ehasz did an interview (x) where he talked a little bit more about what his ideas were for Season 4, beyond an Azula redemption arc. Obviously, there’s nothing in this interview about Zutara. But. But. There is this:
“Ehasz reaffirmed his earlier stated plans for a longer arc for Azula but also divulged additional details. One plotline would have followed up on Aang taking away Fire Lord Ozai’s bending at the end of the third season.
‘My feeling about that was like there’s always a cost, right? There’s always some balance. You can’t just be like I’m the Avatar, taking your powers away. It’s a great power, but part of it is you just took all this evil into you. To take it away from someone else you’re holding onto it to protect the world.’
For Aang that would have been an incredible burden and something Ehasz would have wanted to see him deal with.
‘The story I wanted to tell with Aang was about him struggling with taking some of that inside and probably a considerable amount of anger and guilt and big feelings. By the way, guess who would be the best person to have a mini vacation with? It’s Zuko! Someone who’s processed a lot of anger on his own, right?’”
So… basically… there would have been consequences to energy bending that would have caused a growing darkness in Aang.
It matches up perfectly.
And not only that, but you’ll notice in the interview he also mentions wanting to focus on Iroh and his spiritual transformation, and mentions something relating to the potential for existing airbenders. This also matches up well with other things that were written in the latter two tumblr posts linked above.
So, what are the possible explanations? Liars/delusional shippers on tumblr who were falsely claiming to have insider knowledge on Avatar just so happening to have hit on some of the exact same season 4 plot points as the head writer, 3-4 years before season 4 was even a thing that had been acknowledged publicly? Aaron Ehasz trolling the internet and coming across these theories and then repeating them as if they had been his own ideas for… some purpose?
Or that maybe some of these blogs had been telling the truth?
This is why I called this section ‘the smoking gun’ – I believe that Aang can save t- that DenofGeek interview, along with those old rumour posts give credence to everything else Zephyrita/Tizuyan had to say. (And we’ll get back to ‘kataraandzuko’ later.)
Link to Zephyrita’s posts and comments: (x). The only other post of mine that I know Tizuyan appears on is this one: (x)
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| [Zutara Evidence – External and Textual] |
And there’s more concrete evidence than just rumours. We’ve already gone over the ‘hard’ evidence against the idea that Kataang was planned from the start, but up until now we haven’t gone over the evidence that exists to support Zutara specifically.
First, here’s just a post (x) showing, besides what we’ve already gone over, how Zutara was teased in some of the promotional materials, as well as some comments (including the ‘Avatar Extras’) made by some other writers on the show, further confirming what Bryke once privately acknowledged to a fan – I’m not sure if the chance was exactly 50%, but it seems it was definitively higher than 0.
And, it seems, high enough that little bits of foreshadowing (or…potentially, a major amount of foreshadowing, depending on your view) did make it into the show itself.
Much has been made of the parallels that exist between the ‘Cave of Two Lovers’/’Crossroads of Destiny’ episodes, namely the two lovers with a red and blue color scheme from opposite sides of a war that come together in a cave of glowing crystals… and the two characters with a red and blue color scheme from opposite sides of a war… that come together in a cave of glowing crystals.
Here’s a few posts that break this down in depth: (x) (x) (x)
And here’s just another little piece of external evidence, another comment by a writer – and actually the writer of ‘The Cave of Two Lovers’: (x)
(I noticed he also mentions the series bible saying Zuko and Katara were supposed to end up together??? Yeah, I don’t know what that’s about. Make of it what you will.)
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| [Bryke Being Nasty to Zutarians] |
^^Is it necessary for me to write this section? No.
But, in a way, it’s what led to my interest in this. I’ve said before that if Mike and Bryan had just been normal adults about all this, said that Zutara was a thing that was considered, that could have happened but didn’t, respected their friendship/bond in canon, and just said to all the Zutara fans, “sorry it didn’t go your way this time; hope you can still enjoy the ending anyway!” we wouldn’t have a problem. I would have just thought it was a shame and missed opportunity, and then moved on with my life and not really thought about it ever again.
It's the apparent lying and immaturity and seeming… mean-spirited-ness (?) that gets me. I don’t understand it.
In a rumour from Tizuyan ((x) - this is the second tizuyan post that I linked at the end of the second to last section) she writes: “Bryke despise Zutara.”
This would certainly explain why Zuko and Katara hardly ever seem to have positive interactions in any of the material beyond Avatar’s original series, that is if they even interact at all.
(See Bryan’s out-of-nowhere response to the neutral question, “Can we expect a reunion for the returning characters from The Last Airbender [in Legend of Korra]?” which was:
“As far as a date night between Katara and Zuko, I think you are going to have to stick to the fan art for that." (x) (Not sure if there was any more to this answer or not; I can’t find the original interview, though I know I remember seeing it way back when.)
It would also explain the contents of this rumour (courtesy of Zephyrita) (x) regarding the writing, or re-writing, of ‘The Southern Raiders’ episode.
And it would explain Bryan’s infamous, “Come on kids! ‘Zutara’ never would have lasted! It was just dark and intriguing” comment. (x)
What it wouldn’t explain is the even more infamous video that Bryke debuted at 2008 San Diego Comic Con, and which Bryan (who really seems to be the main instigator in all of this, apparently) has since reposted to his own tumblr account: (x)
You know, the one where Bryke mock Zutara fans with their own fanart and say that “Women who think that Zuko and Katara should be together will forever have doomed relationships.” Yeah.
I have no further comments on it other than what’s already been written in the reblogs linked above.
(And all this is all the more frustrating when Bryan himself seems to have had a slight change of heart when it comes to the ‘DNA of the show’ and writes in late 2014 in a post on The Legend of Korra: “Personally, at that point I didn’t want Korra to have to end up with someone at the end of series. We obviously did it in Avatar, but even that felt a bit forced to me.” (x) (Like, HUH?! Since when?!)
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| [Aaron Ehasz Again + Final Thoughts On The Kataraandzuko “Interview”] |
Meanwhile, Aaron himself painstakingly tends to avoid discussing Zutara, unless it’s brought up to him directly, in which case he usually just gives a wishy-washy answer about how he tries not to actively ship any characters. Though, we will go into an interview that’s slightly more interesting than this in a little bit.
First, I must bring to everyone’s attention a video that it seems no one else has noticed, as the post only had 4 notes on it at the time of writing this. (x)
Here is Aaron Ehasz at a comic con in 2006, which I believe would be sometime before season 2 had finished airing, showing the audience various ships from the show (most of them ridiculous) before at the end getting to Maiko (called Maizu), Kataang, and lastly (which I feel is significant)… Zutara.
This really appears to me to be Aaron showing the audience the ‘serious ships’ under the guise of this being just some funny game, and using the strength of the cheers from the crowd as a way to gauge interest for a potential endgame ship. Either for his own purposes… or for the purpose of possibly convincing someone else. I interpreted this video this way even before I just re-watched it while writing this post and realized that Aaron actually says this directly:
“We really want to hear what you have to say. I want you to know you have a lot of influence and power right now… ‘cause your, your cheers or boos will really… affect it.”
And I think it might make sense to combine this with the rumours here (x) about the supposed lecture at Berkeley where Aaron once flippantly remarked that Zutara couldn’t happen because it “would have made the six year olds cry” and the rumours by jhenne-bean herself, the one who claimed to have been at that lecture, who gives more context here (x):
“GURL IT WAS TOTALLY 50/50 even during the last season.
Actually, Nick execs pushed Kataang.
Because without it (according to one of the head writers that came and spoke to my class last semester) the “six year olds would cry.” Obviously that’s not the sole reasoning behind their decisions, but the intended demographic did sway the final outcome.”
(So, based on all this, I’m thinking that Aaron was probably a little disappointed in that video above when the Zutara cheers didn’t overpower the Kataang ones. [So am I, Aaron. So am I.])
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Now, the only actual filmed interview with Aaron Ehasz about Avatar that I know of is this one: (x) in 2019, where he’s asked questions by fans. Yes, Zutara is brought up, though the surprising part is it’s seemingly at Aaron’s own prompting. For that reason and others I find this interview to be very interesting; I actually did a breakdown of it here (x), which I encourage everyone to consider.
If you’ve read through that breakdown, or just watched the video in question, you will have seen that the “fake” interview from before (x) was once again brought up. I put the word ‘fake’ in quotes because that’s how Aaron appeared to refer to it in the interview – with air quotes. And so now it’s time for my speculation on this “fake” interview:
I think it’s fairly clear that Aaron does not want (or, for some reason feels unable to (?)) speak freely regarding his opinions on how the relationships of Avatar did (or did not) play out. I think it’s safe to say he has avoided saying anything ‘on the books’ that would place him at odds with Bryke (though that post about M Night wanting to focus on season 4 and Bryke wanting to focus on the movie cut it pretty close) or put him on a definitive side of the shipping war, one way or another.
That’s why it makes sense to me that a rumour on the internet that wasn’t just any rumour, but was written in such a way so that it looked like an official *interview*, with Aaron’s name appearing before statements supposedly attributable to him and everything, would be something he’d want to make sure everyone knew was not actually official. If that conversation between kataraandzuko and Aaron actually happened, he would have believed it to be, at the time, a private conversation. He never would have intended for the person he was talking to to post their conversation and make it look like he said these things on the official record.
So, yeah, despite Aaron calling that post out specifically, I think it’s still plausible that that conversation could have actually happened and that kataraandzuko wasn’t lying. Her (?) original tags even say to take it with a grain of salt since it was written from memory.
And notice the line, “I wanted Aang to defeat Ozai and go through some emotional turmoil after taking the Fire Lord's bending.” Sound familiar?
Here’s another variation of one of kataraandzuko’s posts from before (x) where they talk more in depth about being an intern at Nick and what they saw behind the scenes of Avatar, even admitting, “Haha, it’s not hard getting an internship at Nickelodeon. They’re not strict and they accepted me on my first attempt. You just have to be a university student with a lot of motivation.”
(And witness at the end of the post another defensive-Bryke-Bryan example.)
Could all their posts be lies? Sure. But they always seemed credible enough to me. And given everything else we’ve gone over, can you really say anything they posted sounds all that crazy?
So, for your consideration, here’s my tag of all ‘kataraandzuko’s posts: (x)
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| [Summary of All Rumours] |
Also, for your consideration, now that we’ve got all the context behind us, is this post which lists every major piece of gossip about what season 4 would have included had Bryke the universe allowed it to exist: (x)
And a post which I think perfectly encapsulates everything here and my final stance on it: (x)
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...And so. We should be all caught up now.
I hope this post will be useful to anyone who’s confused about the little bits and pieces of things you might have come across or heard regarding season 4 or zutara or Aaron Ehasz or supposed conspiracies. (Or to anyone who just got tired of seeing everyone else, confused, talking about it this way, without the full context.)
If there’s anything major that you feel I missed here, feel free to let me know and I’ll consider adding it in. Otherwise, enjoy the show, enjoy your ship, and I hope you enjoyed reading. Goodbye, everybody! 😊
I feel like the upcoming kataang!movie they are gonna do a hell of a job compensating for everything that peeved people about tlok like have them mention how they are like so super happily married for every five seconds and that they have no marital problems, like, ever and that they are each other’s one and only 5ever and that Katara is happily a housewife if it means Aang can do his avatarly duty and that Zuko officiated their marriage to get back at those Zutara shippers or whatever
considering literally everything that has come out about kataang in the last half a decade has been nothing more than damage control for the show and early comics... yeah, i see it.
they literally shoved in a "look! aang does domestic work after all HAH!" even in the fucking cookbook that maybe like 2% of the fandom bought so the movie is definitely going to be chock full of entirely unsubtle moments put in solely as a fuck-you to anyone who dared criticize bryke's perfect self-insert ship. poor zuko's probably going to become the bryke soapbox on kat.aang just so they can rub it in our faces because "look! even zuko loves kat.aang what do you MEAN he would never say that shut up about his sizzling chemistry with katara - "
either ways, it makes no difference to me. they could have every single character turn directly to the camera and say aang and katara have the most perfect romance of all time, and that would still do absolutely nothing to fix how their relationship started in atla, and how it inevitably ended in lok. nothing they do in the gaang movie will retcon how utterly irrelevant katara became in the legend of korra, or the complete lack of respect aang (and the narrative) had for her agency and boundaries in atla.
short of inventing time travel and rewriting the show, the problems with kat.aang cannot be handwaved away no matter how much bryke tries to word-of-god it. it's a pity most of the general atla fandom is definitely going to eat it up, but i'll just be over here shipping my beloved zutara in peace and ignoring the fuck out of "canon" like i always have :)
Aaron Ehasz: Katara might have used bloodbending again in the future. There’s no such thing as “evil” bending, it all depends on how the bender chooses to wield their powers. Maybe she could have used it for medicinal purposes.
Bryke: Bloodbending is pure evil. You never see her doing anything important in Legend of Korra, but Katara outlawed the art because a powerful crime lord with super genes used his psychic bloodbending abilities to take over Republic City. He later had plastic surgery and two bloodbending sons to avenge him.
Okay, so… I’m really excited to be posting this!!! This is my Avatar Secret Santa gift for zukes-babe (aka: harky2192). She said she liked Zutara and Coffee Shop AUs, so this is what I came up with!
Anyway, I wish you and your loved ones very happy holidays, and I hope you like this gift! I sure enjoyed making it!
People can call Kataang “planned” all they want but the crew in the writing room were still shocked to hear it actually become canon in the finale. If Kataang was so “obvious” and the “DNA of the show” then why were the writers so confused about it? Would it not be the logical and expected outcome? Was there something else going on that we don’t know about?
This is same thing that happened with Korrasami and Bryke’s claims that they had “planned” it. The storyboarders were actually taken aback when the ending that aired was nothing like the one they had drawn. Bryan Konietzko re-drew the storyboards at the last minute to imply Korrasami without letting anyone else know about it.
Let’s not forget they dedicated a whole episode to blaming Mako the FICTIONAL CHARACTER to justify all the shoddy romance in the series while they continued to deflect any criticism directed towards themselves.
So yeah, “planned” my ass. Bryke had no idea what the hell they were doing in terms of romance and they will never confess to their mistakes regarding it.
It’s been recently suggested that Bryke might have directed the A:TLA animators to de-age Katara when she is in romantic scenes with Aαng. Such a thought had never occurred to me, but I decided to do some research and share my findings!
Below are screenshots of Katara in all the episodes where she kisses Aαng, both during the kissing scene and outside of it. The contrast was … fairly obvious. Also faintly nauseating.
The Cave of Two Lovers
Katara, waterbending practice
Katara, Aαng kissing scene
Nightmares and Daydreams
Katara, Aαng action scene dream
Katara, Aαng kissing scene dream
Katara, Aαng kissing scene dream height
Katara, height relative to Aαng’s in the real world
The Day of Black Sun
Katara, talking to her father
Katara, Aαng kissing scene
The Ember Island Players
Katara, shocked
Katara, shocked in Aαng kissing scene
Sozin’s Comet
Katara, smiling
Katara, smiling in Aαng kissing scene
I’ve heard over and over that the age difference is only two years, that it’s not important, that there isn’t a maturity gap. Well, these stills prove that this isn’t the case. The fact that the creators (and Aαng, when he daydreams) tweak Katara’s physical appearance in the kissing scenes is a tacit admission that the maturity gap exists and it matters. They know, deep down, that this pairing is inappropriate, that Aαng is too young for Katara in more ways than one. But even worse, both the creators and Aαng think it’s OK to literally change who Katara is for the sake of a guy—Katara, who fought time and again to be treated like an equal.
@kataraandzuko:
I talked to a few of the animators and I know zephyrita (she worked as a color stylist). They all have said that artists were told to make Katara look younger and innocent (larger eyes and rounder face) whenever she had romantic moments with Aang so it would look more “natural”. Using Katara’s regular character models for those scenes was awkward because it felt more like a mother acting very inappropriately with her son.
So to all the people who were offended by the idea of Katara in red clothing because you think it’s changing her to suit Zuko … what do you think of the canon alteration of her actual body explicitly to cater to Aαng?
EDIT: @jasubb-8 provides mathematical proof of this phenomenon.
those people who act like katara’s decision to not kill in the southern raiders was only cuz of aang telling her she shouldn’t as opposed to katara herself, who has shown time and time again that she has a working moral compass and doesn’t need input from anyone to make the right choice, are probably the same people who thought it was katara’s choice to be reduced to nothing in the comics and lok
If Katara had decided not to kill Yon Rha because of what Aang said, she would have understood immediately why she made her decision, but as the ending makes clear, even she isn’t totally sure what her motivations were. Also, neither in that episode nor in any other does she thank Aang or express appreciation for what Aang said in supposedly putting her on the right path. However, she does express appreciation for Zuko (not just forgiving him, but smiling at him and hugging him). If Zuko were a toxic influence on Katara as Bryke wanted Elizabeth Ehasz to show, or his motives were selfish as some fans attest, there would be no sense at all in Katara hugging him. She could have bowed, or said she forgave him but that what he tried to do for her was wrong. Instead, their friendship only grows from that point on. Katara clearly felt that Zuko not only redeemed himself, but also did something good for her personally. The fact that Bryke essentially went up to the episode writer and went, “Waah, make it sound like Aang is good and Zuko is bad!” is completely related to the fact that Katara was reduced to nothing in the comics and LOK, so fans agreeing with them on one account also agreeing with them on another would not surprise me.
Katara does not thank Aang but Zuko tells him “you were right about what Katara needed”. I know the episode didn’t give any clear cut message most of the time but that line was intended to show who was in the right. Even in the commentary they said that Katara stopped the ice daggers from reaching Yon Rha because she was thinking about how Aang would feel and that he was present like a “guardian angel” telling her it was wrong. I really hate Bryke’s insistence that everything Katara did was because of what Aang told her and she can’t make her own decisions. It’s sexist as hell and very out-of-character. Katara’s derailment in the comics and LoK reflect greatly on this treatment of her. I can’t divorce Bryke’s bullshit from the Kataang and this is a major reason as to why I hate the pairing so much. I don’t ship Zutara but I would prefer it over Kataang any day, as did most of the crew who worked on Avatar.
You’re right, Zuko does say that–fortunately, he also clarifies it. “For Katara, violence wasn’t the answer.” In other words, Aang was right about what Katara needed specifically in the context of not killing Yon Rha. However, the fact that Katara did not need to forgive Yon Rha to move on and get rid of her bitterness means that “You were right about what Katara needed” wasn’t a blanket statement. Aang thought she needed to forgive, when she didn’t.
I am fully capable of believing Bryke wanted that line in there to spell out just how right Aang was, but creative intent doesn’t always matter in terms of audience interpretation (especially with more than one creator, such as the screenwriter, who obviously felt differently about what the episode should feel like than Bryke did). In other words, Bryke’s interpretation of that episode might well have Katara thinking about Aang at that moment, but if that didn’t make it into the actual episode, the audience is in no way obligated to accept Bryke’s commentary as the correct version of what went on in Katara’s head.
Especially since, as I believe you mentioned in a post, Bryke’s word is notoriously untrustworthy. (I mean, at one point they thought Mako and Korra were made for each other; does that mean I still have to look at LOK that way even though Mako and Korra broke up?) We get to interpret what made Katara stay her hand in a way that makes the most sense to us according to the character we were given in the show–and only in the show.
I know a lot of Kataang shippers interpreted the episode the same way Bryke did and use it as proof as to why ZUTARA IS TEH WORSDT. I know about authorial intent and etc. but what about Korrasami? I interpreted it as romance but a lot of people were confused because it wasn’t anywhere near as obvious as the other couples in the same show.
Apparently Bryke knew Korrasami was the most popular ship so they scrapped the original ending the storyboard artists made without telling them (a huge dick move imo), Bryan storyboarded his “romantic” ending and had it animated with very few people on the staff knowing. The storyboard artists told me the Korrasami relationship was only ever a strong friendship, but Bryke claim that it was actually a romance.
The show never outright says what it is supposed to be so wouldn’t either interpretation be just as valid as the other? What was seen vs. what they intended (even if it was a throw-in at the last minute). The series is incredibly heteronormative and very explicit about any romance, so Bryke can take those “hetero lenses” and shove them up theirs instead of always blaming their fans.
