Azula is fucking up that Baja Blast. In a modern AU, Ozai is probably the CEO of Republic City’s biggest real estate company with ambitions of kick-starting his political career. He buys out local businesses and destroys ethnic enclaves to build fire nation style resorts. Azula is his heir and double majoring in business management + political science. She met Tai Lee and Mai at her elite all girls charter school where they all boarded together. Now they’re back in Republic City for university and ready to cause trouble.
Having to not share a house with her father and being the favorite helped Azula avoid Ozai’s physical abuse, unlike Zuko, but she still suffered mentally. Esp after Zuko was kicked out and taken in by Iroh. Part of her feels abandoned by Zuko and especially her mother who died when they were very young.
I haven’t yet decided what degrees Tai Lee and Mai would have but I love my girl gang. They’d make a sick band with Azula as lead singer and guitarist, Tai Lee on drums, and Mai on bass — I have a bunch of band AU ideas tbh.
THE writer of Zuko Alone and the Southern Raiders loves Zutara. Most if not all of the VAs — including Mae Whitman and Dante Basco— support Zutara. Nickelodeon released tons of official content teasing Zutara. UNCLE IROH SHIPS ZUTARA (Greg Baldwin). HELL, THE CABBAGE MAN SHIPS ZUTARA (James Sie).
No outside or canon reason is needed to ship but Zutara is a real, undeniable part of the ATLA fandom. Wish people would just respect that and move on instead of spreading hate. Just say you’re a causal 🚬
whenever i see people call zutara toxic i'm so taken aback like bruh, that's one of the most healthy ships i have, what are y'all talking about???????????
Exactlyyyy likeeeeeee. Why are we making things up? Everyone in the gaang is close friends by the end of the series. Is the toxicity in the room with us???
I once read an anti-Zutara post, that Zuko was insensitive to Katara's feelings. He still didn't know why Katara hated him even after she told him why she was angry, like...
"Your sister. She hates me and I don't know why! But I do care what she thinks of me."
But, if you read the transcript again, the words "And I don't know why" are in the same sentence as "but I do care what she thinks of me."
And if you watch the scene again, it's pretty obvious he paused after he said 'she hates me'.
Which means, Zuko understand that Katara hated him and he knew what made her angry. What he didn't understand was, why he cared so much about what Katara thinks of him.
Doesn't that little detail make a huge difference?
I mean, Zuko could've just not cared about what Katara thinks of him. His mission was to join Team Avatar to defeat his father, not to bond with them (despite the fact that Zuko did have a 'little field trip' and bond with them).
But, it turns out, somehow, he cares too much for Katara more than he planned. And that bothers him, and it frustrates him - you can hear the tone in his voice. That's why Zuko to go to Sokka, to make it up to her.
Zuko was insensitive to Katara's feelings? No, instead, he cares too much about her.
I keep hearing this take that's biasically just different variations of this:
Zuko and Katara would bring out the worst in each other. They would be fighting constantly, and their similar tendency to anger will escalate these situations. They'd both grow miserable and bitter.
I don't like this argument for a number of reasons, but I'll adress just one: I feel as though these takes miss how Zuko and Katara have been shown to respond to each other's anger in canon.
For most of the story, they're enemies. Prince of the Fire Nation and the Avatar's friend & teacher. They fight because they're on opposite sides of a war. They do have an arc before they reconcile, there are fights from The Crossroads of Destiny to The Southern Raiders. But in my opinion they don't point at toxicity. They show how Zuko actually reacts to Katara's rage. And it simply doesn't escalate even before they become friends. So let's take a look at a few of said arguments:
The Crossroads of Destiny
At this point they are pure enemies. Katara didn't see Zuko's journy in the Earth Kingdom and they don't know anything about each other.
Zuko and Katara are in the crystal catacombs and Katara starts yelling & preaching at Zuko for all he did do them. At first Zuko just takes it all, just listens to her. But he hit his breaking point.
Zuko (calmly): You don't know what you're talking about.
Katara then rightfully gets angry. And opens up about how the Fire Nation hurt her personally – they took away her mother. Instantly, Zuko isn't angry anymore.
Zuko: I'm sorry.
He immediatly understands and offers comfort. And even, connect with his enemy.
Zuko: That's something we have in common.
Katara: I'm sorry I yelled at you before.
Now the argument is over. They were enemies just a second ago, but Zuko was able to put it aside, realize that Katara was well within her rights to get angry, see her pain and connect with her. So much so, that he tells her about his destiny, about how he feels he's free. And Katara offers to heal his scar to help him too. She too understood his pain, calmed down instantly and helpped.
The Western Air Temple
Zuko has redeemed himself, but not in Katara's eyes. She still suspects him after he betrayed her. She confronts him.
Zuko doesn't get angry if defensive, he knows why she's yelling and lets it happen. He understands her and knows his place.
Then, she threatens him with death. And what did Zuko do?
Nothing. It's not his place. He has gained the emotional maturiny needed to do nothing. To take her rage, knowing it's deserved.
The Southern Raiders
At this point Zuko is completely redeemed, he saved the Gaang just this day and proved he's trust worthy on multiple occasions. But that's still not enough for Katara. She makes a mean spirited comment about him not deserving any credit and leaves. Zuko follows her.
Thus the hostility begins. Zuko asks Katara why can't she trust him? He's proven himself, everyone already trusts him. It's a fair question, and fair frustration. Katara didn't provide substantial reasons to why she still doesn't trusts him yet. She just reminded him she was the first to trust him.
Zuko: What can I do to make it up to you?
He calmed down and tried to help, even when he had every right to be upset. In her next line, it became clear that she was projecting her grief onto him. Zuko realized this, what did he do? What did he do after finding out that Katara's rage at him isn't even about anything he personally did? What did he do after finding out that her rage is unfair and rooted in projection?
Says nothing & goes to her brother to help her solve her trauma. Regardless of it was healthy or not, Zuko was trying to help – not get angry at her.
All of these arguments happen before they even become friends. After they did, they are nothing but wholesome.
This argument that they'd bring out the worst in each other has no basis in canon.
"But it doesn't need to be prominent in canon! They didn't disagree yet, and we don't know what it'd look like".
They did once: Zuko agreed to an Agni Kai with Azula. He invited Katara just so he wouldn't have to do this. Katara finds it unreasonable. But she hears him out and trusts his judgement.
Yes, it does need to be backed up by canon. If it doesn't need to, you can pick any two traits of any two characters and think of how they could be miserable. It doesn't matter that that's not how they are, because it's a hypothetical. It doesn't need to be backed up in canon. Now I'm suggesting that Zukka would be toxic because Sokka's sillyness would clash with Zuko's anger. Sokka would joke around and Zuko would be irrutated & ask him to take it seriously. But it's stupid. I just picked two traits and went wild with it. Same goes for Zutara. They don't act like this, so it's irrelevant.
In conclusion: When Zuko and Katara were "fighting constantly" they were on opposite sides of a war. The first time they talked, it naturally starts as an argument, but turns into a beautiful moment where they both understand each other. When Zuko joins the Gaang, he waits pationetly to Katara's forgiveness, takes all her anger without being at all hostile, does everything he can to prove himself, stays calm even when it's unfair and helps her resolve her trauma. After they reconcile Zuko and Katara don't have a hinch of toxicity. They don't bring out the worst in each other.
Original Script Analysis, Part 2: The Southern Raiders, The Finale, and What I Think About it All
Link to Part 1
So folks, when it comes to literary analysis, there are two categories that textual interpretations typically fall under: the Doylist explanation, and the Watsonian explanation.
Watsonian explanations will contextualise an issue solely within the bounds of the story it is told in, so the answer to any question will be, essentially, “in-universe”. Imagine interviewing a character in the story, and asking them, “why did x happen” or, “why did y character decide to do z”. The answer you get will be a Watsonian answer.
Doylist explanations, on the other hand, are explanations that take into account things the characters themselves wouldn’t “have access to”, so to speak. These explanations often touch on writing concepts like theme, character arcs, tropes, setup and payoff etc, sometimes even referring to “real-world” motivations, intentions, or constraints that the creators were working with (or against). If an explanation or an answer to a question doesn’t sound like anything the characters themselves could have come up with, it’s probably a Doylist explanation.
I’m going to give an example from Titanic that I hope isn’t a spoiler to anybody at this point given how much this film has been memed to shit:
Original Script Analysis, Part 1: Kataang Is Better... And Also Worse.
I want to start this off by saying that when it comes to media analysis, I personally don’t tend to give authorial intent a significant amount of weight – at least, not by default. I understand why authorial intent is so often debated among media analysts, and why so many metas and critiques often hinge their arguments on paratextual information that serves to provide potential insight on what the authors were thinking or planning. But I myself tend to follow more of a “Death of the Author” framework. There are some exceptions, such as when I believe the author’s stated intent – or even details such as their background, life experiences, advocacy etc – has bled through their work so heavily that it becomes impossible to ignore its impact on the final product. (E.g., reading Fyodor Dostoyevsky compare murder to state-ordered execution, it is hard not to contextualise the passage with the knowledge that Dostoyevsky himself faced a firing squad and was given a pardon at the very last minute). Even then, I tend to treat paratextual information like – Understanding the context behind x scene or y narrative choice potentially adds a layer of meaning to it, particularly why some scenes may have been framed the way they were, or why the author chose to tell/expand/conclude the story like this instead of like that. I use paratextual information to deepen my understanding of the author’s reasonings behind their choices. I don’t use paratextual information to form my opinion on whether their choices were good.
(I prefer to form my own opinion on that, based on what I think of the text itself.)
That being said, like most of you readers I too had heard the many rumours surrounding the writing/production process behind ATLA, especially when it came to the ships. Which ship, if any, was planned for, when were the romance arcs finally decided, were there conflicts/disagreements between writers, were there script changes and animation edits to strengthen one pairing while weakening other, and so on and so on. I’d heard the rumour that The Southern Raiders went through multiple rewrites/changes, because it was originally “too shippy”. I’d heard the rumours that Aaron and Elizabeth were pro-Zutara, Bryan and Mike were pro-Kataang, and that their respective positions/opinions on these two pairings seep through their writing in an acutely perceptible way.
I’d also heard the counter-argument, the official narrative endorsed by the creators that any chemistry or subtext between Zuko and Katara was always intended to be platonic, and that readers who saw anything romantic between these two characters were simply setting themselves up for disappointment by projecting their own expectations or preferences onto the show, nothing more.
Over the past 15 years or so, these debates shaped much of the ATLA “shipping discourse”, sometimes even dominating discussion on the subject. I myself have gotten many a variant of “Zutara was never going to happen, get over it” – even when I’ve made a deliberate effort to omit any mention of authorial intent in my analyses, because, as I’ve said, I still don’t consider that kind of paratextual information relevant to my own opinions on why I think Zutara just works better. But given the intensity of the arguments surrounding behind-the-scenes shenanigans, their impact on the final product, and even their supposed significance in determining shipping validity, it was impossible not to wonder at the truth behind all these conflicting rumours.
So when I set foot in the WGF, it was admittedly difficult to contain my bubbling excitement and anticipation. Even still, I resolved to keep my expectations low. Rumours are rumours, after all. Secondary sources must always be taken with a healthy grain of salt, and some of the rumours weren’t even second-hand information at that. And I already knew that no matter what I found, my own opinion that Zutara is the best love story almost written, would not change.
All that said and done, let’s just say that I found the discovery… highly rewarding, and for those of you who have spent years refusing to accept that you were just “reading into things”, I hope my findings bring you some long-awaited vindication.
S1/S2 hints of Katara being "Highness" while wearing a DRAGON crown, and Toph coaching Katara on fitting into a society crowd.
I mean, Sokka in delirium doesn't recall who Aang is, but thinks his sister is royalty?
Toph's belief that Katara might be able to fit into society with one afternoon of training?
These small moments seem like throwaways in the canon ending of ATLA, but if Zutara was endgame, they would be hailed as additional foreshadowing from the start.
Side note, I like to imagine if Zuko was into motorcycles in a modern AU, his first motor cycle’s design would be based on his ostrich horse from Zuko Alone. Then, later, he gets his dream bike which is based off his dragon from Korra. I’m cooking. Tell me I’m not cooking.
Also, I like to imagine Katara is pre med with a minor in women’s studies because she’s unstoppable and that’s how she met Suki. She also is president of her university’s swim team or maybe a life guard. Perhaps she saved Aang from drowning and that’s how they met. IDK SHES THE BEST, I LOVE HER SO MUCH.
