Because recently I’ve been seeing a storm of “wow I feel so sorry for kataangers Aang was ruined because they made him such a horrible father!!!!!!!”
I’d like to start out by pointing out Bryke has stated that the notion of Aang being a bad father was exaggerated by fans.
Imagine you’re Aang. You wake up to a new world only to find out that you’ve been gone for a hundred years, your entire nation, your culture, every person you ever loved is gone. Completely wiped from existence. You are the sole survivor of a race of people, therefore you are responsible for keeping the values of your people and keeping their culture alive.
Then one day, you have a kid. Years later, you have another kid.
Both of these kids are not interested in your culture. In fact, they find it boring and want absolutely nothing to do with it.
You’d be pretty hurt, right?
So then finally, you have a third kid. Turns out, this kid is an airbender! The first airbender born in over a century. Wouldn’t you be thrilled? Not only is he an airbender, but is excited to immerse himself completely into air nomad culture.
It only makes sense that you’d have a closer bond with him than the other two.
This, in NO WAY means that Aang loved Tenzin the most. I’d like to refer to the scene where all three of the kids travel to the southern air temple. Bumi questions if Aang would’ve been proud of him. Kya’s response is “you KNOW he would be” even Bumi and Kya know that Aang loved them all the same.
“But Aang took Tenzin on vacations without the other two!” (I’m pretty sure these ‘vacations’ were just like, air nomad stuff anyway)
The family picture. If you remember the family picture, we see that Bumi is quite a bit older than his siblings. I’d put him anywhere between 10-13, while Kya probably no older than 4 or 5. And Tenzin obviously was a baby. By the time Tenzin was actually old enough to go on special trips with Aang, Bumi was in his late teens, and possibly could have already gone off to join the United forces.
And then there’s Kya. Take one look at Kya, would you even guess she’s related to an air nomad? She’s a waterbender, and like Tenzin with air nomad culture, Kya devoted herself to the water tribe. Like Aang with Tenzin, we also know that Katara had a special bond with Kya. Katara was probably in the exact same boat as Aang. She finally had someone to teach and share her culture with, not to mention finally having the mother/daughter relationship that was robbed from her as a child. People are so quick to attack Aang about this, but why not Katara? She seems just as guilty of it to me.
It’s perfectly normal for parents to have a closer bond with one child over the other. Heck, my mom has a more special bond with me over my brother, and my dad has a more special bond with my brother than with me. And this is perfectly fine. My parents love the both of us equally. But my interests are more like my mother’s, while my brother’s interests are more like my dad’s.
Please take into account that he was the Avatar on top of this. Not to mention he had the entire weight of his people’s future on his shoulders. It was very important to him to teach Tenzin everything he could so that Tenzin could uphold his people’s culture and values. And because of that, he probably was SOMEWHAT guilty of choosing to spend time with Tenzin than his other kids. Which, in all honesty, ALL parents are guilty of doing to some degree. (Yes, probably even Katara with Kya)
Aang was not a bad father. He did the best he could. He loved all his kids the same.
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