i want to write a larger analysis of the relationships between fathers and daughters (principally, azula & ozai and katara & hakoda) in avatar at some point down the road, but for now i will say that i think katara was absolutely right to resent hakoda, to not want to see him, and to feel abandoned by him. like, you know i appreciate katara’s flaws a lot, and always acknowledge when i think her anger is misplaced or overblown, but in this case, i really don’t think that she’s being unfair towards hakoda at all. in fact, the only reason that sokka doesn’t resent hakoda is because he is constantly operating on so many layers of repression and cognitive dissonance that he would rather just pretend that everything is fine than face confronting how fucked up he is, in large part due to hakoda’s expectations for him. but katara is a lot more honest with herself and able to process her emotions in a healthier way than sokka can (she’s not perfect, of course, but she’s less repressed than sokka by miles), so she 100% rightfully recognizes hakoda’s myriad flaws as a parent, while simultaneously recognizing the extremely difficult conditions that did, ultimately, force his hand, which is why she is also able to forgive him, knowing that his mistakes came from a place of love rather than malice.

random fire nation diplomat #492 will never understand the complex and fucked up relationship between the water siblings like I do 🙄

ID: Katara and sokka in swimgear. in the first image, sokka is searching for something in the water. his hair getting wet. katara leans over to him saying "don't you think, its time for a haircut?" in the second image sokka rose form the water, a dog-shark creature in hand, swinging his hair in Katara face splashing her. smugly he says "no <3". End ID

i know its winter! i know it likley snowed by now on the northern hemilsphere! but... on the southern side is summer time right??? so... its fine.... this is fine!!!

----

!!! please do not use or repost this artwork without permission!!!

Hello! Wellcome to my sort of 2023 recap!

ID in ALT text shockingly i drew more zukos then sokkas this year.... which is weird to me personally? although... i did have a sudden 'i have no clue how to draw zuko?!?!?" moment this year. oh also..uh... i was wondering if i drew egnouth faces to make them 'turn around' and well...

kind of?

dont even get me started on how they reduced mai and ty lee as blind followers of azula that showered her with praise. or how they made zuko look like her example to follow when it was his banishment that made azula look down on him. or how they randomly tried to show ozai's care for zuko and a bit of a soft spot or care for his family. or how they made zuko fight him when the point of the scar scene was that he got it because he refused to fight his own father.

better yet, i could begin talking of how they took away katara's maternal attitude because it wasn't “fitting” for a girl her age and instead gave the role to sokka, who angrily tells her to grow up at one point, when it originally showcased the effects of the loss of her mother by trying to assume the position she left empty, while in the original show sokka did the same trying to fill hakoda's absence.

let's also talk about how they made hakoda look horrible when he criticised sokka's actions behind his back instead of supporting him with the idea of improvement to instead make ozai look like a better father. Or hey, wait, the scenes where everyone keeps blaming aang for having “abandoned” (even kyoshi) the world for some freaking reason???

suki head over heels for sokka right off the bat and stalking him around. june incessantly flirting with iroh. the whole cave of two lovers lore completely butchered. the omission of plot points to give priority to unnecessary scenes. the avatars being a bunch of a*holes that bully aang instead of guiding him. that random miniplot of roku with the small replica of the mother of faces????

what a ride

hakoda: you need to stay here and protect your sister

13 year old sokka, whose only point of reference for "protecting his sister" is literally his mother sacrificing herself in katara's place: ok 😃

remember to wish your mother a Happy Mother’s Day

Something that I think ppl who ship both sukka and zutara don't acknowledge enough is the fact that poor Hakoda met both his kids' future spouses on the same day, in the same place and that place just happened to be prison.

Katara, worried: How I’m gonna tell my dad I’m pregnant?

Azula, kissing her temple: Don’t worry my dear, leave that to me.

*Later at dinner in Hakoda’s house*

Hakoda, coughing: I need water!

Azula: Oh no! Grandpa needs water!

I see a lot of "oh this was an accidental proposal and katara continuing to wear it is an on purpose acceptance"

I don't think that's accurate and the ship is really not my thing anymore anyways but you know what would be absolutely hilarious?

katara tells her family about this and then fast forward to a post-war zukka relationship where zuko's for real proposing and is asking Hakoda and Bato - who love chaos as much as they love their children and son-in-law - for permission as a courtesy and they're just like "we cannot in good conscience allow this while you're still betrothed to our daughter" and Zuko's just like "WHAT" and it turns into a comedy of zuko doing more and more absolutely fucking weird and outlandish things to "break the engagement to katara" so he can marry sokka. just 100% a twelve labours type thing except they're actually achievable because there's no need to repeat that trauma (although maybe the final task is "bring me the avatar" and that's when he realizes he's being fucked with)

katara gets roped in and is having a blast. sokka however is blissfully unaware until the final moments - or if angst is more your thing, he's wondering if the reason zuko is always busy lately is because he's getting ready to break up with him, maybe throw in zuko spending more time around katara and sokka's "guy with a boomerang" insecurities for shits and giggles

"Well it's not like you can just TELL the non-Water Tribe characters are poc too,you'd have to pay extra attention!"Aang is a buddhist monk,Ty Lee is named Ty Lee and Zuko literally has monolids

The Awakening is one of the most underrated episodes in the series.. this episode was such a turning point for aang

Aang first ran away in a storm to avoid his duty, and now he’s running away in a storm to do his duty. Poetic!

Love also Roku and Yue in this episode

yes! the way this episode establishes so many of the central tensions for the final season and parallels basically every character so deftly is perfect. the chiastic storm symbolism, the storm inside aang of crushing responsibility and guilt and grief and rage…. and in both cases, whether it’s to run away or to attempt to face his problems head on, leaving behind his loved ones (like he tried to do in the crystal catacombs) is always the wrong choice, he needs to rely on his friends. and his friends need him too. katara’s speech about how aang thinks he has to do everything alone kind of seems out of left field considering aang has always valued and cherished forming deep bonds, especially with katara. but then you remember that katara’s last memory of aang, that has been haunting her for the past however many weeks she’s been on that boat desperately trying to save him, was aang (unintentionally) martyring himself. and that would be traumatizing for anyone to witness, their best friend literally dying in their arms, but it’s especially triggering for katara because it’s happened before. kya died for her. hakoda left her. sokka emotionally abandoned her in his promise to die for her.

being a waterbender, the last waterbender, is such a complicated role for katara, because on hand she must feel immense guilt over the way her entire family and tribe prioritizes her life, and is especially motivated to become the world’s greatest waterbender specifically to prove that her mother’s sacrifice was not in vain. but it’s also that drive to be the best that awarded her the spirit water, that gave her the ability to heal aang when history repeated itself. katara couldn’t save kya, she couldn’t make hakoda stay, she couldn’t heal jet, but she can with aang. she literally brings the avatar, struck by lightning while in the avatar state (thus effectively ending the line of avatars were he truly dead) back to life. katara revived him as the inciting incident of the entire narrative, and then she revived him again in their darkest moment. because katara will continue to bring back hope to the world, resoundingly, through sheer force of will, with nothing but her bare hands and overflowing heart.

i do love aang’s arc in this episode, the narrative parallelism, the tragedy of him burning his glider, his last physical relic of his past and his people. i love the way he is so determined to perform the duty he has shied away from for so long due to the shame and humiliation of actually trying, and failing. of course aang was already motivated to perform his duties to the world, because guilt is a hell of a motivator, but the existential terror of actually being killed adds tenfold motivation. instead of running away from his problems, aang is now running towards them, equally as thoughtlessly and hastily. because he is too ashamed to care about tact, he just wants to rectify his devastating mistake. and that’s why he says that he needs to regain his honor. scarred and humiliated and lost, he finally understands how zuko feels.

zuko acts as the third side of a prism through which he, aang, and katara, are all refracted and reflected in one another. this episode makes use of that parallelism both in the contrast between zuko “finally regaining his honor” (illusory, of course, but he gets to come home and see his father again, and that’s all he’s wanted all along) while aang has lost it, and zuko confronting his father for the first time in three years, just like katara does. katara is angry at hakoda, her anger exacerbated by her grief over aang. she’s angry that hakoda left them, even if logically she doesn’t blame him for it. and she doesn’t mask her anger (i don’t think she’s even capable), and hakoda, for his part, receives it, listens to her, treats her with love and affection, holds her, acknowledges his own pain. it’s an incredibly beautiful scene; the episode is excellent if only for that scene.

it’s also immediately followed up with its opposite. zuko walks into ozai’s chamber, no anger only fear, kneels before his throne while ozai circles him like a predator (a move that both zuko and azula picked up from him). even a few episodes later, in “the beach” when azula asks, “are you angry at dad?” zuko’s face falls open and vulnerable, almost afraid at the accusation, and goes, “what?? no!!” even though it’s a perfectly fair question. ozai banished zuko for three years when he was still a child, whereas hakoda left katara for three years when she was still a child. katara resents hakoda for leaving against his will whereas zuko doesn’t even feel like he’s allowed to resent ozai for anything. ozai never once actually touches zuko, but zuko still flinches. zuko kneeling on the ground while ozai circles him like a hawk. hakoda and katara holding each other, both in tears, both open and vulnerable. zuko katara parallels always make me go crazy, of course, but this is one of the most insane juxtapositions in the entire show to me. i just love the katara hakoda reconciliation scene, and all the more for its narrative impact as it precedes zuko and ozai’s.

the ozai face reveal is also pretty incredible imo. for the past two seasons, ozai’s face as been obscured by shadow, framed only at angles that made him unknowable to the viewer. he is a larger than life villain, to both aang and zuko, not simply a man but something far greater and more terrifying. except no. he is just a man. zuko returns home, and immediately sees that. the ozai of looming shadow from zuko’s faulty memory is in fact just some guy. a uniquely powerful guy, of course, but he’s not gargantuan, too great to be comprehended by mortal eyes. zuko was just a child when he left, but he has since grown, in many ways. and while ozai still terrifies him to his core, because how could he not, we see, as zuko sees, that he is just a man.

as the image of aang’s goals becomes clearer in his eyes, he too, learns to see ozai as just a man. in the following episode he even crafts his likeness out of noodles (“impressive, i admit”). ozai is not some fantastical godlike being. no, aang is the fantastical godlike being in question, and it’s his literal god-given right to humble that man playing god who claims that aang has no place in his world. to obscure ozai’s face is to illustrate the sheer magnitude and terror of the power he wields. and to show ozai’s face, and then over the course of a season, continually undermine him and mock that face and depict it as noodles, or pantsless, is to take away some of his power, his cultivated, dictated, arbitrary power.

the awakening is a fantastic episode as it sets up the central internal conflicts for book 3, especially for aang and zuko, but also for katara, acknowledging the weight of her grief as it culminates in “the southern raiders.” (also her waterbending progress as it’s demonstrated in that one scene is incredible, i guess being at sea helps in one’s waterbending, who’d have thunk!) it’s basically a microcosmic encapsulation of the entire season, appropriately ending on a loving gaang hug as they promise to help one another through this. the heart of the show lies in that hug. it’s a fantastic episode.

Zutara Week 2022 Day 1: Tradition

Zuko takes SWT tradition too seriously...

...until someone had been pranking him. Telling him that "people from the other nation who wishes to court a water tribe girl must kiss a fish before offering it to a penguin seal, to symbolize his/her love".

It was Gran Gran 🤫

Many people have already discussed the way Zuko and Katara are linked by the loss of their mothers. I and others have also meta'd about the differences in how they interact with their fathers, a comparison the show highlights in "The Awakening," where Zuko faces his father for the first time in years and is forced to repress his emotions, vs Katara being allowed to express her hurt towards her father and being treated with kindness and compassion by Hakoda. But another comparison between Ozai and Hakoda that I have not seen anyone bring up before is this one:

Both Zuko and Katara running to their dads for help upon discovering that something has happened to their mothers. Hakoda immediately stops what he's doing to let Katara take him to Kya, while Ozai does not even acknowledge Zuko. Zuko's angry "where is she?" to Ozai also implies that he knows his father is the cause of her disappearance. There's also an emphasis on the fact that Hakoda is defending the village when Katara comes to him whereas Zuko finds Ozai tending to his own wounds and refusing to acknowledge what his children might be feeling.

The father as protector of the family vs the father who divides the family.

The cartoon did not downplay Sokka’s lingering trauma with their father being gone. It didn’t “just address” Katara’s grief with not having either of her parents there. They were core aspects of their characters that were referenced and built upon throughout the entire show. For the LA show runners to miss that is a critical failure.

This shows that the people involved in the Netflix ATLA don’t know jack shit about how ATLA was handled. They’re approaching it like a Wikipedia plot summary that they’re expanding on. They’re pretending this is some groundbreaking shift from the show when it isn’t. I have no reason to trust the people making this when they don’t even seem to know how the source material works.

I think people will not spot it but... 

-points to the isopod-puppy 'carving' on the wall- 

I don't think they would pop up as well in real life... (in my experience I highly doubt that... )

but hey! this is a drawing

art-blog: chiptrillino-art

[ID: Two Fanart images portraying the southern water tribe family from avatar the last air bender. which include: father Hakoda, mother Kya, older brother Sokka and younger sister Katara. 

the first image shows, a family of four, in bed. In the background on the left side, the snow-withe-floor is covered with a white pelt with cheater spots covering it. a snow step with a blue blanket resting on it leads up to the bed. On the wall is built-in a smaller shelf with small carved toys and a wooden boat toy. a decorated boomerang with a wolf painted on it fell out of it. a doll in a blue parka is resting at the top of the head of the bed. the bed is made out of straw mats two big fur pillows, and soft pelts in shades of dark grey and brown. the walls with visible snow blocks on the right side of the image area are covered in small carvings that look like children's drawings. on the right side close to the wall, bundled up in furs that resemble sheepskin is kya, peacefully sleeping. her head is resting on her husband's left shoulder. she is wearing her iconic necklace. peacefully sleeping in her mother's arms is little katara. who wears a light blue top and has her hair in two braids. she is bundeled up in a embordied blanked. bears and otter penguins hunting small fish are sewn on it. 

in the centre, sleeping upside down with limbs spread out is Sokka. mouth open tooth growing out. arms above his head. he is just wearing pale brown-grey pants held together by a dark blue ribbon. he must have gotten out of his blanked during his sleep. his legs are spread atop his father's torso. one foot getting into Hakoda's half-asleep face, pinky toe stuck in his father's nose pulling. Hakoda is not amused. but resigned himself to his fate till his family decides to wake up. he wears his hair open, a bone necklace around his neck. and dark brown pants. over his legs is draped a fur banked.on the right side of the image is a small text saying "please don't repost" below in the centre is the artist's signature "chiptrillino . 2022" 

the second image shows the family doing her morning routine. 

Kya sitting behind Sokka wearing a blue Kuspuk. her hair styled with beads in it. a ribbon is stuck between her teeth while she smiles and looks at her husband. she is doing her son's hair. Sokka is still half-asleep in front of her yawing. bundled up in an embroidered blanked with otter-penguin and bears on it. on the right of the image is Hakoda yawing just like his son briding his daughter's hair, he is not wearing a shirt, just his pants in which he slept int. on top of his crossed legs sits katara. wearing a light blue kuspuk with a small blue raindrop pattern on. happily dangling her feet and playing with her doll.

on the right side of the image is a small text saying "please don't repost" below in the centre is the artist's signature "chiptrillino . 2022" End ID.]