I’ve seen a few K@taang fans say that Aang telling Katara to forgive Yon Rha in The Southern Raiders is a parallel to Katara helping Aang leave the Avatar State. I really don’t like this take, for a simple reason:

The Avatar State is a supernatural uncontrollable rage. Katara’s anger is not.

On multiple occasions, Aang states that he regrets his actions while in the Avatar state, and he doesn’t like feeling out of control in that way. We even see his rational spirit’s reaction to the Avatar State when it detaches from Aang’s body to speak to Roku in “The Avatar State”.

Aang wants to be stopped when he is in this state. When Katara reaches out to him, she is not trying to change his mind, she is trying to allow his rational mind to regain control. She is giving him agency, not denying him agency.

By contrast, while Katara is angry in The Southern Raiders, we’re never told that her rational faculties aren’t still operational. She’s determined. Not possessed.

At no point does Katara say that she regrets acting in anger. Instead, we see her exercise judgement and mercy even when face to face with the man she saw kill her mother.

This is not someone who is out of control.

(Not that she necessarily would have been out of control if she did kill him.)

The fact that Katara wasn’t out of control and didn’t need to be stopped is further reinforced by the fact that, unlike Aang who agonises over his actions in the Avatar State after the fact, Katara doesn’t express regret at her actions or relief that she didn’t kill Yon Rha. Instead she re-states her initial position that she will not forgive him.

All of this makes Katara’s anger at Yon Rha very different from the Avatar State. She is in control of her actions and does not want or need to be stopped. Trying to stop her isn’t helping to reassert her own control over her actions, it’s questioning her active decisions. It’s denying her agency instead of enabling it.

An emotional woman is not the same thing as an irrational or out of control one.

Zutara is like the mother of all femcels and fandom dudebros tbh,Z/Ks really out there beefing with a 12 year old boy from a Nickelodeon show they resisted all the radicalization against despite the nonstop presence of it in the writing because they were too busy crushing on Zuko as if he'd ever even look in their general direction after his redemption arc since the point of it was him unlearning propaganda and doing something about it instead of throwing himself a pity party and harrasing the whole entire side of the fandom that even just critizes their ship and all the weird af content they make about a middle school cartoon."I related to Katara and i wanted her to be with Zuko instead of Aang because i found him way more appealing!!!"Get a real problem

The Avatar fandom is always saying that if we get a continuation after Korra they hope we get to see more complex and flawed characters because atla and lok lacked them

Well I don't want that because y'all can't even handle the ones you were already given

It’s really funny how much people misremember certain aspects of ATLA and then proclaim to the internet stuff that either never happened or is extremely distorted with absolute certainty. For example, today I saw a person claiming that whole point of Katara’s character arc was unlearning the parentified behaviours she developed in wake of her mother’s death. That a huge part of Katara’s arc was a confrontation of how that trauma fundamentally shaped her maternal tendencies.

The thing is though…WE the audience, can recognize that the parentification Katara experienced was something that was really straining for her, but the TEXT doesn’t. The audience (or at least certain parts of the audience) can identify that her maternal tendencies were indicative of a responsibility that she took on far too young and subjected her to unnecessary pressure and stress. There are flashes of recognition maybe, but for the most part, the show doesn’t actually confront the negative impact that Katara’s maternal role had on her.

Katara never truly unlearns the maternal behaviours that put so much pressure on her because the text doesn’t see it as a bad thing. Arguably, the text doesn’t see much of a problem with the emotional labour Katara takes on and how that labour goes unreciprocated for the most part (particularly from her canon love interest). We see some reflections, but it’s not enough to support a reading of the text where that element is actually extremely obvious and a prominent point in her character arc.

We’re not the ones “watching the show with our eyes closed”, I think you’re just misremembering the canon progression of Katara’s arc to avoid confronting a real issue in the text.

It annoys me that fans & even the ATLA narrative treat Katara’s crush on Jet as if she was simply being silly and shallow. Yes, he was tall and attractive…but he’s also responsible for an entire community of orphans? Maybe after years of parentification, she feels very connected to someone who also had to think about feeding and clothing people and generally keeping them alive? Maybe she admires a boy who seemed to have taken on both her and Sokka’s roles (caretaker and protector), and was really successful at them? Maybe Katara saw a competent boy and liked him just for that!

ATLA narratively chides Katara for liking Jet. He’s coded as this untrustworthy smarmy bad boy character in opposition to sweet friendly Aang. I mean, it’s not subtle: Katara makes a hat for Jet, and after she discovers he’s cool with killing civilians, Aang’s shown wearing the hat. But maybe Katara liked Jet because he had his shit together, while Aang was trying to ride giant fish despite being the saviour of the world! Maybe!

I don't think people realize what a power move it is for Katara to become Queen of the nation that nearly succeeded in wiping her people out.

I think the reason I'm a bit iffy about most zutara shippers who call themesleves "pro Katara" (and lets be honest the tags pro katara/katara deserved better are mainly people building themselves a moral highground of "if you disagree with me, you clearly dilslike Katara and want her to suffer") is just the hypocrisy of it all.

Katara's consent was violated by Aang, yes. But Zuko threatening her and being a fucking creep in the "I'll save you from the pirates" scene was sexy and not at all the nightmare of any sane woman.

Katara's role as a healer is treated as her acting subservient and her loosing her feminist icon status. Unless she's healing/offering to heal Zuko.

Aang is immature and childish. But we will handily ignore Zuko, a whole ass 16 year old who's heir to a country throwing a temper tantrum because his girlfriend dared to speak to another man. [Frankly, in my opinion, Zuko isn't really ready for a serious romantic relationship, but yall arent ready for that conversation]

Aang is supposedly misogynistic, but Zuko's many instances of actual misogyny are swept under the rug. Aang is shown in canon to be incredibly supportive of Katara defying the patriarchy.

Supposedly Aang makes Katara do all the housework. Despite there being evidence to the contrary. Zuko has just recently learnt to brew tea.

Katara being the Avatar's wife is supposedly degrading. But if she were Zuko's wife, I'm sure she wouldn't be just a baby maker. (What a horribke thing to call a woman btw. Tall call your own mothers baby makers too???) Despite the fact that Izumi's mother hasn't even been mentioned by name in tlok. But yeah. She'd be afforded the respect she deserves I'm certain.

Aang is, on most accounts, supportive and respectful of Katara's opinions, even when he disagrees with them. Zuko openly mocks people who oppose him. I am going to make a longer post on the Southern Raiders episodes and how all of you watched that episode blindfolded or smth.

Aang comparing Appa being kidnapped (his last connection to his genocided people, the last vestige of his happy past) to Katara's anger over her mother is bad. But Zuko comparing mommy leaving his ass to Katara's mother getting brutally slaughtered in front of her ? Silence.

Aang supposedly needs Katara to mother him and that's a bad thing. But Azula, Mai and Ty Lee having to gentle parent Zuko almost everytime they interact is never talked about, despite the uncalled for verbal abuse that trio goes through from him.

Aang and Katara's 2 year age gap is creepy. But Zuko and Katara's 2 year age gap is fine. My bigest gripe with Zutara lovers is them completely erasing Katara's childishness and immaturity, in order for her and Zuko to have this mature, sexy relationship. She's 14, guys. 14.

This post really isn't meant to decry Zutara. I just want people who ship Zutara to get off their high horse of feminism and to accept that they're no better than the rest of us ship loving freaks. Wanting the main girl to bump uglies with the broody emo twink doesn't make you a modern day suffragette. Disliking a main canon pairing isn't a measure of your love for a female character.

Grow up.

Enjoy your ship like a normal person.

if zutara would have happened the azulon statue would have been replaced with katara i don’t have proof of this except vibes

7. What’s your favourite Zutara moment from the show?

I love all Zutara moments, because it shows development in every season. But, I would never forget how June being Zutara shipper in every appearances. This is my random thought! Very random thought!

June looked closely when Zuko showed Katara's necklace. Since she was from earth kingdom, she probably didn't know it was a betrothal necklace. But, very clear the necklace belong to a girl.

But, she was a bounty hunter, she worked for anyone who paid her, they could be from anywhere . So, there was possibility she learn about other nation cultural like betrothal necklace from Northern Water Tribe.

A prince using a (betrothal) necklace to looking a girl? (Maybe he made it for her, but she run away?) Well, the conclusion was, "What happened? Your girlfriend run off on you?"

And Zuko didn't deny it.

June was right, the necklace belong to a girl. A beautiful girl! “So this is your girlfriend. No wonder she left, she's way too pretty for you.”

And again, Zuko didn't deny it!

June didn't know what happened after that, but the Prince Pouty came again to her and now TOGETHER with the girl. Not only that, June saw Katara wore her necklace.

What sense situation except, "I see you worked things out with your girlfriend."

This time they denied it!

But, what a reaction if there was nothing between them?

Zuko never give a f*ck before every time June teased her with Katara, why he suddenly so shy and denied it? And Katara made the same reaction as she denied her relationship with Jet! Something fishy!!

And in the very same night after someone assumed that they were together, they slept like this! Remember, Aang was missing that time, no one knows where he was or was he okay. But, look at the little smile on Katara's face! I wonder, what were they talking about before they say good night?

Correction... we see Aangs crush/infatuation/love from the beginning, not Katara's.

Katara doesn't actually start having feelings for Aang until after she has her fortune read by Aunt Wu and she takes it seriously. Then it's not until Sokka says something about Aang being a powerful bender that Katara sees that her fortune is 'true'.

Why do I hate this?

Because it leaves no room for Katara to make up her own mind about who she should be with and how she should feel. It takes away her ability to choose and she will ultimately not see any other possibilities other than what she is told to believe. The fact that the writers did this just... ugh. No. It limits Katara to one choice and one alone.

It's not a good choice because she ends up in a semi toxic relationship with a man who favors one child over two others because he can airbend.

Also, if it does happen in the Live Action, then that's fine if they do it right. I honestly would be thrilled if there was no romantic subplot because then no one will be happy.

Also, I wanted to explain why I do screenshots of topics. It's because I can control who sees this better. I don't want the antis reblogging my words and using shallow arguments to come at me. So this is my way of controlling the discourse.

When people try to justify Katara in TLOK by saying she's old I want to pull my hair out ! In this case, why is this not the case for other former members of the gaang who are active despite their old age ? Why does Katara have 0 statues in the town ? Why out of everything she could do, she's just kept as a great healer when that's not what she wanted in the original ? Why, if she is such a great healer, does she almost never manage to heal anyone ? Why does she never go anywhere unlike other gaang members who are so old ? Like the bloodbending trial ?! Since it was she who banned it (a very stupid thing, by the way). Like, his granddaughter's own ceremony ? Why isn't she there but Zuko is ?! How come Katara doesn't see her family often ?! She doesn't even try to see them ?! We're talking about Katara ! She would never do that ! Why do we learn more about Aang's role than Katara's about parent-child relationships ?! Stop trying to defend Katara's crappy writing from old age. Old age doesn't stop you from doing badass things in the Atla universe. Everyone forgot Bumi ?! I am so angry ! The simple truth is that Bryke, as in the comics, specifically erased Katara to reduce her to Aang's wife. That's all. Why am I making this rant ? Because I'm tired, once again, of seeing people defend Katara's writing in TLOK under the pretext that she's old, and especially seeing people say that the writing of strong women is even better in TLOK. Can we just talk about the horrible treatment of Korra herself in this ?! Not forgetting the worst thing I have ever seen ! To say that the treatment of Katara in TLOK is better than in the netlfix remake of Atla... How angry all this can make me !

Love seeing their happy family

Many people seem to get genuinely confused, whenever we, zutara shippers, mention how underdeveloped kataang really is. Usually, they’ll brush it off as us being delusional, bitter and you know the drill. Their main response to that, usually is: “How, could they possibly be underdeveloped, they had 3 seasons!?!”

The thing is they forget that the amount of time isn’t as important as what you do do with it. Cuz, yeah, Aang and Katara did have 3 seasons, but their relationship still managed to feel rushed as hell. Heck, even Bryke, out of all people, admitted to it. Which mostly as to do with a bunch of things that I’ll get into right now.

Let’s start with the fact that, Katara never actually shows any interest in Aang.

Now, many of y’all will probably come for me by citing how the cave of the two lovers or even the Headband have moments of her showing interest in him, but all of them end up falling flat at some point.

The cave of the two lovers:

The argument here, usually is“if she didn’t have any interest in him, why would she kiss him?” or “why would she blush at the idea of kissing him?”. The former seems to forget this is a life or death situation and that we don’t really know for sure that if there were another way to get out if this, she wouldn’t take it. For the latter, I’d like to say that blushing can have many significations such as, embarrassment. Which, here makes sense when considering what she says and overall demeanour, after suggesting to kiss.

Like yeah, a fourteen year old girl blushing bcz she’s embarrassed at the idea of having to kiss, her friend, out of all things, cuz you know… awkward. Can you imagine that (pun fully intended)???

The headband:

This one is going to be a ride, but stick with me. The arguments can range from “What about her jealousy while Aang is dancing with other girls.” to “What about the way she looks at him during the dance.”

Here, is said jealousy being shown:

And said look being done:

Now, yeah, I can absolutely see why these two exemples would be used as a way to prove her interest, but let me remind you that this is the same episode where we have this happen.

Yeah, the same episode where Katara is acting all jealous and giving flirty looks to Aang is also the same one where she pretends to be is… mother. While, I could go on about how it wasn’t the best idea on the directors or whoever was in charge of the episode part if it was their way of giving a glimpse of Katara being into Aang. The issue is, them doing so wasn’t completely farfetched either, because up until now it’s been established that Katara can be very motherly and she acts that way with almost everyone in the gaang. More specifically, the one with who she does so the most is, Aang.

I mean, even the show makes a point of poking fun at their mother-son dynamic on several occasions all throughout the show (ie. the don’t-rub-your-eyes-when-you’re-speaking scene in “The runaway” episode). So realistically, the two exemples shown way above could somewhat work, but only if you decide to completely ignore what episode they take place in, one that hasn’t really helped at stopping the mother-son dynamic allegations kataang has been getting, for years, now.

So, back to the development aspect, I think it has always been stunted from the beginning, because, fundamentally, the ship as always been designed to be Aang-centric. If you’d like more insight on that I’d recommend checking @starlight-bread-blog’s amazing post on the issue. But also, that their lackluster resolution is way much more obvious, cuz both are leads in the show. Katara's existence in the show, isn't solely there to serve as some love inerest for Aang. Shocker, but she's actually a MAIN CHARACTER in the show, meaning that we spend three seasons where we get to learn about her battles, fears and aspirations, none of which seems to involve a relationship with Aang.

Like yeah, the reason why The Ending Kiss™ feels so unsatisfactory is, simply, because, Katara doesn't like Aang (at least not like that). Katara, likes Aang, because the show said so. Now, stick with me, cuz I can already feel some of y'all ready to jump at the screen. Within the show, name a single moment where she ever comes to thinking of Aang in a romantic way. One that doesn't involve any external sources, such as someone suggesting about it or because of the given circumstances she has to. The answer is none. The only time we ever get to see her voice her ACTUAL opinion about it, this is what she says:

That's not even counting how her overall demeanor, from the body language to her choice of words seems to suggest that she's actually trying to let him down gently. Also, may I remind you that at that point THERE'S ONLY 3 FREAKING EPISODES LEFT BEFORE THE BIG KISS™ and this is where there at in their relationship. Plus, within the 3 episodes that are left WE NEVER GET TO SEE THEM TALK ABOUT IT, EVER!!!

This obviously was part of Bryke’s horrible attempt at the will-they-won’t-they trope. Which ended up playing right in their face, cuz like I mentioned they themselves had to come to glaring realization that kataang was rushed. Now, it could’ve been it, the creators realizing their obvious mistake and if they could, trying to fix it by giving us what seemed like the natural progression of their relationship, which was for it to end.

Instead, we got comics!Katara and oooh boy…

Basically, they decided that they would throw away Katara’s meticulously built characterization in order to make her existence revolve around, Aang. I kid you not, when I say that she isn’t allowed scenes, lines and actions that do not revolve around her “sweetie”.

Remember how I said that, Katara likes Aang because the show runners said so. This is an example of this cranked up to a hundred.

Essentially, when you start thinking about where these two are in terms of growth, kataang is the antithesis to development itself. On one hand it validates the regression of one (ie. the dropped chakra plot line), while simultaneously, having to strip any previously built characterization of the other (ie. comics!katara).

On that note, I’d like to remind people, how important Katara is to the story. Without her, the entirety of the gaang would be dead. Without her, there would be no story. Without her, there would be no Aang.

She deserved to have a voice within her own relationship and not for it to be stolen by two grown men who were still stuck in their childhood fantasy.

She deserved better.

No, actually. It is not “shaming Katara’s femininity” or her “maternal traits” to critique the ways in which her character was relegated to a the passive role of the Avatar’s grieving widow and largely ignored by the narrative post-ATLA. Oh my god, we are not “degrading” Katara by pointing out the sexist implications of how her character was handled and to suggest such a thing is just so…infuriating and very revealing of the underlying sexism in the fandom.

No thoughts, just people endlessly glorifying Katara’s maternal tendencies without bothering to question or investigate the adverse effects of her parentification. Apparently anyone who criticizes the writing of Katara’s character is just denigrating “traditional femininity” and THEY are the true misogynists! Not the male writers or viewers who consistently minimize Katara’s significance to the narrative and mock fans who ship her with anyone other than Aang.

Not at all, really we should just accept the conditions of the narrative uncritically and never question the biases of the creators. How dare we criticize them and point out the underlying sexism in their writing?

The number of fans I've seen turn their back on Kataras's character due to the Southern Raiders episode is astonishing and incredibly painful. In fact, it makes me wonder how people cannot consume media critically when the objective of the show is to create nuanced and well-rounded characters that almost reflect normal human beings like you and me. However, when a character who is usually good and who is usually nice and good exudes negative emotions and quite valid ones. How would you feel if you found your mother's murder? Enraged and upset and if you have the power that Katara has I feel that many of us would use it. However, I seen many fans get on a moral high horse and absolutely turn her back on her even after this episode was done. I understand that people are upset at the "you didn't love her as much as I did." Quote said by her to her brother. However, I want you to think about one thing. Imagine being the reason why your mother was killed. You were the one who was supposed to die that night. But your mother replaced your fate. Katara will always love her mother differently because her mother gave her life twice: once when she was born and the other where she protected her daughter by lying that she was the last water bender. She feels guilty for her mother's death. I've seen so many people permanently hate her character after this episode and it feels like people cannot generally understand a well rounded character. I feel that many people tend to coddle the other characters and their trauma, but when it comes to Katara people simply just don't care. Everyone decides to play the trauma olympics , with all of the characters , without understanding that they're all incredibly traumatized and comparing trauma does not help anyone's mental health. But for her it's a complete joke. There's memes and people laugh. In fact, whenever she does bring up her mother It is meant to help others and to be able to help bring comfort to their pain. She doesn't do it out of the luxury of grieving for herself.