toph-bi-fong

[toph-bi-fong]

I also wish the cloud babies didn't get centered in bad faith arguments by ZKs. They hate Tenzin because he looks like Aang and is "a groomer of Pema". They ship Lin with him though, huh.

They say Kya and Bumi were underdeveloped yet can talk extensively about how Aang supposedly abused them by neglecting them.

Kya being spiritual is a "lie by Bryke to make Aang look better."

"Bumi was made into a Airbender to make sure Aang didn't look as bad"

Kya being a lesbian? Proof Aang is homophobic because he didn't like that she couldn't "breed grandkids for him."

Bumi not having kids? "Aang scarred him so bad he never sewn his oats."

Izumi existing despite being Zuko's kid? "Aang stole Katara from Zuko so Zuko accepted Iroh's arrangement of him to Mai. Mai was a bitch and refused Katara healing her while she died in childbirth, and Zuko named Izumi after a fountain because he was thinking of Katara always."

And my favorite: "Katara asks to be buried next to Zuko in the fire nation. She was always more of a fire spirit than water."

Everything they say is just made up and the argument exists purely to push their fanon as canon. The way the cloud babies are constantly tugged around in this ship war is annoying to me. They’re each their own characters and aren’t just a means to throw around accusations that have no canonical support to try and make a ship look better when said ship isn’t even real in the canon.

Tenzin is one of the best characters in TLoK. And if anything, he’s far more like Katara than he is like Aang, lol. He is totally a mamas boy through and through. He has her personality more than he could ever have Aang’s. He’s also constantly visiting the SWT for festivals and the like, so I’m sure he feels quite connected to the culture as well.

Bumi and Kya are a lot more like Aang in my opinion, despite seemingly not having as much interest in air nomad culture. That’s tracking for certain things they say, yet in their personalities, they are both like their dad. Kya traveled all around the world and certainly lived a nomadic lifestyle and only seemed to have stopped when Aang passed away, because Katara needed someone to be with her.

Bumi seemed to have inherited a lot of Aang’s spirituality, his fun loving nature, his humor and enjoyment for music and dance though I’d also say he’s a bit of a wildcard like his uncle Sokka so I’m sure he spent a lottttt of time with him as a kid 😂

I honestly see aspects of our original trio (Aang Katara and Sokka) in each of the cloud babies.

And Aang didn’t abuse his kids. The show never said that. Aang took Tenzin on trips while training him in airbending. This makes sense, seeing as Aang likely didn’t have endless time to devote to everyone while also having to be the avatar. Taking Tenzin on trips while trying to do both at once and making it at least somewhat fun for him by stopping along the way at places close to temples isn’t really hard to understand. Aang was one man. He can’t possibly do everything for everyone simultaneously.

Plus, Bumi is like 10 years older than Tenzin. He joined the military when he was likely an older teen. Tenzin would have been 6 at the time and for the majority (if not the entirety) of the timeline Aang would have been training Tenzin, Bumi wouldn’t have even been home to begin with to go on said trips.

Kya? Maybe, but we don’t know the exact age she left home and started traveling, and considering she explicitly voices that she was always bored to learn stuff about air nomad history (even though Aang clearly taught her because she knows about it) tells me that what is far more likely is that she didn’t want to go on said trips either. Tenzin didn’t have a choice.

Aang is very much dead by the time any of them try to voice grievances on the subject. So they take it out on one another, as siblings often do (I would know, I have 3 myself lol). It always came across to me that the cloud babies were saying things in grief and not explicit truths because they envied one another for the time or lack thereof that one or the other had with their father before he died.

Kya and Bumi who would have left and spent their lives traveling and serving and who likely weren’t even around when Aang died, who then take it out on Tenzin who was there because they both probably felt guilt and/or some sort of regret for having missed out on a chance to say goodbyes. Aang dying so young was probably very unexpected for the entire family. Bumi and Kya resenting Tenzin for having stayed so close to home in adulthood isn’t surprising. He did spend more time with his father than they did. And not all of it had to do with Tenzin being an airbender. Bumi and Kya chose to drift far from home and neither seemed to have returned immediately or stay put after Aang’s death.

That doesn’t mean they hated their dad or felt abused by him. All three of them being in each other’s presence for the first time in who knows how long was bound to bring up something on the subject. Both the good and the bad.

And all three of them made up and then agreed they had a happy family and happy childhoods. They were obviously saying stuff they didn’t mean out of mutual grief. It’s very reminiscent of Katara saying what she said to Sokka in ATLA about their mother, or Katara resenting Hakoda for very similar reasons such as having an obligation that was above family, and having to leave. Bumi and Kya both ultimately acknowledge that Aang also had responsibilities they didn’t understand as children, and that this didn’t mean he didn’t love them. It’s the same thing. Actually, it’s much worse in Aang’s case than it ever was Hakoda’s.

I’m sure that the cloud babies all three grew up with expectations of who they should be that weren’t even a reflection of what Katara or Aang imposed on them. They were Master Katara and Avatar Aang’s children, the two people who ultimately ended the 100 year war, and a direct lineage of genocide survivors. The world would expect them to act a certain way. The world would likely voice disappointment especially in Bumi’s case, that he was a non bender. That doesn’t mean Aang or Katara ever felt that way. A child can internalize things that aren’t true about their parents, especially when their parents are as renowned as kataang.

There’s plenty of nuance in the cloud babies dynamic. Bumi could have resented Kya and Tenzin for being benders. Kya and Tenzin could have resented him for seemingly skirting the responsibility they might have felt for being born with the ability to bend at all. Tenzin could have resented them both for in his view ditching him and leaving him with the responsibility of the air nation alone. Hell, even Aang and Katara could have had their own anxieties or fears that they weren’t doing the best they could. Aang could have felt like he was failing the world or his family or both simultaneously. Katara could have felt like she wasn’t enough based on whatever the public thought of her and Aang’s marriage. The public could have been antagonistic toward the kataang family for a plethora of reasons.

All could exist simultaneously. All of these characters could feel a certain way at a fleeting time and it wouldn’t change the fact they all loved one another fiercely. It wouldn’t change the fact that Katara and Aang did the best they could and did everything they did to ensure their children lived and thrived even if their children didn’t always understand. It wouldn’t change the fact they grew up with parents in a loving marriage that taught them to be good people and to lead honest lives. More often than not, clarity comes in hindsight, which was the intention behind the cloud babies and that plot point.

They were a happy family despite the circumstances, and despite the times they could not be together and were all loved equally.

[toph-bi-fong]

people who say the lion turtle and energybending were a cop out are too weak to survive the harsh winters and their bloodline shall surely end with them

the spiritual themes of ATLA go right over their heads every time lol

The lion turtle was shown numerous times in the background, Aang even has a line about it in The Library, and energybending was alluded to most notably with Ty Lee chi blocking. If there’s a way to take someone’s bending away temporarily, naturally there must be a way to take it away permanently, and also give it back, which we see in TLoK. Also, Aang was literally praying for a way to resolve the war without sacrificing his cultural beliefs. The lion turtle didn’t magically bestow in him the ability to energybend. It only showed him it was possible, and also said if his own soul was even slightly susceptible to the influence of another, he would literally be destroyed on the spot by even attempting it

It’s pretty obvious that the universe was listening to and answering his prayer, sending a messenger to take its disciple to the battlefield where it would aid him in doing what he prayed for. The lion turtle itself was the last of its kind, just like Aang, hunted to near complete extinction by the humans it helped live and thrive in the world. It’s only fitting that it acts as the messenger to Aang narratively, and that it helps provide an answer to save Aang from completing the genocide of the air nomads spiritually

Even if someone wants to say it’s a deus ex machina, that doesn’t mean this is always a bad writing choice, and if anything this particular usage is very much in line with the themes of the story and more importantly, it’s earned. Aang had already exhausted all resources available to him, and had opened himself up to the possibility of receiving, which is a fundamental aspect of meditation.

Sure, the term “energybending” was not said until the lion turtle appeared, but it was absolutely alluded to. We were introduced to the concept of chi flowing in the body, the concept of locking and unlocking chakras, the concept of blocking chi to take bending away, so why is it that people think energybending is this concept that doesn’t align with ATLA? It does. It is a natural progression of things we already were shown and told. Even the guru told Aang he could harness “cosmic” energy, and Toph even makes a joke about him having space powers

So is it shocking then that the universe was treated as an actual entity that listened to him? Not really. Even the chant that plays when Aang encounters the lion turtle is a real Buddhist chant, adjusted slightly to refer to Aang as the disciple of the universe, or rather Buddha. The avatar is not god, it is not source, it is a follower, an extension of source there to enforce balance and relieve suffering on the world

The only way to relieve that suffering was to ensure that his cultural beliefs were not destroyed. Only in that way could the world actually achieve balance once again. It wasn’t just Aang’s will, it was the universes… it was karmic… like the rock that was driven right through his heart chakra, a result of Ozai’s relentlessness and brutality, the consequences of which he brought entirely upon himself…

It’s quite literally exactly as he said: “Now the universe delivers you to me as an act of providence.”

It was an act of providence, just not for the reasons he thought. Very fitting for a scum character like him

[toph-bi-fong]

“Sometimes life is like this dark tunnel. You can't always see the light at the end of the tunnel, but if you just keep moving… you will come to a better place.” ― Uncle Iroh

[toph-bi-fong]

I also wish the cloud babies didn't get centered in bad faith arguments by ZKs. They hate Tenzin because he looks like Aang and is "a groomer of Pema". They ship Lin with him though, huh.

They say Kya and Bumi were underdeveloped yet can talk extensively about how Aang supposedly abused them by neglecting them.

Kya being spiritual is a "lie by Bryke to make Aang look better."

"Bumi was made into a Airbender to make sure Aang didn't look as bad"

Kya being a lesbian? Proof Aang is homophobic because he didn't like that she couldn't "breed grandkids for him."

Bumi not having kids? "Aang scarred him so bad he never sewn his oats."

Izumi existing despite being Zuko's kid? "Aang stole Katara from Zuko so Zuko accepted Iroh's arrangement of him to Mai. Mai was a bitch and refused Katara healing her while she died in childbirth, and Zuko named Izumi after a fountain because he was thinking of Katara always."

And my favorite: "Katara asks to be buried next to Zuko in the fire nation. She was always more of a fire spirit than water."

Everything they say is just made up and the argument exists purely to push their fanon as canon. The way the cloud babies are constantly tugged around in this ship war is annoying to me. They’re each their own characters and aren’t just a means to throw around accusations that have no canonical support to try and make a ship look better when said ship isn’t even real in the canon.

Tenzin is one of the best characters in TLoK. And if anything, he’s far more like Katara than he is like Aang, lol. He is totally a mamas boy through and through. He has her personality more than he could ever have Aang’s. He’s also constantly visiting the SWT for festivals and the like, so I’m sure he feels quite connected to the culture as well.

Bumi and Kya are a lot more like Aang in my opinion, despite seemingly not having as much interest in air nomad culture. That’s tracking for certain things they say, yet in their personalities, they are both like their dad. Kya traveled all around the world and certainly lived a nomadic lifestyle and only seemed to have stopped when Aang passed away, because Katara needed someone to be with her.

Bumi seemed to have inherited a lot of Aang’s spirituality, his fun loving nature, his humor and enjoyment for music and dance though I’d also say he’s a bit of a wildcard like his uncle Sokka so I’m sure he spent a lottttt of time with him as a kid 😂

I honestly see aspects of our original trio (Aang Katara and Sokka) in each of the cloud babies.

And Aang didn’t abuse his kids. The show never said that. Aang took Tenzin on trips while training him in airbending. This makes sense, seeing as Aang likely didn’t have endless time to devote to everyone while also having to be the avatar. Taking Tenzin on trips while trying to do both at once and making it at least somewhat fun for him by stopping along the way at places close to temples isn’t really hard to understand. Aang was one man. He can’t possibly do everything for everyone simultaneously.

Plus, Bumi is like 10 years older than Tenzin. He joined the military when he was likely an older teen. Tenzin would have been 6 at the time and for the majority (if not the entirety) of the timeline Aang would have been training Tenzin, Bumi wouldn’t have even been home to begin with to go on said trips.

Kya? Maybe, but we don’t know the exact age she left home and started traveling, and considering she explicitly voices that she was always bored to learn stuff about air nomad history (even though Aang clearly taught her because she knows about it) tells me that what is far more likely is that she didn’t want to go on said trips either. Tenzin didn’t have a choice.

Aang is very much dead by the time any of them try to voice grievances on the subject. So they take it out on one another, as siblings often do (I would know, I have 3 myself lol). It always came across to me that the cloud babies were saying things in grief and not explicit truths because they envied one another for the time or lack thereof that one or the other had with their father before he died.

Kya and Bumi who would have left and spent their lives traveling and serving and who likely weren’t even around when Aang died, who then take it out on Tenzin who was there because they both probably felt guilt and/or some sort of regret for having missed out on a chance to say goodbyes. Aang dying so young was probably very unexpected for the entire family. Bumi and Kya resenting Tenzin for having stayed so close to home in adulthood isn’t surprising. He did spend more time with his father than they did. And not all of it had to do with Tenzin being an airbender. Bumi and Kya chose to drift far from home and neither seemed to have returned immediately or stay put after Aang’s death.

That doesn’t mean they hated their dad or felt abused by him. All three of them being in each other’s presence for the first time in who knows how long was bound to bring up something on the subject. Both the good and the bad.

And all three of them made up and then agreed they had a happy family and happy childhoods. They were obviously saying stuff they didn’t mean out of mutual grief. It’s very reminiscent of Katara saying what she said to Sokka in ATLA about their mother, or Katara resenting Hakoda for very similar reasons such as having an obligation that was above family, and having to leave. Bumi and Kya both ultimately acknowledge that Aang also had responsibilities they didn’t understand as children, and that this didn’t mean he didn’t love them. It’s the same thing. Actually, it’s much worse in Aang’s case than it ever was Hakoda’s.

I’m sure that the cloud babies all three grew up with expectations of who they should be that weren’t even a reflection of what Katara or Aang imposed on them. They were Master Katara and Avatar Aang’s children, the two people who ultimately ended the 100 year war, and a direct lineage of genocide survivors. The world would expect them to act a certain way. The world would likely voice disappointment especially in Bumi’s case, that he was a non bender. That doesn’t mean Aang or Katara ever felt that way. A child can internalize things that aren’t true about their parents, especially when their parents are as renowned as kataang.

There’s plenty of nuance in the cloud babies dynamic. Bumi could have resented Kya and Tenzin for being benders. Kya and Tenzin could have resented him for seemingly skirting the responsibility they might have felt for being born with the ability to bend at all. Tenzin could have resented them both for in his view ditching him and leaving him with the responsibility of the air nation alone. Hell, even Aang and Katara could have had their own anxieties or fears that they weren’t doing the best they could. Aang could have felt like he was failing the world or his family or both simultaneously. Katara could have felt like she wasn’t enough based on whatever the public thought of her and Aang’s marriage. The public could have been antagonistic toward the kataang family for a plethora of reasons.

All could exist simultaneously. All of these characters could feel a certain way at a fleeting time and it wouldn’t change the fact they all loved one another fiercely. It wouldn’t change the fact that Katara and Aang did the best they could and did everything they did to ensure their children lived and thrived even if their children didn’t always understand. It wouldn’t change the fact they grew up with parents in a loving marriage that taught them to be good people and to lead honest lives. More often than not, clarity comes in hindsight, which was the intention behind the cloud babies and that plot point.

They were a happy family despite the circumstances, and despite the times they could not be together and were all loved equally.

[toph-bi-fong]

Everytime I remember all the book-length thinkpieces on how Bryke "ruined the original plans" for the story by "forcing the other writers to kill Zutara", I think of this meme

[toph-bi-fong]

Every day there is a new bullshit on atla tumblr

Oh sure, let's remove Aang from the plot

-Zuko's character arc drastically changes

-Zuko's redemption gets erased from existence because AANG and everything about his journey is the biggest reason this guy changed side

-Without Aang, you are not getting your precious agni kai finale

-Without Aang, say goodbye to Katara and Sokka. Their arc wouldn't even start

-Without Aang, say goodbye to Toph

-Without Aang, say goodbye to the North and the moon, because at some point Zhao would have conquered them

-Without Aang, say goodbye to the earth kingdom, because everything is a disaster at this point

-Without Aang, there is no peace, because as Iroh said, the Avatar's ROLE is important to achieve true peace

-Without Aang, Ozai (canonically the strongest fire bender) can't be defeated

-Without Aang....congratulations Ozai and Fire Nation! You won the war

But also...let's remove Aang only from the finale....OZAI WOULD HAVE BURNED THE WHOLE EARTH KINGDOM, BA SING SE INCLUDED. Suki, Toph and Sokka couldn't stop him, his ship was too fast and Ozai is WAY more powerful than them. But sure, Aang did nothing.

You know, this is not even Aang's hate anymore. You all just hate this series.

[toph-bi-fong]

idk fandom is always like "kataang is boring but healthy, ship this fanon ship with Aang and Katara that has more spice", and I'm like yeah maybe ur ship does have a nice arc right there and some good symbolism or potential, but is it really the spicy ship? because where I'm coming from, Kataang was actually the interesting ship because that's absolutely the relationship with the most crazy level emotional intensity.

if I'm being honest, while I can see where some other ships are coming from, due to how much depth atla gives the narratively important character interactions, I actually find other ships than kataang so... literally boring and tame in comparison.

And it's all due to no other ship having the level of sheer emotional intensity and depth that those two have. They're CRAZY about each other.

Like where is ANYTHING that matches this level of total obsessive protectiveness and uncontrolled emotional intensity????

or

I'm not buying Kataang is just the canon stale fluff healthy boring ship. Yes their relationship is ALSO cute and healthy, but those were fucking child soldiers totally obsessed with each other, and had the edge of possessive rage about each other that comes with people who came to depend each other after experiencing extreme neglect and grief. Other ships sound cool for a minute, but then I realize it seems so flat and stale bread in comparison to this wild shit they had going on in canon.

The fact that they are also such nice and peaceful people to others in general, and they are so respectful and loving (beyond their years) to each other specifically, only underlines how sharp those dark edges that they do have are.

[toph-bi-fong]

yang being a zk is so funny cos he's responsible for that infamous scene of zuko hurting and manhandling katara like that single panel completely shitted on their relationship lmfao 😹you'd think someone who likes that ship would portray them in a more favorable light but uhh i guess not lol

I mean…. we all know how that ship became a thing so Zuko manhandling Katara and restraining her is actually right on track lol

Also, Yang sucked at writing all the characters imo. But especially Zuko, Katara and Aang. He makes all three of them super OOC, his first comic begins with him writing Zuko trying to force Aang to promise to kill him if he “turns bad” and Aang actually agreeing to it lmfao…. Uhhhh did we watch the same show? Aang wouldn’t even kill Ozai. The whole point of non-violence is to uphold his culture as the last airbender. Why would he then, after maintaining said cultural values, agree to violate them? 😭✌🏻

Kataang is also written fairly shallowly for the most part, and I can’t stand the way Yang tries to like rely on random fragments of the show as if the characters did not grow and develop past that already. Specifically Aang going into the avatar state and Katara having to pull him out of it. As if Aang didn’t literally master the avatar state in the finale? Lmfao, he does not need her to pull him out of the avatar state at this point. Like her saying he won’t be able to control it in that scene you mention? That’s so annoying to me lol, he CAN control it! He also shit all over Maiko too, and I’m not the biggest shipper of them or super active in that ship space but damn did he write them poorly too. ZK’s tend to have a fundamental misunderstanding of all the characters and relationships though so this doesn’t shock me.

Anyway, Yang didn’t even start to become somewhat good at his portrayal of the relationships or characters individually until North and South. Honestly I am so glad we finally got a new comic writer lmfao. Imbalance was great!

[toph-bi-fong]

Grandma Katara is actually so underrated and I love her

A hug from her could fix all my problems I think.

[toph-bi-fong]

people will say katara and aang weren’t soulmates as if the avatar wasn’t reborn in katara’s home wearing a face that’s the spitting image of her

So true bestie, but tbh I think people have this fundamentally wrong view of what kataang is as a ship. People don’t understand the way in which Katara and Aang love one another, the way in which they allow each other to grow and reach new heights, the way they echo the exact things the other has lost by mere existence, and how well they circle one another as characters and progress the story.

Allow me to go into a kataang meta which is long overdue…

An aspect I see argued about Kataang is that Aang does nothing for Katara. That, somehow, their love for one another is imbalanced, what with Katara’s more grand and sweeping acts of affection for Aang such as pulling him from the Avatar State, compared to Aang’s clearly more subtle care toward her. However, subtle ≠ nonexistent, and I want to start this discussion off by talking about why Aang shows love toward Katara in this particular way, and what it says about him and his understanding of her.

Let’s begin by discussing what we, and by extension, Aang learn about Katara early into their friendship. We see that Katara is altruistic, sure, but we also see that she has been matured beyond her years due to war and violence. We see that her older brother mocks her and her abilities, both in front of Aang and when Aang is not around. We see that she is being tasked with work around their village unlike her brother. We see that she hopes to become a master, and lacks the confidence to do so. Aang himself recognizes these truths to her, and reacts to them in almost unspoken ways:

He takes her sledding, partaking in an act of SWT culture he surely must have known pre-iceberg. This moment is significant to both of them, on one hand Katara being the first person that willingly wants to be Aang’s friend in a century (as Aang was ostracized at his temple), and in Aang giving Katara childhood freedom that she has felt robbed of since she was 8.

He tells her that to be a bender, she must let go of fear, and in that fear is her own self consciousness. She confides in him the trauma of being the only waterbender in the South Pole, and Aang’s response is to offer her a trip to the North to learn culture. He continues to support this seeking of her culture by never reprimanding her for stealing the scroll in a later episode, unlike Sokka.

Katara, for all her headstrong nature, is not a character that wants to be showered with love or protectiveness unabashedly. She does not want to be doted on in a way that makes her feel helpless. Aang understands how Katara wants to be loved without her having to ask, and does so subtly to where a lot of viewers don’t even seem to notice it. For example, him offering her a way to connect with her culture by saying he will personally escort her to the NWT. He asks for nothing in return and genuinely doesn’t expect anything, either. In such a short time of knowing her, he already understands and recognizes how much she wants to be a waterbender. How later, as she begins to show obvious insecurity in her bending ability, Aang is the one that explicitly calls her a waterbender, giving her the confidence to act upon what she has learned. The clear joy on her face when he says this is not something that needs words. We are shown how much Aang’s confidence in Katara bleeds into her then having confidence in herself.

This is a reoccurring thing Aang does for her: showing gentle support and encouragement without being overbearing about it, or making her feel like she is less than due to him already being a master.

We see this care for her in small physical gestures, as well. This makes sense, as Aang is far less physically affectionate throughout the show, and is an aspect of his arc with Katara that he actually struggles against initially. He quietly puts his arm around her when she is forced to learn bloodbending, a direct parallel to how he was forced into the Avatar State in the first episode of book 2. He puts his hand on her shoulder when he notices she is distant and grieving Jet’s death (something that greatly affects her and her expression of love for Aang in book 3). He apologizes for having rejected her affection, affirms how much he loves her, and expresses this in a hug she has been needing from him without him having to be told. He returns her sought out affection yet again after facing the assassin, where we can clearly see her happily smiling. He affirms that perhaps there is a bright side to all they have mutually suffered: they did get to meet one another, something Katara then agrees with later in The Storm:

K: You’re being too hard on yourself, even if you did run away. I think it was meant to be. If you had stayed, you would have been killed along with all the other airbenders.

A: You don’t know that.

K: I know it’s meant to be this way.

He understands when she feels insecure, saying she had to learn everything on her own, and that he is fortunate enough to have a great teacher in her. He recognizes her fear of the Avatar State even at the end of book 1 before she explicitly voices it at the begging of book 2, where she is silently seeking physical intimacy from him, to know that Aang is still Aang and not this all-powerful Avatar she once seemed to worship like a deity. The dynamic flips—she no longer idealizes him as an Avatar and instead values him as Aang. He voices that he does not want her to put him above her family and tribe, and only later comes back to save their lives, not to disrespect the boundary her brother has enforced.

He pays quite a lot of unspoken attention to Katara just as she does him, such as noticing her sulking at the dance and then offering his hand, where he then pulls her onto the dance floor and proceeds to make her feel like the most special girl in the whole place. He refuses to listen to her be disrespected by Pakku, and only returns when Katara urges it, showing he values her input and advice above all else, even how he might feel about it. He voices his understanding of her grief, urging her to go on this journey and face the man that killed her mother, only showing concern for what taking a life might do to her internally. He shows respect to her father and then inquires about how she feels to be reunited with him, as she does not seem happy as he would expect.

He is also directly paralleled to both Hakoda and Kya, visually in Kya’s case and narratively in Hakoda’s. This is another parallel to how they both return aspects to one another that were lost. In Aang’s case, Katara is his hope of finding belonging in a new world he is not from, of having connection and love and family where he has nothing… in Katara’s case, it is the loss of her father (in him leaving) and in Kya’s death and him defying this loss she feels by consistently returning to her, so much so that she explicitly voices that Aang will come back in the finale, because he always comes back to her, be it from being captured, from chasing destiny, a hundred years of space and time, or literal death.

Aang is not stupid—he understands what is happening. He might not yet know the full scope of the war he has awoken to, but he knows he may not make it out of this predicament… and yet he smiles at her as he is taken away. He is once again, from the second episode of the entire show, placing her needs above his own. She needs to be comforted in some way he can manage.

Is this all explicitly romantic? No, but it doesn’t have to be. This is the foundation on which Katara and Aang’s beginning of a romantic relationship is built. This is what makes their bond so moving, what makes them finding love in one another so meaningful, and is the joy and hope and peace they have both fought, bled and in Aang’s case, died for. All of that, finally realized in their final kiss.

Katara and Aang make one another better people. They bring one another to heights they would not have achieved apart. Their love for one another is not only mutually respectful, but equal. If Aang is the Avatar that must serve the world, then Katara is his tether and that very world he must always help.

People say Kataang isn’t an epic romance, that it isn’t revolutionary to the story of ATLA, and I have to ask why. Is it that they do not have enough grand, over the top moments like many romance novels or movies? Is it that the story allows them to be individual characters with separate (yet similar) arcs that circle and sometimes merge together, only bettered through their love for one another instead of fixated only to this romance?

I would argue that Kataang IS the revolution of the story. Two people, who manage to find one another in a bleak and hopeless existence. Who grow together, and therein learn how best to function as a pair. Who understand one another better than any other character. Who give one another aspects of what they grieve and thought were lost to time. Who intentionally and consciously choose one another over and over, echoing this theme that fate and destiny alone is not enough, but merely a fragment of life to do with as one will. Who find happiness and love by choosing to partake in this mutual connection, and by doing so, defy what fate would have had of them by living.

Katara, the last waterbender of the Southern Tribe and Aang, the last airbender in the world, who get to find some semblance of peace, get to marry and have children and bring new life into the world that wanted to eradicate them. Every moment they share, every act of love, every piece of joy, is a direct defiance of the world that would have wiped them both out had they never found one another. Aang, who would have never awoken, who would have remained frozen in and lost in the endless abyss of time, and Katara, who would have never become a master, would have eventually been found and killed… but they save one another, sometimes in grand ways, sometimes by simple touch of a hand, and that is what makes their romance so integral to ATLA and so realistic, transcending beyond most depictions we see of (especially heterosexual) romance, even for the time period they were written.

And all of this, culminated in this final shot of them kissing, intentionally animated to look and feel like a wedding, while The Avatar’s Love (their very own theme music) plays. The last thing we see, and we get to know that, they did it. They found meaning in their suffering, and eventually found peace, not in spite of one another but because of one another.

[toph-bi-fong]

“She isn’t jealous because of other girls she’s just mad he’s the center of attention”

Me when I’m jealous someone else is the center of attention:

“That’s exactly what happened in canon”

I would love to see canonical proof of this! Oh wait, it doesn’t exist lmao.

“Katara was left just as the Avatar’s wife”

Not a single point is Katara ever referred to as the “avatar’s wife” in TLoK but go off.

“And a healer, without a statue or the world’s acknowledgment”

She is literally revered as the greatest waterbender and healer in the world. She is a member of the white lotus. She trained the next avatar in her 70’s. She rebuilt the SWT. She was a politician. Not only is Katara by word of mouth said to have done more and shown to have done more than any of the other gang members, but also, you do realize that The Legend of Korra is not about Katara, right?

She was never shown to have a statue because she, unlike the other members, was originally IN TLOK and relevant to the plot even if in a more minor way. The creative team behind Korra were not able to plot out a 4 season narrative like they did with ATLA, because the network jerked them around season by season. They originally planned to have 1 season only. Katara is very much alive and in season 1, and appears multiple times, hence why she didn’t have a statue shown. This only became complicated when Zuko and Toph randomly appeared in later seasons. Seasons that were not planned or thought out when s1 was created… lol. Could they have randomly shown a statue of Katara in season 4? I mean, sure I guess. Would it have been in any way relevant to what was going on? No!

“In the end she became just a forgotten lonely old woman”

The world literally does remember her and is shown to but go off queen! She is like 84 goddamn years old in TLoK. What do these people expect? For her to do crazy backflips and stab a man on screen or something? She lives in her damn tribe, with her daughter and is visited by her sons and grandchildren often. Lonely? Maybe, probably because the love of her life and husband is fucking dead and so is her brother. Because of how she’s viewed by the world? Not so much.

People have got to stop acting like TLoK is about Katara, or any of the other original characters. Like jfc, not every damn thing is about her and not every writing choice was maliciously made to slight her character either 😭🙏🏻

[toph-bi-fong]

Aang sketchpage time :D

★ patreon || website || bluesky ★

[toph-bi-fong]

Mal's Avatar: The Last Airbender rewatch: Appa's Lost Days 2.16

[toph-bi-fong]

“Aang ruined Katara’s life” “he made her a human incubator” “she was just his baby machine”

Now I know damn well y’all would nottttttt be saying this vile shit if it had been Zuko’s kids she had 🙄🤚🏻do y’all talk about your mothers like this?

[toph-bi-fong]

[toph-bi-fong]

Kinda frustrating being a KA shipper in one fandom, and being an IR shipper in another when the latter of that shipping fandom is full of Zeekay shippers. But what can you do?

[toph-bi-fong]

Let’s also not forget that the LAST thing Zuko would want to do is hurt someone he considers very close to him by having an affair with his wife.

“Katara would cheat on Aang with Zuko and then lie to Aang about the paternity of the kids” Katara would literally rather throw herself off the highest cliff and plummet to her death but ok girl lol