fangoeshere

[fangoeshere]

From what I could gather based on canon info

[fangoeshere]

Ladrien and Marichat used to be my favorite sides of love square. I'm a sucker for superhero/civilian pair and the fact I could get two of this kind of ships out of one pair are actually my main reason being attracted to Love Square at the first place.

But the way most LS shipper go on and on about True Self bullshits and singling out Ladrien pissed me off. Adding that to how repetitive most Marichat focused fanfiction are make me hate it. Ugh, do you have idea to how to write Marichat that wasn't balcony meeting or film date and definitely not true selves nonsense? And maybe some Ladrien brainstorming too?

The thing about the love square is that it's not four separate ships. It's four different dynamics for the same ship. Ladrien is a mutual pining, forbidden/secret love dynamic while Marichat is a friends-to-lovers dynamic.

I've talked about this before, but the friends-to-lovers thing is why Marichat fics tend to feel very similar. Without a crush or other force driving them to take risks, there's simply no reason for Marichat to do anything more than casual hangouts on Marinette's balcony. Even then, that setup can be a hard sell because there's not a great reason for Adrien to seek Marinette out when he's Chat Noir unless you make Gabriel more controlling than he was in canon, driving Adrien to use his hero persona to see his friends. But in that scenario, you need to explain why Marinette is being picked over everyone else for these secret hangouts since she's not exactly Adrien's best friend on the civilian side. I can't think of a great reason to go with her over Nino in the context of canon.

All of this is why canon-compliant Marichat works best when it's not a thing that the characters actively sought out. Any setup that feels spur-of-the-moment works such as Chat Noir stopping to talk to Marinette because she looks sad. Without that spur-of-the-moment element, the ship doesn't work because there's just no reason for Marichat to happen.

If you don't agree with that statement, then before you send me an ask, consider all of the following: if Adrien actively wants to hang out with Marinette, then he can just hangout with her as a civilian. Their time together may be more limited than he'd like, but canon has not kept them apart! They have daily interactions at school and occasionally get to hang out outside of school, too. They have even successfully dated three times in canon without Adrien needing to use his hero side to supplement his girlfriend time.

There's also the risk factor to consider. If Adrien is hanging out with his friends as Chat Noir, then he has to be careful about what he says and does because his friends know him. That gives them a unique advantage when it comes to unmasking him. He's also putting them at risk because if it gets out that he's hanging out with a civilian, then that civilian is screwed. This means that he either needs a strong motivation to risk consistently hanging out with them or hanging out needs to happen in the previously discussed spur-of-the-moment way where it's easy to not think about the risk.

Similarly, Marinette cannot afford to be publicly associated with any of the heroes on her civilian side as that puts her secret identity at higher risk. For her own safety, it is better for her to date Chat Noir as Ladybug than as Marinette. It's also safer for her to hang out with him as Ladybug than as Marinette. Since there's no reason why Ladynoir can't hang out or date, Marichat once again becomes severely limited in how it can start and even what it can look like.

I was honestly stunned when canon let Marichat go out on a movie date and then an ice cream date because that was wildly irresponsible! There is no excuse Marinette can give as to why she was hanging out with a superhero and so going on those kinds of outings is putting her at a massive risk for no good reason! Once social media post and she's doomed.

The only reason Marichat didn't doom Paris in canon is because Gabriel conveniently forgot about Chat Noir's crush just like he conveniently forgot about learning the temp heroes identities, a fact that I find massively disappointing because Gabriel's final threat was the only good thing about Elation:

Gabriel: Ladybug, Cat Noir, the prospect of giving up your Miraculous to experience love left you cold! And yet, now I’ve discovered a burning secret: Cat Noir has feelings for Marinette Dupain-Cheng. I don’t know to what extent, but they exist. And they’re a weakness that I intend to exploit, and put an end to Ladybug!

Marinette and Chat Noir's asinine behavior should have had consequences and I was looking forward to those consequences! Yet another disappointment from season five.

This is why hanging out on Marinette's balcony or in other secluded places is really all that Marichat can get away with if they're being responsible and the fic is being realistic (no shade to self-indulgent, non-realistic fics! They're fine, they just don't fit the ask). There's just no such thing as a safe public outing for Marichat. The only way to get around that is if you make Marinette some kind of celebrity in her own right. Maybe age them up a bit and have her be a known fashion designer who attends the same events as Chat Noir or have her go to a Jagged Stone concert where Chat Noir is acting as security for some reason?

Even if you do manage to put them in a situation where they could publicly hang out with minimal risk, there's once again no real reason for Marichat to want to take that minimal risk. They know that they can just hang out as civilians or heroes later on and identities don't matter when they're just friends. Until they have active crushes that are openly acknowledged and tied to specific identities, we're back to the balcony issue because that's just how Marichat has to start in the context of canon. Something happens, Marichat starts casually hanging out in secret and love blossoms during those hangouts, turning them into a forbidden/secret love dynamic where risks suddenly have greater rewards. If you don't want to go that route with a hero/civilian relationship, then you're not looking for canon Marichat, you're looking for Ladrien or some sort of crush flip scenario which is Marichat in terms of who is in love, but not in terms of shipping dynamic.

Because Ladrien is already in love, they already have a forbidden/secret love dynamic meaning that there is something driving them to take risks right from the start. Those risks are also less risky because of who they are. They need to be cautious about being pegged as a couple, but they're both celebrities so they can find ways to go on "secret" dates in public or even just good excuses to be around their crush pre-dating. For example, they could have gone to the Ladybug & Chat Noir movie premier together and casually hung out without anyone thinking anything of it.

Their celebrity status also gives you a lot more room for getting them together because there are all kinds of reasons two well-known public figures might get thrown together without serious effort. Here are just a few setups off the top of my head:

Acting as hosts for some charity event where they have to meet up a bunch for the prep work

Ladybug agreeing to appear in a Gabriel commercial to spend time with Adrien under the pretense of Gabriel donating the money she would have made to charity

Adrien and Ladybug both attending some event like a fund raiser either by coincidence or with Adrien acting as her assigned escort

Adrien being threatened by some third party and Ladybug volunteering to act as a body guard

After the snake fiasco, Ladybug keeps trying to find the right Miraculous for Adrien as he has to do more and more ludicrous things to maintain his secret identity

Gabriel figuring out his son's crush and trying to create rumors about Ladrien to mess with Chat Noir

Chat Noir finding out about Ladybug's crush and "selflessly" offering to wingman

Marinette finding out about Adrien's crush and "selflessly" offering to wingwoman

I have said that Ladrien is the identity shenanigans side and I meant it as these ideas hopefully show! There's so much room for comedy on the Ladrien side that it's absurd how little canon used it. The Ladrien tag on AO3 may be tiny compared to Marichat, but it has a much wider variety of fics because of everything discussed above. Some of the ideas I listed even have fics out there!

This doesn't make Ladrien objectively better. Which dynamic is "better" is all a matter of personal preference re what type of stories you want to see. Having more options doesn't matter if you don't enjoy any of the options! If balcony hangouts and slowly developing romance are what you crave, then Marichat is the ship for you! If you want other things, then you're going to have to accept that Marichat can't give it to you and branch out into the other three dynamics or even dynamics involving full or partial reveals.

Alternate universes are another solid option that deserve a shout out. Those can do friends-to-lovers in ways canon-compliant fics can't because AUs can do things like removing the other sides or adding non-canon complications that make the other sides a no-go. This is where you get stuff like Adrien being turned into a cat, Adrien being a Prince who sneaks out in disguise, Adrien never meeting Marinette on the civilian side, or even just Adrien and Marinette no longer being close as civilians because they're not in school anymore! All good times, but clearly not canon compliant and also not exactly the canon Marichat dynamic which are understandable turn offs to some.

AUs are the Marichat fics I tend enjoy the most so I recommend giving them a look even if you're usually a canon-or-bust fan. They may just surprise you! Partial-reveal Marichat is equally good, but we've already acknowledged that partial-reveal Marichat isn't really Marichat so I don't think it counts.

Quick reminder that all of the above was in reference to the following question and is not meant to be read as criticism of Marichat. I was just explaining why anon came to the wrong ship if they want strong story diversity. Marichat is primarily a ship for people who enjoy reading 1001 takes on the same very specific trope. If that's not you, then you're probably going to bore of it pretty quickly:

do you have idea to how to write Marichat that wasn't balcony meeting or film date and definitely not true selves nonsense? And maybe some Ladrien brainstorming too?

[fangoeshere]

Tags

atla

su

gf

ml

at

anime

yaoi

[fangoeshere]

I recently saw a post that said Katara and Aang needed to kiss at the end of ATLA to solidify Ka/taang because their dynamic didn't change throughout the show and without that kiss, their fate as a couple would have been ambiguous. It reminded me of a post I made the day after the finale originally aired saying that I wished instead of the kiss, Katara and Aang had been joined on the balcony by the rest of the gaang so they could all look out over the world they'd saved together. At the time, I was speaking as a Zutara shipper looking for peace in the fandom. Now, I realize that my proposed ending would have worked perfectly from a narrative perspective for exactly the above reason.

[fangoeshere]

Me When I remember Retsuko wanted a big wedding and to be a housewife but what she got was an off screen civil wedding and marriage to another child who can’t support her 😭

[fangoeshere]

Something I find interesting is that even though Bryke reduced Katara to a mom and a healer, they couldn't even do that right.

Katara is a mom. What was her relationship like with her kids? How did her kids feel about her? Was she a good mom? Who knows? Bryke didn't care enough to address it. Everything about her kids revolves around Aang and his bad parenting. What about her grandkids? Well she has no relationship with them. They barely know her.

Katara is a great healer (instead of great waterbender). Are we shown how great her skills have gotten? Nope! She fails every time she tries to heal someone on-screen just to show how bad the affliction is.

So Katara was there to serve as a trophy wife and baby machine for Aang, and once she served that purpose, Bryke didn't give a damn about her. She has no known accomplishments in her adult life (banning bloodblending doesn't count because it didn't accomplish anything). And after Aang dies, she's just a sad, lonely widow.

[fangoeshere]

Rewatching A:tLA with my brother and we just tackled The Southern Raiders.

Something that bothered me this time that had never bothered me before was when Aang tells Katara, "You sound like Jet."

He said that to stop Katara from taking revenge, right? To make her stop and think? Doesn't anyone think that this is fucked up? Like, let's examine this.

"You sound like Jet."

Okay, which Jet?

Jet from his debut episode where he tried to destroy an entire village to get rid of some Fire Nation troops? How does that sound like Katara trying to find the one man who killed her mother?

Or is it the Jet from Lake Laogai who died trying to find Appa? Yes, he did some bad things, but he died in his attempt to help the gang find Appa. Shouldn't Aang hold Jet in higher regard for leading them to Lake Laogai and getting them closer to finding Appa and exposing Long Feng and the Dai Lee? He just uses his name like it's slander to make Katara feel bad for wanting to get revenge on this one guy. That's how you treat the memory of a friend who died for your bison?

[fangoeshere]

You know, I actually really didn’t mind kataang/Aang at first, but over the years, one thing that always stood out to me was the way that the same people who mocked and bashed Katara’s character were so defensive over kataang.

It’s less prevalent now than it was pre-2020, but people used to relentlessly mock Katara for mentioning her mother, call her rude and bossy, and that she was the most annoying character. You can still see it on platforms like Reddit and YouTube with predominately male user bases; they are much more mask off.

It couldn’t be more obvious how these people view Katara. To them, Aang deserves her because he’s the hero and he wants her. That’s as deep as it goes. What matters to her is irrelevant and the show and fans of that ship make it obvious with their behavior. This new wave of kataang fans pretending they love Katara is a very recent phenomenon and all the old fans know it.

[fangoeshere]

There's an serie on amazon called "Kevin can fuck himself" and that's how i see adult kataang dynamic

The great thing about “Kevin Can F**k Himself” is that it portrays the other side of a relationship that, for the most part, revolves around the male character in a heterosexual relationship. Despite what the fandom might tell you, Kataang absolutely revolves around Aang at the expense of Katara’s character. This is especially obvious once they pursue a romantic relationship, but it’s present throughout the series as well.

This comparison doesn’t surprise me because the exhausting dynamic depicted in “Kevin Can F**ck Himself” feels like it could only grow from a dynamic like Kataang’s. One where the man is prioritized at every turn while the female love interest is sidelined and relegated to the background. It’s no coincidence that the diminishing of Katara’s presence coincides with her growing commitment to Aang and their relationship. It’s been the norm for a LONG time. Where a woman’s identity is subsumed after getting married and is expected to devote her entire self to supporting her husband and children. Unfortunately, when you try to point this out, the fandom starts yelling at you and breaking out the pitchforks.

[fangoeshere]

The writing for both Kataang and Maiko was flawed, and many people only defend these ships because they are canon. They view canon as infallible and are so nostalgic about the series that they treat it as their sacred cow, immune to criticism. While Kataang and Maiko could add some narrative value, they should not have been endgame. Although the series generally has strong writing, it falters significantly when it comes to romance. Only Sukka was decent.

Throughout the series, Kataang is heavily telegraphed, but Katara's side of the attraction is marginalized in favor of Aang's perspective. An entire arc is dedicated to Aang needing to let go of his attachment to Katara, and Azula striking Aang with lightning before he can enter the Avatar state keeps this attachment intact. A lot of Aang stans argue that the narrative punished Aang for letting go of his love for Katara, suggesting he would "lose himself." However, attachment in Dharmic religions is distinct from love.

Love is always positive, while attachments are harmful. Katara's feelings for Aang are largely ambiguous while Aang's feelings for Katara are obsessive. Katara is constantly supporting Aang but he can not return an equivalent amount of support to Katara due to his emotional immaturity. Guru Pathik identifying Aang's feelings for Katara as an "attachment" implies that these feelings are not true love and hinder his path to enlightenment. Either Bryke are complete morons who misunderstood the Indian philosophies they appropriated, or the writing diverged from its original plan.

Aang's attachment arc is ultimately dropped without explanation, and he opens his chakra without letting go of Katara through a deus ex machina by slamming into a rock. Aang never faces a significant challenge or sacrifice to achieve his goals. A more compelling storyline would have Aang realize that his feelings for Katara were unhealthy, stemming from his idealization of her, and that he must prioritize the world over his personal desires since that is his destiny.

Aang’s attachment to Katara can be seen as a way to cope with the grief of losing his people. Guru Pathik explains that Aang's love for his people was reborn as his attachment to Katara. It would have been more fitting for Aang to recognize that his affection for Katara was a coping mechanism and that he had to face reality. The IP Bible, the original draft of the series created by Bryke, does not even have them end up together, with Aang concluding his story by searching for surviving Air Nomads. How different would things have turned out if Bryke stuck to their original plan of having some Air Nomads survive?

As for Maiko, the relationship lacks proper build-up. While there are hints of Mai’s crush on Zuko in Book 2, there is zero indication of Zuko having feelings for her in Books 1 and 2. The animated series completely skips over how they get together as the two suddenly become a couple in the first episode of Book 3. A tie-in comic had to explain how it happened, revealing that Azula encouraged the relationship to control Zuko, and Mai was complicit with Azula's plan if it meant she could date him.

Mai and Zuko's relationship works better as a metaphor for Zuko’s past. While Mai initially lavishes Zuko with the attention he always starved for, their relationship quickly deteriorates as the two have grown apart in their values. Zuko's emotional state is at its worst when he is with Mai, and Mai has no idea how to deal with his internal turmoil. Zuko experienced significant character development while Mai is still in love with a version of Zuko from before his banishment.

By breaking up with Mai, Zuko moves on from his old life and embraces his true destiny. When the writers reunited them at the end, this concept fell apart. Too much had changed for them to simply pick up where they left off. Zuko had matured into a new person who could no longer cater to Mai's whims, whereas Mai had barely changed. Mai, the spoiled daughter of Fire Nation nobles and colonizers, joined Azula's quest to hunt down Aang out of sheer boredom. She mistreated her servants and did not even care about her baby brother's life being endangered. Although Mai betrayed Azula to protect Zuko, she still viewed him as a traitor to his country. It's unclear why Zuko, having evolved and "turned good," would still be interested in someone like Mai.

In my eyes, Kataang and Maiko being endgame was a mistake, and felt horribly forced. The writing for both couples was so bad that it even defied logic at times. The plot had to contort itself to grant Aang a deus ex machina so he could be with Katara, while Zuko and Mai getting together wasn't even depicted in the series. Like I said, I think there is some merit to these pairings existing in the canon for narrative purposes, but only if they are not endgame. Kataang would have worked better as a red herring, allowing Aang to become a fully realized Avatar, while Maiko serves best as a metaphor for Zuko's previous life.

[fangoeshere]

The fact that the ATLA writers were originally making the Southern Raiders episode “too shippy” for Bryke and Bryke had to constantly tell them to make it more and more toxic to prevent any sort of shipping moments makes me almost as happy as the fact that Bryke’s attempts still backfired

[fangoeshere]

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.

There are two other disclaimers I need to get through before we continue:

1) The Writers Guild Foundation is not a lending library. You may make an appointment to view the scripts in person, and you are allowed to take notes and manually copy as much as you like. But you will not find copies of their scripts online, and photos and screenshots are strictly prohibited. From what I understand it’s a copyright issue. Legally I’m fairly certain that embedding photos in this post and accompanying it with critique and analysis would/should count as “Fair Use”; however, I know that at some point I’d like to be able to return to the library, and I don’t want to risk being blacklisted for not following their rules.

As such, all the images embedded in this post are reproductions of snippets that I had to manually copy and type up, word for word. It was slow work, so as much as I’d love to be able to just plop the entire script of The Southern Raiders (or any ATLA episode) here for you to read, I had to narrow my focus a fair bit. I mainly noted down, in order of significance:

additions, omissions or changes in the original script compared to the show

bits where the writer’s notes/storyboard directions contained insight or descriptions that I found interesting, surprising, or just plain funny

scenes that weren’t really all that different or unexpected, but we love to see it in writing anyway (ahem Crossroads of Destiny *cough*)

I’m sure there’s a lot that I still managed to miss - even visiting over two days, I couldn’t read every episode. I highly encourage Zutarians living in or near LA to make an appointment and read the scripts for yourselves. You’ll be able to see more than what I’ve posted here, and you might even unearth some goodies that escaped my notice.

(Credit goes to @lady-of-bath for taking my boatload of notes and reformatting them to look like scripts again ❤)

(Also apologies that some passages are split across two images; that just means they were long enough that they spanned two pages and I couldn’t be bothered splicing them back together so I just embedded them here as separate image files. I promise I didn’t cut/remove anything; images not separated by a line of dashes should be read as one continuous snippet 😊).

2) The second thing I ought to clarify is that, from my understanding, the drafts I read were final drafts. These were scripts submitted to the guild just prior to storyboarding, voice acting, animating etc. As I read them, I noticed that the only changes to the script that I could tell were non-dialogue related - so things like, descriptions of the characters’ actions, movements, facial expressions/body language, what you can or can’t see in the shot, etc. Otherwise, voice lines have been essentially kept intact. This suggests to me that the changes made to the script after submission to the guild, were also made after lines had been recorded, possibly even after scenes had been storyboarded. It also suggests that the scripts the voice actors read were the same ones I read in that library. (There is one notable exception that I found, a very interesting exception in my opinion, which we’ll get to later.)

While I would have loved to have seen the earlier drafts, to be able to see how the script changed with each revision (including revisions made to the dialogue prior to voice recording), it’s my understanding that the guild rarely ever receives these scripts, and such was the case again this time. I did also have a look to see if they had the ATLA Series Bible, but unfortunately that hadn’t been submitted either. It is what it is. Still, I’m not mad about what I found. :)

And on that note - ONTO THE SCRIPTS!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I’m going to start off by defending Kataang a bit here. (I know, I know. Don’t worry, we’ll get to the juicy Zutara stuff in due course.) In my 2 hour long video analysis I talked about lack of development being one of the biggest structural problems with Kataang as a ship. Specifically, I showed how you can take the scenes that we know to be “Kataang scenes”, jumble them up so that they appear in a different order than they do in the show, and the end result still makes just as much narrative sense - or maybe even more sense than they did in the show. 

Interestingly, the original scripts for these scenes do not fail this test - at least, I don’t think they do. Let’s start at the very beginning:

It’s love at first sight for Aang, which we all knew already. For Katara, it’s less “love” and more “wonder”. But it’s a powerful meeting for both of them. Honestly, this isn’t all that different from how I perceived this scene on television when I watched it. 

Let’s continue with the Fortuneteller:

Okay, so again, roughly what we see on television. Katara realizes Aang could be who Aunt Wu was referring to, and is unsure what to make of this. Fair.

Next, the Cave of Two Lovers:

———————————————————————————————————–

———————————————————————————————————–

Unlike in the show, Katara doesn’t blush in this script (I also checked the ending of the script where I remember her blushing again in the show, but the script doesn’t mention any blush, anywhere). However, Katara seems to be taking the possibility of Aang as a love interest a little bit more seriously here. In the show version, they hug, Aang seems a little awkward and is clearly hoping for some closure/confirmation of where they now stand, but Katara doesn’t seem to spare it a second thought - she just yeets herself out of there. The slow parting and the “awkward look” these kids share in the script suggests, at least to me, that script!Katara is placing more weight on what just happened than show!Katara does, and she at least seems aware, maybe even nervous, of the fact that sharing a maybe-kiss in a secret love cave might do something to their dynamic that she’s not sure how she feels about yet. 

The divergences get more interesting now. Enter The Earth King scene, where Aang attempts to confess his feelings to Katara:

“They both know what he’s about to say.” 

WELL. Not only did they cut out the “he looks her directly in the eyes” part, but they completely took out any shot that might have indicated a mutual understanding between them, as was written in the script. Instead, we get a deer-in-the-headlights look from Katara, then her head cocks to the side “What is it, Aang?” and then… nothing. Everything about her body language on screen is written to suggest she either has no idea what’s coming, or is doing a great job of playing coy about it.

The cheek-kiss is intact in both versions, however. Let’s keep going.

I didn’t take notes on the Headband. I probably should have, but I didn’t bother because there weren’t really any notable differences between the script version and the show version. What you see is basically what you get - Aang dances with On Ji, Katara is agitated but acts aloof, Aang invites her to dance, she hesitantly accepts, they dance and it’s all very cute. She says “that was some dance party, Aang” and gives him another cheek-kiss at the end. If there were any differences from script to screen, I didn’t spot them.

But there was a pretty big difference for Day of Black Sun:

(By the way, this confirms an earlier version of the rumour that had been based on alleged edits made fairly late in the storyboarding process. Credit to @lady-of-bath​ for procuring this receipt).

So, what I’m basically getting here is that, in the original script, up until the midpoint of Season 3, the writing was originally heading towards a Kataang conclusion. And actually - you may disagree with me here but you know what? I actually don’t hate this version of Kataang. (So far, anyway).

There were two main issues I had with Kataang - the structure/pacing of it was all over the place, and on a deeper level I felt that the conflict they set up regarding Aang’s character arc and “letting Katara go” were not properly resolved in the show, leading to a lack of cohesion in the storytelling.

Combing through these passages, script!Katara reads way more natural and realistic, to me, than show!Katara. Let’s look at the progression here, from Katara’s side:

She meets an “adorable” boy and forms an instant attachment to him

She sees their dynamic as platonic until a comment from Sokka makes her question whether it will always be so in the future. She doesn’t quite know what to make of this at the time.

She shares a maybe-kiss with him in a secret love cave, and seems to be aware/nervous that their dynamic may change as a result. 

Some time later, he works up the courage to confess his feelings with her, and the script makes it clear that she understands what he’s trying to say and may even have been anticipating it. 

They go to a party where Katara is moody seeing Aang dance with someone else. Then Aang asks Katara onto the floor, and they dance, and Katara seems genuinely pleased/delighted.

Finally, just before the eclipse, he kisses her. She may not have been expecting it, but her reaction (smiling after him as he flies away) shows she didn’t see it as unwelcome. 

If Kataang were actually written like this, I think that would solve the structural problems of the ship that really bothered me, and I probably wouldn’t have stopped shipping them. It’s very clear to me that taking any of these scenes, as written, and jumbling them out of order, would completely mess up the steady (if subtle) progression of Katara 1) seeing Aang as a potential love interest, 2) understanding he sees her as one, and finally 3) realising she does actually return his feelings.

It also makes Katara feel much more like a real person, and less of an objective for Aang to try to reach in a “two steps forward, one step back” sort of situation.

I think, even then, I still would have shipped Zutara as well, because I don’t think the symbolism and depth to Zutara can be beat. But I’m pretty sure I would have kept a soft spot for Kataang, for the fluff. At least, I wouldn’t be strongly opposed to it. My position would likely be “eh, there’s flaws, and it probably could have been written better, and I think writing Zutara instead would have been more compelling and thematically satisfying but you know what, this is cute. I get it.”

Of course, that’s before we get to the second half of Season 3, where Kataang goes from oscillating in place to taking a nose-dive out of … nowhere.

And in a way that seems to seriously contrast with how the ship had been written from Cave of Two Lovers to Day of Black Sun, the downward spiral of Kataang coinciding with a deepening friendship/connection for Zutara - seems to be exacerbated in the original script.

Remember how uncomfortable it was to watch Ember Island Players in the show?

…

It’s quite a bit worse here.

Aang comes off significantly less sympathetic in this version of the episode. Here he is, looking at Katara “accusingly”, and even “glaring” at her, because the actress playing her on stage is flirting with actor!Zuko. Why is he so angry, and at her? And meanwhile, she “pretends not to notice”? Ick.

I’ll be honest, I never had a strong opinion of Aang being “possessive” in this scene. I understand why other people did, and I totally see where they’re coming from with that. Personally though, I kind of gave him the benefit of the doubt and just perceived him as immature, not really getting it, and I always perceived his jealousy to be more hapless than disturbing. This is just my personal opinion, but I felt that their clash in this episode was more indicative of a lack of compatibility and understanding between them than anything else, and obviously I think the non-con kiss was wrong, but generally I didn’t think the kid had bad intentions - I just saw him as… too young, to be honest. He did get pushy and demanding, and either way Katara deserved better, but with Aang, I kind of understood it to be stemming from hope/desperation rather than anger/entitlement.

The writing here, however, does not leave room for me to be charitable. Aang hearing Actor!Zuko suggest that Katara was supposed to be “the Avatar’s girl”, and glaring at Katara as if to say “Yeah!” - I don’t know how to read this as anything other than possessiveness. Yikes on a cracker.

ALSO, did you notice that Zuko and Katara don’t scoot away from each other in this version? Read it again; the absence of that bit escaped me on my first read-through. (Credit to @zutarawasrobbed​ for spotting that difference!) Zuko and Katara are still sitting next to each other here (the earlier “I wanted to sit here/Just sit next to me, what’s the big deal?” scene is still intact), and all it says about Katara is that she’s pretending not to notice Aang simmering at her from two seats away. Wow.

The non-con kiss is kept intact and most of it is just dialogue so there isn’t much deeper insight to gain from the script, though again, Aang comes off more explicitly volatile/angry at the end of it:

Later, Aang rejoins the group in the theater, and sees Actress!Katara reach a goofy platonic understanding with Actress!Aang, and reacts to this with chagrin and embarrassment. There is no reference to Katara averting her gaze from the screen in a sad or awkward manner, as how she does in the show. 

Overall, I find that Kataang looks worse here, a lot worse than in the show. The omission of Zuko and Katara’s “awkward scoot” is intriguing as well. To be honest, I never perceived “the scoot” to be explicit confirmation or denial of any potential attraction between them (that clip can genuinely be read two ways depending on what trope you’re trying to invoke; neither are inherently invalid), however, the fact that it wasn’t originally written but was added in later… that’s interesting.

Some of you might be forming some opinions by this point. I have some of my own as well, though I want to hold off on them for now. Let’s have a bit of a palate-cleanser with the snippet of Zuko sharing some vulnerability with Katara before we move on:

❤

Now I am going a bit out of order here - I know that EIP actually happens after The Boiling Rock/The Southern Raiders, but as I was already on the topic of the Kataang arc, I decided to continue with that before I delved into the other episodes. So now we’re going back a little bit, chronologically.

(Also, you know me, gotta save the best for last 😉)

Ultimately I had a very brief look through The Boiling Rock, and nothing really jumped out at me - except for this bit:

I can’t be the only one tickled at the idea that Zuko just yeets himself out of that prison cell and doesn’t seem to spare Mai a second thought 😂 (if you’ll recall, the show has the two of them share a glance through the cell window after Mai yells “Get off of me!”; Zuko looks apparently apologetic/sad while Mai just glares at him). I know people have pointed out how amusing it is that Zuko seems to forget about Mai completely after TBR, right up until their last scene together, but the way this scene is scripted here just makes it even funnier to me.

But I know which episode it is that you guys all want to read.

*record scratch*

Oh ho HO, what have we here Elizabeth Ehasz 😉

Next up - Part 2: The Southern Raiders, The Finale, and What I Think About it All

[fangoeshere]

ppl love to forget that katara: 1. has her own taste, 2. developed around aang, he needed her for his development and vice versa, 3. ZUTARA IS SHIP BETWEEN AN OPPRESOR X OPPRESSED!!! Ignoring all of the development they had with their respective partners and the trauma Zuko caused Katara!!

In the infamous words of one Luke Skywalker: amazing. every word of what you just said was wrong.

It’s actually kind of ironic that you bring up Katara’s taste, since, throughout the show, we have examples of the guys she likes, to greater or lesser extents in canon--Jet (explicit romantic feelings on her part, word of god that jet was her first kiss--a kiss that would have been consensual, incidentally, something you should keep in mind for later) and Haru (she denies the crush, but that could just as easily have been because of the abomination he’d been growing on his lip rather than denying those feelings ever existed), both of whom have much more in common (in terms of both emotional and physical maturity, and physical appearance) with Zuko than either of them has with Aang.

Zuko’s book 3 hairstyle is almost exactly reminiscent of Jet’s, even, if not quite as floofy.

(This is probably in part because of Jet’s function as a foil of Zuko within the narrative, particularly given their book 2 encounters, which I think just further solidifies my point that, were it not for extenuating circumstances [like the fact that Zuko was introduced as an enemy and they had significant obstacles to hurdle before they could be friends], Zuko would have been exactly Katara’s type. Had they met under different circumstances, she could have been the girl he went on a date with in Ba Sing Se. Just something to think about.)

So, yes, we’ve established that Katara has her own taste. Her tastes seem to be boys with great hair who are taller than her, the same age or older, and of a similar maturity level.

Aang falls short (heh, short) on all counts. So it isn’t Katara’s taste in boys that led her to be interested in him. Hm!

Next, you claim that Katara ‘developed around Aang’--that she was necessary for his development, and that he was necessary for hers.

Let’s take a moment to examine that, shall we?

I will absolutely grant you that Katara was necessary for Aang’s development--only to a point, of course, but we’ll get to that later--but was he really necessary for Katara‘s growth? I suppose I could grant you this on a generous technicality--he did, after all, provide her with the means to finally leave the South Pole and find a waterbending master to teach her (although she wound up largely self-taught anyway). But that had nothing to do with his relationship to Katara and everything to do with the structure of the plot--Katara and Sokka find Aang (and he never would have gotten out of that iceberg without Katara’s own righteous anger, so even that leads back to her own power), and then they go on a quest to find teachers for the Chosen One and save the world.

The story could not have begun without first finding Aang and then providing means for the other main characters to travel with him (or, in Zuko’s case, chase him), but this has nothing at all to do with Aang’s relationship to Katara. Aang was not a mover in Katara’s developmental arc--if anything, he acted as an obstacle more often than not, his actions ranging from innocent but obnoxious (playing and flirting with girls rather than helping with chores like picking up vital supplies, leaving Katara to do all of the quite literal heavy lifting and keeping her stuck in the role of caretaker that she’d been thrust into following the death of her mother), to deliberate and harmful (hiding the map to Katara and Sokka’s father, a truly selfish action, regardless of his lack of malicious intent, and one for which he never actually apologized), to somewhere in between (”she didn’t really mean that” he says to the man refusing to train Katara because she’s a girl, when yes, she very much did mean that, and Aang was no help in finally getting the old codger to eat his words--Katara had to shove them down his throat her own damn self).

While Katara’s overall arc wasn’t exactly big and dynamic (like Zuko’s redemption arc), or in-your-face (like Sokka getting force-fed Respect Women Juice and his eventual growth into a tactician and leader), it was very much present and woven into her character--and Aang had almost no part in it. He provided her with the means to get to the North Pole, but left Katara alone to fight the patriarchy herself. He messed around while Katara took it on herself to do the chores and keep the Gaang alive, but he did almost nothing to decrease that burden so she could grow out of the caretaker role. (Contrary to popular shipper claims, Aang didn’t actually teach Katara to have fun. She already knew how to have fun. But she couldn’t indulge, because she had a responsibility to her family and her tribe, and later to her brother and Aang and Toph, and Aang goofing off and trying to get her to do the same only added to her burdens rather than subtracting from them.) He provided Katara with the necessary motive to learn to heal herself, but he certainly didn’t seem to learn from the experience of accidentally burning her, preferring instead to claim he was never going to firebend again, despite already knowing, at that point, that he was going to need to master fire along with the other elements to become a fully realized Avatar and defeat the Firelord.

He didn’t help Katara keep them alive during The Desert. (In fact, he ran off, leaving her to desperately try to keep Sokka and Toph from succumbing to the heat while worrying for his safety.) In The Painted Lady, Katara makes the decision to stall the Gaang and do what she can to help the Fire Nation villagers on her own--Aang agrees to help her when he finds out, but he wasn’t actually instrumental in her making that choice. The Puppetmaster was, again, Katara finding a master of her own, and having to deal with the fallout from that. And in The Southern Raiders, Aang was--perhaps unknowingly, if I’m being generous, because he is a child and could not reasonably be expected to fully understand the implications of what he was asking her to do or why it was impossible--actively impeding Katara’s development! She desperately needed closure, something he could not understand and actively belittled and dismissed. The only reason he relented in the end (but not without a condescending ‘I forgive you! Does that give you any ideas???’ parting shot lmao) was because Katara was planning to take Appa anyway, and letting her go (and hoping she’d just magically wind up doing things his way) was easier than trying to fight her on it.

While Aang’s existence was necessary for Katara to start down her own path, she needed neither his guidance nor his approval to follow it--and absolutely nothing would change about Katara’s arc if you removed their romantic relationship entirely.

Possibly because the only changes needed to do so would be to remove the two times Aang kissed Katara without her consent (which, hopefully, no one would actually miss), and the epilogue kiss (which was awkward and unnecessary to begin with, since ending the entire show on a romantic kiss as the final shot kind of missed the point of the story to begin with, but that’s another discussion). None of these kisses (which are the only moments in which Katara’s feelings for Aang are so much as addressed; do note that addressing them, or hinting that they needed to be, is not the same as saying she exhibited any sign of reciprocating them) altered anything about Katara’s behavior, her personal arc, or (and perhaps most critically) her relationship with Aang.

It’s that last point that is really damning, as far as ‘Katara obviously had feelings for Aang, she kissed him in the finale!’ goes. Because she didn’t ‘obviously’ have feelings for him. And the fact that he kissed her before the invasion and then she forgot about it (she literally had no idea what he was talking about during the play’s intermission until he reminded her that he’d kissed her) is pretty clear evidence that she didn’t actually have feelings for him. Not the kind he had for her.

I’ve been a teenage girl. I know what it’s like to be surprise!kissed by your crush. And I absolutely for a full fact know that I had not completely forgotten about that kiss three months later and had, in fact, spent most of my waking hours thinking about it and remembering it and trying to talk to him about it. Now, granted, I was not in the middle of a war, but even if I had been, I doubt I would have needed reminding about the fact that the boy I’ve supposedly been developing feelings for had kissed me and showed clearly that he had those feelings for me too.

At the very least, if Katara was harboring feelings that she was worried about approaching until after the war, her relationship dynamic with Aang should have shifted. But it didn’t. She acted the exact same way with him after the Day of Black Sun as she did before it--that is, as a mother figure and a caretaker, responsible for his wellbeing. (And it’s clear she never took him down off the pedestal she needed him to occupy, either--let it not be said that the unhealthy aspects of their relationship only went one way.)

And book 3 is, incidentally, where Katara went from being vital to Aang’s development to being detrimental to it--or, rather, Aang’s refusal to let go of his attachment to her (despite ostensibly having done as much at the end of book 2) was. Because despite having been told by, perhaps, the greatest authority left in the world on Air Nomad culture (even more than Aang, who had left his temple with a child’s understanding of his culture that was never able to mature because he got stuck in the ice berg while his people were wiped out) that he had to let go of his possessive attachment to this girl who never even expressed the possibility that she might harbor romantic feelings for him to begin with, after Azula killed him and Katara brought him back, he went right back into the mindset of Katara is mine, it’s just a matter of time.

And the narrative validated him for it.

Notice how, during Ember Island Players, Aang says the following (emphasis mine):

“We kissed at the invasion, and I thought we were gonna be together. But we’re not.”

First of all, if you go back and watch the scene, it’s clear it wasn’t a mutual kiss. Aang sprang a surprise kiss on Katara, which left her shocked and unhappy after he flew off. (The decision to have her looking away and frowning was a deliberate one on the part of Bryke, who wanted Katara’s feelings kept ambiguous. Heaven forbid you allow the animators to make it clear that this fourteen-year-old girl who was just kissed without her consent by someone she’d never once demonstrated romantic feelings toward might actually have some. Heaven forbid she have a little agency in her own romantic narrative. But whatever.)

Second, he says he thought they were gonna be together.

He thought.

He never once even asked Katara what she thought--or even how she felt. He just assumes. He assumes that if he kisses her, she’ll kiss him back and they’ll get together. He assumes that she must have feelings for him, even though her body language is closed off and she told him with her words that she did not want to talk or think about this right now, and kisses her regardless of those signals, upsetting her and leading her to storm off.

And the narrative rewards him, because despite the fact that they don’t have a single significant scene together after that second disastrous kiss, Katara just decides off-screen that she Does Love Him Really and walks onto the balcony to make out with him.

The upshot of all this being that, while Katara was indeed instrumental to a lot of Aang’s early growth and development, Aang was not necessary for her own arc, and their romantic relationship (such as it was) actively hampered Aang’s development in book 3, while removing it would change absolutely nothing for Katara (except saving her from some painfully embarrassing memories).

As far as your third point, I’m simply not going to get baited into explaining how reducing Zutara to an ‘oppressor/oppressed’ relationship is not only insulting to interracial couples irl (not to mention any other couple with a potentially unbalanced dynamic of societal power, since there are many more axis of oppression than just racial), but demeaning to Zuko and Katara, their personal arcs as well as their relationship development together.

However, I will point out that Zuko was not responsible for any of Katara’s trauma. She did not find violence and fighting in bending battles to be traumatic--in fact, she reveled in it. She enjoyed fighting against Zuko at multiple points (especially noticeable in their battle at the end of book 1), because she wanted to fight--she always had--and once she had the ability, she was ready to throw down with anyone who gave her the slightest reason. (Including, by the way, her own potential waterbending master.) Aang’s death at the end of book 2 was Azula’s doing, and while I think that contributed to Katara’s extreme reaction to Zuko joining the gaang, it was not something for which she actively blamed him, and it wasn’t something she believed would be repeated--she let him go off alone on a journey to find the original firebending masters with Aang well before she chose to forgive him. So she already trusted Zuko’s intentions and that Aang would be safe with him.

Finally, because this has gotten long enough already, I hope you now understand that Zuko and Katara getting together would not require ignoring any of their development with their canonical romantic partners. We’ve already established that Katara’s arc wouldn’t change in the slightest if all of Aang’s romantic advances were removed, and I haven’t even gotten into how Mai meant nothing in the grand scheme of Zuko’s development because I’m pretty sure that’s just self-evident. I mean, the video compilation put together by Nick showcasing Zuko’s journey throughout the series doesn’t include a single scene with Mai, though it does include several with Katara, and even Jin makes an appearance--because Katara, and even Jin, played key roles in Zuko’s personal journey, while his relationship with Mai happened entirely off-screen and her only real function was to showcase just how unhealthy trying to force himself back into the role of the Crown Prince was for him.

What development, exactly, is there between them to even ignore?

At any rate, I’ve gone on long enough--I hope you enjoy the fact that you activated my wordvomit trap card right when i was about to go to bed, anon, because I just spent two hours writing this instead. In case you’re interested in the TL;DR: at the end of the day, there was no meaningful, mutual development in Kataang’s romantic relationship, and those romantic feelings that did exist were largely one-sided and ultimately detrimental to Aang’s development in the final third of his overall arc. Meanwhile, Mai meant nothing to Zuko’s journey--rather like Aang’s romantic overtures, she could be removed from the show completely and nothing about his story would change--while Zuko and Katara were both vital to each other’s overall storylines, arcs and development. This, coupled with the fact that Zuko never actually traumatized Katara and, in fact, helped her achieve closure from the biggest source of her own trauma, means that Zuko and Katara have better and more believable build up that could potentially lead to a romantic relationship than either of them have with their canon romantic partners.

So no, anon, I didn’t forget anything--I think you may have, though. Perhaps a rewatch is in order? Make sure not to close your eyes for the back half of book 3 this time.

[fangoeshere]

Kataang is Just Now Starting to Creep Me Out Quite a Bit

For more evidence that Kataang is not right, read the section Love is a Battlefield from “The Lost Adventures” Avatar comic series.

One of the reasons I’m more sympathetic towards Zutara than Kataang is the difference between the guys’ treatment of Katara. Yes, Aang is a nice guy, but frankly, he can be a jerk when it comes to relationships.

In this comic, Aang is very aggressive towards Katara (physically, verbally, etc.) because she keeps trying to treat him like a friend and keeps deliberately avoiding talking about their kiss before the invasion.

But that kiss was not really THEIR kiss. Aang kissed Katara without permission. In fact, Katara had never shown any sort of intention of having a romantic relationship up to that point. She friend-zoned him, like, all the time. It was all Aang. It kind of went from him having a dorky little boy crush to him trying to force her to be in love with him. Yes, Katara did care about Aang, but he was out of line.

In this particular comic, Aang goes from daydreaming about him and Katara being together to suddenly being filled with rage towards Katara because she isn’t cooperating with his idea of a fantasy romance with her. Aang accuses Katara of “playing games” because she isn’t talking about the kiss that she didn’t ask for. In the episode The Ember Island Players, Aang freaks out because a crappy play doesn’t portray him and Katara as lovers (hits a bit too close to home, huh Aang), demands to know when (not if) Katara will decide to love him, then, after she says she doesn’t want romance at the moment, he kisses her again without permission. I’m sure Aang wouldn’t purposely physically hurt Katara, but his attitude kind of seems like “you will love me OR ELSE!!!” At the very least he’s persistant and annoying.

This comic honestly disgusted and unsettled me. Katara’s overly light, fake playful, avoidant behavior in the comic for some reason strongly reminds me of the way I used to act at the hands of a couple of my abusers (a family member as a kid and a boyfriend as a teenager), as I tried to pretend nothing was wrong and that things were the way they used to be.

Some people say that Zuko and Katara being together would have been too dark. But it should have happened. It’s a relationship founded on mutual trust and respect. They helped each other through impossible times. They understood each other. Zuko (aside from when he was a bad guy- that doesn’t count) has always shown great respect for Katara. He worked to EARN her respect; he didn’t demand her affection. Anything he did in regards to Katara was for her, not to try to take her like a prize for himself. Aang’s feelings towards Katara were more ‘Me me me want Katara’ and Zuko was more like, ‘Katara, Katara, Katara.’

My fellow benders, ask not what your Katara can do for you; ask what you can do for your Katara.

Sorry. It’s late (early), and I’m getting goofier and more unintelligible as I grow more tired. But my point is, Kataang isn’t satisfactory. Zutara would have made things all better.

[fangoeshere]

Katara in The Earth Kingdom Chronicles said that she developed an attraction to Jet because she didn't have to mother him. She was so happy that she finally had someone she could rely on for support rather than being the one constantly providing it. Then she is punished by the narrative for liking "bad boy" Jet, and ends up with Aang, the boy she had to mother all the time.

[fangoeshere]

Katara’s friendly affection toward Aαng

A common pro-Kαtααng argument is that Katara is, in fact, attracted to Aαng throughout the series and that her friendly affection is an obvious indicator of a romantic inclination. A prime example of this argument, from here:

I’m sorry, but the fact that people are still making the claim that ‘Katara magically fell in love with Aαng at the last minute’ in 2016 is absolutely hilarious.  

It’s not like she and Aαng were practically attached at the hip for most of the series.  It’s not like they formed a powerful bond very quickly, had a strong friendship within days, and were on good terms with each other the vast majority of the time unlike a certain someone who didn’t befriend Katara until the fifth to last episode of the series.

It’s not like Katara was constantly giving Aαng cheek kisses, hugs, and otherwise couldn’t keep her hands to herself around him.  

And It’s not like she was the first one to suggest they kiss or anything back in Book 2.  

Clearly, there was no evidence in the show that Katara was even remotely attracted to Aαng.

Nope, Katara just magically fell in love with Aαng.  I can’t believe I never noticed it before…  I guess this is what people mean when they talk about “shipping goggles.”  

Let me first say, that the Kαtααng fandom has no right to criticize the Zutara fandom for over-sexualizing characters when a popular Kαtααng post talks about a 14-year-old being handsy with a 12-year-old and them being joined at the hip before they were even dating.

Secondly, Katara’s gestures of affection (hugs, cheek kisses, telling Aαng how proud of him she is) are not how she normally behaves toward a romantic interest.

How do we know this? In a word: Jet. I don’t think there is any Kαtααng shipper who would dispute the fact that Katara is attracted to Jet and wants to pursue him romantically (before she found out he was a murderous scumbag). So how does Katara show her romantic affection for Jet?

Hmm. I don’t see any hugs and cheek kisses or telling Jet that she’s proud of him. Why would she act so differently around Jet and Aαng if she were romantically attracted to both of them?

There is, however, one other person Katara kisses on the cheek, and maybe we can show that for comparison:

That’s right. The only other person Katara affectionately pecks on the cheek is Tom-Tom, a literal baby and someone she is showering with maternal affection. Scenes like this:

Are not framed as romantic shots, but rather images of a mother comforting her child, and portraying them as Katara being handsy is not in line with the rest of their tone or content. The same goes for pretending that Katara suggested the kiss in “The Cave of Two Lovers” because she wants Aαng, unprompted by a direct response to their being in mortal danger and huge hints from the monuments around them. Finally, if gestures like this are Katara being romantic:

Then why is there no blissful reaction shot from Katara, only from Aαng? Why is there any doubt in Aαng’s mind that Katara likes him back? Why is there so much teasing in the show about when Aαng will confess his feelings, and how Katara will react to it? It would be pointless from a writing perspective to have Katara not hear Aαng’s confession in “The Fortuneteller”, or have Sokka cut Aαng’s confession off in “The Earth King”, if both characters were unambiguously attracted to each other. There would be no reason to continue the “will they get together” tension because there wouldn’t be any tension to begin with.

But if anyone is still in doubt, let us talk about what happens when there is no ambiguity; when Aαng is flat-out making romantic overtures to Katara. Does she give him cheek kisses and hugs then?

Look at how uncomfortable and withdrawn Katara is in these images. As @katarafirelady has said,

all of the body language that katara takes there (crossing her arms, touching her hair, looking down and away, is body language that i find myself (and other women) slipping into when men are giving unwanted attention/trying to hit on me when i dont want to be hit on, or when i feel severely uncomfortable, like being among a large group of people i havent met before, and therefore don’t yet trust. obviously i dont know the feelings of every woman, but in general that body language tells of discomfort, and im pretty sure it does with katara.

Even if you then argue that it’s because Katara is holding back due to her stated “confusion” about pursuing a romance during a war, you then demolish your own argument of her being romantically affectionate with Aαng in previous seasons. If she’s drawing away from him because she doesn’t want a wartime relationship, why wasn’t she drawing away from those “romantic” gestures before if that’s truly what they were? It’s not as if the war wasn’t going on in Seasons 1 and 2. And for that matter, if Katara’s “confusion” was not merely an excuse for not returning Aαng’s affection, why was she not at all confused about pursuing a relationship with Jet, whom both Kαtααng and Zutara shippers admit she was attracted to?

The fact is, there is only one factor that directly correlates to Katara’s change in behavior toward Aαng in the finale:

And that is one of the main reasons we antis just aren’t on board with the romance.

[fangoeshere]

Jetara Analysis

JETARA LET’s GOOO (disclaimer: i am a little soft for this ship ngl) 

So obviously Jet is Katara’s first established ~love interest~ in the series. I know a lot of people don’t like Jet and think he’s a piece of shit (he’s always written as a womanizing douche in fics lol) but I think he sincerely reciprocated Katara’s feelings. 

Let’s take it from the top!! 

This is the very first time they see this guy. Aang is like “oop” and Sokka is just like “damn tf” but Katara is just amazed by him taking down the fire nation soldiers. 

And their first introduction awwww I don’t think I have anything to say here it’s just kind cute okay, Katara is so smitten. 

And here we have Jet telling Aang about the hideout, and Katara creeping up all googly eyed. I know people are like “he was only nice to Katara to manipulate her and use her waterbending!!” which is at least partially true yes but I want y’all to watch the way Jet’s face changes when he sees Katara. 

He just goes totally soft look at how relaxed those crazy eyebrows are. 

And then after he just lets Sokka go flying up to the hideout, he makes sure Katara is shown to the hideout like a mf lady. 

And then the whole flooding the town shebang happens and kinda kills all that buildup 

Katara liked Jet and related to him so much she couldn’t even comprehend that he could be shitty enough to flood a town because Jet might be troubled and a fighter but Katara saw the soft, caring parts of Jet that remained after his village was burned down 

And after Jet admits to what he’s done, he tries to explain. But he doesn’t look angry that Katara isn’t happy about what he’s done, he looks worried and downtrodden. His shoulders are slumped. He let down the girl he likes and he had wanted so badly for her to understand him, but she doesn’t. Jet is an angry character but he doesn’t turn that on Katara immediately like he does with everyone else. 

If Jet just wanted to accomplish his goals and didn’t care about Katara at all he wouldn’t even be trying to explain himself to her or reaching out to her. But he is. He’s gentle with Katara in this moment because he knows he ruined something good in his life 

We don’t see Jet angry towards Katara until she tells him what she thinks of him for believing in what he does

He’s trying to stick to his guns but he kinda knows he fucked up for Katara to think of him as a monster. 

Once Katara finds out Jet didn’t succeed, all of her anger towards him evaporates and she’s just sad 

And then we don’t see Jet for a while!! The NWT is attacked the Gaang traverses a desert and eventually we all wind up in Ba Sing Se. 

(I know Jet’s brainwashed here lol but it’s not about Jet it’s about Katara’s reaction to him)

She’s not angry at first when she hears his voice, she’s surprised.

and THEN it’s almost like she’s trying to look angry BUT LOOK AT THAT BLUSH

After they fight she looks at him like this when he drops his swords at her feet and says he’s changed. Like she wants to believe him. 

Now I’m going to ignore most of Jet’s presence after this point because he was brainwashed and I don’t want to put stock in those moments because he was under Dai Li influence. 

What I want to talk about the crux of my Jet really cared about Katara/Jetara argument

When Jet is fighting Aang and he tells Jet “You’re a Freedom Fighter!” he recalls his memories. His most formative, important memories. 

He sees the Freedom Fighters BUT 

He also remembers

each moment 

he shared with Katara 

to bring him back to reality. 

You wanna tell me he didn’t give a shit about Katara? She’s in more of his most IMPORTANT, BELOVED memories than any of the Freedom Fighters!

When Jet falls, Katara is as shocked and dismayed as the Freedom Fighters

And when they have to leave him to die, Jet reassures Katara 

And the relaxed smile he only ever gave Katara appears again. 

I think Katara was Jet’s first love 100%. She was one of the best things he got to experience in his short life, and that’s what this final smile says to me. He’s finally doing right by Katara by making sure they get out instead of worrying about him. 

basically Jet’s eyebrows are only normal when he looks at Katara