#also just the amount of pure hatred and vitriol that has been directed towards her is actually insane considering she's the victim

[hyuckieberry]

I want to assume that ppl celebrating the verdict of That court case are just uninformed and don't just plain old hate women but man... I feel like if u know enough to know who won how do u not also know that both courts found that he literally Did abuse her and what kind of fucked up precedent this sets for any other female abuse victims who try to speak up about it?? Also I'm going to be honest here I thought we all knew by now that anytime the far right is shitting their pants with excitement over something it's probably NOT a good thing like that alone should have tipped people off

[sokkastyles]

To be honest I don’t even think saying Katara hated Zuko up until “The Southern Raiders” is really accurate. She never said that she hated him, Zuko said “she hates me” to Sokka, and I’ve already talked about why Zuko, who is a very guarded person due to abuse, might jump to the conclusion that somebody who reacts negatively towards him hates him.

She makes some mean comments towards him, but the things she says are never really just to be mean.

When she threatens him at the end of “The Western Air Temple,” she makes her reason for doing so very clear:

You might have everyone else here buying your ... transformation, but you and I both know you've struggled with doing the right thing in the past. So let me tell you something, right now. You make one step backward, one slip-up, give me one reason to think you might hurt Aang, and you won't have to worry about your destiny anymore. Because I'll make sure your destiny ends ... right then and there. Permanently.

I’ve already talked extensively about how part of the way she feels about him is because she did trust him before and is afraid of doing so again, but she’s also afraid that he might hurt Aang. When she sarcastically talks about his “transformation” she seems to be implying that she doesn’t believe he has changed, which might lead one to believe that she hates him, because “the face of the enemy” Zuko is worthy of her hatred. Yet, as I know I’ve said many times before, I don’t think she would feel that strongly about someone who was just an impersonal enemy. Why bother hating so passionately someone who you think is just evil? 

I actually think that the reason she implies that she doesn’t buy the “transformation” is not necessarily because she doesn’t believe in his goodness, but because she did all along. What she says next emphasizes that. “You and I both know you’ve struggled with doing the right thing in the past.” Again, that’s not something you say about someone who you think is pure evil. What she’s saying is that she doesn’t think he’s changed, because she already knew he was capable of goodness, but she also already knew he was capable of slipping up. She knows it’s not as simple as “Zuko is good now,” because she saw how human he was before in the caves. And that’s what she’s afraid of.

In “The Firebending Masters” she says in response to Zuko losing his firebending that it would have been convenient for them if he had lost it a long time ago. And what she says is pretty cruel because Zuko is expressing a lot of vulnerability in that moment, and he’s clearly bothered by her words. Katara’s words are pretty bitter, but it’s not out of a desire to hurt Zuko. It’s entirely understandable that she’d be angry. And she’s right - Zuko did put the whole group through a lot of grief, and the moment he’s not fighting them any more but they actually need him to fight for them, he suddenly can’t. This is also another subtle callback to the heart of her anger at him, his switching sides.

Katara: I'm sorry. I'm just laughing at the irony. You know, how it would've been nice for us if you lost your firebending a long time ago.

Zuko: Well, it's not lost. It's just ... weaker for some reason.

Katara: Maybe you're not as good as you think you are.

Toph: Ouch

Zuko: I bet it's because I changed sides.

Katara: That's ridiculous.

Remember that Katara said she thought Zuko had changed in Ba Sing Se. And he betrayed her, and did her, Aang, and the rest of them great harm. Now, remember that her threat in “The Western Air Temple” was because she was afraid of Zuko hurting Aang again. So I think the idea that Zuko suddenly loses his capability to cause harm once he joins the good side is upsetting to her because she thought he was good before and he hurt her. What if this new seemingly harmless Zuko is capable of hurting them again? So she reacts by insulting him and then denies his idea that losing his firebending was caused by him changing sides, because that was what she wished he had done a long time ago.

The interaction at the beginning of “The Boiling Rock” is interesting to me because it’s much less vitriolic than their other interactions. She seems perfectly glad to accept tea from him and is the one who says “sure” when he asks if they want to hear a joke, without any hint of malice at all. And although she teases him for fumbling the joke, it’s without any kind of nastiness.

Many people have also commented that if she really hated him that much and thought he was evil and dangerous, she would not let Aang and Sokka go off alone with him. She doesn’t even have much of a reaction to his and Sokka’s obvious lie about “going fishing.”

Then at the beginning of “The Southern Raiders,” she is irritated by his heroic rescue of her but then does the same for him.

So what we have here is Katara not being nice, exactly, but possibly gradually starting to warm up to him. Her anger at him comes to a head in “The Southern Raiders,” but it’s for a very specific reason. What sets her off is everyone, in particular her brother, hailing Zuko as a hero.

This is also connected to the heart of her anger at him, because her feelings about Zuko are about him switching sides. She knows he’s capable of goodness, and so far he’s done a lot to prove that he’s worthy of being called a hero, but she doesn’t want to believe it because she believed it before and he betrayed her. No one else has a personal grudge against Zuko because no one else saw that side of Zuko before. Everyone else believes in the “transformation.” What Sokka says even calls back to that:

To Zuko! Who knew after all those times he tried to snuff us out, today he'd be our hero? 

But Katara knows that it’s not that simple. The others believe in the transformation, but Katara believes in the flawed individual that she knows him to be.

Oh, everyone trusts you now! I was the first person to trust you! Remember, back in Ba Sing Se. And you turned around and betrayed me, betrayed all of us!

I love how passionately furious the delivery is of these lines. Part of it is that she knows, now, that trusting him isn’t enough. But she doesn’t say that she hates his guts, doesn’t deny a connection with him. Instead, she tells him that she did trust him before, that she was the first to trust him, and I think that the way she emphasizes herself as the first indicates that she does feel something for him, that she did, and that she still does. This is actually the moment when she tells him how much their temporary alliance in Ba Sing Se actually meant to her, and I think it’s a revelation to Zuko, who didn’t realize how much he hurt her because he’d never actually experienced that kind of trust from someone before.

It’s actually kind of hilarious that Zuko interprets this as “she hates me.”

(We could also talk about how it must be terrifying to Zuko to experience both that amount of trust and that amount of hurt directed towards him, since his experience of trusting relationships thus far is...not great.)