#disregarding the fact that the gaang are very compassionate people

[victimsofyaoipoll]

Round 1

Propaganda Under Cut

Katara

Katara is constantly mistreated by the fans in favor of the Zukka ship (Zuko × Sokka.) They make her out to be mean, homophobic, and completely out of character just to add drama to the Zukka ship. In reality, Katara is very compassionate, and would never act that way toward anyone. 

Zutara was a popular ship but when zukka got popular over covid during the atla renaissance there were a million posts about how zutara was problematic while zukka was perfect usually for racist reasons. Meanwhile katara and sokka are siblings so it didn't even make sense. They did not have to be so illogically rude to her to ship zukka and it was weird

Katara is FANTASTIC I fucking love her to pieces she is so cool and yet the entirety of the ATLA fandom treats her like garbage because she “talks about her mom dying too much” (even though she BARELY does & also was parentified from a young age due to her mother’s death) and, of course, because she’s a more feminine women when compared to her counterparts. Even in the show itself she’s mistreated: she’s ALWAYS shown cooking for the rest of the gaang, doing their laundry, any ‘womanly’ task. She ends up with the guy who kissed her twice without her consent & who she never showed any real attraction to and apparently (despite being a badass warrior-doctor!!!) after the show ended she just… settled down in the South Pole and had a bunch of kids and never did anything else. She didn’t even get a statue :( Anyways during the ATLA renaissance, despite Zutara actually not being canon, people felt that Katara threatened the sanctity of the new almost entirely baseless yaoi ship, Zukka. Unfortunately for them, due to the fact that Katara and Sokka are siblings, the usual anti-Zutara arguments didn’t work as well. So they resorted to just… slaughtering her character. If she was lucky, they’d just make Katara a background character, wingwoman, &or throw her together with her canon love interest. If she was unlucky they’d do anything from make her homophobic (??) to killing her off! Fuck’s sake, she never even got a token spare-the-pairs wlw ship! Sorry for getting so heated, that whole debacle made me FUMING MAD.

Suki

she is a kickass warrior and she is so so beautiful and kind and outstanding in every way but gets thrown in the trash frequently because people love the gays (zuko and sokka)(I like them but you cannot remove suki from the equation she is integral)

My girl is a whole fucking badass warrior, who has an equally bad ass warrior boyfriend, who gets completely ignored and disregarded by the Sukka or whatever the Zuko/Sokka fandom is called. They could a done a cool poly thing but nah, fully forget about my girl's existence. Mad disrespectful 

a great warrior and leads a group of women warriors at kyoshi island. intelligent but empathetic. wields a fan. a tough feminist and is ALSO part of the atla GAANG @ fandom and also dear god please stop sidelining/ignoring her/forgetting/killing her @ fandom) and she deserves better in the narrative too.

[glaucuspacificus]

"I find it so funny when fics, analyses, etc, make it seem impossible to do anything with Azula except lock her up in a prison/asylum post canon." Because, in addition to those who think Azula does evil due to nature, those works recognize that getting Azula onto the Gaang's side would take time, not to mention risk tolerance, they don't have since they are trying to rebuild the world. Hence, they lock up Azula to ensure that Zuko's throne is secure and to discredit Azula politically.

I see your point, anon, but I disagree.

I think Azula would be one of their first priorities. She is still the crown princess: the heir to an unstable throne with a Firelord who has just deposed his father. You mention that they need to make sure that Zuko’s throne is secure. For that, you need an heir. There is literally no-one else since Iroh decided he didn't want to be Firelord.

Also, the Fire Nation isn’t going to magically reject the war. They’ve been brainwashed by propaganda for generations and the war has been present in their lives since they were born. The people are going to angry, confused and worried. These emotions felt collectively by a nation have ever been good for a stable government.

They’ve been told by the last Firelord that the current Firelord is a traitor to his nation and the fact that before this, Zuko was away at sea for 3 years because he was banished doesn't help things. Zuko was crown prince for all of ~3 years before he was banished and then reinstated for like a month. They don't even know him. And then he goes and betrays his own father to make a grab for power.

If you were in that position, you’d be very resistant to this new usurper. Now, if you were already predisposed to not being fond of him, then heard that he had locked up his defeated little sister, national hero of the Fire Nation, who also happens to be 14 years old, in a prison or asylum, you might get even more resistant to him, maybe even pretty angry. It could be the catalyst for a lot of built-up hatred. Add this to the inevitable economic turmoil that will come to the Nation after the war, and you’ve got the recipe for revolution.

However, if a Fire Nation hero, a trusted figure to many people, was persuaded that the new regime under Firelord Zuko was better for the nation and for the world, then that might be pretty appeasing; especially if she was integrated into the new government without any trouble. Of course, this wouldn't solve everything and there would definitley be rumours flitting about that Azula had been coerced or was also a traitor, but having her active and involved would be very comforting for a lot of people. Speeches about demilitarisation, economic recovery and just simply how the Fire Nation is going to get through this will go down a lot better from the mouth of the ultimate Fire Nation loyalist rather than the 16 year old pretender whose loyalty has always seemed fickle and is one of the main reasons for this mess in the first place.

Instead of direcrediting Azula politically, it would be a lot easier and much more effective to present the evidence and let her brain work out the rest - she is logical to a fault and it is obviously logical for the war to end hence, Azula starts to align herself with the gaang.