water-beats-earthbender - Tumblr blog

[water-beats-earthbender]

is anyone going to tell the kat@angers that it's not feminist activism to argue Katara's arc in LOK is fine on the grounds that "some women want to be homemakers and that's okay!!"

Like you're not helping real women that way. In fact, most antis for the cannon ship ARE women. Many are homemakers themselves.

Katara is not a real woman. She is a fictional woman written by men.

Can the sensibilities and wishes of a girl change by the time she is a adult? Yes!

But as this is a textual character who, as per the text, rejects the societal structure of her fictional world (which mirrors our own) that women are and can only ever be docile homemakers (i.e. I don't want to heal, I want to fight; I will never turn my back on people who need me; let's start a prison riot; let's engage in vigilante ecoterrorism; let's pitch an absolute fit because the boys are not pulling their fair weight in the homemaking; let's confront my mother's killer at the absolute rejection and condemnation of the male figures whom I am to respect; etc) it is perfectly reasonable to argue that this end was not a natural course for her character.

Fictional characters are not real people. This means that they do not change their mind off screen. That is not an acceptable argument. That is called a "plot hole", which is a nonsensical change made at the convenience and contrivance of the writer(s), who in this case are men exhibited to not care for women or girls all that much. It is within THEIR character to write this way.

Regardless of who, if anyone, Katara ended up with, Katara tolerating disrespect, neglect, abuse of her children, giving up all of her former aspirations to live in the shadow of men, and dying as a mere footnote in history (and being alright with it!!) is not surprising given the absolute vitriol Bryke has shown toward female fans of their "creation". It was supposed to be a "boy" show. It was always supposed to be a "boy" show. The creators of Supernatural and Game of Thrones did the same thing. ATLA just did it first.

Arguing "not all women" is not activism in the face of what is really happening in this discourse. Sending death threats to real, actual women with feelings in defense of a fake pretend woman's fake pretend autonomy is performative activism, and worse, hypocritical.

Not all women agree with you. Not all women feel represented and find the outcome of Katara's story satisfactory. If y'all care about feminism and respecting women's choices so much, lay off the real life women you're so fond of harassing. Our views and opinions, while opposing your own, don't affect you.

[water-beats-earthbender]

Is Katara "Motherly"? - The Discourse

The whole "is Katara motherly" discourse is a little annoying to me because for one thing its impossible to deny that in canon she acted motherly towards Aang, Sokka, and Toph, with Sokka even saying at one point when he thought of his mother Katara's was the face that came to mind.

But the other problem is that this fits into the shows themes so perfectly of children being thrust into adulthood and enormous amounts of responsibility too easily because of war and the subsequent (or end goals of) genocide, cultural genocide, and colonization. Katara's motherly characteristics are of the show's own making, they're right there in the text and their there for a reason, and although they weren't given enough attention as they should have been, there is no doubt that this is treated as, not exactly a tragedy, but as something bad and debilitating to Katara and her teenagerlike need to goof around with her friends.

But for whatever reason, the fandom seems to think that this characterization is fan made. Katara is supposedly forced into a motherly role by the fandom, particularly the zutara fandom, when in reality it is the show that does this to her. And the whole idea of momtara and dadko is that Katara doesn't have to be the mom anymore. She doesn't have to be the one solely responsible for the chores and the cooking and the emotional labor. She has a partner, and equal, who is willing to put forth the time and energy to assist her in what she feels obligated to do, and to tell her to go sit down sometimes before she burns herself out.

Could the other kids besides Zuko do this? Of course. But as we've already established, everyone in the gaang besides Suki shoves Katara into a motherlike role. Is this their fault? It's hard to say. Toph at least has a heart-to-heart with Katara about it, and Sokka's idea of her as a mother largely stems from trauma.

But my significant problem with Katara's motherly traits comes with the fact that there is no real closure to that arc in the "Runaway". Toph and Katara talk mostly about Toph's parents, and Toph tells Katara that she thinks she is capable of having fun. But other than that, there's nothing. The boys don't have to come to terms with the fact that Katara does not want to be seen (solely) as motherly or put in that position. Instead, the show gives us a few colorful explosions and subtlety implies that it is a little bit Katara's fault that she is seen that way. But again, that's not the fault of the zutara fandom or a reason the trope of momtara and dadko is problematic. It seeks to acknowledge these character traits in Katara, which a lot of kat@angers refuse to do, and give her a way to work past the trauma that caused them and help her adjust to a more healthy amount of stress and pressure on herself for a kid her age.

[water-beats-earthbender]

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

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

[water-beats-earthbender]

Incorrect Quotes: Bistro Avatar

Zuko: Thanks, I'll have the steak, medium rare.

Katara, the Waitress: (writing down the order) Great choice

Mai: Sorry to interrupt whatever this is, but did you even hear my order?

Katara: Does it really matter? You're just going to send it back anyway.

Mai: Yeah, I know it's difficult serving someone with standards. Actually working for your tips is hard, huh?

Katara: I give 10% service to 10% tippers.

Mai: Oh, no! Am I the reason you can only afford Bath and Bodyworks? It's so crazy we ended up in your section again.

Katara: It's so crazy you keep coming back to a restaurant you don't like.

Mai: It's so crazy you keep coming back to a job you don't like.

Katara: Touche.

Zuko: Nervously Maybe we can just put in our order now?

Mai: Oh, she will. That's her job. To run get us things. Right?

Katara: Listen, I don't go to your job and tell you how to ask your dad for money.

Mai: 😲😠

[water-beats-earthbender]

Just saw someone say Zuko had to take lightning for Katara because he's not used to fighting as a team and didn't realize she was in range.

Except that we're forgetting that before the fight began, Zuko explicitly told Katara he would fight Azula alone, because "this way, no one else has to get hurt."

Also, we do get several scenes of Zuko and Katara fighting very well together as a team before Sozin's Comet. Not only fighting well together, but like a perfectly synchronized tag team.

We also see Zuko covering for Katara's, Aang's, and Sokka's backs in the episodes leading up to the finale. Not to mention covering Iroh's back when they fight together. Zuko doesn't know how to fight in a team? Since when?

Y'all really need to stop making excuses for Azula cheating.

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Oh I'm sure there's some reason aang can't just energybend Willy-nilly. It's draining, there's some sort of consequence, etc, etc, I DONT CARE it wasn't established in cannon and despite what we're supposed to think aang is still very much an immature kid and would probably try energybending some airbenders into existence

[water-beats-earthbender]

came across a post about how everyone gets on aang for forcing his beliefs on katara, but it’s okay for everyone to make him question his morals to kill ozai. what’s your take on it?

i think they're pretty fundamentally different situations. katara's journey in tsr is ultimately a personal one, and while the decision she made to not kill yon rha could've had repercussions if he was still leading the southern raiders, in canon he was a pathetic retired old man controlled and belittled by his awful mother. the world isn't gonna burn if he lives and then dies in obscurity. aang pushing his beliefs ultimately does nothing for her, at least not anything demonstrably positive, and there's no external problem that katara would've solved if she'd forgiven yon rha.

aang's dilemma, on the other hand, concerns a whole lot more than just him, and the world would have burned and been remade in ozai's image if aang hadn't been able to defeat ozai without the moral luck of bryke the universe blessing him with a lion turtle and energybending. the gaang doesn't know about energybending, aang doesn't about energybending (hell the audience doesn't know anything it about either lmao). what other solution is there to defeating and deposing the most powerful man in the world hellbent on scorched earth genocide? like, c'mon, the gaang trying to get aang to face up to reality, even if it's harsh and unfair and uncomfortable, is imo morally necessary of them at that point in time, before aang gets morally recused by a lion turtle.

i do actually have a lot for sympathy for aang's position, and i'm fine with him not killing ozai, i never actually expected that the child vegetarian monk protag of a nick cartoon would exceute the big bad on-screen, but since the show made it a problem aang had to face (or at least a problem he aangsted about for a bit before bryke saved their boy from the horrors of an actual character arc), it's perfectly fair for people to critique the ways in which the show presents and executes the solution to a moral problem they weren't actually required to introduce, especially if they were gonna handle it, by, well, not handling it at all!

i also have a problem with how the writing conflates violence and lethality in the finale. aang defeats ozai non-lethally but imo commits some pretty incredible violence against ozai in the finale, up to and most especially in taking his bending away. bending in the show is presented as pretty intergal to a person's being/spirit/soul, whatever you'd like to call it, and forcibly taking that away from someone is always going to be a violation in my view, even if it's an entirely justifiable one in ozai's case. aang still hollowed that fucker out, so the moral aangsting about violence falls, like, even flatter and more meaningless to me, frankly.

anyway. that was a bit of a tangent.

TL;DR they're different situations. there's no actual moral necessity to aang trying to get katara to see the light of infinite forgiveness, whereas there is a moral necessity to getting aang to understand he has to be at least prepared to take ozai's life if there is no other option, lest the world, y'know, burns.

[water-beats-earthbender]

(possibly) controversial take but I think Sozin's Comet (the four-parter) is a bad story and bad finale to ATLA.

It's rushed, it's full of plot holes and contrivances, it undermines the rest of the series by making the solution to the problems too easy.

Energybending isn't even the worst example of it, that would be the rock hitting Aang's back and making him instantly have full control of the Avatar State.

There're also smaller things like 5 old guys defeating an entire occupation army and also the characters being able to move from place to place way too fast where in previous books it was established it takes weeks.

The pacing is also very uneven with the characters basically running around not accomplishing much for 2/3rds and then popping up in the right spot to sort out their respective villains.

It's not all bad. Zuko's and Iroh's reunion was great. And though the build-up to it was lackluster the Final Agni Kai and Azula's mental breakdown were also great.

But overall definitely a downgrade compared to the rest of the series.

[water-beats-earthbender]

it’s legitimately bonkers to me that the final fight of atla, the big showdown we’d been building towards for sixty episodes, was won solely because ozai just happened to push aang into the right place for him to get stabbed in the back by a conveniently pointy rock.

they really hinged their entire final battle, the thing they’d been working towards from the very first episode, on pure luck and thought it was a satisfying conclusion lmao.

[water-beats-earthbender]

I was just thinking about this!! Specifically with Bumi. Why not give his son Air/Water bending if he was able?

Why didn't Aang just energy bend some Airbenderd into existence?

Like, okay, I get it is probably more complicated than that but ... the point of it is you can take AND give. The Lion Turtles GIFTED the powers to humans. Why couldn't Aang go around and do similar? It would have made way more sense to have that be the ending to his story than like ... a whole romantic arc. I'm just saying. Like, the whole series is "I've lost my people" and "however am I going to end this war" only to land on Lion Turtle grants Energybending to the Avatar

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So wait, if Amon was able to block people's bending ability permanently by using a high level technique in bloodbending, how was Korra able to grant it back to people? I know Aang had the ability to energybend, and that's probably what he passed down onto Korra in that final episode. But if the bending was blocked by bloodbending in the first place, how is energybending gonna counteract that and unlock it? Is energybending and bloodbending closely related?

[water-beats-earthbender]

zuko believing that katara is engaged bc of her necklace will never not be a hilarious concept to me

[water-beats-earthbender]

Book 2 au: sparring sessions and short hair katara

They like to have sparring sessions in order to keep their bending skills sharp. They allow themselves to go all out and not hold back at all cause they know if anyone got hurt, Katara could just heal them

But anyways, wouldn't it be kinda funny if Zuko accidentally burned Katara's hair tho? Aofkqldkkajfjd

The "I think we can save the hairloops" line is from @linnoya-writes thank you for that!! :>>

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"Um, I could use a little help paddling here!"

Yeah, it's hard to be the canoe thirdwheel, isn't it, Sokka? 🤷‍♀️

(First zutara fanart of the year! Hoorah!)

[water-beats-earthbender]

in my hands, the fire will never hurt you.

[water-beats-earthbender]

Does anyone ever think about how the Blue Spirit was a pre-established character before Zuko?

Like, the headlines in the fire nation would have basically read, "Phantom of the Opera breaks recently captured Al Capone out of jail."

That must have been a weird day.

[water-beats-earthbender]

Katara: Can I be frank with you guys?

Zuko: Sure, but I don’t see how changing your name is gonna help.

Toph: Can I still be Toph?

Sokka: Shh, let Frank speak.