You know what else is fucking crazy about Aang and Katara’s literal canon relationship that I just realized?
Aang is desperate to cling to any remnants of Air Nomad culture as the last member that society, to the point of trying to push those ideals onto his loved ones and refusing to take Ozai’s life (despite every other Avatar telling him to do it and despite all the people he literally killed throughout the course of the show whose names he never knew and whose faces he never had to stare into when he blew them off cliffsides.)
Now this is understandable behavior to a point, especially because he is 12 and deserves some grace for that reason.
But Aang wasn’t 12 when he married Katara and put the sole responsibility of reviving the Airbenders on her.
Despite, by all accounts, Air Nomad culture being based on monastic, non-monogamous lifestyles.
The Air Nomads had two temples for men and two for women. Only Aang and Tenzin are ever shown as being married.
And please correct me if I am wrong, but don’t most Tibetan Buddhist monastic orders forbid marriage or even romantic relationships?
So Aang should be leading if not a celibate lifestyle than at least an unattached one in which the future of his culture does not fall to a single woman, but ideally a generation of air acolytes who have the ‘spiritual enlightenment’ necessary to have children with him without either side becoming overly attached emotionally.
But because Katara is his forever girl, that aspect of his culture can go in the trash I guess. Her womb has to pop out Airbenders or she is a bad person.
Antis already coming in with ‘he’s 12🥺!’ and ‘how would he know that🥺?!’
1) As stated above, he doesn’t stay 12 forever. That’s the thing about fictional characters when their writers make a sequel series and a movie, they tend to age like real people do!
2) It’s too bad Aang can’t talk to literally every Air Nomad Avatar in history whenever he wants. Surely a character who canonically loves to learn about every aspect of his culture would appreciate that ability. If he had it. (He does.)
