hello there

"I can't believe Katara does all that badass fighting in the movie only to be known as JUST a healer by the world! Healing is lame and not worthy of respect!"

How many fucking people do you think can not only bring themselves back from the brink of death, but 3 other people immediately afterwards?? Exactly what part of being known as a healer is degrading? Especially since not even all waterbenders can do it?

So many of you completely missed the point of her character & the epsiode where she fights Pakku.

Katara doesn't hate healing, she hates misogynistic cultural practices trying to limit her bending education.

She doesn't have power hungry ambitions like Zuko/Azula or even a drive fueled by ego & self worth like Toph. She isn't learning to fight for the love of fighting or becuase she wants to be the very best there ever was.

Katara is a young child living during wartime under a repressive fascist regime and she wants to be able to not only stop the fascists, but HELP people who are in the same situation as her.

Fighting is but one way for Katara to help the disenfranchised and a method of revolutionary action. It is simply a tool she uses at her disposal, carried out by her extremely empathetic heart and endless capacity for love.

Since the very first episode Katara's entire motivation for fighting is, in a way, to HEAL THE WORLD.

So yes, Katara's epithet across the world being the greatest healer of her generation is not only extremely accurate, but appropriate for someone who embodies the healer archetype extremely well.

Because of healing Katara has:

Saved her friends

The love of her life

Her grandchild

And even the reincarnation of the love of her life

So to suggest, in any capacity, that Katara of all people resents her reputation as a healer is absolutely ridiculous. She would cherish the title of healer and have pride in her abilities.

Btw, literally nothing about this negates how strong she is and how good she is at fighting. Something many of you seem to not understand is that Katra can & is a multilayered character who is not as one dimensional as you want her to be.

She's just THAT good.

Also, if Katara were still having to fight combat in her 80’s, I’d take that as a huge red flag and sign that Aang failed her. The fact she was able to advance her healing abilities to the point she became the BEST in the ENTIRE WORLD shows us that he did NOT fail the woman he loved and that he ensured she was able to live a life of peace as they grew old together.

She wanted to learn waterbending combat to help end the war. She fought Pakku to destroy the societal constraints women of the North were under. She played a crucial role in ending said war and put a monarch on her knees during Sozin’s Comet! Yes she is a complete badass in every way, but she is also essentially a medic who will fight if and when necessary. And boy does she not hesitate to throw hands when it’s needed.

Queen! They just don’t get her and all her glory

What I Thought was Good

Probably goes without saying, but the music and animation, particularly for scenery and the action scenes. Flying Bark animated one of my other favourite tv shows, Lego Monkie Kid (starring Sokka's VA Jack de Sena) so I knew they'd knock it out of the park on that level. Gorgeous, truly, even with the little details like updating Appa's saddle.

Aang's trauma and the Air Nomads have always been the most compelling part of ATLA to me. A movie therefore focused on both of those things, fleshing out how his trauma has evolved following the end of the war as well as more of their history and perspective, was always going to be appealing to me. I also think by and large this is the strongest aspect of the movie, if not just the movie point blank, for reasons I'll get more into down below.

The other aspect of ATLA that I find deeply compelling is the Avatar cycle, specifically the past lives, and historical worldbuilding. Renown for its cultural worldbuilding (which continues here), ATLA doesn't spend much time discussing the history of its world outside of like, 10ish years prior to the start of the Hundred Year War and then the war itself. Having a new, old historical conflict be relevant both character and plot wise was fun and unique. The fact we get another interesting past life, and better South Asian representation than ATLA (which admittedly was a low fucking bar to surpass) with Sonam was also a good reevaluation of a story 20+ years later.

I also appreciated that we got actual like, parallel framing with symbolism and meaningful cinematography re: lighting, both for the foils dynamics (Aang&Sonam, Aang&Tagah), especially because that's another aspect of TLOK that's rarely ever utilized but was one of the best things about ATLA.

Except for mine. / We can bring back the Air Nation.

One thing that stood out to me with Tagah (besides maybe Polynesian influences in discussions and techniques with the air current navigation, like wayfinding?) was how when he wakes up, he's not really surprised to find out the Air Nomads have been wiped out. Devastated and distressed, sure, but given his backstory and how extreme his circumstances were, it feel more like what has happened thousands of years later ended up being his "ongoing worst case scenario that had already begun" than something that was completely unknown and unfathomable the way it was to Aang.

The second thing was Tagah being used to explore Aang's grief as another airbender driven to desperation in wanting to have their people back ("we have been given a great gift, a chance to redeem ourselves"), but also as the lone literal Air Nomad who can reaffirm all of Aang's darkest and guiltiest thoughts. Aang's mind treats Gyatso as a mouthpiece in his nightmares in both stories ("why did you run away?" / "we need you, Aang" / "where are you?"), but Tagah once he takes an antagonistic turn can do so directly and hit him right where it hurts. We also see Tagah grapple with Aang's decision, like his friendship with Zuko or the fact he ran away in the first place. He doesn't hate Aang, he doesn't blame him at first when their goals are aligned, but Tagah's anger does come out, viewing himself not as a traitor but Aang as one (and a coward to boot), which is an interesting character journey of moving from Point A (positive) to B (negative) to C (positive in a different manner) and a contrast to Sonam's closing assessment of Aang (which we'll get to).

is not entirely accurate. i'd already heard that it's more accurately translated as something along the lines of "you like joker, don't you?"

but i'm going through the p5r script and stumble across this line, so i decide to throw it into google translate to see this for myself. and this is what i end up with.

...hello???

but ok, we all know google translate isn't the most reliable, especially these days. so i decide to do a little more research into it. and this is what i find.

and i'm going fucking nuts

i tried to look into it more, to see if there are any solid romantic undertones here, but i hit a bit of a dead-end since this term doesn't seem to usually be used for people. it's most often used to indicate being pleased with something or to have a favorite object. still, applied to akechi viewing joker as a favorite or being pleased with him...yeah. that's still pretty fucking gay.

it's not just "you like joker, don't you?"

but then the person manages to bring you back to your senses with just the words of an oath that at the same time that takes away your freedom and is uncomfortable(why would someone submit to never leaving? staying forever? someone who has seen the worst of him?), it also means that you will no longer be alone and there will always be someone to have your back. and despite hypnosis(a process that is practically impossible to break as misha said), you free yourself from it and find yourself UNABLE to kill this person who swore to never free you.

but, i think my favorite part of the parallels between ozlice & vanoe is that they start on totally opposite ends of the romance spectrum.

It's all over the place in classic literature. Crack open a Jules Verne novel and you're likely to find caricatures of brown people and cultures, even when the characters are sympathetic to the plight of the colonized peoples - incidentally, this is the biggest reason I can't recommend 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea to everyone, despite Captain Nemo being one of my favorite fictional characters of all time.

You can't escape it in modern cinema, either. You'll see white heroes venturing bravely into jungles and tombs to steal from natives who don't know how to use their resources "properly." You'll see them strung up in traps, riddled with sleeping darts, forced to flee and fight their way out. Hell, Pirates of the Caribbean, a remarkably inclusive franchise in many other ways, had an extended sequence of the white heroes escaping from a cannibal civilization in the second film.

And when fantasy RPGs want a humanoid enemy, the "bloodthirsty natives" are the first stock trope they jump to. World of Warcraft is one of the most egregious examples, with the trolls - blatant racist caricatures with faux-voodoo beliefs, cannibalistic diets, Jamaican accents, and a history of being killed in droves by (white) elves and humans - being raided and slaughtered in nearly every expansion.

It doesn't matter how vibrant and distinctive the real-world indigenous, Polynesian, Caribbean, and African cultures are. It doesn't matter how much potential these real civilizations offer for complex and sympathetic characterization. Anything that doesn't make sense to the white western mind is shoved under the same "savage" umbrella. They're different. They're strange. They're scary. They have to be escaped, subjugated, eliminated, ogled at from the safety of a museum.

Modern writers, directors, and developers don't even seem to realize how horrifying it is to present the indigenous inhabitants of a place as "obstacles" for non-native protagonists to overcome. "It's not racist," they say, "because these people aren't really people, you see." And if you dare to point out anything that hurts or offends you as a descendant of the bastardized culture, you're accused of being the real racist: "These aren't humans! They're monsters! Are you saying that these real societies are just like those disgusting monsters?"

No, they're not monsters. But you chose to design them as monsters, just as invaders have done for hundreds of years. Why would you do that? Why can you recognize any other caricature as evil and cruel, but not this?

i HATE self-censorship for a lot of reasons, but being in crisis work makes it even more frustrating. who are you censoring for? like i am being so fr, WHO are you censoring for? have you even thought it through? people who have been raped know that they have been raped. if someone attempts suicide or is grieving someone who did, saying "sewer slide" isn't going to protect them from any of the feelings. a murder victim's family isn't going to feel better bc you said "unalived" instead of murdered. if anything, it's just extremely invalidating and othering. it's saying "what happened to you is so bad that i won't even say the word," which is NOT trauma-informed care. you are not protecting survivors/victims when you self-censor. the ONLY things you protect when you self-censor are the puritanical ideologies that are being encouraged by rich fascists who want your money and obedience

Aang is an independent 12-year-old boy who has already traveled the world alone (thanks to Gyatso, who raised him).

If by "mother him" you mean :

- Showing affection towards him (hugs, kisses on the cheek) = That's her love language. It's her way of showing him her love. She's only like that with him.

- Comforting him = He's a grieving genocide survivor, and she comforts him because she's a good friend. Several times in the series, we see Aang reject her attempts at comforting him, especially during the Appa arc.

Aang, for his part, is grateful for the kindness and attention she gives him and reciprocates.

He's one of her biggest supporters : always encouraging her, complimenting her, respecting her, admiring her, giving her advice, and comforting her. (If the Katara/Aang relationship were truly a mother-son dynamic, the effort put in would have to be one-sided.)

And regarding the kiss, yes, it would have been nice to see a scene where they discussed it. But after Katara gets annoyed with Aang, we see him call himself an idiot, give Katara space, and never make the same mistake again. It's like with TSR when she says the famous line to Sokka; there was no on-screen discussion between them.

(The reason she doesn't want to start a relationship isn't due to a lack of feelings, but because she's confused by the war and doesn't feel ready to start anything right now.)

In the next episode in question, he doesn't argue specifically with Katara, but with the ENTIRE gaang.

We see that she still has faith in Aang.

1. Katara jealous

2. Katara blushing because of him

3. Their dance

4. Katara wanted to kiss him and being upset when he doesn't want

5. Her look

What happens towards the end of the series with Kataang.

Tf you mean? She was genuinely crashing out in the cave when she thought Aang was rejecting her after she suggested they kiss because she was catching feelings and wanted to kiss him and used that scenario they’d found themselves in as an excuse to do so. No one who views someone as only a friend would crash tf out like she did if their friend said “I don’t want to kiss you”

She straight up said she loved Aang in book 2 ep 1 -> “for the people who LOVE YOU, watching you be in that much rage and pain is really scary”. Sokka isn’t scared of the avatar state, and never voiced that concern. She’s talking about herself.

And she did not need to be all up in Aang’s space correcting his stances when they were waterbending either. She is not slick, she again used that as an excuse to touch him lmao

Like please be serious. Katara was very into Aang throughout the entire show. This is just ridiculous levels of lying to claim otherwise, and it’s embarrassing for the OP who is admitting they can’t comprehend a children’s cartoon written for 7 year olds. You don’t have to like or ship kataang if that’s your personal preference, but Katara canonically does love Aang romantically. Cope.

^^ And OP, if you don’t want to get your lashings, stop posting your fuckass shit in the main #kataang ship tag. If you can’t handle the fucking heat, get out of the damn kitchen. You can’t whine about kataang shippers cooking your ass when you’re the one coming into OUR house