She's a god, she's a hero

Like girl the literal voice actors for both characters were Zutara shippers. The best writers on the show were pushing for Zutara endgame. Even some of the animators were in on the conspiracy to romantically code them in the subtleties of their body language and facial expressions.

They invented ship week. They inspired multiple book series. They are the most popular pairing on the world's largest fanfiction website by a wide margin (for ATLA specifically). Like 80% of the female fans prefer it over the canon pairing.

The creators are so insecure about it that they felt the need to nuke and retcon the canon of Katara and Zuko being best friends because their canon pairing is so weak that it would be blown out of the water by just platonic Zutara because of how much interpersonal chemistry they had in the show compared to their canon pairings. They have to be kept 5 feet apart at all times so that no one gets any ideas because they are THAT insecure over the continued popularity of Zutara.

"Preparing [for the role of Nikki] was really fun. We got to watch a lot of fun movies, and kind of pick and choose, like a puzzle, what we wanted in the film. Moments that we took inspiration from, and made them our own." — Inde Navarrette for Fandango "We watched Get Out, and focused on a lot of the moments where characters are showing an emotion underneath but saying something completely different [on the surface], and how horrific that is. There's a scene where [Nikki] is saying, "no", and there is a [similar] scene in Get Out [which we took inspiration from]." — Inde Navarrette for A Shot Magazine Obsession (2026) Dir. Curry Barker Get Out (2017) Dir. Jordan Peele

What if the scene in the bathroom had ended in a different way?