Kait

The first is that, in EIP, Katara yelling at Aang is her quite literally holding him accountable. Sokka yelling at Aang for burning Katara is him holding Aang accountable. Aang refusing to learn firebending as a result of that is him holding himself accountable. His calling himself an idiot and being willing to move on from Katara in the finale is him holding himself accountable. When Aang messes up, there is direct action and sometimes verbal reprimanding that holds him accountable. To say that he isn't is just blatantly wrong.

The second is that, I genuinely want you to take every instance of the characters stepping over the line and saying and doing something they shouldn't have, and then actually apologizing for it and count them. Because we never see Katara apologize to Sokka for what she said in TSR. We never see Zuko say "I'm sorry for what happened in Ba Sing Se" to Katara. We never see Aang and Katara apologize to Toph in the Chase. We never see Sokka apologize to Katara for all of his sexism. We never see Zuko apologize to Mai for yelling at her. The show rarely had the chatacters actually say the words "I'm sorry." What it does do is show them getting reprimanded and/or taking action.

They can expand on the story, sure. They can omit things that just won't make it in/they can't do properly in the new medium. But to actively just make a new story when you are adapting a story that already exists is not what adaptations are for.

It's truly the "there's no ethical consumption under capitalism" of media. Just an excuse people use to avoid having to think critically.

"Aang in the og series was absolutely not Katara's biggest fan"

Literally Aang in the og:

"Go Katara!" As she is fighting Pakku

Is ready to walk away from waterbending until KATARA tells him not to

"You're like a secret hero!" When he finds out she's the Painted Lady. Then proceeds to commit ecoterrosim with her.

Supports her plan to get imprisoned to help the earthbenders

Supports her continuously on her journey to becoming a waterbender, which includes calling her a waterbender when she is doubting herself and sifu when she expresses upset about him calling Toph that.

100% supports her going to face Yon Rah, and lets her take Appa. He just doesn't want her to kill someone.

"He keeps telling her she doesn't understand his pain at the loss of his people"

This is just straight misinformation. Aang COMPARES his pain to hers to REAFFIRM that he knows how she feels.

As for the movie, well, Aang is 100% right. NO ONE, not even Katara, can understand having your entire culture and people decimated. Katara can understand a lot of his pain, as she shares in it, but at the end of the day, her culture and people are still there. She got to help rebuild that, Aang will never get to do that. THAT is the difference, and he isn't wrong for stating it. (Just like Katara isn't wrong for saying what she said to Sokka).

"He doesn't understand that just because he likes her, that she has to reciprocate"

Except she does. Constantly. She kissed HIM in TCOTL. She's the one kissing his cheek, hugging him, holding him, holding his hand. She kissed him back during the invasion. EIP is the ONLY time she doesn't reciprocate, and Aang NEVER TRIES AGAIN AFTER THAT.

"He compared the loss of his mother to the loss of Appa'

"How do you think I felt when I learned what the Fire Nation had done to my people."

"In the original Aang does not talk to Katara [about his feelings] out of fear of having his masculine ego hurt"

This is just straight conjecture. Absolutely no basis in canon to say this.

Aang also tries SEVERAL TIMES to tell Katara how he feels, and is interrupted before he gets the chance to

Also, if we want to talk about "masculine egos" I think we need to look at Zuko and not Aang. Zuko was the one yelling at his gf because of his romantic feelings and his ego being hurt

I also feel like they gave Pike more of a Bard's Lament than Scanlan. I understand her desperation, her hurt, her grief, but I cannot take her turning on VM seriously. I just miss the Pike from the campaign who was confident in her god and herself. The one who fought Vecna as a champion for the Everlight, not the one who joined Vecna. And sure, she sees the light, but that honestly just makes the storyline even more annoying because what was the point?!?!

Where’s the lie?

I just think people use this episode too easily as a major anti-Aang moment without actually considering what he's feeling. Aang isn't just being a jealous "nice guy" (I also fundamentally disagree with the idea that a 12-year-old can even be a "nice guy") when he sees the play portraying him and Katara as having a sibling relationship and her having feelings for Zuko. It's much more complex than that.

Aang is about to fight the Fire Lord (at TWELVE) in order to end a war that has been raging for the last 100 years and has resulted in the deaths of all of his people save him, Appa, and Momo. He is obviously feeling a LOT of stress and anxiety about it, and the one thing that has kept him grounded from all of his heavy emotions is Katara. And I don't mean that in the "he puts too much on her" kind of way that so many antis love to think. Katara is caring, and she and Aang have a reciprocal relationship. He supports her throughout the show, just as she does for him. We just see her do it for him more because, well, he has a lot more on his plate with waking up after 100 years to find his whole culture and nation dead and the knowledge that he has to master three elements within a few months and then fight the most dangerous person on the planet before he destroys the world, no biggie. So, he's feeling all of these emotions, and all he wants to know before he potentially DIES (again) is that the person he loves, loves him back. His reaction, while we don't have to agree with it (at least the kiss, because I think his being mad about the play is valid), is understandable. This is a, once again for emphasis, CHILD who is feeling some very complex emotions (and has been since he woke up).

Also, the whole play is propaganda, and I think not enough people talk about that (at least on that side of the fandom). Aang is played by a woman, which is meant to undermine his status as a figure of power and as Katara's love interest. So not only does he have to watch as Katara and Zuko are put together (a very sexualized Katara, I might add), but he is watching it be done at his expense. The Fire Nation has already stripped him of his people and culture, and now they are stripping him of his "masculinity" and his love. How is he not supposed to be upset about that?

Yes, Aang is jealous. Yes, he reacted badly to that jealousy. But if you truly think that Aang's only issue is that he's jealous, you are being willfully ignorant. His feelings leading up to him saying he would "be in the Avatar State" are much deeper than just "Katara might not like me back." They are 100% a factor, but even then, as I've already explained, his feelings for Katara and why he feels so strongly in that moment are more complex than just straight jealousy. He's afraid, he's stressed, he's angry, he's still grieving, he's desperate. Using this moment of high emotion as the main example of who Aang is as a character is stupid. We clearly see by the end (and even in the moment when he chastises himself) that he is very aware of how his actions were wrong and how he has reflected on and grown from them. When he walks out onto the balcony in the last episode, he is fully ready to accept being alone. He does not force Katara to walk out there; that is a choice that she makes on her own.

Well, for starters, I think it's because they see themselves as victims, period. Victims of the canon. Victims of Bryke. Victims of the fandom. They have so thoroughly convinced themselves that "they were robbed" of something that no one actually owed them in the first place. Do I recognize that Nickelodeon was baiting shippers when the show was airing? Yeah. But regardless of promotional material or whatever else led Zutara shippers to think that they were in any way in the running, they never were. It doesn't matter if there were writers on the team who wanted it. It doesn't matter if there were voice actors who wanted it. You know who didn't want it? The people actually creating and directing the show.

But, they have taken that victim complex and associated it with every aspect of being a Zutara shipper. They have crafted a narrative in which everything Bryke ever does is meant to spite Zutara shippers. Every post against Zutara from other shippers is just us being bitter or hating for no reason. When the reality is that, for most of us, we actually have no problem with Zuko and Katara's canon dynamic. The problem has always been with their shippers and their absolutely vile behavior.

Now, I fully recognize that there are plenty of people who ship Kataang who can be just as vile/problematic. I also do not condone/support that behavior. I don't think any of us need to be in the wrong tags or be bigots or anything else. I will be the first to acknowledge that fandoms always have a toxic side (and it usually involves ship discourse), and, once again, I am not naive enough to think that Kataang stans haven't been exhibiting the same behaviors since the fandom's inception. But the reality of being in this fandom for most of its "life" is that Zutara stans have been acting like that since the show aired. So, this revisionist take on what it's like to be in the Atla fandom has been truly coocoo bananas to witness.

People are as nasty as they are about Zutara because of its shippers and the constant harassment most of us have faced from them. I've said it multiple times on this blog, but I truly enjoy Zuko and Katara's canon dynamic. Am I a diehard Kataang? 100%. Would I still side-eye someone for shipping Zutara over Kataang? Most definitely. But if all it ever was was a preference for one over the other without all the disrespect, I would just think that they are wrong and move on. However, we all know that isn't the case.

The cave scene? Yeah, he only remembers it because of the healing water and it's relevance to Aang. Outside of that they truly NEVER think about the other in any meaningful way when they aren't together. I can't even think of a single thing they have in canon that is not shared with one of the other dynamics in the show. Saw some good in him? Aang did that first. Enemies to friends? Sokka and Aang also have that dynamic with him. Red and blue? Zukka is there, too. Fire and water? Sure, I guess in the way that Katara is a bender, but Sokka is also a member of the water tribe who was affected by the war just as much as Katara. Going on a field trip with Zuko? Yeah, Aang and Sokka did that, too. Losing their moms? Yeah...Sokka and Azula are right there. You have her helping him fight Azula, which I agree is stooped in symbolism, but it's actually mostly because of the Azula/Katara foil (and obviously Zuko and Azula's relationship).

Do we know what haunting the narrative means? Zuko isn't subconsciously driving Katara to be a different person, and she isn't doing that for him, either. You know who is, though? AANG. (And even then, that's also not what haunting the narrative means).

https://www.tumblr.com/iwillpunchyouinthenose/817559328047398912/all-zutaras-are-damn-weird-and-acting-like-aang

Listen I don’t like ZK either, but can we not put anti posts in that ship tag? We hate it when they post anti posts in the Kataang tag, so we shouldn’t do that ourselves.