“Stop criticizing Katara’s adult narrative just because she primarily chose motherhood. Raising kids is an honor, and she raised the Avatar’s kids!”
Every time I hear someone say this about Katara, I imagine it in the tone of fans who believe big career goals and motherhood cannot coexist, and that that a woman choosing motherhood is forfeiting their big career goals (sometimes even their identity) to focus all of their energy on the kids, and that still wanting those big dreams for yourself is selfish when you have kids to take care of.
I also imagine that people who say this are fans who saw Katara as the character always helping Aang with his physical/mental/emotional struggles as well as other people everywhere she went, and so she would easily transition into full-time motherhood as an adult because she was so naturally gifted with it already. These are the fans who tend to overlook the emotional labor Katara had to internalize due to her being “that mature voice” and “pillar of inner strength” for so many people at such a young age… not really having someone who understood her darker side or helped validate her feelings. Let’s just leave Zuko in The Southern Raiders and shipping out of this.
What I want to discuss… is why is Katara the only character praised by fans for choosing to raise kids in her adult life rather than for other things she accomplished?
Toph, for example, grew up as a single mom, raised two daughters of separate fathers, and she STILL managed to take her bending abilities to whole new levels by opening a metalbending academy and becoming chief of police for the entire Republic City well into her 50s. She was still active and involved in her career and served in criminal trials while still having two girls at home (Katara was not even present in Yakone’s trial, despite that he was being tried for Bloodbending… a crime Katara herself had deemed illegal.)
Zuko also took parenthood seriously, raising at least one daughter (whether or not a mom was in the picture is still TBD) and even in his elderly80s, he definitely seemed to show up to big events with his daughter and was protective of his daughter’s safety in the world. And oh yeah. Zuko was also the FireLord, who spent time reconstructing an imperialistic country and changing the views of so many generations of his people… he raised a dragon named Druk… and was active in overseeing Republic City.
Let’s also not forget that Aang was a father to the same kids he had with Katara, and yet he isn’t praised for choosing fatherhood over anything else he did. LOK tells us that in fact, he actually favored Tenzin over the non-Airbending kids, and the other airtemples didn’t even know Avatar Aang had other children outside of Tenzin. Did Aang dedicate time to raising Tenzin when they went on all those field trips? I like to believe so, but Aang also had lovely and willing Air Acolytes everywhere he went that would probably tend to Tenzin while he did important Avarar work. The narrative here doesn’t give us much of a positive outlook on how Aang was a dad, but that’s okay… because we as fans like to praise the other bigger important things Aang did like build Republic City.
While Aang, Toph and Zuko were continuing to build their legacies through their character strengths, sense of worldly knowledge, and incredible bending talents… in LOK, we only hear about Katara’s focused on healing (something she certainly didn’t want to be known exclusively for), despite the fact that The Greatest Healer in the World failed to heal Korra (twice!). We also hear how Katara was determined to make bloodbending illegal, and yet in LoK, bloodbending is still running rampant and elderly Katara doesn’t seem to be bothered by that. The Katara we see in the SWT (who’s just as elderly as Toph and Zuko) is a person who’s thrown in the towel, chosen a reclusive quiet life rather than attending big events (such as her own granddaughter’s Airbending ceremony), and letting the world deal with its own problems. It’s as if she trained the next Avatar in waterbending and she could finally retire; her work was done.
What makes Katara’s adult narrative so diminished isn’t because she was seen primarily as a mom, but because we as fans don’t see much fruit of her labor (both within motherhood and outside it). Yes, she raised Tenzin, Bumi and Kya, but even as middle-aged adults, her kids talk about how they were culturally divided as a family. They don’t visit their mother in the SWT unless it’s deemed necessary. Outside of Kya, we also don’t really see the kids (or grandkids) really connecting with the WaterTribe side of their heritage either. We definitely hear a lot about Katara’s healing abilities, but where is the proof of that? Where are the grand state-of-the-art healing hospitals in Republic City with her statue welcoming everyone, where it’s shown that Katara dedicated her time to train other healers and master new healing techniques? We also hear how she made bloodbending illegal, so why are people like Yakone still making it a problem? Why wasn’t Katara there, making a public statement next to the president regarding this cruel bending technique and making more an effort to monitor all Waterbenders in the SWT and NWT to make sure kids weren’t being trained in that cruelty? All we hear about Katara’s greatness is in side-commentary from other characters in LOK, but compared to Aang, Toph, and Zuko, there isn’t really much we get to see from that greatness.
We can’t even say that Katara brought the next generation of Airbenders, because in LoK season 3, Airbenders randomly come back all over the world.
So, I’m not saying that Katara choosing to be a wife to Aang and mom to the Avatar’s kids in her adult life was a disservice to her character. What I’m saying is that the things she accomplished outside of those roles didn’t really amount to much in the later narratives of ATLA. Katara could’ve changed the world, but her character was reduced to serving the Avatar’s narrative instead.
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