Original Script Analysis, Part 1: Kataang Is Better... And Also Worse.
I want to start this off by saying that when it comes to media analysis, I personally don’t tend to give authorial intent a significant amount of weight – at least, not by default. I understand why authorial intent is so often debated among media analysts, and why so many metas and critiques often hinge their arguments on paratextual information that serves to provide potential insight on what the authors were thinking or planning. But I myself tend to follow more of a “Death of the Author” framework. There are some exceptions, such as when I believe the author’s stated intent – or even details such as their background, life experiences, advocacy etc – has bled through their work so heavily that it becomes impossible to ignore its impact on the final product. (E.g., reading Fyodor Dostoyevsky compare murder to state-ordered execution, it is hard not to contextualise the passage with the knowledge that Dostoyevsky himself faced a firing squad and was given a pardon at the very last minute). Even then, I tend to treat paratextual information like – Understanding the context behind x scene or y narrative choice potentially adds a layer of meaning to it, particularly why some scenes may have been framed the way they were, or why the author chose to tell/expand/conclude the story like this instead of like that. I use paratextual information to deepen my understanding of the author’s reasonings behind their choices. I don’t use paratextual information to form my opinion on whether their choices were good.
(I prefer to form my own opinion on that, based on what I think of the text itself.)
That being said, like most of you readers I too had heard the many rumours surrounding the writing/production process behind ATLA, especially when it came to the ships. Which ship, if any, was planned for, when were the romance arcs finally decided, were there conflicts/disagreements between writers, were there script changes and animation edits to strengthen one pairing while weakening other, and so on and so on. I’d heard the rumour that The Southern Raiders went through multiple rewrites/changes, because it was originally “too shippy”. I’d heard the rumours that Aaron and Elizabeth were pro-Zutara, Bryan and Mike were pro-Kataang, and that their respective positions/opinions on these two pairings seep through their writing in an acutely perceptible way.
I’d also heard the counter-argument, the official narrative endorsed by the creators that any chemistry or subtext between Zuko and Katara was always intended to be platonic, and that readers who saw anything romantic between these two characters were simply setting themselves up for disappointment by projecting their own expectations or preferences onto the show, nothing more.
Over the past 15 years or so, these debates shaped much of the ATLA “shipping discourse”, sometimes even dominating discussion on the subject. I myself have gotten many a variant of “Zutara was never going to happen, get over it” – even when I’ve made a deliberate effort to omit any mention of authorial intent in my analyses, because, as I’ve said, I still don’t consider that kind of paratextual information relevant to my own opinions on why I think Zutara just works better. But given the intensity of the arguments surrounding behind-the-scenes shenanigans, their impact on the final product, and even their supposed significance in determining shipping validity, it was impossible not to wonder at the truth behind all these conflicting rumours.
So when I set foot in the WGF, it was admittedly difficult to contain my bubbling excitement and anticipation. Even still, I resolved to keep my expectations low. Rumours are rumours, after all. Secondary sources must always be taken with a healthy grain of salt, and some of the rumours weren’t even second-hand information at that. And I already knew that no matter what I found, my own opinion that Zutara is the best love story almost written, would not change.
All that said and done, let’s just say that I found the discovery… highly rewarding, and for those of you who have spent years refusing to accept that you were just “reading into things”, I hope my findings bring you some long-awaited vindication.
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