I love this piece so much. This artwork offers a visual representation of Aang and Katara not only as individual characters, but as a unit. Every detail highlights the balance and interconnectedness that defines their relationship:
Aang is shown airbending while Katara is waterbending, with clouds suspended between them. This likely alludes to a pivotal scene from The Fortuneteller, in which the two shape clouds together. It marks one of their earliest moments of collaboration. It’s also a pivotal episode that helps to foreshadow Katara’s realization that Aang may be the man that she will marry.
Aang stands upon ice—a direct reference to the century he spent frozen in an iceberg. Katara, notably, is positioned above him in the air. This positioning recalls her role as the one who discovered and freed him, catalyzing the events of the series. Her placement visually emphasizes her significance in reawakening Aang and her role in the narrative as a deuteragonist. The hero’s journey of the titular character does not begin until the initiation of Katara’s.
The water surrounding Aang features La, the ocean spirit. This detail is a callback to the Book One finale, in which Aang merges with La to unleash a devastating surge of power against the Fire Nation. In this context, Aang embodies the ocean spirit. His posture suggests push — the outward, driving force of energy.
In contrast, Katara bends water upward toward the moon, where you can see the beautiful details of Tui, the moon spirit. This references the intimate, sacred connection between the moon and waterbending. Throughout the series, Katara is repeatedly symbolized with the moon. She represents Tui: nurturing and divine. Her pose embodies pull — the receptive, drawing force.
Together, Aang and Katara symbolize push and pull, ocean and moon, life and death, yin and yang. Importantly, the two are not depicted as static or isolated in the picture, but instead in motion—encircling each other in a way that resembles dance. This composition visually reinforces the line from the series:
“Your moon and ocean have always circled each other in an eternal dance. They balance each other.”
The creators have stated that Aang and Katara are co-protagonists of the series, with their relationship forming its emotional core. Aang represents the spirit of ATLA; Katara, the heart. It is fitting, then, that Avatar Studios chose to celebrate their bond on the show’s 20th anniversary by invoking the show’s themes of harmony and balance; the interplay of yin and yang.
But wait! Am I suggesting that Avatar Studios is possibly alluding that the waterbender and airbender main characters — whose journeys we follow from the first to final episode, who have parallel arcs that center around revenge vs mercy — represent yin and yang?
Of course I am! Who else would it be, if not for the relationship between two waterbending partners? Who experience the same relationship trajectory as the moon and ocean spirits — death of their mate, destruction, and subsequent rebirth? (x - link to this amazing meta, summarized in the image below)
The only relationship that has complementary official art like this?
Allow me to conclude with a quote stated by Iroh from the official cookbook, that I think was exactly referenced in this artwork:
I named this blend after Aang and Katara, as their harmonious ways of bending began a new era of deeper understanding and cross-cultural exchange among all benders. This tea reflects their beautiful legacy. It grows atop the mountains of the southern islands, its flavour influenced by the region’s independent spirit and the mysterious fog created by water and air.
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