#tbatd

My personal struggle with this chapter (and, to some extent, the previous three) is because the focus of the plot shifts somewhat--for most of the fic we’ve been firmly with Katara, on how she adjusts to her life in the Fire Nation and her relationship with Zuko. And now the culmination of the plot is essentially on Zuko becoming Fire Lord and Aang becoming the Avatar--which, to be fair, is what happens in canon, too. In my version, Katara also doesn’t technically win her fight with Azula. And up until literally five hours ago, she didn’t fight Azula, because I assumed that Aang would go into the Avatar state in a rage the moment Katara was threatened with lightning, and I was concerned that reducing Katara to a healing role was kinda sexist. Then my dumb ass remembered that I established earlier in the fic that Aang actually does have legit control over the Avatar state in my fic because he’s been working on it for ~two years and it’s totally fine for Katara and Azula to have more back-and-forth until Aang decides to step in.

SO. My worries about internalized sexism have been somewhat assuaged, but I had already written out a shit-ton of meta about this ending so I’m just going to keep at it. Basically I dithered over this for months, but the fundamental ending never actually changed. Every time I tried to think of alternate endings, I came back to the real catalyst for this fic, which is Iroh’s insight from The Old Masters: 

Even if I did defeat Ozai--and I don’t know that I could--it would be the wrong way to end the war. History would see it as just more senseless violence, a brother killing a brother to grab power. The only way for this war to end peacefully is for the Avatar to defeat the Fire Lord…Someone new must take the throne. An idealist with a pure heart and unquestionable honor.

I mentioned this way back in my first chapter note; when I sat down to write this fic, I decided I wanted to change the established world as little as possible. I wanted Katara and Zuko to have all of the issues with each other they had in canon. I wanted the essential position of the Fire Nation and the South Pole to be the same. I wanted their friendships and familial relationships to be the same. I even tried to keep Zuko’s field trips! And I wanted Iroh to still be right about the politics of this slightly altered world.

Throughout the fic, I’ve touched on the ramifications of Iroh’s decision to kill his brother, in his relationship with Zuko, in Azula’s response (albeit hidden until like… now), in the Earth Kingdom and Water Tribes’ perception of the Fire Nation, and a little bit in the Fire Nation’s perception of him as a ruler. Basically, he’s not trusted, nationally or internationally. And while Katara is, in my canon, very very well-liked, there are still some political limitations for her as a princess. So she can’t fix it until she’s Fire Lady--and she can’t be Fire Lady until her husband is the Fire Lord. Hence, Zuko becoming the Fire Lord takes a little bit of the focus in these later chapters.

Annnnnd then we get to the other part of Iroh’s statement, which is that the Avatar needs to be the one to end the war. Yeah. I think, if anything, that’s even more true in my fic than in canon. Think about it from the POV of, say, an Earth Kingdom general: “So, you’re telling me that they’ve had five Fire Lords in the last ~10 years, the first one died under mysterious circumstances after conveniently elevating his second son to the throne, the second one was killed extrajudicially by his brother, the third one was also accused of killing his nephew and abdicated to the fourth, who was then accused of being behind aforementioned assassination and was then usurped by the fifth one in a brawl that’s apparently totally legal by their standards… and I’m supposed to trust these people to be my friends?”

Somehow, I can’t see that working out. But the Avatar stabilizes things. The Avatar brings balance to the world, and is a neutral third party who can truly broker the peace… if and only if the people recognize his authority. Aang, in the world of this fic, disappeared for a hundred years, came back, died, came back again, and has been dicking around for two years while the adults solved all the problems. In canon, the world needed Zuko to be a good Fire Lord and Aang to be a fully realized and respected Avatar in order to achieve a true peace, and I felt that this fic needed those two things too.

I know that, since Aang didn’t appear for a big chunk of this fic, it might seem like a bit of a cop-out, but… I always felt energybending was a bit of a cop-out in canon, too. Sure, it makes sense when you know the broader context, but there was verrrrry little foreshadowing in the show itself prior to the series finale–and least for this fic you had the foreshadowing of canon!

Yes, that does mean that Katara doesn’t WIN-win the agni kai in this fic, but tbh I don’t know if she has to? Something I appreciate about Katara’s growth in the show is that, in Book One, her waterbending abilities and her access to combat instruction are really her main hangups… and then they’re not. From Book Two on, she is recognized as an unquestionable waterbending master and one of the most competent benders in the world, and she feels comfortable in that role--her conflict in the remainder of the show is more about her personal relationships and her “dark side,” so to speak.

The agni kai is a fitting end for her storyline in canon because it happens during the comet, when she should be at a massive disadvantage. Take that away, and like… yeah, Katara beat somebody. What else is new? I don’t think she has to prove her worth in this universe. She’s been living in the Fire Nation, which is comfortable with female fighters and doesn’t assume she’s weak… and she’s been earning a reputation as a total BAMF for the last couple of months.

Katara’s conflicts in this fic have been on those other insecurities: whether bloodbending is wrong, if her anger or resentment are justified, how she fits into this new home, how she connects with her old one, her relationship with Zuko. So the fact that she has showed up, that she’s publicly defended the nation, that she risked her life to save Zuko, those are all things she gets “credit” towards and things that wrap up her main character growth. Katara ending this fic as an incredibly popular Fire Lady with a strong, stable marriage is a win from my perspective.

BONUS: this was my favorite ending for Azula.. I am working on a follow-up fic that will follow Azula. I’ll be upfront with y’all in saying that it is not finished and will not be up for a few months, at LEAST. (The reason I was able to update this fic every two/three days is because I spent four months writing it w/o posting a word.) I always kind of wished we’d seen Azula’s breakdown drawn out a little more in canon, and I was reeeeaaaaally pissed when I saw how Azula was treated in the beginning of The Search. When I considered Azula’s end in this fic (and how she might progress in a follow-up fic), I thought long and hard about what rock bottom would really look like for her, specifically what kind of issues she might be dealing with instead of the generic “craziness” that is treated pretty terribly in the comics, and what recovery would look like.

I think being without her firebending is unquestionably Azula’s rock bottom. Her identity as a prodigy means everything to her. From her perspective, she’s never really been loved by her mother or her uncle or Zuko–it’s all been Ozai, and his love has been predicated on her success. In canon, she got a glimpse of how easily Ozai would turn his back on her, and that’s her real breaking point; in this fic, she never got that, so while she has been dealing with grief in a pretty terrible, unhealthy way, her real breaking point is the loss of The Thing that ties her to her father.

But I think that also offers her the best chance for true recovery and redemption, because it strips her of the delusion that she is perfect and untouchable and doesn’t actually need love. Azula defines herself by her success, and what is she without success? She would say nothing; Katara, Zuko, et al, would say you’re still a person, actually, still a human being deserving of respect and love and forgiveness. My version of energybending and recovery is going to be a bit different than how it plays out in LoK, because Selective Death of the Author, and I think her recovery of her bending in my way will parallel her recovery in general quite nicely.

So, there is definitely a whole fic that could be written that solely examines how the plot of the first two and a half seasons, and the characters of Katara and Sokka, if the Southern Water Tribe were in slightly-less-desperate straits and Katara had already started to learn waterbending. That isn’t the fic I wanted to write. There’s also a fic that could be written about the Southern Water Tribe if it were a much stronger political player, with resources to rival the North, which would alter the entire plot of the show as it currently stands. That’s also not the fic I wanted to write.

Honestly? I wanted to write an arranged marriage fic where Katara and Zuko still had most of their canon interactions, so that they could work out all the issues they have in the latter half of season three, but married. So the SWT, in this fic, is changed only by the return of Hama after she escaped from prison. With a waterbender, their walls were stronger, their organization was a bit better, and they were able to repel the Southern Raiders in Katara’s lifetime, but the general situation in canon remains. Likewise, we’re going to pretend that Aang’s timeline still works if we boost it up a little bit--the gaang still meets Suki and Bumi under the same circumstances, they still make it in time to talk to Roku on the solstice, etc.

I know, this is all kind of a cop-out. but I wanted to, as much as possible, keep Katara and Zuko as they were in canon, rather than dramatically change the worldbuilding of the show or rework their pre-marriage relationship. Also, time and travelling in canon is 100% plot-dependent. I spent several hours trying to find a way to make my timeline “realistic” based on the show, and it just ain’t happening. So there.

And now, with all my cards on the table, I’m going to address a few of the things I did consider more in-depth to think about how they would affect the relevant plot and characterization of my fic:

Katara and Zuko’s conversation in the caverns of Ba Sing Se plays out differently when they don’t have missing mothers in common. They do have a conversation, and the fic will discuss it, but her animosity towards him isn’t motivated by betrayal quite the way it is in canon.

Iroh is still captured at the end of Crossroads of Destiny. When it became clear that the Avatar had left the South Pole, assassinating his brother became Plan B (Plan A being convincing Zuko to take a healthy, measured attitude towards his goals and accept the reality of his situation, because Iroh is nothing if not an optimist). He did lay the groundwork for Plan B, however, so instead of needing the moment of the eclipse to break out of prison, he was able to escape and kill Ozai.

I’m not going to confirm or deny anything Zuko does on the Day of Black Sun. Whether it’s the same or different will come up at some point in the fic.

Oh, I will say that we’re just going to go ahead and assume the whole Combustion Man thing gets resolved offstage, because honestly I always thought that was a pretty uninteresting plot. It was useful for the canon plot but honestly? I forgot that it had happened until literally right now, while writing this note. I’ve spent four months on this fic, the rough draft is 85,000 words, I did a shit ton of background research on whale pod structure and post-WWII Japan and fuel in the arctic and all kinds of unnecessary nonsense, and I FORGOT that Combustion Man existed. Let’s just all forget it, mkay?

Gonna be real with you guys: I had no fucking idea what to do with Ursa in this fic. Just. No clue. The explanation in the comics makes sooooo little sense to me, but figuring out a reason why Ursa would still have her memories yet not come back to find Zuko was becoming too complicated and messing with my actual plot. Zuko seemed to think there was a strong possibility she was dead in canon, and I’m just going to accept that. So... I sort of technically killed Ursa offscreen in this fic? Sorry.

IMO, Katara’s desire to prove herself is the foundation of her character in the series, and I tried really hard to keep that in this fic, even though Kya is still alive and even though Katara had a waterbending master. Her relationship to Hama is going to be brought up a bit more in later chapters, but suffice it to say, for now, that Katara still didn’t become a master until she reached the North Pole, and that she sees both Pakku and Hama as her teachers.

Another fundamental part of Katara’s character is becoming a “mom” person in part due to losing her own mother, and Kya’s death is something I changed. It did consciously affect my writing of Katara’s character in some places, but I’m not sure if it’s totally obvious? Basically I wanted to play around with the Water Tribes as semi-matriarchal culture where men wield power in the community and women in the family. So Katara grows up knowing her mother is willing to kill for her, and seeing that both her grandmother and mother have a lot of pride in their roles and pride as the mother/wife of the chief, and act as First Ladies of the tribe, and therefore still feels that profound sense of obligation towards her people... buuuuut also sees that they’re still bound by gender roles, and that other women also believe in those gender roles just as strongly as the men do. Again, I don’t know how much of this will come across, but yeah. Katara is still a nurturer, but she has some extra feelings about it and it comes from a sort of different place.

Side note: I think my feelings on this are influenced by my own Jewish background: Judaism distinguishes between halacha (law, which is mandated by the Torah and the Talmud) and minhag (custom, which develops out of other practices). There is a tremendous respect for minhag, to the point where sometimes a minhag becomes so respect that it has the force of halacha even if there is no “real” biblical basis for it. For example, wearing a kippah or a yarmulke was once minhag, but is now considered almost a universal rule for Jewish men. So that’s why I’m hesitant distinguishing between “real” and “fake”--I think cultural practices developed by people over time are just as true, in a way, as things handed directly to them by a higher power. So... the spirit stuff we get in canon is halacha, but in-universe for my fic, much of what plays out in this story is minhag that is just as important.

Anyway. I think this Fire Nation myth is pretty compliant with what comes out in canon, with one exception: the “Sunset Cliffs” in the current capital city are seen as the location of the first fire, rather than the Sun Warrior ruins. Zuko straight-up had no idea that the first fire was still burning, and the current Fire Nation doesn’t seem to see itself as direct descendants of the Sun Warriors--Zuko talks about them with some distance, their ruins aren’t a common pilgrimage spot or anything, and they’re said to have “died out” rather than just being subsumed into Fire Nation history, so I see this as being an old, old shift in the legend. If the Sun Warrior culture has been “gone” for a thousand years, it makes perfect sense for the legend to just naturally drift from their home to the current cultural center.

The dragon antagonism, on the other hand, I see as being relatively recent--added by Sozin as a way to justify the hunting of dragons. I mean damn, the dragons gave the Fire Nation their fire and show up a LOT as a cultural motif, so imo it would take some pretty strong propaganda to overcome that. The “prove you’re a strong firebender by fighting a dragon” argument is the secular propaganda, and the “btw dragons have always been pretty dangerous so we don’t owe them gratitude” is the religious propaganda.

As for the Southern Water Tribe, I really think they’re just begging for a better spiritual tradition. I can accept that the North would make the oasis their spiritual center and be content with that, because they can actually feel the peaceful aura or whatever, but I don’t think the SWT, on the other end of the world, would be emotionally sustained by “there’s this one place that’s really holy, but we can’t explain why, there are no stories about it, there are no rituals for you to participate in, and that’s literally all you get.” It’s just way too abstract.

And yes, I recognize the irony of saying this as a Jew, but diaspora Judaism was/is HEAVILY ritual-based for a reason. Plus, historically it was very common for Jews with strong attachments to their diasporic homeland to bestow with spiritual significance by calling it a “New Promised Land” or the “Garden of Eden,” which both reaffirmed the religious importance of the Land of Israel and allowed them to find holiness in whatever land they happened to be living. So the myth that Katara tells does something similar--it starts at the spirit oasis, acknowledges its significance, provides a strong basis for the link between the two Water Tribes, and then gives the South its own culture, equally as important.

Related: I think it’s a little odd to have the moon as the only “teacher” of waterbending, when the other sources are all animals that actually bend and the moon just kind of hangs out there? Learning to push the tides, sure, fine. But it also seems like the South uses animal motifs more than the North--Sokka’s war paint, the wolf helmets, Bato’s ceremonial headdress. Those things don’t show up in the North, so again, I think it’s fitting to have the North be more content with their abstract, place-based religion and the South turn more towards the natural world and storytelling. As I mentioned in an earlier chapter, I was inspired by a different fic for the choice of orcas as waterbending teachers/sacred animals, but their distinctive coloring was also a big reason I settled on them. I sort of imagine that, in an earlier time when the identity of the koi fish was known, some waterbenders looked at some orcas and thought “clearly these giant fish are the messengers/students/what-have-you of our two patron spirits.”

So those are my thoughts on Avatar/The Blackfish and the Dragon mythology. And for the record, all of the parallels to Judaism were 100% subconscious, and I didn’t notice them/mean to talk about them until I was writing this note and couldn’t find an easier way to explain what I meant. This post isn’t meant to be some kind of proselytizing/my beliefs are better than anyone else’s deal, and the actual content of the myths is inspired more by a variety of Indigenous American and Polynesian origin stories that I read for research... just filtered through a Jewish lens cuz that’s how my brain works.