why am i so bad at being good?

this is why the southern raiders is intentionally positioned as the finale to the field trip arc, why the climactic confrontation between zuko and katara that’s been building since ba sing se happens after the rest of the gaang has already befriended zuko. by tsr, zuko has achieved almost all of his goals. he is aang’s firebending teacher. he’s doing his part to stop the war. he’s part of the gaang. he’s even earned their trust and respect!

katara’s feelings towards him do not pose an obstacle to zuko in any way — it doesn’t hinder him from training aang or influence the rest of the group into shunning or ostracizing him. the point of the scene where everyone except katara hails him as a hero is meant to highlight this very dissonance, because not only does katara’s hostility not matter to her friends, it’s even treated as somewhat irrational and confusing [see sokka’s “what’s with her?” when katara lashes out at zuko].

and all of this is laid out because it’s important that the viewer is assured of the irrelevance of katara’s feelings to the larger narrative before the tsr field trip occurs, so that it’s crystal clear that zuko making amends has nothing to do with any external plot requirement and everything to do with his relationship with katara.

storytelling is meticulously intentional and animation even more so; the sequence of these episodes and individual scenes matters because it shows the audience that zuko has nothing more to gain by earning katara’s trust and affection back — nothing, that is, except katara herself.

woke: zuko and katara both had to grow up too fast (for separate reasons) and as a result pushed aside fun, so that they could focus on responsibilities. katara literally stepped into her mother’s shoes. and zuko hadn’t processed that he experienced abuse and so he was too determined about how to return back home. we literally see that each time iroh tries to get him to rest, he brushes him off and says things like “there’s no time for x, i need to ___.”   

Me : the “zukka is superior than zutara”argument (like all shippy arguments) is so fundamentally flawed because it’s fixated on a “would be” dynamic. As in, if those ships had happened, zutara “would be” too traumatic, emotionally toxic, anger-enabling dynamic; whereas zukka “would be” a happy, balanced, supportive dynamic. Then they’d provide evidences limited to canonical characteristics and moments, which is where it can get messy because both these elements are the most susceptible to change in a narrative like atla, a narrative that promotes change to its characters, characters who are highly conflict-involved teenagers. And unlike Maiko who had a romantic shippy story in canon, which provides substantial basis for a romantic projection, zukka and zutara never had one. This means their argument is not substantial. And fundamentally, their “would be” is a headcanon… (do people not realize that?). The worst part is the fact that their evidence is limited to select excerpts of a much much bigger whole; parts of 1-2 episodes out of 61. Their Zukka’s “would be” is only explored in the Boiling Rock episode, which shows zukka’s best foot forward, light-hearted and adventurous, a very fresh buddy-bro relationship that has not yet matured or challenged with each other’s intimate ugliest sides. Their Zutara’s “would be” is solely anchored in The Southern Raiders episode; the episode where two very personal ex-enemies are redefining their relationships; the episode they faced Katara’s dark past and intimate trauma; the only episode they could be perceived to have enabled each other’s rage and emotion-driven decision-making as non-enemies. Funnily as always, those arguments ignore many other truths in zutara’s canon. Like, the fact that they are the most deeply evolved dynamic out of literally everyone: going from captured–captor, to rival enemies, to empathetic acquaintances, to betrayed–betrayer, to difficult allies, to teammates in temporary truce, to comfortable friends, to harmonious comrades, to partners who have unconditional trust and saved each other’s lives. Zutara is a dynamic canonically proven to triumph many evolutions and come out even more wholesome and better. Then it “would be” most canonically and thematically faithful to portray Zutara as ultimately wholesome, always, in whatever situation they faced, in whatever dynamic they will be — after all, dynamics are susceptible to change but themes ground consistency. Whereas for Zukka, so much is still in the open space, so much is still new and unchallenged, but one thing very profound in their atla relationship is their great teamwork bromance. That is their sole substantial “would be” and the one canon framed to CHERISH.

.

Therapist : mm hmm… and how are you feeling?

aang having to let go of katara isn’t — in fact, logically cannot be — about having to let go of love, because there is no mention of having to do the same for sokka, toph, appa or momo. and even if we make the caveat that pathik was referring only to romantic love, it still can’t be true because we know that previous avatars have loved and been loved romantically without issue. roku, kyoshi and kuruk all had romantic partners, so there is no reason aang cannot. then it follows that aang needing to let go of katara specifically can only be because what he feels for her is not love — true, pure, selfless love — but attachment. aang’s choice isn’t actually for katara at all; it’s a choice for himself, because he doesn’t want to let go of her.

there’s a reason that aang’s grief over the air nomads gets brought up in this same episode, because it is inextricably intertwined with both his feelings for katara and his role as the avatar. after all, it was his being the avatar that led to the fire nation’s attack; it was his abandonment of that role out of fear that caused him to survive instead of being slaughtered with the rest of his people. the weight of his responsibility, and his failure to meet it, is the weight of his grief, and he cannot accept the former without coming to terms with the latter. this is a large part of why aang has latched onto katara, as a crutch to avoid having to face not only the reality of his loss, but the reality of who he is, and why he has to let her go in order to master the avatar state, the embodiment of what he once ran from.

the narrative framing of the guru episode makes it clear that the audience is meant to view aang’s choice as the wrong one. there’s pathik’s ominous warning — aang intentionally concealing the truth about not having mastered the avatar state from toph and sokka — and even iroh’s advice about choosing love over power (which gets thrown around a lot to defend the narrative dropping this plotline later on) is notably given without iroh being aware of the actual nuance of aang’s situation. with knowledge of the full context, it’s highly likely that iroh (a proponent of meeting your destiny on your own terms) would have said something entirely different.

it’s also narratively inaccurate to attribute the choice of the avatar state to being the choice of power, just as it is to attribute the choice of katara to that of love. within aang’s arc and the set up of his character, the avatar state does not represent power but actualization: the manifestation of who he truly is, and must become. it’s the equivalent of aragorn taking up the crown of gondor, simba returning to pride rock — a staple of the classic hero’s journey, where the protagonist fulfills his goal by facing what he does not want to face and accepting who the story needs him to be. if we apply the Want vs Need paradigm here, then katara is the Want while the avatar state is the Need.

the same arc is mirrored with zuko in the book 2 finale, drawing upon the two characters’ relationships as narrative foils. both zuko and aang choose wrong — choose the Want — and pay the price. then comes sozin’s comet and the agni kai, and the conflict of love vs power returns again with katara as its lynchpin — but this time, when zuko leaps in front of azula’s lightning, we know it’s the right choice because the story has established the choice of katara as the Need, as the completion of zuko’s actualization as a character. in aang’s arc, the choice of katara represents divergence, leading him further away from his destiny; in zuko’s arc, it’s a convergence, the re-alignment of who he was with who he’s destined to be.

so i was scrolling through the zutara tag earlier when i came across this gif: 

and for a minute it took me a bit by surprise because i felt as though it was reminding me of something else, but just…wrong, somehow. and then i realized: this is what the lightning scene should have been, if zutara was never supposed to be canon. 

the basics of both scenes are the same. zuko throws himself in front of a water tribe sibling to protect them from a firebender, knowing that they would be helpless to block the strike on their own. he takes the blow himself, and manages to deflect it (though he’s far more successful here than with azula’s lightning, for obvious reasons). 

but compare that scene to the lightning one and there are some very glaring differences: 

i know the romantic coding of this scene has been talked about to death, but seriously. the soft lighting, the sudden slow-motion, the sad violin music, the close-up on both zuko and katara’s horrified faces? all completely unnecessary. this scene could have been written the way zuko saving sokka above was, as an action scene, but the writers chose to write and direct it as a dramatic, emotional, and yes, romantic one. 

the common anti-zutara arguments i see regarding this episode is that zuko “brought out katara’s darker side”/ “encouraged her worst impulses”/ “pushed her to kill”. aside from being objectively untrue (the only thing zuko did was check in on katara at every turn and let her take the lead every step of the way, stepping in only to protect her), these arguments actually fit the way jet treated katara, not zuko. 

jet absolutely tries to bring out katara’s “darker” side. jet attempts to encourage her “worst impulses”. jet lies, manipulates and betrays katara’s trust to try and make her into someone she’s not - a killer. and in jet, because the people at risk are innocents, katara does not comply. in the southern raiders, however, had it been jet accompanying katara instead of zuko, i can absolutely see a scenario in which jet encouraged katara to murder yon rha, and where he might even have  become angry if she refused. after all, if he considered katara a traitor for not killing innocents, if he could not let go of his rage toward two firebenders who, by all accounts, were refugees fleeing the war, what would he think of her sparing the man who murdered her mother and countless others? who willingly participated in the atrocities of the fire nation military? 

because jet and zuko are so closely paralleled, from their weapons to their looks to their personalities, i think a lot of people believe zuko would have the same influence on katara as jet tried to. but this defeats the entire purpose of making jet and zuko foils in the first place: that jet represented the person zuko could have become, if he didn’t learn to temper his blind rage. 

jet/ara (at least within show canon) would have been toxic for all the reasons antis claim zutara would be. but the fundamental point of foiling zuko with jet is to show that zuko is not, and will never, be jet. zuko does what jet, sadly, does not; he learns to control his rage rather than letting it control him, to grow beyond his trauma and look to the future instead of obsessing over the past. 

Zutara Week Day: 5 👀⚔️🌙 And the crowd goes wild 🎉

Inspired by the TikTok edits and comments (from TikTok) to the PaintedSpirit scenes in the NTLA. Who would have thought what started as a vision amongst the fans, have been made into a reality in the Netflix adaptation.

I can imagine Zutarians cheering like it is the World Cup.

Although Season 2 could have been better, I am glad we had those scenes. If my 11 year old and teenage me see this, they would eat it up🌊🔥

Sharing cultures + lots of teasing

The proof:

lmao you make me laugh. mind you, this wasn't even MY opinion. but thank you for telling me how much you hate someone else's opinion on a burner account.

people are allowed to have differing opinions in fandom, that's what makes it so fun. you can find the people who think the same as you and talk about it. what's worse? someone having an opinion and spreading it in their own circles or someone coming into those circles and hating on them for having that opinion.

being a pacifist isn't a character flaw in and of itself, it's the fact that the writers don't actually care about pacifism or any culture around it that's a problem.

"Aang is not bitter or jealous, Aang is respectful..."

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