ATLA For Life

My Kataang heart was BURSTING

Aang + Quality Time

Katara + Physical Touch

Toph + Words of Affirmation

Zuko + Gifts

Sokka & Suki + Acts of Service

I see a lot of Zuko vs Aang discussion and debate in this ep, and so I tried to look at it in another way—in the perspective of the actual central character in this ep: Katara.

I think Katara did value Zuko’s presence in TSR. It wasn’t about him being wrong or right, but him being there throughout that journey of hers. Early on, he seemed nothing more than a means to an end for her, but this changes, and I think the reason Katara finally forgives him is because of his presence. She saw him assist her, she saw him take her bloodbending in stride, and while he was more or less onboard with Katara possibly killing Yon Rha, we gotta appreciate that he didn’t push her to do it or question her when she decided not to. Zuko assisted her with his presence, and he respected her choices, despite them ending up to be not what he initially expected.

In the same way, we gotta appreciate how Aang, who is blatantly against killing, lets Katara take his animal guide on a journey to possibly kill a man. And that’s even after Zuko insults his culture and Katara tells him he doesn’t understand grief, both of which are rather below-the-belt remarks. Since Aang wouldn’t be able to assist Katara in a murder mission, he stands back. He’s concerned because he believes that killing someone in cold blood is not something Katara would want on her conscience for the rest of her life, but he realizes that it’s not his choice to make. In this sense, I would think Katara appreciates Aang in this instance not for his presence, but for his absence, as it speaks of his understanding that no matter how in conflict Katara’s actions could be with his own Air Nomad beliefs, Katara needed to face her inner demons. And she does say so, when she thanks Aang for acknowledging that facing Yon Rha is a journey she needed to take. In addition, I think she also appreciates his faith and trust in her that she will end up making the right decision for herself, and by herself.

Finally, Katara is the center of this episode, and she makes her own choices. Zuko tells her he has a lead on who killed her mother, and she decides to follow it. She decides to tell Sokka he didn’t love their mom the way she did. She decides to tell Aang he doesn’t understand how she feels. She decides to bloodbend. And finally, she decides to spare Yon Rha’s life. These decisions are hers, whether or not they’re right, and they bring out her flaws, strengths, and nuances. They drive the episode. Yes, Aang and Zuko have conflicting views on how they think she should handle her grief, so I especially like how her realization in the end is something in between—murder isn’t the answer, but not murdering Yon Rha doesn’t mean she forgives him.

1. He ran away from his responsibility as the Avatar and got encaved in ice resulting in the airnomad genocide. A bullshit reason. Aang was a 12yr old monk who only just mastered airbending, found out he was the Avatar sooner than he was supposed to (they’re not supposed to know until they’re 16) and then found out they were planning on seperating him from his mentor. He was an upset child that ran off and because of stupid coincidence he got into a storm, resulting into his Avatar spirit kicking in and protecting him. It’s not his fault that it lasted for 100 years and it’s not his fault that a dictator decided to eradicate an entire race.

2. He crumpled up the note for Bato containing the map to Hakoda’s camp. Katara and Sokka promised to Aang that they would stick by him. They were his new family. They said so themselves. By telling Aang this they not only agreed to accompany him to the North Pole, they agreed to help him save the world. Of course they would want to see their dad, but their responsibility is to Aang first now. Aang was excluded the entire evening at Bato’s. He tried to include himself in the conversation several times and got dismissed. He has a right to be upset by that. Then he hears that the people who promised to accompany him and who promised they were his new family might leave him to go see their father. Once again, Aang has the right to be upset. Crumpling up the note and hiding it was a shitty move, but Sokka and Katara’s reaction was shittier. Instead of letting him explain they yell at him and tell him to go to the North Pole by himself and with that, save the world by himself. They went back on their promise. This situation was a miscommunication on everyone’s part. Solely blaming Aang is not only wrong, it’s bullshit.

3. He pushed his beliefs onto everyone. Show me a scene where Aang forces Katara and Sokka to eat vegetarian. Show me a scene where Aang forces everyone to meditate. Show me a scene where Aang gets upset when people eat meat in front of him. You can’t. Why? Because this statement is simply not true. The only scene you could possibly pull up is Aang begging Katara not to choose revenge. He tries to help by telling her he knows what she’s going through. He tries to help by giving a metaphor that the monks taught him, because it helped him. All of this comes from a place of love, not a place of wanting to force everyone into airnomad beliefs like Zuko suggests. Aang never tells Katara explicitly “I forbid you from going on this journey and executing your revenge.” He even acknowledges that this is a journey she has to make. He just asks, because he knows how toxic revenge is. He tries to relate to Katara by going “how do you think I felt when the sandbenders took Appa.” This is a valid point to make bc he nearly killed all of the sandbenders in a blind rage fueled by revenge. Katara stopped him then, now it’s his turn to stop Katara.

Another point I’d like to make with this one: everyone else was pushing their beliefs onto Aang when they were trying to force him to kill the firelord. They never asked kindly like Aang did, they said “you have to.” Why? Because they believe there is no other way. Aang believes otherwise because once again, revenge is a toxic notion.

4. He didn’t kill the firelord. Are you seriously wondering why a 12yr old pacifist monk in a kid’s show didn’t murder a man on screen? Really? I’ll refer to number three to tell you exactly why this is bad: it’s other people forcing their ideas and beliefs onto Aang. I’ll also refer to a few other Aang posts I’ve made where I talked about how this outcome, where Ozai isn’t dead, is better than a scenario where he is. His supporters would have used him as a martyr to demonize the Avatar. The same thing happened in the Chin village with Avatar Kyoshi. She killed their dictator leader, and 300 years after that they still hated the Avatar (not just her, all Avatars) and even charged Aang with murder. Killing Ozai would have backfired immensily. The cycle of violence wouldn’t have ended, it would have continued. With Aang showing him mercy and taking his firebending away he broke the cycle and a new era of peace could begin.

5. He’s immature. This is a short one: he’s a CHILD. He’s not supposed to be mature. Think back to how you were when you were twelve. Think back on how twelve yr old boys behaved when you were at school. Aang might have the responsibility of the world laying on his shoulders but he’s still twelve, you should at least expect him to act his age, even if he sometimes has wisdom beyond his years.

6. He lied in the great divide. Lmao pls don’t act all high and mighty here. Everyone has told a little white lie to save themselves once in a while. Yes Aang lied to those clans about that age old ceremony, but it ended up solving a 100yr old fued. Sometimes lying to make people feel better is good. I’m a very honest person but I have told lies to make people happy or to save my own skin. It happens.

7. He’s a bad father. This was started by LoK, when two of Aang’s kids, Bumi and Kya, suggested that they were neglected by him because Aang took his other son, Tenzin (the only airbender) on trips without the other two. At that point Aang and Tenzin are the only two airbenders known to exist. Aang wants to keep his culture alive, it’s why he started the Air Acolytes, therefore he must have been thrilled to finally have another airbender to share his knowledge with. I don’t think we can fully blame Aang for spending more time with Tenzin while trying to teach him about airnomad culture. It’s Aang’s job as the Avatar to keep the balance and without airnomads the balance is disrupted.

Then we have the fact that kids memories are often blown out of proportion, or not reliable bc they don’t have all the facts. For example, I remember several times in my childhood where I was left out by my older friend when she found someone her age to play with. Those are the memories I have of her. But through looking at pictures and hearing stories from my parents, I realized there had been several times where I wasn’t left out by her and that we got along great. I don’t remember those, I only remember when I was left out. There might have been plenty of trips that Bumi and Kya did attend, but they only remember the ones where they felt left out bc they didn’t come. Kya and Bumi are also older, there might have been years before Tenzin was even there where they had Aang all to themselves. But they don’t remember that. And even if Kya and Bumi were to come on these trips, they’d probably be complaining that they were boring bc Aang would only be talking about his culture and teaching them about it. Then the complaint would be “dad would drag us along on these boring trips just to teach tenzin airnomad stuff”.

Let’s all also remember that Aang is in fact the Avatar, as in, one of the most important people in the world. He must be a busy man. And while yes, your children should be your number one priority, the Avatar is an exception to this rule because his responsibility is to the world first. Not to his wife, not to his kids. Aang has struggled with this before (choosing to save Katara over mastering the Avatar state) and probably struggled with this later in life too.

This is a long way to say that you can’t judge someone’s parenting over one scene in LoK where Bumi and Kya aired their frustrations about Aang to Tenzin in a moment of stress. Later on Kya even showed them a happy family picture, and they didn’t seem to think Aang was that bad anymore. People definitely jumped the gun to claim Aang was a bad father after hearing one (1) complaint about his style of parenting.