I Made A Thing. I'm Incredibly Proud

I made a thing. I'm incredibly proud

Avatar the Last Airbender x Crazy Ex Girlfriend mashup

Small little Zutara add on bit, we never actually find out what Zuko thinks she should do. For all we know he 100% agreed with Aang that killing Yon Rha wasn't gonna bring Katara any peace. Or maybe he legitimately was down for revenge and believed Katara should've killed Yon Rha. Or perhaps he legitimately didn't care how she chose to handle it. We don't know. All we know is that Zuko believes Katara deserves the chance to face the man who killed her mother and to make her own choice. What Zuko thinks that choice should be doesn't matter. And so he keeps his opinion to himself and simply supports Katara in her decision. Not by saying she made the "right choice" but that the decision was hers and simply being there for her. If Katara kills Yon Rha, he would defended her choice from anyone who said it was wrong. If she spares him, he will assure her that she's not weak for not killing him. He wouldn't bring morality into it or say a choice was right or wrong. He would just support her. And that is part of why I love this arc so goddamn much

I know people have already talked about this topic, but I want to too.

There are a lot of jokes on the Internet about how Katara constantly mentions her mother as if it were the most important event, but...

Isn't that so? I mean, in the life of a little eight-year-old girl, this is truly the most important event in her life and she wants to share it.

Katara took on the role of an adult too early, and she didn't have the opportunity to work through this problem with anyone, because she's already an adult => she cannot afford to rely on someone. But she needs it, and that's what traveling with Aang gives her: the opportunity to find children like her and share with them the burden that she has been carrying all this time. Note that Haru, Jet, and even Zuko are people who not only have experienced loss, but also have some kind of responsibility for others: for their family or even for a group of people. She doesn't tell adults about this because she isn't looking for care, she's looking for understanding of her feelings.

The problem is that it's not enough for her. Her sadness turns to rage because the further the story goes, the less satisfied Katara becomes.

The closer the heroes get to the end of the war, the more angry Katara gets: first at her father, then more specifically at Zuko. And, in the end, she finds the cause of this anger, as well as the opportunity to satisfy the thirst for understanding of her grief - the murderer of her mother. She needed revenge not just because it was fair, but because from the very beginning of the series, Katara was looking for an opportunity to calm those feelings that were rushing out. And her attempts to do this by expressing the problem were not enough. She needed more, and she got it by facing the biggest monster in her life.

In general, the “monster” metaphor obviously speaks not only about Yon Ra, but also about Katara herself. Or rather about her anger. Judge for yourself: she had to restrain a storm of emotions from the age of eight; she began to reveal her grief only in the first season, that is, at the age of 14. She ignored her pain, pushing it deep inside until it became a raging monster rushing out. And what Katara really needed was to face it. So when she flies to find Yon Ra, she also finally meets the version of herself that she has carefully ignored and hidden for the benefit of others.

It's funny that Zuko is the one who helps her. In general, it was his complete understanding of Katara in this matter that amazed me. He, like no one else, knows what it’s like to face your inner demons and knows how useful it is for knowing yourself. And how dangerous it is when you're alone in it. So he accompanies her to keep her safe. So that she has a person on her side who will be there, no matter what choice she makes. He will support anyone. (I'm crying because of how beautiful it is wasgffv💖)

(A small antikataang insert: this is the reason why their relationship doesn't work. Aang only supports the right decisions, even if they require Katara to sacrifice inner harmony, while Zuko will simply support her for whatever choice she makes. It's funny because Aang has to keep balance and as a monk he knows a lot about that. The show focuses heavily on the theme of yin and yang, that is, the balance of good and evil. In order to achieve internal balance, Katara needed to turn to internal evil, because she tilted this scale towards good. She was imbalanced to begin with, and instead of understanding this, Aang insisted on continuing the preponderance of good. It’s as if he doesn’t understand that the preponderance of good is as bad as the preponderance of evil, and this will only harm Katara. I hope my point is clear)

Finally, Katara finds inner peace when she faced everything that was raging inside her, when she did what she needed and poured out everything she ever wanted. Every word about her mother led us to this moment, as did Katara herself.

And do you know what the point is? Why am I telling all this? It's all a character arc that unfolds linearly over three seasons.

Now think back to the arc of Aang, the main character of the show, in relation to his family. Did he bring them up in seasons two and three in a way that was linear? I mean, the one who constantly grieves over his father's death should have been Aang, because he learned the pain of loss so recently, he didn't have a chance to get used to it. But even in the episode SR, Aang compares the loss of mother not to the loss of his mentor and father, but to the loss of Appa and his people. It’s as if he doesn’t care about the individual connection with Gyatso and it’s nominal.

Katara, on the other hand, has emotions that she smoothly carries throughout the show and resolves in it. She has a huge number of Chekhov's guns, which each fire at its own time. Her feelings about her mother, the development of these emotions and their resolution are the most beautiful thing about this show along with Zuko's arc (even though I have problems with him in book 3).

And making derogatory jokes about it like Katara is whining and annoying is blasphemy. After all, she's the only one of the Gaang who has a single development arc throughout all three seasons, this must be respected

This rule applies to all things. You should be able to compliment one thing without insulting another. I can give you plenty of reasons for why Invincible is a great show and I can do it without bringing up the faults of Marvel and DC

I've said it before, I'll say it again: if you can't promote your preferred TTRPG without dissing D&D, then maybe your TTRPG isn't actually that good.

Certainly I'll never buy it.

No fuckin way I know how that went. I don't need pissed off Gods on my ass

Reblog for larger sample size whatever

Oh god that fucking Lion Turtle.

Seriously if there is one part of ATLA I hate more than any other it's energybending. It's such a fucking cop out and it's imo made worse by the fact that it wasn't even an issue that needed resolving to begin with. I mean Avatar is a kids show like you said. I was never expecting Aang to beat Ozai to death with his stick. Firebenders have been shown to have been locked up before. Why would this be any different? But then the show makes a big deal about the morality of killing this guy and hey I'm not opposed to a good ol' fashioned moral dilemma. It can make for some great character drama when everyone is telling Aang to make the hard call. Does Aang stick to his guns despite the risk or does he betray his culture and kill Ozai. That's interesting and definitely not something I'm opposed to. What I am opposed to is answering that question stupidly.

Energybending robs Aang of his agency in the choice to kill Ozai or not. It's no longer a difficult decision to betray everything Aang believes in for the sake of the world or to risk everything but stay true to what he believes is right. He just gets a free pass, an easy answer, which realistically isn't gonna solve the problem since Ozai's biggest strength is his political clout whether he's a bender or not. Just look at Napoleon. Man had a strong enough political influence that when he came back from an island not too far from France, he immediately came back to support from his allies. Ozai's continued breathing, bender or not, will cause problems for Zuko. The fact that this deus ex machina allows Aang to bypass a complex moral dilemma while also completely failing to solve anything will never not annoy and frustrate me. If there is one thing I hope the live action gets rid of (aside from Kataang the way is in the show) it's energybending

I honestly don't really like spiritual water as part of the plot in book 2.

This is an extremely obvious deus ex machina for the resurrection of Aang, which was introduced into the plot in an extremely ridiculous way. Seriously, saying that Aang could die while in the avatar state IN THE SAME EPISODE where you showed the resurrection holy water is extremely stupid. This very powerfully spoils the ending of the season, while destroying any sense of danger. Why should I worry about Aang if I know that Katara will resurrect him with some fancy water?

It would be better if this water didn't exist and only its healing abilities were in Katara’s hands. After Jet's death, we wouldn't know if the healing would work on Aang, since he could very well die. Maybe at that moment the full moon will rise, enhancing Katara's abilities, and she will save Aang by combining her powers and the spirit of the Moon. I mean, is it really necessary for this to have a deus ex machina that ruins the whole drama and provides clear guarantees of salvation? To be honest, this is just meh.

Beyond that, the obvious purpose of this dull water limits Katara as a healer. Famous question: Why didn't she use it when Jet died? At least they would introduce some restrictions for it, for example, that the healing properties of this water are revealed only during the full moon. And they say Katara couldn’t use it for a reason.

But it turns out that she forgot about this shit until the moment of plot necessity, which makes Jet's death mediocre.

There is another scene where this water is present: the dialogue between Zuko and Katara in the catacombs. And you know what's the funniest thing? If you cut out the information about spiritual water, the meaning of the conversation will not change at all:

- Maybe you could be free of it.

- What?

- I have healing abilities.

- It's a scar, it can't be healed.

- I don't know if it would work, but...

Actually, it got even better, because Katara needs to rely on her own strength to heal Zuko. And she wants to try not because she has magic water that she doesn’t know what to do with, but because she can at least try to help.

But the point isn't even that, but how smooth the dialogue remains if you cut out a fairly large piece of text from it.

This leads to my theory that this spiritual water was introduced after the script for the season was written. Like the authors didn’t know how to heal Aang at the end, so they introduced this stupidity at the beginning, and then in the scene in the catacombs, to remind the viewer that this shit even exists. Otherwise, I cannot explain why without this water what is happening becomes more logical