Pro Aang - Tumblr Posts

i find something so fascinating about a character remaining so gentle, empathetic and true to himself after going through so much.

Not because he's a monk, but because he knows and understands how destructive pain, vengeance, pure anger and hatred could be

Aang is one of the strongest characters in the series. I would say the strongest actually

As someone that loves ATLA and is recently getting back into the fandom and has also been spending alot of time in the One Piece fandom as off late

Luffy and Aang have a very similar energy that I enjoy. They are just both so precious oh my god 😭. They are so different but they have very similar narrative functions in how they inspire the people around them to embrace silliness and childlike joy.

But also I love the way they move their powers are fun and they love using them. They are constantly using it's ungrained in the way they move Aang loves airbending he's never not jumping around with it and Luffy loves being rubber

Which makes their differences all the more exciting and seeing how that same scale of personality

they both deal with inherited will Aang more literally and directly that Luffy (as of yet) and they interact with that differently. Aang's inherited will is a weight on his shoulders a burden he has to bear while Luffy's is a pleasant surprise to those around, and the source of his desire for freedom. And this comes through in how they interact with the ultimate version of their powers the literal embodiment of these inherited wills. The avatar state and gear 5

The avatar state for Aang represents a destiny he is still to young to bear, it is unpredictable, overwhelming, uncontrollable, it is something to be feared and worried about, it represents a loss of control for him and he struggles to reconcile that kind of destructive power with himself and his values. It scares him, and That’s why it remains lost to him for much of the series till he makes it his own.

Meanwhile for Luffy Gear 5 represents freedom, he is literally being freed from the constraints of reality. It is the culmination of everything he’s ever been. It’s everything we love about luffy turned up to a 100. Gear 5 is silly, goofy, cartoonish, unserious, fun loving, filled with laughter, insanely power and lowkey a little scary. Even tho Luffy is technically transforming into another person (or god) but god it is still him it is everything that has ever embodied him. And Luffy loves to be in it he has so much because as he said it’s him at his freest.

Aang and Luffy have very different character philosophies, priorities and move through the world differently. Aang is very much concern about the people in the general sense while Luffy is very much focused on helping his friends which then spirals to helping the general population, it just so happens that he is very good at making friends

But at their core they are just both fun loving little boys refusing to let their tragedies define them as they and their rag tag group of walking disasters rove the world like criminals, freeing the people from oppression.

As someone that loves ATLA and is recently getting back into the fandom and has also been spending alot of time in the One Piece fandom as off late

Luffy and Aang have a very similar energy that I enjoy. They are just both so precious oh my god 😭. They are so different but they have very similar narrative functions in how they inspire the people around them to embrace silliness and childlike joy.

But also I love the way they move their powers are fun and they love using them. They are constantly using it's ungrained in the way they move Aang loves airbending he's never not jumping around with it and Luffy loves being rubber

Which makes their differences all the more exciting and seeing how that same scale of personality

they both deal with inherited will Aang more literally and directly that Luffy (as of yet) and they interact with that differently. Aang's inherited will is a weight on his shoulders a burden he has to bear while Luffy's is a pleasant surprise to those around, and the source of his desire for freedom. And this comes through in how they interact with the ultimate version of their powers the literal embodiment of these inherited wills. The avatar state and gear 5

The avatar state for Aang represents a destiny he is still to young to bear, it is unpredictable, overwhelming, uncontrollable, it is something to be feared and worried about, it represents a loss of control for him and he struggles to reconcile that kind of destructive power with himself and his values. It scares him, and That’s why it remains lost to him for much of the series till he makes it his own.

Meanwhile for Luffy Gear 5 represents freedom, he is literally being freed from the constraints of reality. It is the culmination of everything he’s ever been. It’s everything we love about luffy turned up to a 100. Gear 5 is silly, goofy, cartoonish, unserious, fun loving, filled with laughter, insanely power and lowkey a little scary. Even tho Luffy is technically transforming into another person (or god) but god it is still him it is everything that has ever embodied him. And Luffy loves to be in it he has so much because as he said it’s him at his freest.

Aang and Luffy have very different character philosophies, priorities and move through the world differently. Aang is very much concern about the people in the general sense while Luffy is very much focused on helping his friends which then spirals to helping the general population, it just so happens that he is very good at making friends

But at their core they are just both fun loving little boys refusing to let their tragedies define them as they and their rag tag group of walking disasters rove the world like criminals, freeing the people from oppression.

They walked so they could run

I wish there were was a scene or two where it is Sokka who has to pull Aang out of the avatar state frenzy.

Maybe Katara isn’t around for some reason (dealing with an active threat or she was just too far away) and it's Sokka that has to step up. because I do like the gradual growth of his reaction of aang in the avatar state going from complete fear to not leaving the area to stay with aang and I think it would have been a nice ed to have him be the one to pull aang out of it one time.

Not because I want to undermine Kataang because they are great. I do not want to ship sokka and Aang. But I just think it would have really added another layer to Sokka and Aang’s friendship besides them being silly and having fun together. I don’t think they really have any introspective moments with just each other like taht and I think one or 2 scenes like this would have deepened their friendship immensely (not that’s it’s not already great!)

Just Sokka deciding that Katara’s not here and Aang needs help now and so he’s got to do it. Every instinct he has is telling him to back away but he’s got to push through because Aang is his best friend, his brother and he’s not going to leave him.

I just think that would have been a nice little bow on their friendship arc with sokka being the more distrusting and harder to win over of the siblings. Like Kind of the inverse of Zuko and Katara’s friendship.

Like can you just imagine Sokka going; “ I got you buddy, I got you I’m right here” as he grips Aang tightly because he’s not the best at comforting words and and so all he can do is hold Aang close and remind him that he’s there that he’ll always be there for him.

I think that would’ve have been amazing.

UNDERRATED KATAANG MOMENTS [FEATURING KATARA]

1. S2E4 “The Swamp”

Katara sees Aang get knocked back by the monster and goes full Kyoshi with quick succession waterbending slices.

SHE’S ANGRY, FOLKS. THAT’S HER FUTURE HUSBAND.

— — — — —

2. S2E5 “Avatar Day”

Katara stares at Aang longer than usual with a mixture of admiration and love.

NOTICE THAT SOKKA DOESN’T LOOK AT HIM LIKE THAT. NOR DOES SHE LOOK AT SOKKA THE SAME WAY.

— — — — —

3. S3E1 “The Awakening”

The gang enters Aang’s room on the Fire Nation ship, asking him if he wants to come with them to go get dinner in town. Katara smiles in a ~particular way~ upon seeing him.

SHE FLASHES HIM A VERY SWEET SMILE IN THIS SCENE 🙂. THIS SEASON KEPT US WELL-FED WITH KATAANG. THEY SHOULD HAVE NAMED IT BOOK 3: KATAANG.

— — — — —

Bonus: S3E21, Final Scene

Not underrated but definitely the best❣️

"Aang is a static character and he doesn't change since season 1"

Oh ok

Yeah he's exactly like season 1. No difference. No growth. No character arc.

Mind you, he’s a "static character" because he never changed his ideals. The audacity...

Aang and Parenthood and The Ongoing Work of Growing Up

Having some thoughts about Aang and fatherhood, and the way a lot of fandom seems to feel that LoK cast him as a neglectful/potentially abusive father based (it seems) on the statements given by Aang's kids that Aang favored his airbender child over the others. And it makes me wonder what space we give parents to be people as well as fathers/mothers, and whether there's any way for Aang to be 'good' in the construct he's presented in?

1) We don't have hard and fast ages for Aang's kids, but based on the pic snapped of Aang's family, Aang had Bumi young (early 20s) and there's probably ~10 years between Bumi and Tenzin. You do a LOT of growing and learning not just between Kid 1 and Kid 3, but also in who you are as a person from your early 20s to your early 30s.

The idea that maybe Aang got *better* at parenting by the time Tenzin came around? And that Bumi and Kya might (understandably) resent that they were not afforded the same level of parenting skill? It doesn't feel outside the realm of possibility to me, and it also doesn't feel like a reason to cast Aang as an awful parent for not getting it right on the first try.

2) There's also the element where Tenzin is the baby of the family - which does have the potential to carry certain dynamics that aren't always healthy in terms of the youngest being spoiled or having markedly different behavioral standards. But if Bumi is 10ish years older, it's not hard for me to see him forming opinions about the care and attention given to a young sibling that he isn't getting, opinions that might not be shared by external adult observers. This is the perceptions of the kids on their own childhood, after all, and we know from Zuko that children in the ATLA universe aren't necessarily accurate interpreters of parental behavior.

3) Aang also died young. The kid would have been in their 40s to earlier 30s. And speaking from personal experience, the process of navigating your relationship with your parents as you transition from childhood to adulthood is not easy. It's not always intuitive, weird things suddenly become the source of tension, boundaries you didn't think you needed suddenly have to be defined.

And it goes along with the growing ability to suddenly articulate the casual things and offhand comments your parents never had a second thought about that messed you up. Not in a cruel way, but in a 'once your dad used the phrase 'watch your girlish figure' in a joke and 22 years later you still think about it every time you feel like your clothes don't fit you right' way. Is your dad a bad person for saying that? No. Did something he did without thought impact you beyond what you could articulate at the time or he could have predicted? Yeah. And now you have feelings about it.

You were a tiny person who didn't have the language or context to fully articulate your needs or responses or feelings to the things that bothered you, and now you do (or are working on it), and sometimes that means you're trying to navigate and process things that happened years ago in order to define how you want to be treated by your parents now.

And Aang died in the middle of that process for his kids.

And I think we do a disserve in underestimating the impact of that feeling of never getting to engage with a parent the way you wish they saw you, of never being able to find that stable place where you could interact as equals the way you wanted to be interacted with, of feeling like you got stuck in this place that wasn't reflective of how you wished they saw you. And of it happening because you ran out of time, and now you can't ever do what you wanted to do. (Aang died at 66 when prior Avatars lived to be 100+ years old. Why would they have expected to have so little time to spend on hard conversations?)

4) That kind of regret and frustration can meld into grief in a very complicated way, and can linger even when the sharpness of grief fades. Which isn't to say that Bumi and Kya's feelings of not being favored, or being second-fiddle, aren't valid. But Aang's kids are still processing a relationship that they're never going to get to work on anymore. And the fact that they need to process it doesnt mean Aang was a bad parent. It means he was a human parenting other humans.

5) The apparent expectation that Aang meet everyone's ideal definitions of parenthood, which so often feel based around modern western nuclear family-centric ideals, or else be cast as a Bad Parent and therefore Bad Human feels deeply unfair to the concept of growth, to the idea that people can try hard and maybe not get it right but still be good people trying to figure it out, to the idea that parenting is work.

And you can want to be a good parent and still mess it up, because you're human as well as a parent, and perfection is not an attainable goal or standard, and because tiny humans are complicated and complex, and because your ideas of what being a good parent is might not match what your children want or need from you.

And I don't know that we have evidence that Aang never tried to do better, that he wasn't willing to put in that work and make that effort. We know he, functionally, had a very demanding and busy job, and one that impacted his relationship with his children in different ways. We know Bumi and Kya felt excluded and Tenzin felt included. And maybe that was favoritism, or maybe that was him learning that he couldn't let work get in the way of his relationship with his kids and trying something different the third time around.

6) But it strikes me that if the ask we have of Aang to consider him a Good Parent is that he always prioritized his children over his duties and responsibilities as the Avatar, then there'd be just as many people clamoring about his selfishness (already a popular topic!), and his willingness to risk world peace for his own individual needs and concerns and wants, and his inability to accept his responsibilities and grow up.

It strikes me that the entire construct that Good Parent = Good Human and Bad Parent = Bad Human just puts Aang (and everyone) in a trap with no way to win.

Aang and Toph

He's trying his best

I genuinely want to know what show the people who say that Aang never respected Katara are watching. "Aang never let Katara feel anything other than what he wanted her to feel" "He idealized her" "He didn't care about her feelings" "He didn't support her the way she supported him". WHERE ARE YOU GETTING THIS FROM??? That's a rhetorical question because I already know what episodes/moments they're using to make those assertions (The Southern Raiders and the kiss in Ember Island Players), and even then, THEY'RE WRONG.

Let's start with TSR. This episode gets so misinterpreted it's not even funny. First off, Aang was never even upset with Katara in this episode, he's just warning her against killing someone??? He never gets mad at her or berates her. He just talks to her with a level head??? He openly acknowledges that he knows and understands how much rage and pain Katara is in, and he never tells her that she shouldn't feel it, he just advises her not to act rashly because of it??? Where is the lack of respect? Where is he ignoring her feelings or getting upset with her for not acting the way he wants her to? He lets her take Appa and even tells her that he understands that this is a journey she needs to take and supports her doing so, he just doesn't want her to kill someone. Honestly Aang shows more respect for Katara by knowing who she is as a person and not enabling her in her revenge than Zuko who is only going on this trip with her so that she'll forgive him, not because he actually cares that she's upset over the death of her mother (and this is not Zuko slander before people take it as such, I love Zuko, but it's not even subtext that his motivations in this episode are selfish and not about Katara).

As for the kiss in EIP, yes, it was not okay. Yes, it was a mistake. Yes, he shouldn't have done it after Katara laid a clear boundary, but he recognizes that immediately. After Katara- rightfully- gets upset with him, he gets upset with himself. We also see that he never repeats that mistake again and is fully okay with letting Katara lead after that. Which is why it's Katara who initiates the final kiss on the balcony. And if you still don't think he learned anything from it, he starts to ask for her consent in the comics before kissing her, showing that he absolutely DID grow from that mistake. So, we're really going to let one moment where a 12-year-old boy made a mistake dictate the entire show and negate everything that came before it??? That's coocoo banana's behavior.

I also think that those assertions are completely baseless because when does Aang idealize Katara? When does he hate her rage? When does he not support her? Is it when he laughed with her after she stole from pirates? Or in that same episode where he constantly reaffirms her skills as a waterbender- first by saying that he's able to pick it up so easily because she's a great teacher and then later when he refers to her as a waterbender which makes her so fucking happy? Is it when he gets so upset that Pakku refuses to teach Katara how to waterbend that he tries to walk away from his own waterbending training? Is it when he goes behind Pakku's back to teach her anyway? Or when he stands by actively cheering her on when she's raging against the patriarchy and fights Pakku? Is it when he calls her Sifu Katara because she expressed that he referred to Toph that way but not her? Is it when he helped her commit ecoterrorism and told her she was a hero for helping the people in that Fire Nation village? Is it when he holds her after she breaks down because she learned how to bloodbend? Is it when he comforts her after Jet's death? Is it... you get the point, don't you?

Aang recognizing Katara as someone who is strong and capable is not him idealizing her. Him not enabling her committing murder is not him hating when she feels rage. Aang actively supports Katara's rage on multiple occasions, he just doesn't enable her when he knows she's acting out of character. If you don't ship Kataang, that's fine, but please don't make up baseless accusations to try and tear them down just because you're mad that a ship that had no basis in canon (potential is not evidence) wasn't canon.