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The continued motherification of Katara is tiring and needs to stop.

One of the first interactions between Aang and Katara is him taking her Penguin sledding and she says "I haven't done this since I was a kid!" and he yells back "You still are one!" and that will forever be one of the greatest moments in the show for me.

The show says time and time again that Katara does not like being perceived as a mother figure but that is the way she knows to show her care due to the role she was forced into at a young age.

The biggest point of contention between her and Toph is that Katara cares by mothering and Toph doesn't want a mother and they have to reach an understanding with each other on how to love the other properly. It wasn't just about toph learning to accept Katara's mothering but also Katara moving away from her equation of mothering = love, finding new ways to express that love and care. And their relationship is better for it.

Katara's mothering while not inherently bad or something I think she can ever really separate herself from, is not just a quirk of her character but an internalization of a deep trauma and duty. She's a kid in a tough situation that cares deeply for everyone around her but she’s still a kid. She still wants to be a kid.

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.

Katara's Story Is A Tragedy and It's Not An Accident

I was a teenaged girl when Avatar: The Last Airbender aired on Nickelodeon—the group that the show’s creators unintentionally hit while they were aiming for the younger, maler demographic. Nevermind that we’re the reason the show’s popularity caught fire and has endured for two decades; we weren’t the audience Mike and Bryan wanted. And by golly, were they going to make sure we knew it. They’ve been making sure we know it with every snide comment and addendum they’ve made to the story for the last twenty years.

For many of us girls who were raised in the nineties and aughts, Katara was a breath of fresh air—a rare opportunity in a media market saturated with boys having grand adventures to see a young woman having her own adventure and expressing the same fears and frustrations we were often made to feel. 

We were told that we could be anything we wanted to be. That we were strong and smart and brimming with potential. That we were just as capable as the boys. That we were our brothers’ equals. But we were also told to wash dishes and fold laundry and tidy around the house while our brothers played outside. We were ignored when our male classmates picked teams for kickball and told to go play with the girls on the swings—the same girls we were taught to deride if we wanted to be taken seriously. We were lectured for the same immaturity that was expected of boys our age and older, and we were told to do better while also being told, “Boys will be boys.” Despite all the platitudes about equality and power, we saw our mothers straining under the weight of carrying both full-time careers and unequally divided family responsibilities. We sensed that we were being groomed for the same future. 

And we saw ourselves in Katara. 

Katara begins as a parentified teenaged girl: forced to take on responsibility for the daily care of people around her—including male figures who are capable of looking after themselves but are allowed to be immature enough to foist such labor onto her. She does thankless work for people who take her contributions for granted. She’s belittled by people who love her, but don’t understand her. She’s isolated from the world and denied opportunities to improve her talents. She's told what emotions she's allowed to feel and when to feel them. In essence, she was living our real-world fear: being trapped in someone else’s narrow, stultifying definition of femininity and motherhood. 

Then we watched Katara go through an incredible journey of self-determination and empowerment. Katara goes from being a powerless, fearful victim to being a protector, healer, advocate, and liberator to others who can’t do those things for themselves (a much truer and more fulfilling definition of nurturing and motherhood). It’s necessary in Katara’s growth cycle that she does this for others first because that is the realm she knows. She is given increasingly significant opportunities to speak up and fight on behalf of others, and that allows her to build those advocacy muscles gradually. But she still holds back her own emotional pain because everyone that she attempts to express such things to proves they either don't want to deal with it or they only want to manipulate her feelings for their own purposes. 

Katara continues to do much of the work we think of as traditionally maternal on behalf of her friends and family over the course of the story, but we do see that scale gradually shift. Sokka takes on more responsibility for managing the group’s supplies, and everyone helps around camp, but Katara continues to be the manager of everyone else’s emotions while simultaneously punching down her own. The scales finally seem to tip when Zuko joins the group. With Zuko, we see someone working alongside Katara doing the same tasks she is doing around camp for the first time. Zuko is also the only person who never expects anything of her and whose emotions she never has to manage because he’s actually more emotionally stable and mature than she is by that point. And then, Katara’s arc culminates in her finally getting the chance to fully seize her power, rewrite the story of the traumatic event that cast her into the role of parentified child, be her own protector, and freely express everything she’s kept locked away for the sake of letting everyone else feel comfortable around her. Then she fights alongside an equal partner she knows she can trust and depend on through the story's climax. And for the first time since her mother’s death, the girl who gives and gives and gives while getting nothing back watches someone sacrifice everything for her. But this time, she’s able to change the ending because her power is fully realized. The cycle was officially broken.

Katara’s character arc was catharsis at every step. If Katara could break the mold and recreate the ideas of womanhood and motherhood in her own image, so could we. We could be powerful. We could care for ourselves AND others when they need us—instead of caring for everyone all the time at our own expense. We could have balanced partnerships with give and take going both ways (“Tui and La, push and pull”), rather than the, “I give, they take,” model we were conditioned to expect. We could fight for and determine our own destiny—after all, wasn’t destiny a core theme of the story?

Yes. Destiny was the theme. But the lesson was that Katara didn’t get to determine hers. 

After Katara achieves her victory and completes her arc, the narrative steps in and smacks her back down to where she started. For reasons that are never explained or justified, Katara rewards the hero by giving into his romantic advances even though he has invalidated her emotions, violated her boundaries, lashed out at her for slights against him she never committed, idealized a false idol of her then browbeat her when she deviated from his narrative, and forced her to carry his emotions and put herself in danger when he willingly fails to control himself—even though he never apologizes, never learns his lesson, and never shows any inclination to do better. 

And do better he does not.

The more we dared to voice our own opinions on a character that was clearly meant to represent us, the more Mike and Bryan punished Katara for it.

Throughout the comics, Katara makes herself smaller and smaller and forfeits all rights to personal actualization and satisfaction in her relationship. She punches her feelings down when her partner neglects her and cries alone as he shows more affection and concern for literally every other girl’s feelings than hers. She becomes cowed by his outbursts and threats of violence. Instead of rising with the moon or resting in the warmth of the sun, she learns to stay in his shadow. She gives up her silly childish dreams of rebuilding her own dying culture’s traditions and advocating for other oppressed groups so that she can fulfill his wishes to rebuild his culture instead—by being his babymaker. Katara gave up everything she cared about and everything she fought to become for the whims of a man-child who never saw her as a person, only a possession.

Then, in her old age, we get to watch the fallout of his neglect—both toward her and her children who did not meet his expectations. By that point, the girl who would never turn her back on anyone who needed her was too far gone to even advocate for her own children in her own home. And even after he’s gone, Katara never dares to define herself again. She remains, for the next twenty-plus years of her life, nothing more than her husband's grieving widow. She was never recognized for her accomplishments, the battles she won, or the people she liberated. Even her own children and grandchildren have all but forgotten her. She ends her story exactly where it began: trapped in someone else’s narrow, stultifying definition of femininity and motherhood.

The story’s theme was destiny, remember? But this story’s target audience was little boys. Zuko gets to determine his own destiny as long as he works hard and earns it. Aang gets his destiny no matter what he does or doesn’t do to earn it. And Katara cannot change the destiny she was assigned by gender at birth, no matter how hard she fights for it or how many times over she earns it. 

Katara is Winston Smith, and the year is 1984. It doesn’t matter how hard you fight or what you accomplish, little girl. Big Brother is too big, too strong, and too powerful. You will never escape. You will never be free. Your victories are meaningless. So stay in your place, do what you’re told, and cry quietly so your tears don’t bother people who matter.

I will never get over it. Because I am Katara. And so are my friends, sisters, daughters, and nieces. But I am not content to live in Bryke's world.

I will never turn my back on people who need me. Including me.

It's apparently Zutara's month, so it's worth remembering this gem ♥️✨

7. What’s your favourite Zutara moment from the show?

I love all Zutara moments, because it shows development in every season. But, I would never forget how June being Zutara shipper in every appearances. This is my random thought! Very random thought!

June looked closely when Zuko showed Katara's necklace. Since she was from earth kingdom, she probably didn't know it was a betrothal necklace. But, very clear the necklace belong to a girl.

But, she was a bounty hunter, she worked for anyone who paid her, they could be from anywhere . So, there was possibility she learn about other nation cultural like betrothal necklace from Northern Water Tribe.

A prince using a (betrothal) necklace to looking a girl? (Maybe he made it for her, but she run away?) Well, the conclusion was, "What happened? Your girlfriend run off on you?"

And Zuko didn't deny it.

June was right, the necklace belong to a girl. A beautiful girl! “So this is your girlfriend. No wonder she left, she's way too pretty for you.”

And again, Zuko didn't deny it!

June didn't know what happened after that, but the Prince Pouty came again to her and now TOGETHER with the girl. Not only that, June saw Katara wore her necklace.

What sense situation except, "I see you worked things out with your girlfriend."

This time they denied it!

But, what a reaction if there was nothing between them?

Zuko never give a f*ck before every time June teased her with Katara, why he suddenly so shy and denied it? And Katara made the same reaction as she denied her relationship with Jet! Something fishy!!

And in the very same night after someone assumed that they were together, they slept like this! Remember, Aang was missing that time, no one knows where he was or was he okay. But, look at the little smile on Katara's face! I wonder, what were they talking about before they say good night?

please i need a katara centric fanfic about her finding out aang gave up the avatar state for her please please please 🧎‍♀️🧎‍♀️🧎‍♀️