guille-means-will-in-english

[guille-means-will-in-english]

What bothers me that in the end Katara ended up with Aang is how inconsistent and forced it is, by getting rid on how their relationship developed because the creators had the whim that their hero ended with his crush, destroying the evolution of a character incredible as Katara by turning her into a reward, without taking into account her feelings, what she thinks, her point of view and her evolution, since the only scenes that give us an idea of ​​her feelings give us neutral or negative reactions of her, but never positive.

Some people could said that their dance in "The headband" it's a clear indicator that she liked him, but that's not taking into account that the scene (and what it wanted to transmit) seems completely forgotten by the characters later, it's like it never happened because then we had the same dynamic of how she sees her as his "forever girl", but she didn't corresponded or even noticed it. Another thing to say it's that the scene was completely irrelevant both for the characters and for the plot, as it didn't changed anything at all, and the series could go on without it and stay the same, so where's the depth of it? Because relationships aren't built just on cute details like that...

On the other hand, it bothers me a lot that for the whim of bringing Aang and Katara together, there wasn't a scene of Zuko and Katara freeing themselves from the tension of knowing that they could have died or seen the other die, but no, they just thank each other for not give strength and popularity to that ship. Now, knowing the bond they forged, their development and deep friendship, shouldn't they have done something much more intense and emotional? I mean, they weren't even able to make them hug even though they saved each other's lives.

But no, instead of the consistency of the story and its characters (therefore the quality of the show), Kataang is more important to them ...

[guille-means-will-in-english]

Zuko and Katara's relationship is a masterpiece of 2 people who believed that they were completely different and had nothing in common to later learn that they had similar traumas and experiences growing up and evolving, realizing that they could empathize and care for each other, and while doing so, they helped each other to overcome the psychological and emotional obstacles that trapped them in the past as they understood the fears, desires and desires of the other, and that was a sign of poetic brilliance.

Zuko helps Katara conquer the darkness in her as he went through the same thing and overcame it, so he understands her and is able to help her do it by confronting what was poisoning her.

Katara helped Zuko understand that he could be understood and that he did not have to adjust to the social status quo of his nation, thereby internalizing that he could become caring and compassionate.

They both see the other by who they are without any idealisation as both of them have seein the other in their darkest moments, therefore fully accepting each other as a whole, as Zuko accepts her darkness and Katara accepts his growth from the mistakes he made.

A romance between them (whether it happened or not) would have worked perfectly, it would not be superficial or forced, neither dark nor cliché, on the contrary, it would be honest because it would naturally derive from their closeness and the bond they shared , which became more and more deep.

So a relationship between them would be much more consistent and deep for the plot (reason for its popularity) than one that exists only on the whim of the creators, as in the case of Aang and Katara.

[guille-means-will-in-english]

I want to make clear this post doesn't intend to spread hate or mess deliberately with anybody, but analyse some approaches on what a lot of people use as an argument at the time of justifying kataang, it's not personal and I don't want to offend anybody. With that being said, I'll start...

I think there's a lot of lack of perspective and depth from most people who ship Kataang when it comes to justifying their relationship.

Lack of perspective because they only focus on Aang's feelings and the crush he has with Katara, but they never focus on what she thinks and feels for him romantically, except for a few super specific, irrelevant, ambiguous occasions and where she did not feel neither comfortable nor sure how to feel about it, up to the point of being upset. All her reactions were neutral or negative regarding Aang's advances, but despite all that, she ends up falling in love with him out of nowhere without even showing a reflection or evolution in the character to feel that way, even more so considering that their last romantic scene (where Aang confesses to her) she ends up very confused and upset, but at the end of nowhere by a whim of the creators she ends up in love.

Regarding the lack of depth, they never focus on the evolution, nor on the feelings she had towards him or the relationship they developed (nor her bond with Zuko), but they only focus on what the canon gave us, without thinking about whether the events make sense and support with respect to the development of the characters, or whether the conditions were in place for the events to happen that way.

It could be said that in certain episodes like the fortune-teller, the cave of two lovers or the headband she shows an evolution by being more open-minded of being on a relationship with Aang, but then it's never approached again, as their nexts scenes are of how she is his "forever girl", and how she again acts motherly, as well as negatively/ambiguous to his advances, so those scenes where she is more open-minded of being with him lack of transcendence and relevance to the characters, plot, story and theme. You can't make someone fall in love just by that, or by cute intrascendent details.

But a lot of toxic kataangers not take the trouble to think and question beyond the shell to find something with more meaning and sustenance, but only mediocrely mock those who do it so as not to take the trouble to think or for fear of discovering that their ship has no sustenance, to stay only with what they like since they are comfortable like that.

[guille-means-will-in-english]

This!!! Ursa is completely misunderstood, she was a great mother. People blame her for justifying the fact that Azula was a monster from childhood, wanting to take away her own responsibility for the horrible person she was.

Once again, the sentiment is making the rounds that every one of Azula’s problems were all her mother’s fault, that Ursa supposedly favored Zuko and that one line, “What is wrong with that child?” was supposedly an indication that Ursa neglected her or didn’t love her or never showed her affection.

Okay, first of all: if Ursa treated Azula differently from the way she treated Zuko, it was because Azula legit needed more help than Zuko did, and if Ursa had some concerns about Azula’s behavior, they were far from ungrounded. This is a child who openly wished for a family member to die so her father could have more power, called another family member weak and pathetic for mourning his son, and was heavily implied to have harmed animals just for funsies. Any parent who wasn’t concerned by such behavior would frankly be unfit to be a parent, and I dearly hope that anyone who thinks that being alarmed by a child’s repeated displays of cruelty and attempting to teach said child good behavior equates to neglect or to a lack of love never has any children themselves. Do you really think it would be a good thing for a parent to turn a blind eye to a child’s bullying, abuse, and complete lack of regard for others’ lives?

Second of all, I know it’s been said before, but it bears repeating: mental health issues can’t be magically loved away just by giving someone a few more hugs. Iroh loved and supported Zuko for three years and it didn’t magically make Zuko into a better person or erase the effects of Ozai’s abuse, and he had unrestrained access to Zuko during a time in his life when his contact with Ozai was somewhere between minimal and nonexistent. Though Iroh was certainly there to support him and to encourage him to make good choices, in the end, it was up to Zuko to decide that he wanted to change, and to take the first steps toward healing. Ursa never had unlimited access to Azula, because Ozai deliberately made that impossible. Azula never spent an extended period of time out of Ozai’s clutches, because Ozai would never take the risk of anyone “corrupting” his favored child. And make no mistake: Ozai did abuse Azula at least as badly as he abused Zuko. Just because she was the favorite doesn’t mean his impossible expectations and highly conditional approval affected her any less. Yet rather than blaming the toxic worldview that Azula learned from her canonically abusive father, people go out of their way to lay every one of her mental health issues at her mother’s feet.

Third and final point: Ozai had all of the power in that relationship. For every time Ursa tried to teach Azula how to be a kinder person and that other people have feelings, Ozai was right there to teach her that compassion is weakness, that being weak makes you like Zuko, and that being like Zuko gets you shunned, branded, and banished. When parents are acting at cross purposes with regards to which life lessons they want to teach their child, with one of them rewarding the exact same behavior the other is trying to discourage, of course it’s going to seem to the child like one parent doesn’t love them and is always out to get them regardless of whether or not this is actually the case, and even if said parent is only trying to teach them a very basic tenant of common decency like harming other people is wrong. Yet once again, Ozai apparently bears no responsibility for teaching his daughter that the only thing that matters is power and it’s okay to use other people however you want; instead it’s all Ursa’s fault for trying to discourage Azula’s cruelty in ways that would have seemed a lot less unfair if Ozai hadn’t been actively undermining her at every turn.

In an ideal world, Ursa would have been able to leave the man who regularly abused both her and her children. In an ideal world, she would have been able to get her daughter away from him in time to prevent him from instilling his toxic worldview. In an ideal world, Ursa would have been able to get Azula professional help as soon as she started noticing the red flags about her behavior. But I think we’ve already established that this is not an ideal world. Ursa wasn’t allowed to leave until Ozai told her to leave. She wasn’t allowed to take her children with her. And Ozai certainly wouldn’t have accepted anyone trying to teach Azula anything that he viewed as weakness. What she could do wasn’t much, but would it have been better for her to have done nothing?

tl;dr Being concerned about and attempting to correct a child’s cruel behavior isn’t abuse or neglect or favoritism, and Ursa still doesn’t have a magic wand up her sleeve that can make Ozai less of a dick or his abuse of both of his children any less damaging.

[guille-means-will-in-english]

Zutara dynamic is of two teenagers who actually understood each other and developed a true bond by seeing the other's soul as well as learning to help each other heal and grow.

Zutara = Consistency, development, lots of parallelisms and symbolisms, passion, total authenticity between them, empathy, same viewing of the world and same ways of facing problems, supporting each other, complementation and overcoming problems together.

Kataang dynamic is one of a kid who gets the girl he wanted without having to learn anything, with the show not even daring to justify the reciprocity of her feelings.

Kataang = The crush a preteen has with his babysitter is reciprocated, as from nowhere she develops a crush on her younger brother whom she always took care of as his mother

[guille-means-will-in-english]

Katara is the soul of the Gaang, is the one who sticks them together and the supportive figure for everyone, but who is there for her? She needs someone who she can rely on, who supports and understands her and her grief, the bitter darkness in her soul due to her traumas as well as other darker parts of her personality. And she finally found someone that deeply understands all of her, someone of who she doesn't need to hide herself from, and because of that his betrayal hurted so much, as she knew he was being an honest aching soul who just saw through her, yet still choose to betray her.

Katara wanted to be understood, to be seen just as a human being with flaws, and when the one she knows that fully understands her, gained her trust again and even risked everything for her (no less than his life), their connection became so powerful that if they had been endgame in canon, even their haters wouldn't dare to question their relationship as a couple.

But at the end, out of nothing she fell in love with somebody who had her totally idealised, therefore didn't understand her and didn't provided the support she needed, everything for a whim on people who identified themselves with the somebody who had a crush on her.

[guille-means-will-in-english]

There's a lot of people (we know where almost everyone of them comes from) who say "Zutara wouldn't work, it would be such a superficial relationship and therefore toxic, relationships are built and have more important things than appearance" are not realising how superficial they are, as the only argument possible they see to pair them is their extremely-good looking together, conveniently ignoring everything they grew up together, what they went through, their behaviour, story, and what they mean to each other.

But instead of taking the work to think about it or the risk of realising that their convictions are not as solid as they would want them to be, It's always easier evade reality and just saying "It would be superficial".

[guille-means-will-in-english]

I've recently created this Tumblr and I don't even know how to use it, but I just wanted to clear my thoughts about ATLA and share them with the people as I think I have some things to contribute, so the next days I will be posting the reflexions in my head which did not let me sleep.

I thank all the Zutara accounts wich helped me in my way of clarifying my mind and providing me alternative endings in wich Zuko and Katara end up together. I would mention them but I don't know how haha.