#i imagine this scene happens when korra goes to ask zuko for advice in book 3

[freckledsokka]

wip wednesday

a wee snippet of the self-indulgent tense-fuckery zukka fic i'm working on that no one asked for! most of this fic is sokka (ghost sokka? spirit sokka? who knows) waxing poetic about zuko grieving him, but i wrote this scene with korra for a touch of levity (while still being a little angsty).

note: this is NOT a reader fic. do not let the use of "you" fool you. this is fully from sokka's pov as if he's narrating this to zuko.

"You remind me of him," you tell the Avatar, something wistful tugging at the corner of your mouth, reaching to the creases of your eyes. Korra looks almost bashful, or maybe just flattered. "I get that a lot," she says quietly, as if it's a sore subject but she doesn't want to offend you by mentioning it. You smile at her, warm and reassuring. "I don't mean Aang." "Oh." She sounds surprised, which quickly gives way to embarrassed when you offer her an encouraging smirk to help the thought along. "Oh," she says again, nearly in a different octave. "Oh, I'm so sorry, I should have realized that's — of course, that's who you meant." She laughs nervously, waving her hand vaguely at herself. "Southern Water Tribe, duh." "It's not just that," you tell her, and her nervous energy seems to settle a little at the calm, smooth tone of your voice. "You have the same tenacity, the same spirit. He would be proud to see the Avatar you've become."

Korra is quiet for a moment, either out of respect or simply a loss for words. Then she smiles, a little sheepishly but no less grateful to be honored in such a way. "Tenzin told me he — the Chief? — was with you and my father the night the Red Lotus tried to kidnap me." She looks away, guilt seeping into the set of her shoulders, the way she wraps her arms across her chest. "I'm sorry, I — Did he —?" She glances back, eyes bright, pleading for some kind of forgiveness she doesn't need to be given. "Was it my fault?"

"Korra," you say slowly, frowning, placing a gentle hand on her arm. "What did Tenzin tell you? The Red Lotus had nothing to do with Sokka's passing."

Her eyes go wide. "Really? But he made it sound like — I mean, my dad became Head Chieftain not long after that, I thought —"

You can't help the chuckle low in the back of your throat, a rumble of distant thunder, warm as a summer storm. "No, Korra. Sokka never was particularly suited to be Chief. He felt it was time to pass it on, is all. That, and he felt he could do more good behind the scenes, or through his work in Republic City. But, more often than not, he was with me. Those years were some of our best." 

Korra lets out a trill of nerves, huffing in relief. "Thank the Spirits." A beat, the haunted look of someone who is technically thousands of years old yielding to the vulnerability of someone barely out of her teens carrying the weight of the Spirit and human worlds on her shoulders, knowing she is the reason your — our — friend is gone. This is the cycle we were all prepared for, and yet — "Is that why I barely remember him? Didn't he ever visit Katara at the compound? Why didn't he ever say hello?"

"I wish I could tell you, Korra, but he never gave me his reasons." A wry smile. "I'm sorry if I kept him from you."

Korra twists her mouth, setting her jaw defiantly. "Lord Zuko, if I may —" She isn't really asking permission and you know this, but you nod anyway. "That's bullshit, and you know it. He was your husband. Don't tell me you didn't know just because he didn't tell you."

Your mouth twitches knowingly, even as your expression remains impressively neutral. "I had my suspicions, of course."

"Which were?" Korra presses.

If she weren't the Avatar, I suspect you would've said something along the lines of None of your damn business or Nothing to concern yourself about. Being the Avatar still has its perks in dragging honesty out of you, it seems. Still, you manage to make it a whole production, sighing like it physically pains you to admit it. 

"He wanted to wait until you'd mastered all four elements before he would teach you" — an exaggerated eyeroll, fingers pinching the bridge of your nose — "the 'fifth element.'"

Korra's brow furrows. She blinks like she's waiting for a punchline. "The — what? There is no fifth element, unless you count energy, but —"

"I know," you agree, exhausted. "I know."

"Then what?" Korra demands, sounding as flabbergasted as she looks.

You take a deep breath, wearily replying, "Swordbending."

Korra is frozen for a moment, maybe in shock, maybe in disbelief. Then she bursts out laughing, bright and cool as snow crunching underfoot, until it dawns on her that maybe you weren't actually joking. "Wait, really?" she asks incredulously. "He actually wanted to — to teach me? Why didn't he just team up with Katara? Spirits, it would've been so much fun to have a swordmaster around."

"You told me you have to learn the elements in order, Zuko," you say in a poor imitation of my voice. It's been so long, you've almost forgotten it. "He didn't want to influence your bending, or distract you from your role as Avatar, or so I assume."

Korra huffs. "Sounds an awful lot like he did tell you things, then," she mutters indignantly.

You shrug. "Not in so many words. He said a lot without ever saying it." That wistful slant of your mouth softens into something closer to melancholy. "When you're with someone as long as I was with Sokka, you learn to read between the lines. We had our own language, in a way."

"But if you suspected, why didn't you say anything? Why not encourage him?"

There's a sadness in your smile, an ache in your eyes. "Because, young Avatar," you say gently, "you always think you'll have more time."

[lokgifsandmusings]

Do you think Kataang might have worked better if it had happened earlier and had time to get complicated? It probably would have annoyed people who wanted to get on with the plot but it might have avoided the "hero gets the girl" final episode business.

Well, it was introduced in the pilot episode, so…

No, it was its scripting in Book 3 where I find it impossibleto track.

Like, to me it felt as though Zutara was the foregoneconclusion for the series when Book 2 was airing, and it made sense to me, albeitit was a tropey assumption. Then “Crossroads” hit and we had that amazing subversionof Zuko’s redemption arc (maybe my favorite moment in TV history), and alsoAang “giving up” Katara with the chakras and all, so I had no clue what tothink. I didn’t care enough about shipping to ponder it deeply, but it was likeAang was on this jedi-path, and I couldn’t imagine a situation where Kataracould work through her feelings of betrayal with Zuko within one season. Whichis still something I cling to. I could see ATLA ending on a trajectory headedfor a Zutara romance, but I think as presented it still wouldn’t have been thebest writing in the world.

Clearly they intentionally countered the whole “heroescannot love” thing (Iroh tells Aang he was smart to choose love, though theRock of Chakra Convenience is still just an atrocious way to go about it. Korrafound the inner strength to open hers…), and I’m happy for it. But how Brykewent about scripting the romance in Book 3 is nothing short of a headscratcherfor me.

Ya know what, I’m putting this below a jump-cut. Here’s the full account of whyI’m personally struggling to really feel compelled by this pairing, even though I adorethe complications of their adult lives and family, and would never trade Bumi,Kya, and Tenzin for anything. I hope we can all be friends after this? If you enjoy it, power to ya, and I’m happy you found this aspect of ATLA fulfilling.

First, off the bat, the ages do make me uncomfortable. Especially for afull make-out sesh, along with the panting at the end of “The Headband” dance.It makes me uncomfortable because it’s clear Katara is in a much differentdevelopmental stage than Aang. That’s just the animation and the scripting, andI’m sorry but I don’t see coming around on that. Keep in mind, I watched theseries for the first time as a teenage girl. Maybe it’s my own issue that Icould very easily put myself in the mind of a 14 year old girl going throughpuberty, and the idea of making out with a 6th grader that held atorch for me is just not an avenue I’d go down. I totally admit that this isall subjective taste here, so it’s not really an “argument against the ship” orany of that nonsense. It’s just one aspect that leaves me cold.

The maternal quality to their relationship…I can get overit. Katara is a caretaker personality, and I know first-hand that this mode ofoperation doesn’t sit in contention with romantic interest. Oh hey, rememberAsami? So, yeah the imagery at times is uncomfortable in this regards (like, nomatter what it’s just bizarre to have your crush role-play as your mom, right?),but this is kind of a “whatever” element and I can’t believe it’s brought up somuch in this dialogue.

Okay. ATLA Book 3. There was the Footloose episodewhere Katara seemed super into Aang, right? But then her ambivalence was made abundantlyclear for almost every other moment.

There was a conscious decision to have herlook not exactly on-board after the invasion kiss, and to have it be framed asAang putting it on her. Animation isdeliberate, at all. So what the hell was our take-away supposed to be? Thisonly gets heightened and much much much worse with “Ember Island Players” whereKatara outright tells Aang she’s confused, he kisses her anyway (which is atleast framed as not a good thing), and that’s more or less the last this topicis broached until that final scene. I asked questionsabout this yesterday that I thinksuper needed to be answered, but can’t we at least agree this is an exceedinglyodd way to go about scripting it since there was NO follow-up to this moment? Aside from last-minute tension, can anyone justify this?

Like…what is the takeaway at all? That Katara was confusedwhen there was a war going on and couldn’t parse her feelings, but the warended so now she had a chance to breathe and realize that yes, she wanted thisthing. That is a totally fine story I guess, and it is clear that Katara is,ya know, fond of Aang, particular given his empathy and pushes towards worldbetterment. But we needed this explicated! Especially since in the scene beforeAang had violated her boundaries.

This is for Aang’s sake too! He calledhimself “such an idiot” for doing that, but then doesn’t want to even be like “thiscool with you?” He clearly cares about hurting Katara since that handicapped his ability to learn firebending, so where was that mentality for him at all after he upset her?

Frankly, before Katara said she was confused because therewas a war (which sounded more like trying to evade an awkward topic), we had noindication of *what* was going on in her mind. None. One second she’d be dirtydancing, the next she’d be looking uncomfortable, the next she’d be snapping athim for protective paternalism. I’m not saying any discrete moment was OOC, butthere is something fundamental missing that connected these pieces. Which maybea 2 minute conversation with Suki could have cleared; even though it’dcertainly fail the bechdel test, it would have given us an important window,would have allowed for Katara’s assertion of her own agency in this narrative, and alsobeen kinda realistic to how teenage girls communicate. Again, I was one. I canconfirm this. Hormones are raging and it’s confusing even without wars.Remember when Korra sought out the advice of Jinora and Ikki? 

What it comes down to is that we just have to assume Katarawas into this, because that’s how things ended. What we’re shown is completelyinconsistent, and requires us to just shrug and say “I guess this is what shewanted.” I’m very hesitant to bring up Zutara, because this isn’t a comparison.But from the perspective of storytelling, it kind of would have been the exactsame thing had she and Zuko shared an end kiss. It’s not like it’s impossibleto track that narrative, but it would have boiled down to “well this happenedso therefore here’s how we should view those previous interactions.” Differenceis, of course, writers weren’t planning Zutara, so those interactions didn’t*need* to convince us of anything. Why would they? But for me, Katara’sfeelings for Aang felt told and not shown, simply because her feelings kind of adaptedfor the needs of an episode’s plot. 

So, okay, it wasn’t super organic. But where I really,really start to get not happy is with the messaging and take-away. Katara’s romanticarc sort of boils down to “I think I like this boy and I do.” Which is fine?What’s not fine is Aang’s romantic arc.

From the start he has a very idealized view of Katara, and that’s seriously whatever sincehe’s a kid and this is a crush. I guess that image of her kind of getschallenged when she lets some darkness show, but it’s also contextualized bysome distressing stuff. “Southern Raiders” is example prime: Aang *really*knows what Katara needs. Rewatching that episode is hard, because Aang comes across as incredibly patronizing. I’d say this was an intentional character flaw, kind of like Hermione in a way (SPEW is her haughty self-righteousness going very wrong), except that we’re kind of just supposed to agree that yes, Aang really does know best.

He’s also shown to be canonically possessive of Katara (his glare at Zuko when he hugs her in “Crossroads”, the whole “you’re myforever girl”) in a way that I assumed was going to go challenged. Isn’t itclear in “Nightmares and Daydreams” that dream!Katara is a bit of an issue? Andthat when he tries to project that onto her in real life, she’s not receptiveor happy? *She* certainly didn’t seem to feel she was his forever girl in “EmberIsland Players” and made that clear.

And really, it’s that episode that’s about 92.4% of theproblem. It’s almost unconscionable to me that there was no verbal follow-up,and unfortunately what it did was create a situation where Aang pulling thisshit:

Actor Zuko (on stage): Wait! You’rethe Avatar’s girl, aren’t you?

ended up being tacitly rewarded. Katara really *was* hisgirl all along! She just needed that confoozing cloud of war to clear up!

This gif actually makes me see white. And at the time I thoughtit was framed in a negative light, especially given Katara’s reactionfollowing. But then the finale endorsed this entire line-of-thought from Aang. Unlesswe go with “it was about Katara’s off-screen and unarticulated choice.”

I sound very very salty, I know, butthe Entitled Nice Guy is probably my least favorite of all the tropes. It’s apersonal taste here, and one that’s even ruined The Office for me. Plus the whole “oh she secretly likes you so just keep pushingand violating boundaries” thing is just not acceptable. And yeah, it’s notexactly shvarts un vays or anything, andwe can make arguments about “oh Katara leaned in so it’s fine” or whatever, butthe fact is: Aang’s view of the situation was challenged for half a second, only to then be staunchly endorsed.

I know shippers care about Katara. My guess is that they allow for a much more generous interpretation of this than I do, and put more time thinking about how this really is part of the narrative of her growing crush. For that reason, I see a ton of Watsonian arguments as a defense, but myissue is a Doylist one entirely. It’s the messaging, and it’s amessage that sits so oddly in contention in what is otherwise a very thoughtfuland rather progressive narrative.

Like yeah, sometimes guys like girls from thestart, and the girls come to realize their feelings as time goes on. Of course that happens. Just don’t have it happenwithout a fucking conversation that makes a point to showcase her perspective, becauseotherwise there’s unfortunate implications!

Though thankfully Bryke learned to watch out for those,slowly, but surely.