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thinkingisadangerouspastime · 3 years

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what do you think of aang's comments in "the southern raiders" and what they meant to katara? I watched that episode recently with my sister who dislikes atla, and assessed similar things to what certain people of the fandom are saying: "aang didn't understand her", "aang was pushing his beliefs onto her", "it didn't seem like he knew her", etc. she was more fair than those people of course because she did say it was realistic that he'd be so worried since she recognizes that he does love her.

Honestly those arguments are all,, tired. They’re outdated. They’re boring. They’re wrong. They’re a result of a fundamental misunderstanding of A:TLA canon. This isn’t to say that those who genuinely, truly believe these arguments are terrible people (obviously not lmao), but somewhere along the line they had a seed planted in their mind that posits them to have inherent dislike for Aang. And honestly? I just feel sorry for them, because not understanding and appreciating Aang means their A:TLA experience really can’t be that great. But I digress!

“aang didn’t understand her”

Oh, what’s the post? Right - “Fandom once again forgets that Aang is the sole survivor of genocide.” Aang understands better than anyone else what Katara is going through*. There is a direct parallel between Aang finding Gyatso’s skeleton and Katara finding Kya’s body. I’m not going to sit here and argue which was more traumatizing (literally can’t stand when people do that) because you can’t quantify grief like that, but it cannot be denied that Aang has experienced something incredibly similar to what Katara has gone through: the loss of a close parental figure followed by finding said parent’s corpse. Not only that, but Aang and Katara both share a unique sense of helplessness intertwined with their grief regarding their parental figures’ deaths. For Katara, there are the questions of:

- what if I wasn’t a waterbender

- what if I had run a little faster

- what if I had fought against Yon Rha back then

All leading to “Could I have saved her?” For Aang, there are the questions of:

- what if I wasn’t the Avatar

- what if I hadn’t run away

- what if I had stayed to fight the Fire Nation back then

All leading to “Could I have saved him?” Both of them feel incredibly guilty on a personal level about the death of their parental figures, thus blaming themselves. Katara tries to push it off onto Zuko/the Fire Nation and Aang tries to suppress it entirely, but ultimately it is revealed how closely they hold responsibility to their chests. For Aang, it comes out in “The Storm.” For Katara, it comes out in “The Southern Raiders.” So, bullshit that Aang doesn’t understand Katara! He understands her grief better than anyone.

Also, many, many people have gone into this before, but Aang’s example of Appa being stolen was not callous/rude/etc. Appa was the last living piece of his culture. Appa is not “just a pet.” People who insist so are the actual ones being callous, not Aang. And, as Aang himself says, “How do you think I felt about the Fire Nation when I found out what happened to my people?” Aang has experienced more hurt at the hands of the Fire Nation than anyone. There’s a great meta here that delves into Aang’s experiences as the sole survivor of genocide. I don’t understand how someone could acknowledge all that Aang has lost (read: he has lost everything) and then argue that he doesn’t understand Katara’s pain. Like, what? Do you have no sense of empathy?

But most importantly, from Katara herself: “Thanks for understanding, Aang.” She says this after her initial dismissal of him. So take it from the source, my friend - Katara believed Aang understood her. Who are we to argue?

*The only exception perhaps being Sokka, since Kya was indeed his mother, too, but it is worth noting that Sokka did not have the same experience of seeing Kya’s dead body or feeling the intense self-blame that Katara did.

“aang was pushing his beliefs onto her”

It is SO funny how those SAME people have NO problem with everyone in the Gaang telling Aang to kill Ozai the finale! Y’know, when they were disregarding the pacifistic beliefs of his people in exchange for emphasizing their, ahem, more aggressive ones? SO funny! I’m laughing SO hard right now!

Heavy sarcasm, in case it wasn’t obvious. They’re hypocrites and they know it.

But, more importantly, Aang was not pushing his beliefs onto her? At all?? Tell me where in the episode Aang:

- refused to let Katara go after Yon Rha

- told Katara what she was doing was wrong

- told Katara that HE was right and that SHE needed to listen to HIM

Here’s the thing: none of that ever happened! Not only does Aang accept that Katara needs to go (see: “I wasn’t planning to [stop you]. This is a journey you need to take. You need to face this man.”), but he allows her to take Appa on her journey. Appa, the last living piece of his culture. Aang has incredible trust in Katara, and his choice to send Appa with her (essentially sending a piece of himself with her) demonstrates this fact clearly. That should end the discussion point blank, but I guess I’ll break down the lines people seem to have issues with:

1) “It’s okay, because I forgive you. [Pauses.] That give you any ideas?”

Honestly, the criticism this line gets is laughable to me. People use it to argue that Aang was being disrespectful to Katara’s feelings and?? I hate to break it to them, but you HAVE to look at the context a line is in if you’re going to judge it. That is Analysis 101: Context is Everything. This moment is used to break tension. That type of scenario is an entire literary trope, okay? A:TLA did not invent it! Shakespeare literally did it in Romeo and Juliet when he had Peter argue with musicians about something stupid after Juliet’s “death.” The whole point is to break tension before more serious scenes. In R&J, it is before the lovers kill themselves, and in A:TLA, it is before Katara leaves with Zuko to confront Yon Rha. That’s why there’s another moment just like it at the end of that scene! Y’know, Sokka asking to borrow Momo for no reason? It breaks tension! It’s a moment of respite before weighty scenes! It’s incredibly common in every form of media! This is what no Humanities classes did to some of y’all, I swear to God. So yeah, Aang was not disrespecting Katara’s feelings with this. It’s just a tension-breaker. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news for those who devoutly believed it was a sign of Aang being a Horrible Person. You were wrong, ain’t no big thing, go drink some water and stay hydrated okay darlings?

2) “I don’t think so. I think it’s about getting revenge.”

Um, a major point of “The Southern Raiders” is that Aang was right about Katara’s initial drive to face Yon Rha? It was a quest for revenge? Katara literally bloodbends, an ability she was forced to learn and essentially feels cursed to bear? Also, nowhere here does Aang tell Katara she was a horrible person for feeling angry and wanting revenge. He simply brings her attention to the reality that what she’s currently seeking is revenge. He’s worried about her. She’s his best friend! He loves her! He doesn’t want her to kill Yon Rha because he knows that for Katara to have blood on her hands from a revenge quest would hurt her tremendously. (As a matter of fact, the audience knows - or should know - this, too.) So, sorry that Aang expresses concern for her? Apparently not wanting your best friend to murder someone is forcing your beliefs onto them? Damn. Y’all are harsh these days.

3) “The monks used to say that revenge is like a two-headed rat viper. While you watch your enemy go down, you’re being poisoned yourself.” // “Katara, you do have a choice: forgiveness.” // “No, it’s not. It's easy to do nothing, but it’s hard to forgive.” // “But when you do, please don’t choose revenge. Let your anger out, and then let it go. Forgive him.”

I put all the forgiveness quotes together since people tend to complain about them as a whole. But like,, I really don’t see how this is Aang forcing his beliefs onto her? He asks her to choose forgiveness. And just speaking plainly: on an emotional level, it is better for someone to forgive than to murder. Killing someone is not easy, even if you hate that person with every bone in your body, and it will mentally scar whomever does it. Y’all know this! It’s obvious! I shouldn’t have to say it! But Aang knows this, too, and thus he doesn’t want to see Katara kill Yon Rha and perhaps kill a part of herself in the process. Katara is not a killer. I’m not arguing about whether she could have or even if she wanted to, because you know what, she admits she was tempted, but Katara is not a killer. An FMA quote is very fitting here:

“Your hands weren’t meant to kill. They were meant to give life.”

Why should Katara have to live with a man’s murder on her conscience, especially when his death would be a result of fruitless revenge? The answer is simple: she shouldn’t, and Aang doesn’t want her to. Katara is a warrior. A healer. A leader. A friend. But not a killer.

Anyways. Back to my point: Aang is not forcing his beliefs onto her here. He’s offering her another option, the option she ends up choosing, albeit she extends forgiveness to Zuko instead. And Prince Holier-Than-Thou (jk love you Zuzu) acknowledges it himself: “You [Aang] were right about what Katara needed.” Aang didn’t force anything on Katara here. He reminded her of her choices, he reminded her about the consequences of revenge, and he reminded her about the value of forgiveness. Never once did he tell her she had to forgive Yon Rha or else. And when it came down to it, he stepped aside, and he let her go, because he knew this was a journey she needed to take. So… He actually did the exact opposite of forcing his beliefs onto her! He respected her feelings and let her make her own decision! Seriously, how many pairs of anti-Aang goggles do people have to wear to genuinely believe otherwise??

“it didn't seem like he knew her”

Ohhhhhh my God this is SO close to one of the actual points of the episode! So close!! It’s not that Aang didn’t know her; it’s that Katara wasn’t acting like herself. I’ve talked about it before here and here, but Katara was incredibly consumed by her emotions in “The Southern Raiders.” It’s why she ignores Zuko the entire time before they leave on Appa! It’s why she makes that callous comment to Sokka about their mother that we know she never would have made normally! She is drowning in grief about her mother’s absence, guilt regarding her mother’s death, and anger about Zuko (she still does not trust him, and yet he can lead her to her mother’s killer; I don’t know about y’all, but that is really freaking difficult to reconcile). So when Aang compares her to Jet, it’s not a far-off description. She is acting like Jet, because she’s consumed by grief and hurt and anger and she’s not acting like herself. It is instrumental, too, that Katara isn’t acting like herself, because it makes her decision not to pursue revenge and instead offer a second third chance to Zuko even more profound. “I’m proud of you,” Aang tells her, and damn! The audience is, too! I was incredibly proud of her for finding her way out of what can be a bottomless spiral for some people. So again, it wasn’t that Aang didn’t know her. It was that Katara wasn’t acting like herself (I guess meaning… no one knew her?).

In conclusion, literally all of these anti-Aang arguments regarding TSR are exhausting and so easily disprovable. The fact that they somehow manage to live on is evidence that people just want excuses to hate Aang, plain and simple. Like, it’s so easy to just say you don’t vibe with his character? You don’t have to pull BS excuses to “justify” it? I don’t vibe with Ty Lee as much as I do other characters (although I have recently grown much more fond of her; bless the Renaissance for more Mailee content, even if some of it is just a Zukka byproduct), but y’all don’t see me twisting her sacrifice in “Boiling Rock” to make it seem like it was selfish or something (mostly because, spoiler alert, it wasn’t). Like, you can say Aang isn’t your favorite and move on instead of using the same boring rhetoric over and over and over that just makes it look like you lack critical thinking. :/

TL;DR - Aang’s comments to Katara in “The Southern Raiders” came from a place of concern. A place of wisdom. A place of love. And honestly? I think Katara realizes this, and she’s grateful to him all the more for it.

#if y'all even mention zuko on this post i will stomp you to death with my hooves. this is not about who understood katara better!!#this is solely addressing bs anti aang arguments #aang #katara #atla #avatar the last airbender #adding line break after i post btw!!#atla meta #atla analysis #the southern raiders #yon rha #amy answers #amy analyzes #queenaleesbiggestfan-writes

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