#i personally would’ve liked to have seen her learn some waterbending from the swampbenders

[themoonandhersun]

hot take time:

i LOVE that katara is a pro at waterbending

i love her for it and i just think it’s so badass that she mastered it so fast—but i think, considering how we saw her struggle with it at the start, it would’ve been realistic to still struggle with it even after getting a master.

i’m not saying she should’ve been on par with how zuko struggles with his firebending, but i just think it would’ve been very interesting to see her waterbending skills develop over the course of the three books instead of her just mastering it in the first one, you know?

none of this is to say that katara doesn’t continue improving since she mastered waterbending...because she did keep improving and ingrained moves from the other nations into her bending as well.

like...for example: the breath of life move she used during sozins comet (i feel like it originates from both the air nomads and the fire nation? maybe it’s just fanon that it came from the air nomads first, but it explains how aang is able to just vibe at the poles with no parkas. i’m just not entirely sure where it comes from).

i just think seeing katara struggle with her waterbending, even after getting a master, would have made the pay off of her being a master more interesting (rewarding?) to watch.

i know people love that she’s a waterbending prodigy and i love it, too, don’t get me wrong. it’s just—not everyone is a prodigy, you know? not everyone just ‘gets it’ from the start. i feel as if zuko is really the only person we see struggle with his bending ability for the entirety of the show (in terms of not being a master! zuko is a good firebender in his own right! he is!).

toph, aang, and katara are all bending prodigies; i would even argue that suki and sokka are prodigies, too. like sokka had no problem fighting against his master after...what? a week of training...a few days, at the very least? and suki, as we already know, is good at hand to hand combat and with her katana, too. she’s no master, she said that herself, but she’s still clearly good at it and doesn’t struggle with it. in fact, when we see her at the boiling rock, she can keep up with ty lee, a whole ass chi blocker—which says enough to me, honestly, about suki’s abilities. i mean, suki is such a badass, and i think she deserves more appreciation! but that’s another post for another day!!!

also, yeah—aang did struggle with earth at first. but as soon as he learned to face things head on? he was good at it. and, he struggled with fire, too, right...but as soon as he learned that fire is life and not destruction? yeah...he was good at that, too. was he a master of earth or fire at the end? no, but that doesn’t mean he was still struggling with it at the end. but i’m like, 100% sure that if aang had more time to master all of the elements, he would have done it. (he was a natural with water, so i don’t even feel the need to mention it. especially since, you know, if he was more diligent like katara when he had lessons with pakku, he would’ve been a master already.)

what was my point?

oh yeah.

katara is a strong, compassionate, kind, and stubborn character. i see myself in her (no i’m not saying that to be arrogant or conceited or anything) but the part where i don’t see myself in her is how she just...‘gets it’ as soon as she has someone to teach her. a lot of people just...aren’t like that, you know? and if she struggled with bending, you know she wouldn’t give up on it, and i just think it would’ve been very inspiring to see that, you know? it would’ve sent the message that—even if something is hard to achieve, it doesn’t mean you should give up on it. it would’ve sent the message that...if it’s important to you, if it means something to you, you shouldn’t give up on it, no matter what. well, that’s the message i think it would send......i also just would’ve loved to have seen that while watching atla. i...think it would’ve helped me a lot....that’s all....

tldr: i think seeing katara become a waterbending master gradually over the course of the three books would have been a good thing to see! i think seeing her struggle with waterbending, even after getting a master, would have been such an important part of her character arc. like her bending is obviously important to her, and seeing her deal with struggling with it—how it might affect her self esteem, her self image, etc etc—would have been a huge deal to the people who aren’t prodigies, aren’t gifted, etc. it would also make her character even more interesting, imo!

#zutara #a rant.....by me #this one has been in the drafts for awhile #listen i just think seeing katara #someone who we’ve already seen struggling w bending #struggling w mastering bending during the whole show #would have been good to see! #she’s stubborn and she would’ve kept trying and trying to master water bending! #i personally would’ve liked to have seen her learn some waterbending from the swampbenders #it would be like drawing wisdom from other places like iroh talked about #also we could’ve seen her have a ceremony or something! like one at the south pole or something #like she was the last waterbender from the south! she should’ve gotten a ceremony for being a master waterbender! #katara deserves to be celebrated! she DOES #i also feel like this rant....didn’t make as much sense as i wanted it to??? #also i need to publish some of my drafts! #that’s also why i posted this ✨ #also im kinda nervous to post this but it’s like 5am and i haven’t slept and i just feel like posting this #hmmm perhaps i should get some impulse control ? maybe #ALSO if katara struggled more w her bending i feel like she would make her own moves #like she would stray from the things pakku taught her and make her OWN waterbending moves... #cause she’s a badass like that #also she’s creative too #she is the moment #come on now #i also feel the need to clarify: I LOVE KATARA #I LOVE HER VV MUCH I JUST THINK THIS WOULDVE BEEN FUN TO SEE #I HOPE I DONT GET FLAMED FOR THIS

[caelum-in-the-avatarverse]

Katara's still reeling after learning about bloodbending. Aang tries to help. 

~~~

This one's gonna have discussion of how bending can kill people and allusions to death and stuff, just fyi.

Enjoy!

~~~

“Teach me how to heal?”

Katara blinked a few times and looked up at him. It took her a few seconds to focus on his face. “What?”

“Teach me how to heal,” Aang said again, and then he added, “please.”

She blinked again. “Why?”

Because you cried for hours last night. Because you kept apologizing to Yue. Because your hopes were completely shattered. Because I know how badly you wanted to learn Southern-style waterbending. Because one of your greatest heroes turned out to be the worst kind of villain. Because you’ve been staring at a field of fire lilies all afternoon. “You taught me how to fight...for obvious reasons. But...I know I’d prefer healing over fighting. And...I think we both could use it.”

Katara graced him with a weak smile. “Okay,” she said, straightening up. She already looked better at the prospect of a goal - a mission, something to make the world a better place. “Give me your arm.”

Sokka and Toph left them to it and stuck to the other side of their campsite, Sokka drawing out diagrams for sky bison armor while rattling off ideas, and Toph practicing her metalbending and telling Sokka that, as much as her skills were progressing, she would not be able to created mounted arrow-launchers, nor would they be able to train Momo to use them in time.

Katara spent the better part of an hour tracing her finger up and down her and Aang’s bodies, talking about the twelve standard meridians and chi flow and applying waterbending as a conduit. Aang soaked the information up like a sponge, watched Katara sink her focus into healing, and all the ways you could fix a person.

But eventually her words trailed off halfway through an explanation of how waterbending could keep a person’s heart beating, and she stared at her fingers hovering over Aang’s chest. “It’s...not so different, is it?” she whispered.

Aang took her hand in his. “It’s very different, Katara.”

She shook her head. “I just...can’t believe someone would use waterbending for something so evil.”

“I know,” Aang said gently. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s - we’re supposed to be better than the Fire Nation. Waterbending isn’t evil, it’s good.”

“No bending is good or evil,” Aang said. “It just...is.”

“I’ve never seen firebending used for good,” Katara said dryly.

“Kuzon used to make shapes with it,” Aang shrugged. “People, animals. They’d dance around the campfire. It was cute.”

She looked unconvinced.

“Anyone who knows enough about the human body to heal it is also going to know how to hurt it,” Aang said. “Bending is just an ability, it doesn’t have morals. What’s good and evil is people’s choices on how to use it.”

Katara sighed. “I guess I’m just...so used to the idea of fire being the element that causes pain,” she said. “I never thought water…”

Aang hesitated - but she looked so lost, and she’d cried so much last night, and he cared about her so much. He glanced towards Sokka and Toph, saw they were still engrossed in their own conversation, hopefully far enough away that Toph’s hearing wouldn’t pick anything up. He leaned closer to Katara and said, very quietly but all in a rush, “Airbending can be used to suck the breath right out of someone’s lungs.”

It took a moment for it to sink in, but when it did she stared at him, horrified. “...What?”

Aang hunched his shoulders a bit. “Yeah.”

“You can - ”

“I can’t,” he said immediately. “That’s - it’s forbidden, and even if it wasn’t I wouldn’t want to know how! But it’s...definitely possible. There were old stories. Legends.”

She took another moment to process it. “That’s... awful, Aang.”

“Yeah,” he said, and with a rueful grin added, “there’s reasons why we’re pacifists.” If you listen hard enough you can hear every living thing breathing together, Hue had said, back under the banyan-grove tree. The old Swampbender had no idea how true that had been for Air Nomads.

“I’d never heard that about Airbenders,” Katara said.

“It’s not like it was common knowledge,” Aang shrugged. “We didn’t even talk about it amongst ourselves much. I don’t think anyone even actually knew how to do it, just that it was possible.” Maybe a skilled master could have figured it out on their own, but none of them would ever have attempted it. And now there was definitely no one who knew how to do it - maybe no one who even knew it was possible, if Katara’s reaction was anything to go by.

If Aang never said anything about it, maybe no one would ever know again.

Aang had been grieving the loss of his people and the destruction of his culture for months, but if the knowledge of the asphyxiation technique disappeared, it would be one loss he wouldn’t mourn.

“Even knowing it’s possible is scary,” said Katara, who’d bloodbended a whole human fifteen minutes after learning the technique was possible.

“But we didn’t, Katara. We could, but we didn’t. It’s not the power that’s evil, it’s the choices you make in how to use it.”

Katara mulled it over. Eventually, she nodded, and they spent a long, silent moment gazing out over the field of fire lilies. The flowers were just as red and beautiful as they’d been in another field, several islands behind them now. Katara held a hand over the nearest flower, slowly moving her wrist and her fingers, and the lily’s petals opened and closed a few times, it’s leaves shifting in slow wavy motions.

It didn’t whither or dehydrate under her hand, but when she released it, the lily suddenly fell limp to the ground, unable to stand upright anymore, leaves and petals haphazardly splayed. Katara blinked. “I...must have hurt it somehow,” she realized, frowning. “Maybe I burst something inside.”

“It’s okay,” Aang said quickly. “It’s not like you bend plants much.”

“...Yeah,” Katara said after a moment. “You’re right, I don’t.”

At least it wasn’t a person, Aang didn’t say, because now was not the time to bring that up.

“They’re just flowers,” Katara said quietly. Sadly. She stared out at the fire lilies again. The field looked like a massive army of little red soldiers.

They were quiet again, for a little while. On the other side of the camp, Toph was telling Sokka that two horns was enough for Appa and they didn’t need to give him any more on his helmet no matter how cool he claimed it would look. It would not look cool, it would look stupid. She didn’t know much about looks but she knew for a fact she would be able to feel the stupid.

Finally, Katara sighed. “She didn’t even teach me any actual Southern-style waterbending.”

Aang wrapped an arm around her shoulders and thought of the way the nuns raised at the Western Air Temple had been able to walk around on the ceiling, perfectly upside-down with the rest of their home, how they’d laugh at anyone who attempted to mimic them, and how jealously they’d guarded that unique art. “I’m sorry, Katara.”

~~~

Thanks for reading! Kudos and comments are appreciated.

Meridians are the paths chi flows through in the body, according to traditional Chinese medicine. I think when Katara attends that healing lesson, the dummy Yugoda is demonstrating on has the meridians carved into it. Also why did no one ever teach Aang healing I think he would've loved it and also I think healing deserves a bit more in-depth exploration as an art. The fantasy genre tends to just treat healing as another thing in the characters' bag of tricks and I'm getting tired of it.

Also I've spent all these years wondering "how did Sokka manage to make armor for Appa they didn't have a forge and we just see him working on it like once but it didn't make sense" and while I was writing this I was like "oh wait Toph can metalbend, duh."

It seriously kills me that Hama doesn't seem to have actually taught Katara any actual Southern Water Tribe techniques. Everything they talked about had to do with Hama learning to survive in the Fire Nation and pulling water from unconventional sources. No moves, techniques, or philosophies. So sad.

Also I kinda headcanon that Hama died very shortly after her arrest of either an aneurysm or a heart attack or something. It was Katara's first time bloodbending and she was under a lot of stress. :( I also don't think that the Gaang is aware of this - I think they high-tailed it out of Hama's village immediately. A bunch of disappeared villagers return home in the middle of the night with the old innkeeper in chains saying she's a witch who controlled them somehow and these strange kids saved them? That would probably launch an investigation, or at the very least a lot of questions, and no one knows Hama and Katara are Waterbenders. Bad enough some of the prisoners probably saw Toph bending her space rock into a key. The Gaang wasn't gonna wait around for someone to poke around the inn and find a flying bison.

Regarding asphyxiation, unfortunately for Aang, there actually is surviving literature regarding that old Airbender tale - a few mentions in anthropological texts, a few recorded bits of folklore, and some Sozin-era anti-Air Nomad propaganda. Fortunately, these records are really only known in academic circles, and even there it's pretty obscure knowledge. So just as long as no well-read martial arts experts with a deep appreciation/obsession over Air Nomad culture suddenly obtain airbending abilities, the knowledge of asphyixiation techniques is safely unusable! :D *cough*gdiZaheer*coughcough*

#kataang week #atla fanfic #avatar fanfiction #aang #katara #caelum writes