#southern raiders

[flowersadida]

I know people have already talked about this topic, but I want to too.

There are a lot of jokes on the Internet about how Katara constantly mentions her mother as if it were the most important event, but...

Isn't that so? I mean, in the life of a little eight-year-old girl, this is truly the most important event in her life and she wants to share it.

Katara took on the role of an adult too early, and she didn't have the opportunity to work through this problem with anyone, because she's already an adult => she cannot afford to rely on someone. But she needs it, and that's what traveling with Aang gives her: the opportunity to find children like her and share with them the burden that she has been carrying all this time. Note that Haru, Jet, and even Zuko are people who not only have experienced loss, but also have some kind of responsibility for others: for their family or even for a group of people. She doesn't tell adults about this because she isn't looking for care, she's looking for understanding of her feelings.

The problem is that it's not enough for her. Her sadness turns to rage because the further the story goes, the less satisfied Katara becomes.

The closer the heroes get to the end of the war, the more angry Katara gets: first at her father, then more specifically at Zuko. And, in the end, she finds the cause of this anger, as well as the opportunity to satisfy the thirst for understanding of her grief - the murderer of her mother. She needed revenge not just because it was fair, but because from the very beginning of the series, Katara was looking for an opportunity to calm those feelings that were rushing out. And her attempts to do this by expressing the problem were not enough. She needed more, and she got it by facing the biggest monster in her life.

In general, the “monster” metaphor obviously speaks not only about Yon Ra, but also about Katara herself. Or rather about her anger. Judge for yourself: she had to restrain a storm of emotions from the age of eight; she began to reveal her grief only in the first season, that is, at the age of 14. She ignored her pain, pushing it deep inside until it became a raging monster rushing out. And what Katara really needed was to face it. So when she flies to find Yon Ra, she also finally meets the version of herself that she has carefully ignored and hidden for the benefit of others.

It's funny that Zuko is the one who helps her. In general, it was his complete understanding of Katara in this matter that amazed me. He, like no one else, knows what it’s like to face your inner demons and knows how useful it is for knowing yourself. And how dangerous it is when you're alone in it. So he accompanies her to keep her safe. So that she has a person on her side who will be there, no matter what choice she makes. He will support anyone. (I'm crying because of how beautiful it is wasgffv💖)

(A small antikataang insert: this is the reason why their relationship doesn't work. Aang only supports the right decisions, even if they require Katara to sacrifice inner harmony, while Zuko will simply support her for whatever choice she makes. It's funny because Aang has to keep balance and as a monk he knows a lot about that. The show focuses heavily on the theme of yin and yang, that is, the balance of good and evil. In order to achieve internal balance, Katara needed to turn to internal evil, because she tilted this scale towards good. She was imbalanced to begin with, and instead of understanding this, Aang insisted on continuing the preponderance of good. It’s as if he doesn’t understand that the preponderance of good is as bad as the preponderance of evil, and this will only harm Katara. I hope my point is clear)

Finally, Katara finds inner peace when she faced everything that was raging inside her, when she did what she needed and poured out everything she ever wanted. Every word about her mother led us to this moment, as did Katara herself.

And do you know what the point is? Why am I telling all this? It's all a character arc that unfolds linearly over three seasons.

Now think back to the arc of Aang, the main character of the show, in relation to his family. Did he bring them up in seasons two and three in a way that was linear? I mean, the one who constantly grieves over his father's death should have been Aang, because he learned the pain of loss so recently, he didn't have a chance to get used to it. But even in the episode SR, Aang compares the loss of mother not to the loss of his mentor and father, but to the loss of Appa and his people. It’s as if he doesn’t care about the individual connection with Gyatso and it’s nominal.

Katara, on the other hand, has emotions that she smoothly carries throughout the show and resolves in it. She has a huge number of Chekhov's guns, which each fire at its own time. Her feelings about her mother, the development of these emotions and their resolution are the most beautiful thing about this show along with Zuko's arc (even though I have problems with him in book 3).

And making derogatory jokes about it like Katara is whining and annoying is blasphemy. After all, she's the only one of the Gaang who has a single development arc throughout all three seasons, this must be respected

#atla #atla critical #avatar the last airbender #atla meta #anti kataang #anti aang #katara #zuko #zutara #katara supremacy #katara is the real main character change my mind #katara deserved better #katara meta #southern raiders

[aisharulez]

Sketching them is like a dessert

#my art #art #atla art #the last airbender #the last airbender fanart #atla #atla zuko #avatar fanart #avatar zuko #zuko #atla katara #zutara #avatar katara #katara #zuko x katara #katara x zuko #i love them #southern raiders

[parkiebearr]

southern raiders zutara was so peak

(click for better quality)

#zutara #zutara fanart #zuko x katara #the southern raiders #southern raiders #zuko #zuko and katara #atla zuko #atla zutara #katara #atla katara #katara fanart #zuko fanart #prince zuko #avatar: the last airbender #avatar the last airbender #atla #atla fanart #a:tla

[ladyemberswrites]

It's funny how at the end of the day Katara's trauma and anger of losing her mother and what the Fire Nation did to family/her home/her people always gets made out to be about and centered around what Aang thinks and feels. Yes, I understand that Aang is a victim/and sole survivor of genocide, but doesn't mean his way of dealing with that pain should take precedence over how Katara feels. Just because people have the same trauma doesn't mean they get the sole authority to dictate how others deal/cope with it.

#Southern raiders #zutara #katara had every right to take out her oppressors end of story

[dapperapple]

I know she is distressed in all of these but she is just so pretty

#katara art #master katara #katara fanart #katara #water tribe #atla #avatar the last airbender #avatar the last airbender art #avatar the last airbender fanart #atla fanart #atla art #sifu katara #i am so gay #she is so pretty #southern raiders #the painted lady #sozin's comet #avatar tla #atla katara #katara atla #avatar the last airbender katara #katara avatar the last airbender #avatar katara #katara avatar #traditional art #traditional drawing #traditional fanart #traditional illustration

[zvtara-was-never-canon]

thoughts on ppl (not necessarily zutarians) saying that killing yon rah would've been good/relieving for katara?

Simple: these people don't understand Katara. At all.

Katara's Trauma

The attack on her village changed Katara's life forever. She was forced to face the ugly side of humanity, lost her mother, her dad left to fight the war, and she had to step up and basically raise her older brother. All of it because the Southern Raiders need to kill HER, not Kya.

War, grief, growing up too fast, survivor's guilt... all of it was throw at Katara at once, and even though she seems to be well-adjusted enough, episodes like The Swamp, in which we see just how desperately she wants her mom, or even the first episode itself, when she immediately gets emotionally attached to Aang because he gave her the chance to be a kid and have fun, show us that she's still struggling to process it all.

She 100% needs some form of closure. But what exactly can give her that, and at what cost?

Righteous Fury VS Blind Rage

Katara hates Yon Rha and wants him to pay for what he did to her mother, and by consequence to everyone who loved her. That is not a problem. In fact, it is the way anyone in her position would feel. Aang himself says that's how he felt towards the Fire Nation when he found out about the genocide of his people, and towards the sandbenders when they stole Appa - both times, that anger caused him to get into the Avatar state.

And Katara could not stand to see Aang like that. When he tried to weaponize it, she tried to talk him out of it. Why? Because that kind of reaction of violently lashing out, like nothing else matters ALWAYS leads to problems. That has been a consistent theme through the show.

Whenever Aang's grief triggers the Avatar state, everyone around him is terrified, and he got dangerously close to accidentally hurting people during it - and just the emotional distress of it all was so intense, he was having nightmares about it later.

Zuko had the awful habit of verbally attacking people who had done literally nothing to him whenever he got too upset about anything, and he even got the point of started a physical fight because a guy dared to talk to his girlfriend, who looked very bored listening to it. Not only did this kind of behavior push people away from him, but it also made Zuko miserable. Even his bending was affected by it, as his impatience and pride made him refuse to master the basics before moving onto the advanced set.

During the whole episode of "The Southern Raiders" Katara is taking out her anger at Yon Rha on the wrong people. She tells Sokka that he didn't love their mom as much as she did, does NOT give Zuko a much needed telling off when he mocks the culture of Aang's people - ya know, the one his family commited genocide against - which she 100% would have done at any other time, is pushing herself too hard and looking exhausted as she flies on Appa, and even uses bloodbending willingly for the first time ever... on the wrong guy.

Sure, he was still an imperialist scumbag, but considering Katara was horrified after using it on Hama, who had literally been using it to capture and torture innocent people and tried to force Sokka and Aang to kill each other right in front of her, it's safe to say Katara would not see that as enough to excuse her own actions.

Katara is not being "empowered" in her quest for revenge. She is spiralling out of control and basically crying out for help without even realizing it. She has every right to be angry, but she's letting it take over her.

(Note: Her being angry at/not trusting Zuko even after everyone else befriended him is NOT misplaced anger like the episode claims. Zuko might not be as bad as Yon Rha, but he gave Katara plenty of reason to dislike him).

Action, Inaction & Guilt

Kya's death, and the attack against their tribe, was the definition of injustice, and Katara wants that to be corrected. Obviously it is impossible to undo it all, but there's still time to punish the people who caused it.

However, we cannot forget that Katara is 14-years-old. She's a child fighting the adults' war, like her friends. A child that had to hear her older brother say that when he heard the word "mom" he thought of her now. Not only is that unfair, it is also one of the main things that Katara had been trying to escape for a long time: not being allowed to be a kid.

Obviously, neither her nor the rest of the Gaang have the option of just not trying to stop Ozai - especially not after the failed invasion on the day of the eclipse, that had a ton of the adults on their side imprisoned.

But for a long time, she also did not have the option to go after Yon Rha directly. She didn't know his name, didn't know what position he held, had no idea how to track him. He was completely out of reach until Zuko gave her a lead to follow. Katara now had the option to confront her mother's killer and punish him for what he had done - even though that was not her obligation, since she was just a child.

But did she really see it that way? Like I said, Yon Rha had been after HER, not Kya - who only died because she lied to protect her child. Survivor's guilt could have very easily played a part on Katara's decision, and honestly I think some of the dialogue sugests that it did. She does not argue when Zuko says that forgiving is the same as doing nothing, and even her "Then you didn't love her like I did" to Sokka after he objected to her mission could be seen as her letting slip that, deep down, she believes that if she doesn't avenge her mom, doesn't "make up to her" for "causing" her death, then it means she did not really love her. And she deliberately mentions Kya's lie saving her life both to Zuko and to Yon Rha.

Katara isn't going after him just out of anger - she feels this is her responsibility. Her burden. Once again, this is not her being "empowered" enough to punish a wicked man. This is her falling into the trap of thinking she's not allowed to not want that weight on her shoulders.

A Forgotten Man

When Katara finally confronts her mother's murder, he is very different from the terrifying man she remembered. Sure, he can still use his bending a bit, but he clearly has not fought in a while, is easily overpowered, and is the definition of cowardly. He doesn't have any allies with him anymore, just his elderly mother that seems to hate him as much as he hates her. The cruel, oppressive system he was once a part of has chewed him up and spat him out. Nobody gives a damn what happens to this miserable bastard.

Now, obviously he doesn't want to die, especially not if the person who will take him out has EVERY REASON to make it slow and painful, but considering what we saw of his life, I wouldn't be surprised if he was the type that would just lay his head on a pillow at night and think "Wouldn't it be nice if I just never woke up again?"

THIS is the man Katara sees before her. Like she said, someone that is pathetic, sad and empty. Someone that would not be missed by literally anyone - not his mother, not his community, not the Fire Lord. Someone that offered her the head of the one family he still has left.

Kya meanwhile had a happy life before the Southern Raiders came to her tribe. She was a brave, loving mother that sacrificed her very life to protect her child, and left behind a family that is still grieving her.

This would not be "an eye for an eye" Yon Rha's death could NEVER come even close to be enough to "pay his debt" because it was absolutely worthless.

But does that mean that Katara confronting him at all was pointless?

Healing

By the end of the episode, after deciding to spare that bastard,Katara is being comforted by Aang, her best friend - like she had always done for him after he'd get into the Avatar state - and giving a second chance to her former enemy. She has also made it very clear that she will not forgive her mother's killer. Not now, not ever.

But this does not mean that she's back on square one. She faced her biggest trauma, confronted the monster that had been haunting her all her life, and acknowledged her anger and accepted that it will ALWAYS be there, but without allowing it to turn her into something she's not.

It is simmilar to her fight with her dad at the start of Book 3. After suppressing all the resement she felt after he left them to go fight against the Fire Nation, then taking her anger out on him, she broke down and accepted her pain, her vulnerability. She admited that, at the end of the day, she's just a child that wanted her dad with her, and now that Hakoda is there again, she CAN have that.

Naturally, there's nothing Yon Rha could say or do to make things better. But by facing him, giving him a taste of his own medicine, leaving him to rot, and then helping take down the very system that allowed people like him to commit attrocities everywhere, Katara finally got some closure. The grief will always be with her, but it won't define her anymore. She no longer has to be the adult figure of her family, she no longer has to wonder where that evil monster that took her mom from her is hiding and if he's making new victims.

Conclusion

Yon Rha was a horrible person, and if Katara had killed him, nobody could have judged her, and it sure as hell would NOT have made her just as bad or worse than him.

She needed to face him. She needed to let her anger out, to show him all the pain he had put her and her family through, to make him feel as powerless and scared as she and her mother had been.

But she did not need to stoop to his level. He did not deserve her forgiveness, but she did not need to sacrifice what was left of her innocence to put him out of his misery. He was just not worth it. Killing him would have been just violence for the sake of violence, and that is not in Katara's nature, and would have NOT helped her with literally anything. Quite the contrary.

She didn't spare his life for his sake, but for her own.

#anti zutara #katara meta #southern raiders

[nerdasaurus1200]

So I’m on Southern Raiders and I have thoughts.

While I do agree that Katara killing her mom’s murderer would not have been the right call whatsoever, Aang needed to shush up about forgiveness. It’s not remotely his place to preach forgiveness at Katara regardless of the circumstances. Yes he has an understanding of what he’s going through cause he lost his entire people, but if anything that should make him more sympathetic because just like Katara and her mother, the Airbenders were slaughtered because of him. And the Fire Nation isn’t sorry for doing that during the show. That soldier isn’t sorry for robbing a woman from her family. He just goes about his life as if it never even happened until his past comes to confront him.

And that’s the thing I think Aang doesn’t understand, is forgiveness has to be earned. Nobody is entitled to anybody’s forgiveness, especially if they aren’t even sorry. And honestly…it’s a little rich him bringing up the Sandbenders stealing Appa when he absolutely did not forgive them. Katara was well within her rights to show no forgiveness to that soldier.

And to a certain extent I don’t even think Sokka truly understands what Katara is going through. To a certain extent Katara was somewhat right to say Sokka didn’t love their mother the way she did. Yes he absolutely feels the pain and grief of losing his mother, and he too is entitled to go through that pain however he wants. But the way Katara sees it, she is responsible for her mother’s death. If Katara had not been born the way she is, there’s a good chance their mother would still be around. Katara has to live with that deeper level of pain every single day of her life, but Sokka does not.

Honestly I think Zuko would have been totally fine with either outcome cause I’m sure even if it was for just a split second he thought about killing Ozai during the eclipse. I think he knew whatever happened, it was what Katara needed. He wanted to give her that choice of deciding for herself what to do instead of preaching forgiveness at her.

#avatar: the last airbender #nerd talks #katara #aang #southern raiders #sokka #zuko

[juniperhillpatient]

it’s a family trait

#southern raiders #fire siblings #atla re watch

[rusty-lustful-fireflies]

Having atla thoughts:

I think requiring Jet to forgive Iroh in order to call him healed, is like requiring Katara to forgive her mum's murderer. Iroh commanded the rough rhinos who burned Jet's village and he's so wise and jolly that it's easy to forget him being responsible for many deaths in the past .

And no one in the right mind would suggest that Katara should befriend Yon Rha, yet all this takes about Jet working at the jasmin dragon tea shop, and so being redeemed, are treated like some mercy to his character.

#jet atla #anti iroh #yon rha #southern raiders #atla fandom critical #atla #jet

[likeadragonfruit]

It’s been almost 14 years since the premiere of the Sozin’s Comet episodes. 14 years and many, many fics depicting harsh fates for Azula. Of fics depicting Azula suffering and detained indefinitely as punishment for vaguely defined “crimes” that somehow never are connected to her onscreen actions.

Many of my fellow Azula fans have already spent time on Azula’s legal defense team, so that’s not my primary focus today. No, today I have a question for the prosecution: why does punishment and accountability never seem to apply to the Rough Rhinos and Southern Raiders?

The Rough Rhinos who burned and murdered their way up and down the Earth Kingdom. (Like they did to Jet’s village and parents. Like they would have done to Chin Village had the Gaang not been there at the time.)

The Southern Raiders who decimated the Southern Water Tribe after decades of attacks. (Who abducted so thoroughly abducted waterbenders that Katara seems to be the only one of her generation, at least going by the show. Whose abductions filled inhumane prisons.)

Just why is punishing Azula given priority over these groups? Over these grown men who we know committed atrocities?

#Avatar the Last Airbender #ATLA #Azula #Rough Rhinos #Southern Raiders #I know that there are more people who don’t engage in the pointless torture of Azula nowadays #but it still happens often enough to common enough #and doesn’t undo a lot of the worst fics from the earlier days #dragonfruit’s oc

[paishodragon]

Quick question re: timeline:

Was the Southern Raiders attack when Kya was killed during Ozai's reign or Azulon's?

#outoftea #fire lord azulon #fire lord ozai #atla #southern raiders #tbd

[infinite-eternity]

The final scene of southern raiders is what its like when parents turn a simple harmless sentence into a lecture

#atla #avatar the last airbender #southern raiders #crows fandom bs #again

[atla-suki]

i love the hc of katara getting sokka to braid her hair when she’s upset or wants to spend time with him.

imagine her doing this post-southern raiders and they get the chance to actually talk it out and she apologises for what she said and they talk about everything and he opens up about stuff too and they get closure for their mother together. and he does her hair the way she likes.

#atla #katara #sokka #southern raiders

[ladyemberswrites]

Y'know it's pretty hypocritical of Aang to insist that Katara should learn to forgive and let go of her rage when Aang himself isn't exactly the paragon of keeping his own emotions under control.

When he couldn’t handle the weight of being the Avatar [which Aang was not wrong to feel] he ran away from his problems. Which in turn lead to all the shit that went down in canon.

When he finds out about what happened to the Air nomads he flew into a rage.

When Appa was kidnapped he also flew into a rage. When those Earth benders pretended to kill Katara he also flew into a rage.

His inability to let go of his infatuation with Katara ended up putting not only himself but the whole avatar state, his loved ones and the whole universe in danger.

He hid Hakoda's letter, because he didn't want Katara and Sokka leaving him, despite knowing how much they missed their dad.

When he found out that the whole world thought he was dead, he ran away.

When Katara was unsure about her own feelings towards him, the implication of her having feelings for someone else, Aang threw a whole hissy fit over it. And forced a kiss on her. And all the stuff with his petty jealousy.

He also ran away again during the finale because of the whole killing the firelord thing.

So yeah.

#southern raiders #zutara #kind of

[resting-on-my-laurels]

#zuko #prince zuko #fire nation #fire #avatar the last airbender #katara #southern raiders #waterbending #firebending

[zvtara-was-never-canon]

I don't understand why people think Aang was being condescending toward Katara in the southern raiders episode. Even one toxic ZK shipper thought Aang was coming to her with a "My way is the only way" mentality. Even before I was a Kataang shipper I knew that Aang was showing nothing but concern.

Also, Zuko wasn't trying to gain Katara's approval out of romantic interest (I mean that's pretty damn obvious but I am trying to make a point here) Zuko trying to gain Katara's approval parallels him trying to gain his father's approval. And it's lovely, Zuko realizing that gaining Katara's approval would be more worthwhile than his abusive father.

Also at the end of southern raiders Zuko brought Aang to Katara so he can check up on her...

Aang even compared Katara's fury and pain to the one he felt when he found out he lost literally everyone he had ever known - one of the many times he went into the Avatar State, something he tried to weaponize and KATARA was worried, told him not to, and told him that it was too painful for her to watch him give into his grief. It's almost like that was a deliberate parallel or something...

And in what world was Aang EVER like "My way is the only way"? If anything, he had to sacrifice nearly everything to do his duty as the Avatar - a duty he never asked for, wanted, or saw himself as capable of doing right.

But I guess that the simple of idea of "A 12-year-old boy, who on top of being a child was also raised as a pacifis doesn't want to kill people, doesn't want people to kill each other, and definitively doesn't want to see his best friend murder someone" is just too difficult for people to grasp, especially when they WANT him to be a bad person just so they can go on and on about how their crackship was actually totally meant to be.

And you did well to bring up that Zuko brought Aang to check on Katara. It's almost like Zuko isn't really that close to her, or wasn't even her friend at all until that scene, while Aang was the one she has known, been friends with, travelled with, and fought side by side with when things got rough FOR MONTHS.

It really says a lot about how Zutarians don't really have any faith in their own ship. If they did, they wouldn't feel the need to straight up lie about events of the show, deliberately try to cast anything Aang does in a bad light, and never shut up about the few times Zuko had any kind of positive (or at the very least not hostile) interaction with Katara, while ignoring all the times Aang showed he cared about her both as a friend and as the girl he was into, AND all the times Katara showed she LIKED Aang's attention, affection, company, and yes, honest advice, regardless of who was right or it not being what she wanted to hear.

#anti zutara #pro kataang #pro aang #southern raiders