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firelxdykatara · 4 years

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Touching Zuko’s Scar

It’s entirely possible that someone has written meta on this before, and possibly done it better/more eloquently than I’m about to. However, I have Things To Say and I’m going to say them, and hopefully my point comes across! This post is largely spurred on by a few posts I’ve seen in the tags lately which have... rather baffling takes on the whole ‘who touches Zuko’s scar and why’ situation, particularly in regards to feeling the need, for some reason, to diminish the scene in which Katara touches his scar and the importance of that moment for both of them.

From what I can tell, this was done in an attempt to prop up Maiko, which I suppose makes some amount of sense since that is a ship which can barely stand on its own without tremendous amounts of headcanoning to fill in the gaping holes left by the fact that the entirety of their relationship development happened off-screen (and the glimpse we do get into it in the ‘going home’ midquel comic leaves a lot to be desired in terms of why Zuko would even want to be with her, but that’s another discussion entirely). But it still doesn’t quite fit, because the scenes with Katara and with Song are so much more meaningful, both in terms of Zuko’s arc and the way the girls relate to him (and it also ties into Katara feeling so hurt by Zuko’s betrayal, and needing more than any of the others before she can forgive and accept him into the gaang).

Now, that out of the way, I do want to say up front that the intention here is not to be particularly anti Maiko, but to examine the situations in which Zuko’s scar is touched (or almost touched), and the similarities two of these scenes have which are not shared by the third (at which point, you’re obviously free to draw your own conclusions).

Also, please bear with me--I can’t take screenshots or anything, so I’ll reference scenes and the episodes they come from but there won’t be images.

Under a cut bc this got long

To start off, there are three moments in the entire series where a character touches, or tries to touch, Zuko’s scar with her hand. (I say ‘her’ because all three instances occur with girls near Zuko’s own age.) The first moment is in The Cave of Two Lovers, the second episode of book two--this is the moment where Song sees Zuko’s scar, recognizes it for the intentional burn from a firebender that it is, and reaches for it.

Song: Can I join you? I know what you’ve been through. We’ve all been through it. [looks at Zuko’s scar] The Fire Nation has hurt you. [she slowly reaches for his scar, but before she can touch it, Zuko grabs her wrist and stops her; she puts her hand back in her lap] It’s ok. They’ve hurt me too. [pulls up the leg of her pants to reveal the burn scars there]

The second moment comes at the end of book 2, in The Crossroads of Destiny, in a moment that is a deliberate parallel of Zuko’s connection with Song--but this time, he lets Katara touch him.

Katara: [she holds up a vial] This is water from the spirit oasis at the North Pole. It has special properties, so I’ve been saving it for something important. [moves closer to Zuko, standing in front of him] I don’t know if it would work, but... [Zuko closes his eyes, and Katara’s fingers touch his scar; the scene holds there as the music swells, before they’re interrupted]

Like Song did, Katara felt a connection to Zuko via a similar trauma he suffered. However, unlike Song, Katara knew who Zuko was--the banished prince of the Fire Nation, and someone who had been her enemy for most of the past several months. However, she still feels compassion and empathy for him, and it is for this reason that she takes his subsequent choice harder than anyone else in the gaang does (and why it takes more for him to earn her forgiveness).

Now, the third moment is... rather incongruous. There is neither compassion nor understanding involved in touching his scar, there is no real emotional connection, and it comes right on the heels of his girlfriend--someone we’re supposed to believe cares about him and his emotional wellbeing, since they’re in a relationship (which happened off-screen, but I digress)--shutting down his attempt to talk about his feelings, something that will present a conflict in their relationship later on.

Mai: [yawns] I just asked if you were cold, I didn’t ask for your whole life story. [she moves forward, smirking, and then chuckles, putting one arm around his neck and pulling his face towards her with her other hand] Stop worrying. [they kiss, and then Mai walks away, leaving Zuko to stare out at the horizon again; the wiki transcript says he looks relieved, but to me he looks resigned more than anything]

What’s interesting about this moment is, for one thing, it’s unclear if Mai is even supposed to be touching his scar at all. Giancarlo Volpe, the director for this episode, put the original storyboards for the scene up on his DeviantArt, and in them, it seems he was fairly careful to make sure Mai was not touching Zuko’s scar. This would make sense, considering that touching Zuko’s scar was presented as a very big deal--he specifically prevented a girl from touching his scar in the beginning of book 2, and at the end, he allowed another girl to touch him, showcasing vulnerability and trust in that moment. It is the culmination of one small part of his character arc, and that makes the moment that Katara touches his scar even more meaningful.

Of course, I can’t say definitively that it was an animation mistake or something that was deliberately changed during production (which, considering there is a moment later in the book where Bryke mandated a change, isn’t outside the realm of possibility), but it does present interesting implications.

However, even if you take the scene at face value and assume that Mai was intended to be touching his scar....it’s still presented in an entirely different framework than the previous two scenes, despite occurring almost immediately after Zuko’s moment with Katara in the caves (at least as far as episode count).

The different framework being, of course, the fact that it.... doesn’t mean anything at all.

In the first two scenes, Zuko’s scar and his pain--as well as the pain of the girls who are forging an empathic connection with him based on understanding each other’s trauma--is the focus. Touching, or attempting to touch, Zuko’s scar is the point--it is very deliberate, and there’s no way to argue against it because the writing is very explicit, and nothing else would make sense for those scenes. On the other hand, you could take out the moment where Mai touches Zuko’s scar and lose absolutely nothing--because the focus is not on Zuko, but rather on the fact that he was attempting to open up emotionally to his girlfriend (and note that this is the first indication we get in the show that they are together--take out the kiss completely and no one would even know they’re dating, let alone supposedly like one another even as friends), and was shut down with a sarcastic quip, ostensibly because Mai simply didn’t want to hear it. (This is in keeping with her later characterization, where she would much rather distract him and keep him from actually talking about any of his problems, but @araeph goes into the nature of Mai and Zuko’s emotional intimacy [or lack thereof] in much greater detail in this essay, so I won’t get too deep into it here.)

Mai touching Zuko’s scar doesn’t mean anything to the audience because it doesn’t mean anything to Zuko. He doesn’t react to or acknowledge it in any way, it’s as if he doesn’t even notice it happening (perhaps because it wasn’t supposed to? but again that’s speculation), and nothing in the scene would change if it didn’t. It simply doesn’t matter. On the other hand, Song nearly touching Zuko’s scar and then Katara actually touching his scar? They matter to him--and to the show, and therefore the audience--very much. Both moments are incredibly important to Zuko’s overall arc, because together, they show how far he had come in his own emotional journey over the course of the book.

Of course, it isn’t enough to keep him from choosing to side with Azula, because his journey was far from complete--but the fact that he was able to show such trust and vulnerability to a girl who had been his enemy not very long ago? That was huge. Because Zuko didn’t just let Katara touch his scar--he closed his eyes. She could have hurt him in that moment, but he trusted that she wouldn’t. He trusted that she was willing to use special water she’d been saving for something important--and he trusted that, in that moment, he was important to her.

It wasn’t just Zuko showing trust either, though--Katara showed trust in him. She trusted, after a few minutes of conversation and learning about the loss of his mother (and, specifically, the fact that the Fire Nation was responsible for the loss of his mother, just as it was responsible for the loss of hers), that he had changed--that he was different, and she could trust him. She was willing to use the spirit water she’d been carrying around for months on someone who had recently been so much an enemy that she fled from the tea shop, convinced that he’d somehow infiltrated the city and was planning something.

The fact that she trusted him in that moment is exactly why she took his next choice so hard, but it is also why their relationship cemented itself so solidly after The Southern Raiders, giving them quite possibly the strongest relationship in the gaang outside of Katara and Sokka.

Anyway, that was a lot of words for what essentially amounts to this: Song attempting to touch Zuko’s scar in the beginning of book 2 is explicitly paralleled by Katara being allowed to touch his scar at the end of it, and both moments occur during scenes where Zuko’s pain and trauma are acknowledged and validated, and where the person he’s speaking with feels a connection to him because of that shared trauma--because they understand what he has been through. It’s likewise important to note that while Song didn’t actually entirely understand, because she didn’t know who Zuko was or what being traumatized by the Fire Nation actually meant to him, Katara did--and she still was able to feel for him, connect to him, and want to help him.

By contrast, the moment with Mai occurs in a scene where Zuko’s pain and trauma are invalidated and dismissed, where his girlfriend attempts to distract him rather than help him through what is clearly a moment of great emotional turmoil. No, she shouldn’t have to be his therapist, but emotional support is vital in any relationship--especially when one party is traumatized and desperately needs support and love--and it is notably lacking from Maiko, starting from their very first romantic scene together.

Make of that what you will.

#atla #zutara #zuko #katara #mai #song #maiko salt #just covering my bases #atla meta #zutara meta

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zktop10 · 4 years

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Top 10 Tumblr Favs

Half of the fics recommended on Tumblr are FFN stories and I had to exclude them. With my other exclusions, I still managed to make a list of 100 recommended fics from no less than fifteen blogs.

Also, I removed any entries that have already been listed on any other major Top 10 list. Because otherwise it would look like other lists I’ve previously made.

So, because I refuse to work on any of my other projects, here are the Top 10 Tumblr Favs!

The first score is how they rank against the 100 stories of this specific pool. Scores in the parentheses are (All Fic, Rating+Status).

Title: The Undying Fire: Blood and Fire Author: Boogum Rated: T Summary: Book 1 of The Undying Fire series. In which rescuing the Avatar from Pohuai Stronghold doesn't end so well. It's a tough life being a banished prince trying to get home, especially when the Avatar just wants to be your friend and keeps making everything confusing. Oh, and did Zuko mention he somehow healed the kid? Yeah, that happened.

Part 1 of The Undying Fire Score: 10 / 10 (n/a, n/a) Tags: Alternate Universe, Healing Fire, Pre-Zutara, Series

Title: Zuko's Tiny Dilemma Author: Boogum Rated: T Summary: It was the kind of thing that happened in folktales: a cursed prince, a transformation that could not be broken. Except those princes usually became monstrous-looking creatures who needed true love's kiss to return to normal. They did not get stuck as a six-year-old boy depending on a bald runt and two Water Tribe siblings.

Part 1 of Zuko’s Tiny Dilemma (and companion stories) Score: 9.9 / 10 (9.9, 9.7) Tags: Alternate Universe, Crack, Series

Title: Mending Wounds Author: FictionIsSocialInquiry Rated: T Summary: 'The Fire Prince is older. You can see it in the calmness of his expression, the relaxed carriage of his shoulders. He is smiling at her. She's never seen the Fire Lord's son smile.' While lost in the Foggy Swamp, searching for her brother and her Avatar, Katara is haunted by visions of the Fire Nation's disgraced prince. Visions of peace after war, visions of honour and secrets... Originally posted on fanfiction.net (https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12551983/1/Mending-Wounds) Score: 9.9 / 10 (9.9, 9.7) Tags: Alternate Universe, Slow Burn, Angst

Title: A Matter of Appearances Author: chromeknickers Rated: T Summary: Iroh has Zuko and Katara serve tea at his shop, which consequently leads to Zuko and Katara getting shamelessly hit on. Their solution to their pervert woes? Pretend to be a jealous couple in order to scare off the grab-happy folks of Ba Sing Se. Score: 9.8 / 10 (9.9, 9.9) Tags: Fake Dating, One Shot

Title: Lovable Author: LadyCharity Rated: T Summary: Zuko knew that he could not save Azula. He could only try to forgive her. Fittingly enough, those two were one in the same. Score: 9.7 / 10 (9.8, 9.5) Tags: Referenced Child Abuse, Childhood Trauma

Title: We Could Be Forever Author: LarirenShadow Rated: T Summary: That’s her soulmate. She takes a deep breath and smiles because she remembers how he’d look at her in the morning when they’d wake up. She walks up to them and is about to say something when a new memory hits her. He won’t remember her. Last time he had to convince her that they were meant for each other and he did a terrible job. Soulmates AU Score: 9.6 / 10 (9.8, 9.9) Tags: Alternate Universe, Modern Setting, Soulmates, One Shot

Title: I Don't Speak Meow Language Author: Boogum Rated: T Summary: In which Zuko adopts a cat and Katara just wonders what spirits she pissed off to deserve this fate. Score: 9.6 / 10 (9.8, 9.4) Tags: Crack, Catara, Species Swap

Title: Through Wide, Grey Eyes Author: Orlissa Rated: T Summary: "They are on Ember Island – they have just arrived, Katara has just faced her mother’s murderer and the comet is still weeks away – when Aang starts seeing the signs. At first, when he catches the longing glances and the accidental touches, he tries to convince himself that he is imagining things. Because really, why on earth would Katara consider Zuko more than a simple friend? "

Zutara from Aang's perspective from their time at Ember Island up until his actual acceptance of their relationship. Score: 9.3 / 10 (9.7, 9.8) Tags: Aang POV, One Shot

Title: Here We Are Author: HiddenEye Rated: T Summary: "Zuko, my sister Katara. Katara, my roommate Zuko."

She blinks, the familiarity of the name hums in her bones as she stares at him. But then, she snaps herself out of her stupor by mentally shaking her head, realising she's been standing there looking like an idiot that Zuko probably thinks she's being weird.

But, he doesn't seem to notice as he blinks at her too.

So, she takes the initiative to offer her hand towards him, letting a smile grace her face. "Nice to meet you." Score: 9.3 / 10 (9.7, 9.8) Tags: Alternate Universe, Reincarnation, One Shot

Title: Sunrise Author: lewilder Rated: T Summary: The days go on and on, and even if she feels more comfort from the moon, Katara learns to cherish the promise of each new sunrise. Score: 9.1 / 10 (9.7, 9.8) Tags: Alternate Universe, Canon Divergence, First Kiss, Fluff

#Zutara #Fanfiction #Rec List #Top 10 #tumblr favorites

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