Video FAQ:

1. "What do you think of the "zutara is a pocahontas/colonizer ship" argument?"

I deliberately avoided discussing this one in my video because I find it pretty irrelevant, not least because it doesn't even apply properly, considering that Zuko's whole arc, his raison d'etre, is to be a de-colonizer. Zuko's redemption arc is kinda all about being a de-colonizer, and his redemption arc is probably like the most talked about plot point of ATLA, so frankly I'm not even sure why we're still having this discussion.

On a deeper level, I find that the colonizer argument is usually an attempt to smear the ship as "problematic" - i.e., this ship is an immoral dynamic, which would make it problematic to depict as canon, and if you ship it regardless, you're probably problematic yourself. That's usually how I see this argument presented. I'd be more open to it as a rebuttal if it were A) canonically sound and B) actually focused on how this dynamic would have weakened ATLA storytelling in some way, but A) is already untrue and I rarely if ever see anyone attempt B) as opposed to just being morality police.

This may be a bit of a hot take, but I think that a good story well-told is not always, and does not have to be, a story free from moral vices/questionable themes etc. There are good problematic stories and bad "pure" stories and literally everything in between. Internet has a tendency to conflate good art with non-problematic art and I think that's not only inaccurate but also potentially dangerous. In my experience, it tends to encourage wilful blindness one way or the other, because it boxes all art into either "morally permissible" or "morally impermissible" categories, and often shames people for enjoying art in the "morally impermissible" box. Unfortunately, I see a lot of people responding to this by A) making excuses for art that they guiltily love despite its problematic elements and/or B) denying the value of any art that they are unable to defend as free from moral wickedness.

Y'all do you, but I'm not here to be the morality police, I'm just here to talk about good vs. bad writing. (And when I say "good", I mean structurally sound, thematically cohesive, etc; I don't mean morally good). So the whole colonizer angle isn't something I'm interested in discussing, for the same reason that I actually avoided discussing Katara "mothering" Aang or the "problematic" aspects of the Kataang ship (such as how he kissed her twice without her consent). My whole entire sections on "Kataang bad" or "Maiko bad" is specifically, "how are they written in a way that did a disservice to the story", and "how making them false leads would have created valuable meaning" - not just, "here's how Kataang/Maiko toxic and Zutara wholesome, Zutara superiority go brrr, the end" - something that maybe I could have made clearer. The point is, there's ways that a romance comes off "icky" and then there's ways that it's actually bad for the story, and meming/shitposting aside, the fact that these two things don't always align is not only a truth I recognise about art but also one of those truths that makes art incredibly interesting to me! But generally, I prefer to talk more about the "how it's good/bad for the story" stuff. Which is why.......

2. "Katara does not mother Aang, actually (and you're wrong for suggesting otherwise!)"

In fairness I don't get this comment that often but every once in a while it does come up. I call it a paper town - a clear sign that someone didn't watch my video before commenting 😂

3. "To be fair tho, I think the 'hero gets the girl' trope/'Katara mothering Aang' angle isn't just smth icky, it's also bad for the story because thematic/narrative/character justifications such as [abcdefg]?"

You can totally construct an argument on that line of logic and I genuinely encourage you to do so! I can't do that argument justice myself, which is why I avoided talking about it (so you might think you want to hear my refined opinion on it but really, you don't, I don't have any 😂) - but that doesn't mean nobody else can present that take and do it well! Genuinely, if you think you got it, go nuts.

4. "Hold on, about the lightning thing - Sokka would have sacrificed himself for Katara, though?"

Yes, he would have. I was talking about framing there, not subject. I believe, wholeheartedly, that Sokka would have protected Katara with his life, but I also believe wholeheartedly that if he'd done so, the music choice would have been different, it probably wouldn't have dragged out as long, there's a good to fair chance there wouldn't have been a slow-motion "nooooooo", I'm skeptical that we'd have gotten a double hand-reach shot from the perspective of both characters, and overall I definitely doubt we would have gotten all of these components combined. In general, I think the final delivery of the sequence would probably have felt a bit more shocking/tense/suspenseful and a bit less mournful/tragic - more Scar murdering Mufasa energy and less... *gestures at the scene we got*.

If you think Sokka sacrificing himself for Katara would have been depicted the exact same way, then we'll have to agree to disagree. If you just think Sokka would have sacrificed himself for Katara period, and if you think you're disagreeing with me by saying that, you're not.

5. "Aang and Katara's arguments in the final arc of the show aren't contrived, there's logical in-universe reasons why they fought." and/or "But Aang was actually right to challenge Katara/Katara was actually the one who was in the wrong for those fights."

I can't say I agree - especially if we're talking about the Southern Raiders stuff (see my Katara analysis video for that). But I also don't have to disagree either to make the point I was making. It actually doesn't matter at all who's right or who's wrong during those final arguments; what I'm focusing on is that they were fighting, and arguing, and failing to resolve their issues at the worst possible time in their romance arc this could have happened - and then proceeded to kiss and become a couple at the point in the show where there had never been more distance between them, relationship-wise. That Zuko and Katara had also never been closer at coincidentally the exact same moment, just makes it even messier. The reality is you can come up with the best possible Watsonian explanations for the Kataang fights and also make Aang the most defensible, blameless, honourable "winner" of the arguments you possibly can - legit, Aang could be a mega chad vs Katara the silly whiny idiot for all that it matters - none of that would be enough to solve what is really a structural problem of the romance arcs at the end of the show.

6. "Okay, but you still did Aang dirty with those Southern Raiders edits >.>"

I mean, you're not wrong, but in my defense Aang has some fantastically memeworthy lines and it is a federal crime for me as an Australian to not milk that material for all that it's worth.

7. "Please inform your dad that rhinos actually do live in India."

I discovered this during the editing process of my video and have since informed him of this fact. My dad now denies any memory of having ranted about rhinos in India ruining his enjoyment of the Jungle Book.

And, my favourite:

8. "Zuko and Katara never showed any romantic interest in each other. Zutara isn't canon, Kataang is."

At some point while making a 2 hour video whose sole purpose was to explain, in depth, why Zuko and Katara not being canon was from my perspective a narrative mistake of epic proportions, it did actually occur to me that they are indeed not canon, yes.

Thank you for being a good citizen and double-checking though; it would have been embarrassing for me to have gotten this far and not known. Cheers mate ❤

Edit from 1 week later: Actually, I should mention that of the commenters I get who claim to be Kataang/Maiko shippers, I get a lot more compliments along the lines of "while I still ship kataang/don't completely agree with all your points/never liked zutara/etc, this was well made and gave me something to think about" than I do the silly strawman or troll-y type comments. Which is actually really cool tbh! Always puts a smile on my face when I see a comment like that and I appreciate them all, alongside the zutara shippers who are never shy with showing their love either 😂

So this is a shoutout to all the positive comments I get (which really do outnumber all the silly ones) - thank you for being so sweet and kind! Y'all are awesome 😁

Rewatching this after a few years.

But basically: If Katara was the main character, the writers liked romance as a genre, it would have been Zutara.

Kataang is about Aang “getting the girl” imo. Sure friends to lovers, but it’s more like friends,  crush, friends then accelerated “to lovers” arc in S3.

Zutara is about both characters changing and evolving because of their relationship with each other.

The fact that aang gets to master the Avatar state without making the sacrifice of letting worldly connections go was a pretty big plot convenience.

Regarding the "Katara is a peasant" argument, I mean she's kind of not. Granted, the SWT don't really "do" royalty, but Katara is still the daughter of a world leader. Wartime experiences and accomplishments aside, she and Zuko are still political peers.

I really appreciate that you stick to analyzing the writing as opposed to getting into how the characters "must have been secretly feeling".

I hate how Aang not even once apologizes for his outbursts. I'm not talking about his emotionally driven Avatar States since he's a kid, I get that a power like that would be hard to control when you're a teenager in puberty. I'm talking about the dessert and THEIR LAST CONVO BEFORE THE FINALE. And then they kiss??? They never even talk any of that out! They don't even talk at all! It will frustrate me all my life!

I haven’t finished the video just yet, but one thing I’d like to point out that I haven’t seen anyone else say, is that despite Katara being a healer and becoming the best healer in the world when she’s older, she never had someone heal her own wounds physically/ emotionally, until Zuko took her to bring her closure. Even though he’s a firebender, and his nation is the one that brought her pain and took away her mother, he is the one who healed her because no one else would or could. And I find that unbelievably poetic

The Zutara cave moment also parallels Zuko's scene with Song, the Earth Kingdom girl who tries to relate to him by showing her own scars and reaches out to touch his scar, but he stops her, where he doesn't stop Katara. Guess what? That scene is also in The Cave of Two Lovers, in Zuko's b-plot!

You know what is funny? It’s the fact that people ship mai and zuko, who broke up 3 times, and they claim it is a healthy, canon relationship.

I'm in my mid 20s and kataang being the endgame instead of zutara is an injustice that still makes me sad and angry and not want to ever rewatch the show. I hate it so much. You're right about everything.

I always find it weird when people say that Zutara as a couple would fight all the time.
They have very similar morals, beliefs, emotions etc. After the became friends there where no hints at them butting heads or not getting along.

The thing with Kataang is that, if you take away the kisses and weird tension between them, Katara treats Aang the same way I treated my younger brothers when we were little. I'd love them, support them, hug them and get into shenanigans with them. Katara and Zuko easily fall into parental roles of the group once they settle their differences and have great chemistry. Its no surprise that I've been a Zutara fan

I honestly feel like the show should’ve just ended in friendship, rather than that questionable kiss . An ending scene with the whole gaang gathering around and hugging each other outside the tea shop while staring off into the sunset at ba sing se, seeing a world of peace they helped bring back, would’ve been a MUCH more satisfying ending and would’ve actually made more sense in all aspects, I’d say. After all the heart of the show really was friendship, not romance. They should’ve left all potential pairings, or ships, open ended so everyone could only be left to speculate who actually ended up together down the road. But alas we can’t always get what we want🤷🏽‍♀️

It’s funny how the creators purposefully added more Zutara content to ship tease Zutara, but in the end all it did was delegitimize Kataang.

I've always thought Zuko was shown to be honorable and empathetic right from the start. Aang asks Zuko, when he first raids Katara's village, if I go with you will you leave everyone else alone, and Zuko agrees it show his objective was to capture Aang to win back his father's love, and not spread the ideologies of the Fire Nation through destruction and genocide like his father and sister. I don't think he ever really thought about the war or it's impact on the rest of the world until he got out into it.

Making katara actively reject Aang, only to force kisses on her again and to have her character to end up with him? What message is that sending little girls and boys about what they want? That boys should keep going even when girls aren’t interested? That what girls want doesn’t matter? Honestly it’s irresponsible for the writers to have written this.

i think zutara is the only missed fictional opportunity that i have ever felt loss over. it is an odd feeling. ah, what could have been.

Every time I guess frustrated at sloppy romance subplots in media, I like coming back to this video. Zutara is honestly the blueprint of how romantic subplots can strengthen the thematic narrative of stories, and seeing this video makes me feel validated in my love of shipping. Romance is so often disregarded as unimportant in bigger stories, and I feel that much of the stigma against romance is due to how women tend to like it more than men.

The creators basically using Aang as a self insert and shoving Katara with him is funny when you consider the fact that Zutara is accused of being a ship girls use to self insert themselves with Zuko.

funnily enough, Katara never seemed that happy to me at the "Aang's a powerful bender" "I suppose he is" line, and the music didn't seem really triumphant or romantic.