Leave a comment

tenillypo May 5 2011, 15:43:15 UTC
I feel your pain. Every now and then I get a hankering for Katara/Zuko fic, and I always end up unsatisfied on characterization.

Reply

musesfool May 5 2011, 15:47:22 UTC
Right? Either she is too shrewish or too demure, or he turns into some kind of suave sex god that makes me laugh. Like, I totally believe he has more experience than she does, because he has his time with Mai, but he's still a ginormous dork. It's what makes him him. Too often writers seem to forget about that part of his characterization.

Reply

redbeardjim May 5 2011, 18:08:57 UTC
From what I've seen an awful lot of the Katara/Zuko writers (at least the ones I've been exposed to) aren't really writing about the characters from the show, they're writing about The Fire Prince and The Water Maiden (or, alternately, themself), two people who share some grand passion for each other because fire/water yin/yang good girl/bad boy whatever. When I started watching, I went looking for fic (because, well, it's what I do) and found mostly big sprawling Katara/Zuko epics being recommended, and came to the conclusion that hey, this must be a thing in the show! And then I watched the rest of the show and wondered what show those people had actually been watching. *grin*

Because yes, Zuko's a ginormous dork who shows absolutely no romantic interest in *anyone*, with the slight exception of Jin, until he and Mai are reunited.

Reply

musesfool May 5 2011, 18:59:55 UTC
Yeah, I think you're right. And I think those stories can be enjoyable if one goes into them with a mindset that that's what they are, but they're generally not what I'm looking for when I go looking for fic.

Because yes, Zuko's a ginormous dork who shows absolutely no romantic interest in *anyone*, with the slight exception of Jin, until he and Mai are reunited.

*nod nod*

He's pretty much obsessed with his HONOR. I mean, obviously, I find things in canon that make me interested in reading about them making with the smoochies, but it's not really because he shows any kind of real interest in her as a girl; it's more in how they interact.

Reply

redbeardjim May 5 2011, 19:19:38 UTC
"HONORRRRRR!!!!!!" He's so focused on that that Katara barely registers to him as a *person*, let alone a girl. She's just this obstacle in the way of him capturing the Avatar.

Reply

musesfool May 7 2011, 18:26:23 UTC
Yeah, I don't think she's real to him until the cave beneath Ba Sing Se.

Reply


Leave a comment

Up