(no subject)
Katara is not the or even a connection between Zuko and Aang. Zuko and Aang have their own relationship, which revolves heavily around Aang's status and his past as well as Zuko's past and family. It's all very mytho-historical except that this is Aang, so it's also very personal and vulnerable and silly. Zuko gets to be both around Aang.
Katara is on the outside of this particular relationship in a lot of ways. The series does not layer on the symbolic freight between her and Zuko the way it does between Aang and Zuko. It doesn't have to. Katara is connected to Zuko largely through Aang. She has one scene with Zuko prior to the Southern Raiders that is not entirely about Aang and that sequence is mostly about their mothers.
Katara and Zuko have raging mommy issues. (They also both have massive daddy issues - Zuko is not much like his father, Katara takes after hers but this is always slightly submerged in the narrative because she's a girl. That's not the point though, it never really crops up in their relationship.) They are also massively invested in Aang. Aang is constantly the implicit pivot in their relationship. Sometimes their respective mother trauma steps in, generally without the full story coming out.
Aang and Zuko are not opposites. Aang and Toph are the two who are elementally and stylistically opposed (in um. most senses. Oh kids). Aang and Zuko are complementary, and the show's structure and storytelling constantly emphasizes that. It's not even that it's not a silly black and white thing - Aang and Zuko are quite explicitly red and orange - they're right next to each other.
Aang has absolutely no trouble with fire, which is in fact the trouble. Discipline and steadiness are Aang's problem with fire - that and aggression, but when he's intially lost in the glory of fire WITHOUT aggression (and without discipline) he hurts Katara, which doesn't help later.
It's just.
I just.
...Anyway, the person Katara is really in CONFLICT with during Southern Raiders is Sokka. It's Sokka she gets angry at. Zuko and Aang are acting in service to Katara's character development throughout the episode - although Zuko in particular has his own arc within that that involves him, once again, being really alarmed by Katara but refusing to flinch away from her - but Sokka's is really in a totally different place from her about their family once again, and this time they have to deal with that head on instead of skirting it, as they usually manage to. Sokka and Katara have different relationships to their family and that hurts them.
But Katara is so much not in between Zuko and Aang. She doesn't occupy that narrative position at all, and putting her in it even while trying to correct the fandom's tendency to treat it as if there's a romantic conflict there doesn't really help at all. Because it leaves the big problem - which is treating Katara as if she's stuck in between two men, which she is not.
This entry was originally posted at http://tiamatschild.dreamwidth.org/81783.html. Please feel free to comment there using OpenID. Or here! It'll be read either way, is what I'm saying.
Katara is on the outside of this particular relationship in a lot of ways. The series does not layer on the symbolic freight between her and Zuko the way it does between Aang and Zuko. It doesn't have to. Katara is connected to Zuko largely through Aang. She has one scene with Zuko prior to the Southern Raiders that is not entirely about Aang and that sequence is mostly about their mothers.
Katara and Zuko have raging mommy issues. (They also both have massive daddy issues - Zuko is not much like his father, Katara takes after hers but this is always slightly submerged in the narrative because she's a girl. That's not the point though, it never really crops up in their relationship.) They are also massively invested in Aang. Aang is constantly the implicit pivot in their relationship. Sometimes their respective mother trauma steps in, generally without the full story coming out.
Aang and Zuko are not opposites. Aang and Toph are the two who are elementally and stylistically opposed (in um. most senses. Oh kids). Aang and Zuko are complementary, and the show's structure and storytelling constantly emphasizes that. It's not even that it's not a silly black and white thing - Aang and Zuko are quite explicitly red and orange - they're right next to each other.
Aang has absolutely no trouble with fire, which is in fact the trouble. Discipline and steadiness are Aang's problem with fire - that and aggression, but when he's intially lost in the glory of fire WITHOUT aggression (and without discipline) he hurts Katara, which doesn't help later.
It's just.
I just.
...Anyway, the person Katara is really in CONFLICT with during Southern Raiders is Sokka. It's Sokka she gets angry at. Zuko and Aang are acting in service to Katara's character development throughout the episode - although Zuko in particular has his own arc within that that involves him, once again, being really alarmed by Katara but refusing to flinch away from her - but Sokka's is really in a totally different place from her about their family once again, and this time they have to deal with that head on instead of skirting it, as they usually manage to. Sokka and Katara have different relationships to their family and that hurts them.
But Katara is so much not in between Zuko and Aang. She doesn't occupy that narrative position at all, and putting her in it even while trying to correct the fandom's tendency to treat it as if there's a romantic conflict there doesn't really help at all. Because it leaves the big problem - which is treating Katara as if she's stuck in between two men, which she is not.
This entry was originally posted at http://tiamatschild.dreamwidth.org/81783.html. Please feel free to comment there using OpenID. Or here! It'll be read either way, is what I'm saying.