An ode to Katara

I will take any excuse to talk about my love for Avatar: the last airbender. It's a show I find myself going back to over and over, and being amazed again at each watch, finding new meanings in things I overlooked earlier. It aired on Nickelodeon between 2005 and 2008 and I watched it at the time, loving the characters and the silly adventures the set off on. As I got older, though, I gained a deeper appreciation for the show and its ability to address the heaviest of topics in a digestible, respectful way, all while still being suitable for a young audience. Loss and grief, the dichotomy of good and evil, physical disabilities, war, the unbearable weight of responsibilities, sexism, classism, even genocide, all within the span of just three seasons and never resorting to superficiality.

Is it obvious that I love this show? Anyhow. My favorite character has always been Katara. I identified with her and loved her multifaceted and complicated personality. I love her determination, her caring nature, and, of course, her fury. Allow me to introduce her to you.

A short plot summary

But first, for those unfamiliar, let me set the stage. Avatar: the last airbender is an animated TV show set in a world divided in four nations. Each represents one of the elements: water, earth, fire, and air. In this world, some are born with the ability to manipulate, or bend, one of these elements, depending on the nation in which they are born. And there is one person who is capable of bending all four elements: the avatar. She or he is reincarnated after each lifetime into one of the nations, cycling between them equally. The avatar is often a spiritual leader, a peace keeper, and a figure of great political importance, therefore making them a threat to those who disturb the peaceful co-existence of the nations.

When we enter this world in the first episode, the avatar has not been seen for 100 years. With this powerful figure gone, the fire nation has forged a war, as their leader believes fire to be the superior element, and he wants to prove it. They've expanded their territory and wiped out anyone who could potentially hinder their quest.

In the arctic Southern Water Tribe, where our story begins, brother and sister Sokka and Katara are out fishing when they get stranded on a floating block of ice. Both blame the other for their fate. Sokka says to his sister: "Leave it to a girl to screw things up", and Katara gets pissed. In her furious rant, she balls her fists and the iceberg behind her starts to crack from her unintentional water bending, breaking open as a result. Inside they find a young boy frozen in the ice, Aang. Spoiler alert: it's the avatar. Aang slowly learns about the state of the world and goes on a mission to travel the four nations and learn the bending of each element in order to become powerful enough to end the war. Katara and Sokka join him, making friends and enemies along the way.

Katara's anger

Without Katara's anger, there would be no story. Had it not been for her outburst in that first episode, the avatar would have remained frozen in that ice. In this scene, she realizes the power of her anger. She surprises herself and marvels at her new-found strength. It's the birth of her journey towards becoming a warrior.

Her fury is epitomized in episode 18 of the first season. The group arrives at the Northern Water Tribe where Aang would be able to find someone to teach him water bending. This is where they meet master Pakku, a tribal elder who teaches combat to the village's young warriors. He's the best of the best. As Katara hasn't been able to learn much water bending at home, she wants to join in. But she is denied. Only men are allowed to learn how to fight at the Northern Water Tribe. Women use their water bending to heal the wounded, so she can sit in on one of those classes instead. Baffled and offended, she argues against this gendered division and tells Pakku she will prove that she belongs with the warriors. She tells him to fight her. He refuses and walks away. But Katara will not take no for an answer and she blasts a stream of water at him to agitate him. And it works: a battle ensues. Katara is clearly outmatched, and she knows it. But that doesn't matter. She's not in this fight to win it, but rather to "slap some sense into that guy". She gives it all of her energy because she is fighting for a deeper cause. You could argue she's fighting the patriarchy himself.

I love this scene for so many reasons. Katara finds herself in a situation so often experienced by women and girls of any age. Her opportunities in life are limited based on her gender. And it's not that there is anything demeaning about using her powers to heal the wounded - she actually develops this skill throughout the show - but that the denial of combat puts her in a box of the feminine caregiver, the one who fixes things that were broken by men around her. And she wants to do more besides just that. I also love how this scene highlights both her flaws and her strengths very well. She deeply cares about justice, this time for herself, but really also for the other women in the tribe, and she will go to great lengths to pursue it. She is also rash. Stubborn. Takes risks beyond her capabilities. She is not always logical, but she acts upon her beliefs. In short, this scene shows that rationale and emotion are not mutually exclusive and exist within one person at all times. It's quite rare to find that in TV show characters, let alone in a young female character, but this show does it incredibly well.

The parentified mom friend

A major part of Katara's backstory is the loss of her mother at a young age. So much so that it has become an inside joke of the show's fans to highlight just how often she brings it up. But that's not without reason. This loss has shaped her into the young woman that she is today. With her mother gone, she took on the responsibilities of a matriarch within her tribe and within what was left of her family. She became a caregiver for her brother, and later also develops a motherly role in her new group of friends. It comes with tension. She means well, but it doesn't always come across that way on her peers. They sometimes view her as being overbearing, too serious, a killjoy. There's a great episode dedicated to this in season 3. A young earth bender, Toph, has joined the group, having ran away from home and her controlling parents. While traveling together with the group, she develops a liking for using her earth bending to cheat in street gambling games to win money. Katara is worried she will get into trouble and urges her to stop, but Toph tells her to lighten up and have some fun for once. It blows up into an argument and the two young women take some time apart, when Katara overhears a conversation between her brother and Toph.

He tells her that he knows Katara can be a little much sometimes, but that, to him, she really has been a mother figure. So much so, he says, that whenever he tries to picture his mother's face, he can only bring to mind Katara. Toph realizes that the overbearingness comes from a place of care and seeks to reconcile with her new friend, who in turn acknowledges that she could in fact loosen up a little and proposes they pull an earth bending scam together, marking the beginning of a deeper connection.

The trauma that Katara suffered is a big source of that rage that she carries. She has an anger towards the fire nation that she has not been able to release, and the hole that was left behind was too great to process. Throughout the show we see her working towards releasing her hurt, becoming mentally and physically stronger, growing as a warrior and a leader. Truly a role model for all the young (and less young) girls watching.

A rant: The live action adaptations

Now... I do have just a little something I have to get off my chest: the live action adaptations of this show have done such a disservice to Katara's character. First in the 2010 M. Night Shyamalan movie, but that movie was received so poorly that we shall just forget it exists. And then in the 2024 Netflix adaptation.

Take for example the fight scene with master Pakku. There is a key difference between Katara's attitude in the two versions. In the animated show, she is blinded by her rage and takes risks beyond good reason, literally running into the line of fire (or water, I guess), taking beating after beating but getting back up each time until no longer able to. She is the aggressor, taking the offensive position because she is fighting for the principle of the matter. In the live action, while she does instigate the fight in the same way as the original, she proceeds by taking the defense and waiting for Pakku's next move. It's such a disappointing adaptation and it diminishes the combative spirit that is an integral component of her character.

The show runners of the Netflix adaptation explained that they have made some updates to the characters, particularly to Sokka and Katara. They say it's to subvert from them falling into gender roles, but in my opinion, all this does is reducing them to one-dimensional characters and preventing the prospects of meaningful character arcs. I've mentioned before in this post how female characters have often been denied the possibility of immorality. Similarly, and what I think is happening in this show, female characters are often steered away from possessing anything that could be deemed as flaws. It's like-ability we're after. To be fair, that is not just the case for Katara in this adaptation, but she especially has been stripped of personality in my opinion.

So let's stick to the original version

Ending things on a high note. Having introduced the original Katara to you, I trust you understand why I like and relate to her so much. Still now, at my ripe old age of 27, I would like to be like her when I grow up.

To conclude, please enjoy her beautiful score from the original show.