Katara hears Zuko before she sees him, as he's reading Love Among the Dragons (aka LATD). Katara finds Zuko's legs resting on the table and Toph's legs on top of his adorable, even though she knows they hate being thought of that way, because they think of themselves as Bad Ass, and badasses can't be adorable (Oh really?), so Katara refrains from commenting on it.
Katara doesn't leave, either, though, because she likes how Zuko "does the voices," and Toph's laughter. Zuko gets to the end of the chapter, and reminds her how he fulfilled his end of the bargain to read to her, and she now has to go to bed. Toph suggests playing earth water air fire again, and Toph gets another chapter if she wins, but Zuko says she won't fool him (yet) again, since he knows she's using her earthbending senses to win. Toph, however, counters that he's just that predictable, since he picks fire every time.
Toph uses the standard "just one more" request, and the even more standard "I'm not tired" excuse." Zuko reluctantly accepts, but points out that he has to go to bed soon. Toph sarcastically teases him about waiting up for Katara, using herLivingLieDetector abilities in the process, but soon turns more anxious and pleads with him not to leave, implying that she's been unable to sleep the incident with Ozai.
A word about Toph. It's relatively difficult to convincingly explore a Badass character's more vulnerable side when it isn't shown all that much in canon. When it's done well, it can add depth to a character, but when it's done badly (which I've noticed often happens with female characters), it weakens the character as a result. This is one case in which the author's attempts to flesh out characters falls flat, as Toph seems uncharacteristically fragile here, and it adds to the things I dislike about the Hostage Situation scene.
Katara stays to eavesdrop, and Toph admits to having Bad Dreams about Ozai, although Toph's unusually hesitant to admit that Zuko's father is the cause. Zuko tries to comfort Toph with an apology for what his father almost did to her, but Toph says that if she wanted comfort, she'd have gone to Katara. She wants advice, and that's something I've heard that men tend to want more than simple comfort when facing a problem. Specifically, Toph wants to know how not to be afraid of Ozai, and fear is difficult to overcome through rational thought alone. Toph asks what's it like to have Ozai as a father, and Zuko says it's worse than being shot by lightning, but he's relieved that Ozai is locked up. Toph says that Sokka told her that, and it didn't help, since she never had nightmares before, but he seemed so "big and bad and powerful" when he grabbed her.
Zuko points out that Ozai is small and pathetic, and went for Toph because he thought she'd be the most vulnerable, but Toph had beaten him on her own. Toph argues that she didn't do it on her own, but Zuko says that he heard from Sokka that the jab to Ozai's eye disabled him long enough for Toph to metalbend something at him. As far as I know, the events were largely due to dumb luck, and it seems as though Zuko's changing tack to flatter Toph- and it's working, as Toph is pleased with herself.
Zuko notes that Ozai picks on those he considers easy targets, but Toph showed him otherwise, and Zuko would have loved to see Ozai's face as she metalbent at him (Toph obviously can't see it, but Sokka notes that it's very entertaining). Zuko says that Toph is a badass who can defeat Ozai, and when she asks if he thinks so, he says he knows this. Katara thinks they shared a hug, but takes the moment to slip off to prevent them from finding her, then stomping back to pretend that she just arrived to scold them to go to bed.
Zuko Toph, Aang, and Sokka and Suki slept late the next morning, with Katara noting that Sokka and Suki probably had sex. Katara, needing Zuko to wake up to give him another healing session and change his bandages, waits (im)patiently for him to wake up, trying to wake him with her mind and then reading while she waits. He wakes up and they have an awkward moment in which they both say "morning" to each other, stare at each other, and Katara forgets why she's come for a moment.
Katara changes his bandages, still finding his body beautiful, even with the new scar. Katara noticing the scar and wanting more time together with him makes it take longer. Katara knows that her father will be in her face once he's settled in, unless she runs away storms off on a regular basis. Hakoda likes to know what's going on in his daughter's life and doesn't like her spending time with a boy (even though he's fine with Sokka and Suki having alone time), asking questions in awkward dad fashion.
Zuko asks about Katara's evening with the Kyoshi warriors, and she tells him about Ty Lee. Zuko's surprised Ty Lee wants to join the Kyoshi warriors, since she'd wanted to stand out from her six sisters, and she's trading one matching set for another by joining the identical-looking Kyoshi warriors (of course, she certainly stands out from her sisters by joining a group that was the Fire Nation's enemies in the war). Of course, the Kyoshi warriors looking alike is a bit of a superficial thing in common, as Ty Lee has many differences from Suki, so it's perhaps not as much of a "matching set" as Zuko thinks, even if the minor warriors don't get much development. In any case, Zuko's happy for Ty Lee and wants to see her, noting that he couldn't be cross at her if he tried (that's what Katara said about Aang...)
Katara mentions Suki's advice, and Zuko says it's a good idea, asking her about it over breakfast, as they sit on the veranda chairs, which has become Zuko's favorite spot. Katara practices her speech while there, impressing Zuko with her ability to come up with speeches on the spot, getting quite into her speech and spewing pastry crumbs everywhere as she rails against women being equal to men, deserving a say in their own lives, and not deserving all the boring jobs. Katara does a bow and gets applause from Zuko and Suki, the latter of whom is in the process of sneaking out, and gives Katara a thumbs up and takes a pastry before leaving.
Sokka comes down and digs in to the pastries. Having heard the speech, he asks if Katara's planning on speaking with their father soon, and when she says yes, he advises waiting until the men are no longer hung over. He says Katara missed the best part, when Iroh taught everyone the hedgehog song, and Zuko realizes that Iroh must be quite drunk indeed, which is all the more unfortunate since today is a big day.
Zuko decides to wake Toph and Iroh. The former is easier than the latter, who stumbles out wearing Hakoda's eclipse glasses. Zuko's quite annoyed with his uncle as he pours him tea, along with Toph when she shares his desire to stay in a comfy chair all day. Zuko reminds Iroh that Iroh himself said the interviews were importantly, particularly his old friend Ming, who's first, and doesn't want to hear Iroh's excuses that Ming wouldn't mind waiting. Iroh doesn't move until Zuko threatens to mix Iroh's white dragon tea into the "nasty" valley tea, and Iroh is horrified at Zuko planning to do that to tea that would be overpowered by the cheap stuff, but Iroh goes along while lamenting Zuko's unreasonableness.
Ten gongs sound, which indicates that the fire sages are back to work and that Zuko and Iroh will be late, since they tell time. Zuko and Iroh get going for the interviews, and have Toph come with them, as well (possibly because of her Living Lie Detector abilities). Zuko wishes Katara good luck with her father before departing.
Sokka and Katara sit in the chairs and chat, during which time Katara confirms that she means what she intends to say. Sokka apologizes for not sticking up for Katara more, but says he was caught up in being one of the warriors. He says that he'll talk to the warriors if she wants, but only if she wants, lest Suki give him an earbashing for presuming to speak for women. Most of all, though, Sokka says that he's there for Katara, for what it's worth, and Katara reassures him that she appreciates it.
Sokka and Katara find that the Water Tribe house is still a mess after the events of the previous night's parties, and the men are still hung over, as Sokka expected. Hakoda's looking for Bato, who's still missing, and is worried about him, prompting Katara to note that he always worries.
Katara sits her father down at the big table in the garden, then makes some tea and gets Hakoda some pastries from Zuko's house to help him get over the hangover. In spite of his condition, Hakoda enjoyed the night as the first fun one he's had in a long time, and respects Iroh as a "wily wicked man." He then tells Sokka to look after Aang who's under the weather, and Katara realizes only after Sokka is gone that he sent him out of the room.
Hakoda wants to talk with Katara about her running off, and how he was worried enough to ask for a city-wide search until Zuko reported that Katara was with the Kyoshi warriors. Katara starts to explain about the situation with the warriors, but her father isn't processing it; Katara thinks it's because of his hangover, but it's actually because he's preparing an awkward speech of his own (it's generally a bad idea to think of what you want to say next while the other person's still talking).
Hakoda begins with how Katara "will always be (his) little girl," and Katara knows that's not a good beginning but is unsuccessful in dissuading him. He adds that he worries about her, and she says she worries about him, too, particularly with regards to boys, and gets to the main thrust- asking about her and Zuko.
Katara, after an Oh Crap! moment in which she realizes she doesn't even know what to say herself, says they're Just Friends, and nothing is going on between them. Hakoda is understandably skeptical and shrewdly asks whether Katara wants something to be going on between them, a question that Katara takes too long to answer for Hakoda's liking.
Hakoda concedes that Fire Nation people of the opposite gender are "alluring," but Katara doesn't want to hear his story. He stops short but he does something she wants even less- request a "man to man" talk with Sokka.
Katara, terrified of the prospect of Zuko dying of embarrassment after such a talk with Hakoda, tries to deny being attracted to Zuko, to the point of asking who would want to kiss him. Hakoda believes this, and is grateful, but Katara makes the mistake of asking why, prompting Hakoda to bring up what Toph said, and declare that Zuko is not suitable for Katara. Katara presses Hakoda further, and he simply says that the problem is that Zuko's from the Fire Nation. Katara then makes another mistake by insisting that Zuko shouldn't be dismissed because he's from the Fire Nation, as he's "a great guy," and believes that by saying that, she ruled out all possibility of Zuko being exempt from man to man talks. Perhaps that's true, but only for the short term. If Katara wants a relationship with Zuko, she'll have to deal with Hakoda's cultural biases at some point.
The awkward conversation resumes and worsens. Hakoda defensively points out that he doesn't think Zuko isn't nice, but the problem is that he's from the Fire Nation. If this race relations bit will become a plot thread, Hakoda's going to have to come up with something better than that if he wants to be taken seriously(although, like with sexism, people opposing interracial marriages tend not to come off well in most cases). Katara calls him out on not applying it to the much older Chit Sang and Iroh, but Hakoda tries to say that the two of them aren't "dashing" before going someone too awkward for him. Hakoda does, however, say that being friendly with the Fire Nation is fine, but anything more than that is not, and since Katara doesn't fancy Zuko, it shouldn't be a problem, leaving Katara to lament being defeated in a battle of logic.
Katara's utterly embarrassed, and hopes for a miracle, which she gets in a disheveled Bato coming in. Hakoda notices and calls out to him, much to his surprise. Bato tries to eat in order to avoid answering Hakoda's questions, and thwarts Hakoda's attempts to wait him out.
Of course, Katara points out that she has some idea of what happened with Bato, but keeps it to herself, as she's in the process of slipping away and resolving to bring up the subject of sexism when her dad isn't hung over or caught up on embarrassing things.
What I liked
- Amusing bit about waking up Iroh and Toph
- Sokka apologizing for not standing up for Katara, while also forswearing White Knighting.
What I didn't like
- Toph seemed too fragile when it came to Ozai.
- Hakoda's arguments weren't very convincing.
