YMMV / Avatar: The Last Airbender "The Southern Raiders"

• Broken Aesop:
  • The intended message, as stated by Aang and supported by Word of God in the DVD commentary, was that violence isn't the answer to your problems and that forgiving your enemy is the first step towards healing from trauma. However, Katara herself rebukes Aang, pointing out that she didn't forgive him, and she never will.
  • Zuko's own actions may be viewed as this. He offers to help Katara find her mother's killer so that she would forgive him for his previous betrayal. In short, Zuko is helping Katara enact her vengeance on someone else so that she will forgive him, despite the fact Zuko himself is the one advocating revenge as the better resolution.
• Fridge Horror: Who told the Fire Nation that there was one more Waterbender in the Southern Water Tribe? Yon Rha did seem to know exactly who to ask, although he doesn't seem to have considered the possibility of her lying.
• Moral Event Horizon: Yon Rha truly crosses it when he offers to let Katara kill his mother to satisfy her revenge. Before this, the scene was set up to make the viewers think he may have repented of the evil he had done, but making this offer proves that he still thinks he did nothing wrong and doesn't deserve punishment. Though it should be noted that Zuko, who reformed, supported Ozai being killed, albeit if only because he literally could not think of another way to defeat him.
• Never Live It Down: There exists a Vocal Minority of fans who will never forgive Katara for telling Sokka that he didn't love their mother the way she did. Not helping matters is that she never apologized for this. While it's true that what Katara said was pretty mean, it's human as she was consumed by negative emotions. The lack of forgiveness these fans have for this glosses over the fact that Zuko has had many more such moments like this with Iroh and that, throughout the series, Katara has been a supportive sister to Sokka to the point where he sees her as a mother figure.
• Older Than They Think: Katara's arc and Zuko's role in this story look very similar to fellow Waterbender and Firebender Gi's and Wheeler's in the Captain Planet episode "Teers in the Hood."

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