The Legend of Korra

I don't remember Aang doing anything creepy to hit on Katara. Kissing her in the heat of the moment on Ember Island maybe (And lets face it they are both incredibly confused with their feelings here) but most of their relationship was very balanced best friendship with sprinklings of romantic tension.

edited 1st Mar '15 3:55:26 PM by lycropath

pretty much, neither is "going for thr presure" my only complains about it is that anag and Katara feel more as a mother and son than a couple, the two feel more of a toy-ship than anything else, comparing them to the teenager feel of zutara and a least you can understand why they shiping

I hate the "Katara was like Aang's mom" argument. hate it hate it hate it. and this isn't directed at you, unknowing, I just hate that argument because it's used by Zutarians to validate their ship. And thus I hate Zutara. But anyways..

Guess what, folks? KATARA WASN'T AANG'S MOM. THEY DID NOT HAVE A MOTHER-SON RELATIONSHIP.

edited 1st Mar '15 6:52:59 PM by higherbrainpattern

I think Toph mentioned Katara acting like she's everyone's mom.

Dangit, there goes my theory that Toph and Katara hooked up and gave birth to Suyin.

Of coure, this dosent mean the zutara fandom are right since their ship is the standar "good but strong female is atract to the bad-looking-but-really-sweet-boy" which belive me I hate with a pasion (twilight and 50 shades have something to do with this) so yeah

I remember a post on Tumblr with a screenshot of Katara's bedroom face to Aang in The Headband saying "I don't know about you but if my mom looked at me like this I'd call CPS".

pretty much, Anag is like a child(well maybe because he is a child) easy going, playfull and full of joy who sometimes can be a little be inmature, while Katara have to asume the team mon role(or the cool sig if you want it) always caring about others

It dosent meant is anything wrong, after all there is plenty of example in fiction(turk and carla from scrub come to mind) but here....it dont know, I just dosent buy it

On the other hand, I hate the whole "good girl-bad boy" because usually in end two ways: the guy is and asshole and the story never show it(like twilight) or more likey(but equally annoying) is that the bad guy is actually a shy woobie with a sad backstory so the girl can feel sorry aboout him and the same time having fawing over him, I call this "sexual tension, PG version".

and so that it, sorry for the rant but I need to get of my system, to put it in other way: anag and katara look like a mother and son but zutara are just a teenager ship, so that it

Say "Anag" again.

I dare you! I double dare you!

...o fuck it. Anag

Ooooh, it tingles. Do it again!

Asami's joy.

So sick of Varrick's shit.

The fact that Katara might have feelings for Aang was first hinted in The Warriors of Kyoshi, i.e. the fourth episode of the first season, when Katara gets jealous of Aang's fangirls on Kyoshi Island. And by The Fortuneteller it's already quite obvious there's mutual interest between the two. So it's not really a "friendship maturing into romance", more like "a couple kids who don't know how to deal with the confusing romantic feelings they have for each other, especially since they're in the middle of a gruesome war, and they need to save the world within a few months"...

Based on what we see in the first two episodes AtLA, there doesn't seem to be any kids' of Katara's age left in her tribe, so it's quite likely she's just as inexperienced in romantic matters as Aang. She tries the bad boy thing with Jet, but figures out it isn't for her, and gradually starts seeing Aang as proper love interest instead of just a goofy kid she kinda feels for. I think the age difference probably is a thing with Katara first, because at the beginning of the series Aang does act more like a child, whereas losing her mom and dad for the war (Hakoda of course is still alive, but he hasn't been around for years, so the effect is the same) has forced Katara to become much more mature and responsible than you'd expect a normal 14-year old to be. But Aang grows up a lot during the series too, so you could say he matures into someone Katara feels she can love as an equal, so he's not just a kid she wants to protect anymore.

edited 2nd Mar '15 2:10:54 AM by Tuomas

Arguments that Katara was like a mom to Aang are silly. Katara was the Team Mom. This was explicitly stated. She's the Team Mom because she's usually the responsible one. However, it's important to note that she's not actually that much more mature than the rest of the cast; Katara also has her moments of emotional instability and irresponsible decision-making, she's just not typically so loud and energized about it because that's not her personality.

However, in regards to Aang and Katara starting as friends, hit it on the head.

Aang and Katara were never friends, at least not sincerely so. Aang was looking to upgrade the relationship from the first episode, and wasn't subtle about it. Sometimes he expressed his interest in healthy ways, such as inviting her to dance during Footloose The Headband, and sometimes he made honest mistakes like stumbling over himself and accidentally insulting her in the Cave of Two Lovers, but other times he was thoroughly unpleasant in his pursuit of her, such as spying on her with the fortuneteller then immediately assuming that the "powerful bender" she will marry is him, or exploding on her about the relationship between Katara and Jet's actors on Ember Island and capping it off by sexually assaulting her.

Katara also had interest in Aang and didn't always express it in healthy ways, like her jealous rage on Kyoshi Island. Neither of them were perfect and, for that matter, neither are any of the other kids. My point isn't to say that Aang is awful or that Katara should have been with Zuko; my point is simply that saying they "started as friends" is just wrong. They were never friends, at least not in good faith. Aang was courting Katara - poorly, mind you, but still courting her - pretty much from the get-go.

edited 2nd Mar '15 8:47:31 AM by TobiasDrake

I don't think friendship and a crush a mutually exclusive things.

There's like two or three episodes a season where that side of their relationship is explored in detail, out of twenty episode seasons where they are the super best friends forever. You mean to say everything about their friendship is dishonest and invalidated because of Aang has a crush on Katara and that his friendship is really extended with the express idea that its for getting into her pants?

edited 2nd Mar '15 11:29:33 AM by lycropath

Yeah, I'm not sure why because he had a crush on her then he can't be considered her friend.

Yeah, distinguishing the two sounds dangerously close to that friendzone bullshit.

So that thing about the Pink Lotus is neat.

Interesting.

Which means that the highest Deity in the avatarverse is Ty Lee.

I could imagine Korra and Asami founding a LGBTQ rights organization called the Pink Lotus.

The Avatar world still seems to be pretty heteronormative, there'd be a lot to do for such a group.

Heteronormative? How so?

Well, for one thing, we see plenty of people openly expressing their heterosexual romantic feelings, but we never see any gay couples, nor any kind of explicit expressions of homosexual affection. (Except for the very last scene of the series, of course, but even then those feelings were expressed when no one was around to see.) The only character we see publicly showing any kind of gay sensibility is Prince Wu. This lack of any kind of visibility would certainly imply that homosexuality in the Avatar world is not publically condoned but needs to be kept a secret.

^Not gay, just campy.

There haven't been any other gay characters on screen, though that shouldn't mean that they don't exist.

Like life. There have always been girls loving girls and boys loving boys, but only recently have they been focused on again.

The Avatar world HAD been a little gender-divided, at least at the North Pole. Whether they were explicitly heteronormative...I dunno.

edited 3rd Mar '15 8:37:30 AM by Keybreak