The Legend of Korra

Now I'm questioning more why Aang and Katara isn't spoiler-tagged while Sokka/Suki and Zuko/Mai are.

While, I would assume it's universally known in the fanbase how the series ends. The argument is that it got so much attention outside the fanbase that anyone even considering watching the show has probably heard of it.

ATLA isn't that old, and I think people in our corner of the internet overestimate how mainstream it is.

Edited by TheMountainKing on Jul 23rd 2018 at 8:56:59 AM

Probably because Aang and Katara were always going to get together from the moment the first episode aired. The lead male and lead female wind up together. Period. It always happens, even when it's obnoxious and detracts from the story. Half the fanbase preferred Zutara, but the Kataang flags were clear right from the start when Aang's like, "OOH A GIRL, I should date her!" immediately after coming out of the ice.

He was going to get the girl. Of course he was going to get the girl. His archetype always gets the girl, even when it's obnoxious. There was a zero percent chance that the show would end without some kind of confirmation on that, because this show was being made by writers and you know how writers are with love interests.

Zuko/Mai and Sokka/Suki, on the other hand, were not mandatory 100% destined to happen by the writing gods developments. In fact, Zuko/Mai is a surprise development in the third season that isn't shocking but can seem to come out of nowhere, while Sokka has a different love interest in season one. Knowing that the Official Couple is Sokka/Suki may spoil the ultimate fate of Yue.

Under those same grounds, it may be that Korrasami is in spoiler text because knowing about it in advance would spoil the outcome of the original Makorra romance. Indeed, one of the things that's so shocking about Korrasami's confirmation is that Korra and Mako were the "100% destined by writing gods" lead female and lead male archetypes. Many Makorra shippers were convinced that the show would end with their reconciliation.

Not only did the show subvert this expectation, but it subverted it hard by canonizing an LGBT relationship previously accused on multiple occasions for two years of being a Crack Ship. If you didn't see it coming, you were utterly blindsided by this swerve. If you did see it coming, you were still stunned that Nick would allow it to happen on their network.

Edited by TobiasDrake on Jul 23rd 2018 at 7:06:35 AM

I think we got consensus that it wasn't a Crack Pairing, but I do see your point. But the question is if it's still worth preserving that secret now, especially so zealously.

Oh, it was never a Crack Pairing. The hints were there throughout seasons 3 and 4. I just said that it was accused of being one. When the episodes were still airing, Makorra shippers treated Korrasami like it was the new Zutara.

Edited by TobiasDrake on Jul 23rd 2018 at 7:12:05 AM

There's a lot of hostility in your earlier post toward Aang and Katara, and I'm not sure why. Is it just hostility toward writers for being predictable basic bitches, or did you actually not like that couple? Personally, I always liked Aang and Katara, and I thought it was built up to very organically over the course of the series.

I think it was more of a Crack Pairing back in the first two seasons, but became not that by the time Season 3 started.

Bit of both. I'm tired of the predictability in the lead male and lead female constantly getting together, but I'm also not of the opinion that a 12-year-old needs to have a love interest. And another peeve I have that appears commonly in fictional works is the idea that the first crush that you ever have in your entire life will be your One True Love and stay with you forever.

Which is only exacerbated the younger the protagonist is. Especially when they're twelve.

Aang's first words as soon as he comes out of the ice are basically, "Dude, I gotta HIT THAT hot piece of ass!" And this becomes his driving character arc in equal measure to being the Avatar for the rest of the series. A lot of shows do that, and I pretty much hate it every time. Aang has no business spending half his screentime trying to figure out how to get his dick wet with Team Mom.

Edited by TobiasDrake on Jul 23rd 2018 at 7:34:54 AM

Lol, we speaking mighty candid on these parts.

But no, I'm not a fan of that particular relationship development either. The Hero getting The Chick is unbelievably predictable and can be rather boring. However, I would argue that the "bad boy rival" getting with the female lead is just as overused and predictable.

I will say Kataang works for me personally simply because Aang and Katara are great characters who are definitely each other's best friend. It's...sweet, even with the age thing making it rather weird and Katara being motherly (though, she's motherly to everyone). It also doesn't really hurt either one of their characters.

Zutara would have been fine too, though.

I started watching the show recently, and I love it. :)

I think this is why I find Ehasz’s proposal for the unmade Season 4 fascinating, namely the idea that Aang was using romantic love to compensate for the loss of his people, and that him finding his people were still alive made him realize he didn’t really love Katara that way.

I loathe everything about that concept. I swear to god, even with my own issues with Bryke and their handle of the franchise post ATLA, each time I hear more about Ehasz’s plans for the series, the more I'm glad they didn't follow them.

This is fiction, just let me have a nice, well developed romance between two characters with chemistry, even if they fall into an obvious, cliched trope.

Zutara fine? Yeah, lets get the girl together with the guy who tried to KILL her for several years. That's gonna be some healthy relationship...

I mean, would YOU date someone who tried to murder you, and whose people have murdered your mother, and whose family are responsible for a genocide? Zuko may have switched sides, but he STILL was the villain for a lot of the time Katara knew him.

This ship is as mad as Harry/Draco. The hero dating their mortal enemy, current OR former, is NEVER a healthy ship.

The only Katara ship in the gang that sort of makes sense and wouldn't make people mad is Katara/Toph. Think about it:

Katara/Aang is a basic bitch of a ship (which I'm actually okay with but others not so much).

Katara/Zuko basically ignores the most-of-a-year-long animosity between them just because they're friends now.

Katara/Sokka is incest.

Katara/Appa or Katara/Momo is bestiality.

Katara/Suki is a crack ship since they never spoke to each other except for a handful of times.

Katara and Toph have quite the chemistry together.

Hmm, I think you may have a point there. It does seem to be a pretty popular ship, too.

Katara/Aang is... basically fine, really. Aside from being a storytelling stereotype, there's not much against it, and they are pretty close in age, too, so that doesn't count against it, either. Yes, it is a bit weird to have a 12 year old this much into relationships, but that is, again, more a consequence of how we adults tell romance stories to 12 year olds (and younger!) to begin with.

Zutara was also problematic for the reasons that have been stated already.

I honestly would not have minded if Avatar ended with Katara not being anybody's love interest. See above, re: a 12-year-old doesn't need a love interest. She's 14, which isn't as squicky but still falls into the category where I'm not sure why we need to be figuring out who her baby-daddy's going to be at this age.

Like. Realistically speaking, none of these relationships should have lasted a year past the war anyway. They're First Loves; the kind of relationship where you're supposed to make all your mistakes, screw up really hard, and learn what not to do in future romances.

Makorra is awesome for what it is: one of the most realistic depictions of First Love in media.

1. They were attracted to each other on a shallow surface level.
2. They got together.
3. They proceeded to f*ck everything up because of their own personal failings.
4. They broke up under the weight of all that bad blood.
5. They moved on with their lives and met new people, carrying the lessons they'd learned from past mistakes.

That's pretty much a spot-on depiction of how First Love works.

Edited by TobiasDrake on Jul 24th 2018 at 8:04:39 AM

And they remained friends after despite how shitty their breakup was, because they recognized that they were just stupid kids and forgave each other.

I think this is a case where the weird production history helped the series. Because Makorra was written as true love in Book 1, but then failed, it shows how first love can feel like your "one true love", without actually being it.

Are you just saying that because Katara's a waterbender...

You know, for all the talk about how romance subplot with a 12 year-old is weird, we sure are using a lot more sexually-explicit imagery with said 12 year-old than the show ever did...

I am okay with Kaatang is that it developed organically through the seasons. While Aang did start out as naive, I think people try to make it seem like he's more immature than he is. I know some cliches like the hero getting the chick can be annoying, but like it's been said Tropes Are Not Bad.

Ehh...I never said it didn't have its issues, but it's really not that bad. I'm not even a Zutara shipper by any means, but I see the appeal. Zuko, at the very least, did the work to get into good graces with Katara. Also he never really tried to kill her. Hell, he didn't even try to kill Aang. He had plenty of opportunities to do so. But he's not a killer. Even with his many flaws for the majority of the series, he was still a pretty noble person who deep down that slayed his demons. Katara and Zuko had issues in their past, but he wasn't some abusive monster or mass-murdering psychopath (*cough*Kylo Ren*cough*). They worked through them.

Also, didn't ATLA take place over one year?

As for M Akorra, I honestly felt that whatever they tried to with them didn't work. Not even their breakup.

The appeal of Zutara was that Katara was just bland enough for shippers to project themselves onto and Zuko was handsome and brooding.

Nah. The appeal of Zutara from what I've seen was opposites attract. Zuko's a firebender while Katara's a waterbender, Zuko's a villain for most of the show while Katara is a hero, etc.

The appeal of Zutara is that someone wrote a really popular fanfic about it and so the fandom glommed onto it and started superimposing it over the series proper.

Edited by TobiasDrake on Jul 24th 2018 at 6:45:05 AM