Aang X Katara: Avatar's Biggest Mistake?

look avatar Last a better is Iconic I think for modern pop culture Avatar is to Western cartoons what Star Wars used to be to sci-fi it is a juggernaut that even if it didn't actually invent the tropes and archetypes it popularized they codified them so thoroughly that now every story is doomed to be compared to it people can't say redemption arcs about somebody Whispering Zuko World building is so detailed that even the four nations have their own unique subgroup with their own unique identities and visual style the magic system while simple on paper can be used in so many different varieties of ways and so many different styles that'll never get boring with a writing that bounces the horrors of war with a Coming of Age story where the humor never takes away from the seriousness of the situation and all this is being written for a kids show avatar the Last Air bner is truly iconic it's pretty much the Benchmark for pretty much every serialized anime TV show will be compared to for the next 100 years no show is perfect but Avatar is pretty fucking close if you ignore the shipping I just said I was confused now I don't know how much of a controversial opinion this is while the Avatar Phantom has been pretty unanimous in mocking the shit out of the legend of core for its well romantic subplots I say this in quotes as the cliches the Ry that only exist to cause drama and the maximum effort being put into engage shipping around who core was going to end up with after all that nonsense I think we all can agree that this shit was ass the Romantic subplots of the last air bender though have gotten a free pass which bothers me since they're not that much better than kora's in fact the only real difference is how much Focus they get in the story kora's team Avatar is so crippled by shipping drama and love triangle bullshit that it could honestly be better described as kora's harm than her team in contrast Avatar sublots hijack the story way less as a story has way better things to do however there is one massive exception to this one ship that does kind of hijack the characters and the story they're trying to tell where the normally impeccable writing of Avatar is just it's at its weakest and that ship is ang xara the ship that nearly killed me now I'm never going to pretend to be objective whenever I talk about shipping or romantic subplots it's kind of impossible especially when the top is built around Vibes this is all going to be my personal opinion but when I say that this ship has been the ban in my existence since I was 12 I want you to know I'm dead serious a x guitar or Kang as fans will call it is pretty much my villain origin story for hating romantic subplots that don't get a conclusion till the last literal second of the series I honestly think I'm a bit of a freak when it comes to Avatar shipping discourse as not liking Kang is not a unique opinion but here's the difference I don't ship katang I also don't ship zutara sorry stands we are not the same yes so but here's the real mind fuck of this whole situation I actually don't mind angara as a couple I see the appeal I think it's cute when they end up together no what I actually hate about this ship is the Journey of how we got here as watching this 12-year-old try and flirt nearly killed me from just pure secondhand embarrassment the cringe is simply too strong with this ship and as someone who doesn't handle that well normally I spend most of This ship's quote unquote moments praying for it to just get it over with already combine that with the other complications of this ship of like Katara mothering a for most of the show weird instances I feel like it's there mostly for the plot not the characters edging this ship into Oblivion while I love this show romance has always been the weakest part of this franchise's writing and katang is my personal hell so let's bust out the red thread and conspiracy board just trace the moments that were supposed to build up to something and why it's never really worked for me I'll acknowledge along the way what the show actually does well but let's be honest this is going to be a rough one are you ready let's begin long ago the four nations lived together in yeah we don't have time for that intro it's perfect it's amazing but too much of this video is already going to be summary as we do need the context speaking of which did you know that katang wasn't always playn to be endgame nope yeah fun fact in the development stages of the show The Writers apparently had a lot of discussions deciding who was going to end up with who in fact there was a period where Toof was going to be a guy who you guessed it was going to be a part of a love triang between them qara and a this obviously didn't happen thank God but it just goes to show just how much of the show changed from the ideas that were originally pitched and what ended up on the screen I mean Zuko was going to be qatar's love interest something that the extras and the writers won't shut up about I would have gone qar isuko I know we lost that fight but uh yeah we did but was it a fight was was there talks about that in the rers room yeah yeah I I think definitely that stuff came up a lot I shit you not every third person who ever worked on this show including both of the voice actors for guitar and Zuko have all gone on record saying that they now ship zutara I take that with a little grain of salt as this ship is so popular that saying that you don't support it is pretty much a death sentence however however for all these alternate timelines all the talks of what might have happened while making the show the identity of who guitar's Future Baby Daddy was going to be was never hard to guess why are you smiling at me like that yeah Kang was set up from jump a woke up from a 100-year Ice snap in guitar's arms her face was the first thing he saw and he didn't blink till credits even they end up changing their minds later a crushing guar was so obvious that you pretty much couldn't ignore it and trust me I tried qar was the one who freed him from the ice well Twice first in the fit of rage as her brother was being a sexist dick and then she did intentionally when she saw that there was a boy in the popsicle guitar and Ang's relationship even if you don't want to view it romantically it is clearly b as being deeper than pretty much everyone else who's on the menu a doesn't play favorites unless you're his kids but out of Team Avatar qara was clearly first among equals sock and a were like brothers top was family the show always went out of its way to reinforce just how much more special qar and Ang's relationship was meant to be and you feel it in pretty much every scene they have together girl was ready to abandon her tribe to travel to the North Pole with a after they try and kicked him out guara is out here winning the gold medal for emotional heavy lifting as she has to pick up everyone else's slack even before she knew he was the Avatar she saw how he brought fun and life back into the village rejecting Saka xenophobic ass and befriending Ang immediately with a proving that he's worthy of that trust by protecting her Village even after they kicked him out sacrificing himself so that they can be left in peace and in case you thought okay there's not much here if you want more proof that qar is going to be the backbone of Ang's character remember it's her voice that snaps him into his super mode when he nearly drowns at the end of episode 2 the show was not being subtle we're going to save your boyfriend now this is a solid enough intro to the story even sets up like a potential romance later down the line as the hints are there and they are plentiful so at this point it was really just a question of watch it all play out rather than like questioning is it going to happen but then the show ran into what I think is one massive complication the kind that tanks this ship for a lot of people as you see Avatar is too good at writing these characters let me explain you see one of the things that endear me to the show is just how it's able to go from episodic Adventures while continuing a serialized story there's enough time here for shenanigans where the only real plot is to evolve and explore the characters fleshing out all of them and helping us get to know their fears and to explore their attachment to one another I think one of the best things that Avatar has going for it is that the length of the story gives it the time to allow its characters to never feel like they're trapped just being one thing to not just be one thing to another person like just look at guitar's relationship with Saga she's his sister but she's also just so much more more than that qara despite being the younger sibling is also the closest thing he has to a mother taking on that role after their mother was killed when they were young Saka takes qara for granted but also can't imagine his life without her he goes from dismissing her abilities to envying them and then accepting that he has his own gifts they are opposites but they also compliment and check each other Saka is smarter butara is wiser how they interact and bounce off each other depends on the circumstance yeah it always feels like they remain consistent to who they actually are everyone in team Avatar manages to be everything to everybody friend family rival parent and child child this is the Brilliance of Avatar's writing as it lends so much depth to their interactions even when the archetypes of who they are Remains the Same all of this is really good writing but this level of nuance kind of fucks this ship that's rough buddy so here's the thing there is definitely an arc about a growing from just the annoying kid with a crush to a more mature person who is in love with qara however how both of the characters are inin are giving two different flavors of ick which the show never manages to properly deal with leaving the Deep Web of connection that binds them together that feels so meaningful but from a romantic angle Houston we have a problem let's just start with the easy one first guara is Ang's mom now I won't be Deb on this like check me on the exact definition or description butara is undeniably a maternal figure in Ang's life probably the only one he has ever had as a lore from the show reveals that not only are air Nomads raised communally but boys and girls actually live in separate temples with the men living in the North and South while the women live east to west they do take field trips to go visit another like we see with the air bison but when it comes to who actually raised a he probably had exclusively father figures qara is the t- mom of the group she's been stuck mothering Saka for the last couple years so her mothering another orphan just came naturally it's how she learned to interact with others a responsibility she was saddled with after her mom passed and her dad left with all 20 people to go help in a war qara gives big supportive energy comforting those around her while stressing the importance of not giving up hope qara is an empathetic person who wants to protect people and uplift them especially when when they're going through hard times when the gang goes to Ang's old home in episode 3 despite knowing that the Fire Nation killed all the Aeron Nomads 100 years ago she still puts on a support front to a nodding along as he talks about how his friends yet some of them had to survive as he's unable to found the idea that everyone he knew is now gone she wants to protect a from that realization even though she knows he'll have to face it eventually she wants to give him just a few more moments before reality really kicks him in the teeth she goes so far as a hide evidence that the fire nation was here and trying to gently temper Ang's expectations only for to find the corpse formerly known as Dad monat surrounded by dead soldiers leading a to Hulk out forcing Qatar to be the one to snap him out of it where to do so she stresses how they are all family where your family now Ang may have been looking but the show put him into a box labeled familial and for a lot of people the show never really did enough to break that perception of their relationship not helping this is how guitar is Ang's Rock she is the emotional support sponge who takes everyone's trauma and lashing out to tell them that it will all be okay the line between supportive maternal figure and supportive partner is kind of non-existent so shippers can Lally pick and choose moments and try to claim oh this is a step forward of them falling in love but really what we're seeing is an intimate moment that isn't being fully coded as romantic see Koshi Island where Ang becomes a local celebrity showing off for all of his little fan girls with guitar warning him not to let the fame go to his head only it does immediately the two- hitter rough patch where Ang is relishing his new fame and attention she's mature enough to think long term while a is immature and only focusing on the present blinding him what he needs to do leading to a minor fight with it being obvious that for all the attention Ang is getting he also wants guaras more than anyone else's which for most other characters would be a sign of obvious romantic tension but instead it feels like a kid trying to show new trick he learn to a parent or friend we have a layer of a calling guitar jealous of his fan girls which puts his back into a friend hazy romantic thing yet also plays into guitar status as the responsible one feeling left out as she doesn't really have the luxury of being the one to goof off and not having to worry about whether or not they'll starve next week Gara does show up to watch him do something stupid after all his girlies leave they both apologize she saved his life when he nearly drowns again then hugs him at the end of the episode finally giving him the attention he's been craving you know like a child which he is we'll get to Ang's age in a bit now my personal take has always been that Avatar put katang in a hole that it just always struggled to dig themselves out of guitar being supportive and motherly isn't a bad thing nor does it exclude her from having romantic relationships but the show as it went on could never figure out the right ratio between romantic moments and platonic intimacy guara not seeing in as a romantic partner is part of their Arc I know you can stop typing however however just because it's intentional and makes sense in the world doesn't mean that it's good as the show is failing at one crucial thing making me want it and you know why because cringe a sweet little guy I definitely wouldn't want to kiss you you know me I don't really care what I eat okay then see you later what are we doing what our hearts have been telling us to do for a long long time [Music] [Applause] baby not going to die my ass that bitch nearly killed me this fucking ship was the bait of my existence as a kid already said I can't handle secondhand embarrassment and the 80% of their very minimal explicit romantic moments are all embarrassing so every time it happened I was in hell like I shit you not I had not seen guitar and Ang dance together till I made this video it started and I changed the channel because I just expected to be a fiasco as that's just how the ship train me to react whenever it tried to do anything romantic take the first explicit episode where we confirm that a has a crush onara he's being Ador giving her a new necklace after she lost her old one a is eating up the eye candy only for guara to call Ang a sweet little guy then Saka mocks him for being a couple and the dude took it personally and would spend the rest of the episode trying to get the girl with him bombing every single time he's EAS dropping on her getting her Fortune told jumping through the moon when guitar is told that her true love is a powerful Bender so a as the Avatar assumes that it has to be him then he fails at flirting as Saka for advice only to fail again then he tries to get flowers only for then thank God the plot steps in to make the story about anything else then we have to wait basically a whole season for any other big romantic Vibes that happen between them and it's kind of as contrived as a fortune teller giving them a prophecy about who qar was going to end up with as you see they get trapped in secret tunnels where they think the only way to get out might be to kiss causing a fight as they're trying to play it off as not interested only to do it later and they're being forced to do it because of contriving and it's just rough to get through like credit where credit is due the writers did a masterful job at writing a 12-year-old with no game and the girl who sees him as just a brother friend till she doesn't and she also doesn't realize he's checking her out this whole awkward situation is too real and I hate it so put this in my perspective the show despite having hints at Ang has a thing for qara early on the fact that they frontload them with so much were family now Vibes that guar is a maternal figure in Ang's life then the moments that are supposed to end dear them to me as a couple of a puppy dog love obsessing over guara and it's so painful that they make me want to change the channel it just kills my interest in actually wanting to see them together I love their characters I think their relationship is amazing but everything the show is doing especially in season 1 made me not want to engage with them in a romantic Light Young Love is awkward you can do without making me long for death the cringe is painful but it can be overcome the issues that Kang runs into is that a and guitar's relationship is so good in Nuance full of ups and downs where they fight and lean on one another then it feels like the writers would struggle when it actually came to writing a scene that conveys oh they're in love but romantically as differentiated to make it meaningfully different from all the other times they interacted they lean so hard into awkward puppy love that is just obnoxious it's painful to watch disrupts the good thing that they already had going and the moments like this are also way too spread out romantic katang moments are kind of like a Jack In The Box they will jump scare the shit out of you when you leas suspected there are times where you feel like they could do that but then they choose not to only for everything before and after to be fine moments that could be romantic aren't so you're just always left guessing Okay when are we actually going to do thisara crushing on jet gets no reaction from aqara stepping up as Ang's teacher only for him to be better than her sparking jealousy that's just them interacting as friends only for them to reconcile and everything to be good but okay now he's making her a necklace and obsessing but now we're back to family as Ang is afraid of losing them as he gets a message about where their dad actually is so then he hides the message until guilt makes him come clean they ditch him for a hot second but then they all get back together to fight Zuko and in the aftermath where they stress how to them Ang is their family only for them to put the South and South Pole cuz right after saying we're family guitar is kissing him on the cheek for getting back her necklace surprise Kang is just a subplot it's good that it's not hijacking other moments when it's not needed the fact that we don't spend too much time on it is a good thing just look what happened to Kora the issue here is isn't that they need more or less time no I think it's more of a question of Crea consistent sense of progression especially when it comes toara side we're always remind just how important guar is to him and the specialness of that relationship but the show really fails at showing qara come to love him this romantic subplot More Than Just Jack in the Box can also describe it as kind of leapfrogging over other moments and events Poppy and just remind us that their endgame then getting the hell out of the way till the next big splash so in a situation where guar and a mean so many different things to each other you have to stress and find a way of showing the audience them realizing their feelings and having those feelings affect how they see each other which again the show doesn't do for Katara sometimes I forget what a powerful Bender that kid is I suppose he is here's the trajectory palara feels about a she goes from I need to love and protect this kid as he's the Avatar and while he can save the world someone needs to save him but she's 14 he's 12 and short so romantically he just wasn't an option then the fortune teller thing happened where she's told that she'll marry up powerful Bender but she doesn't think for a second that it's Ang tsaka off handly mentions what a powerful Bender Ang is queuing her and then Ang just might be end game for her he's not on the menu but he is on her radar as a potential husband then nothing happens for the rest of the season besides a kiss of appreciation then we get to season 2 the aformentioned Secret Tunnel thing happens where based on extremely little evidence guar thinks that the only way for them to G the maze is to kiss it's embarrassing Ang wants to but pretends he doesn't leading her to get offended and they table the idea till their torches about to go out with them leaning to kiss but we don't actually see it happen the creators have confirmed that yeah they kissed hence the blush from guara at the end of the episode this could be a huge change to this tasal in how qar views a but then it's barely ever brought up again like not a peep they go back to their usual complex status quo with hints of Ang crushing but even when Ang is Thoroughly traumatized after losing Opa leading him to kill something for the first time in the series like it was a bug but he already got Momo back so he didn't do it because he had to he did it because he wanted to which they never bring up with it being guitar that keeps him from killing the people that kidnapped and sold Opa a emotionally shuts down after this ignoring all guitar's attempts to get him to be more hopeful with him refusing to be comforted till he sees the miracle of childbirth giving him hope again they hug it's great but it's not romantic moment so it doesn't really progress that side of their relationship or deepen it in that way also quick editors adendum yes I know a before that hug says seeing that birth reminds me of the love I feel for ABA and the love I feel for you toara yes I do remember that but to me this doesn't read like oh my God romantic Revelation he feels something forar no you don't really get that Vibe you don't seear even like grapple the fact oh he just kind of said he loves me no what it feels like isar realizing oh my God thank God he's feeling something again we don't ever get of her going back and saying oh he said he loves me oh shit no this is just I feel something now I have these feelings and I'm actually letting myself feel them but it's missing those massive romantic overtones that the typically does whenever it has these scenes and speaks of the fact that guara just having her own romantic love story having her realize like oh I'm in love is vastly underplayed and undeen as we never get him of her going back and realizing oh he kind of confessed here or have her really grapple with any of that I know what he said but the scene feels more intimate than it does romantic or at least that's just my take on it so they get to Bots and say nothing continues to happen a still looking but then qara gives Ang a kiss for good luck after a love confession got interrupted by Saka then we have the whole Avatar State Fiasco and Zara's 9/11 never forget then in lesser news Ang dies qara uses her magic water to save his life then finally in season 3 do we see guitar start being jelly of a around other girls so basically through all this we never really get a moment of guitar realizing that she has feelings for a we have no moment where something shifts in her mind that she doesn't just love a as a brother well I preached the story making a point of what a confusing nightmare it is to fall in love under these circumstances especially at this age and especially during a war yet I think the show shot itself in the foot by not having a single moment of self-realization for qara as without it we're left guessing when she knew that she caught feelings which without that we suddenly have to start calling to question their actual interactions together creating a debate between what moments happened because of underlying feelings and what happened because the plot needed it to so let's go back to the season 2 finale why would I choose cosmic energy over qara how could it be a bad thing that I feel an attachment to her three chakras ago that was a good thing so I mentioned it a couple times but Jack explained what the Avatar state is it is and was the coolest power up to me as a kid it's this rage mode that Ang could enter from time to time where he was basically Unstoppable with it later being revealed that the Avatar state is ang wielding the total power of His previous lives till that got kind of retconed by the whole Spirit thing but during this period he was basically Unstoppable with the risk being that if he dies in this state the Avatar dies as well no reincarnation no second chance just gone this day has got a out of a lot of difficult situations it is a little bit of a DSX Machina but its uncontrollable nature was the trade-off for how op it was season 2 begins with the idea that a should Master the Avatar State and if he did it it'd be an instant game over for the Fire Nation that a probably wouldn't need to master the rest of the elements as he really would just be that strong a tried and failed to master it initially being being pushed to do so by the Earth Kingdom General whose actor is now playing swai in the Netflix adaptation that's hot with General idiot over here deciding he just needs to trigger the state and then they can just go from there then he finds it and he does so by making it look like he killed qara things go sideways qara is the one who has to get him out of the Avatar State as again emotional support and she is the only one who can ever really reach him when this is happening but even after everything's calmed down the idea of controlling the avatar never really goes away with Ang his chancel he meets a guru who says he might be able to help him out in mastering his super mode before he leaves to do that something interesting happens Ang about to fly solo for a little while tries to confess his feelings for qara we have not had him be extra in love with her lately this just seemed like the moment to do it so he did all right who's ready to get going on a little men only man trip yeah that happened but then guitar without seeming me to realize what he was going to say decides to give him a kiss on the cheek for good luck which puts a on cloud n as he now has his expectation that he might now finally have a shot only for the guru to tell him that to master the Avatar State he has to abandon his Earthly attachments to the world AKA he has to give up on dating qara essentially the writers put Ang between a rock and a hard place as he not only has feelings for Katara but he just recently has gotten the vibe that he has a chance raising the stakes on this choice for him between love and mastering the Avatar State without that little Peck this ship would have been running on fumes as besides the situation forcing them to kiss we wouldn't have any outright romantic moments from guar to indicate to Ang that she might feel the same way she was trapped keeping everyone together in the desert she tried to console Ang after he lost Opa while intimate there's pretty much zero romantic tension in any of these scenes so why this is impactful why you can see why a would love this so it seems like a little thing this PEC pretty much raises takes for this choice for a only for him to try and actually give her up only for a vision of guitar getting in prisoned to snap out of this whole journey and makes him go and try and rescue her something that would have been done without the kiss with it makes the internal debate feel just all the more real for a and less painful for a section of the Phantom already screaming that he has no shot I like the sadistic choice being presented here forcing a to choose between power and the possibility for happiness with even resident Mr Rogers iro telling a that he made the right call choosing love over power yet I've never been able to shake the feeling that this kiss just comes out abruptly what the hell was that here's my deal for me guitar kissing Ang with the exception of the moment in the finale almost always feels like it's the plot trying to keep this shit up afloat rather than a choice guara would make for herself if we don't count the non-coerced by the circumstances kiss guitar only kisses people to show affection twice in the series which is enough time to build up the idea that this is just part of her way of showing affection or is a more casual thing for her she doesn't kiss Haru she doesn't kiss her actual Bad Boy Crush jet she doesn't really kiss her friends she doesn't kiss her family these kisses are reserved exclusively for Ang this is INSP the fact that they spend the the majority of their time together from kar's perspective platonically and since we lack kar's turning point where she starts to realize she might have feelings for him these kisses never feel quite right to me like she could have hugged him and nothing would have changed except for the fact that the show is now hinting that their endgame but doesn't want to commit an excessive amount of time to Ang's romantic subplots which let's be clear this is Ang's romantic subplots more than their romantic subplot it defines way more of Ang's character than it does katara's it's like a 7030 split on who gets screen time when this is being discussed which is a little lobs side when we need a wee bit more time to make these mons feel organic actually in the story and not set up for future events in shipping Fuel and something that makes this disparity all the more obvious the difference between all of Ang's romantic feelings and the lack of guaras is that romance in the show has the subtlety of a hand grenade avatar for all of its all audience's appeal was still made by the Nickelodeon so when it's going for certain moods it really doesn't leave any room for interpretation like they might as well be playing the same track and put a love filter over the scene cuz it's always that obvious so all I want to buy into the idea that this is a slow build they you're supposedly taking subtext of certain things and assuming this or that is when guara finally caught feelings Avatar's approach to writing romance isn't like that in the slightest they always Telegraph the shit out of it making the lack of a clear turn for guitar all the more noticeable all the romantic moments between the two is put into a very small box and the moment we see for guitar feeling things for a is even smaller so this leads the entire romantic Arc to feel less like a genuine subplot and it feels more like you're waiting for Ang to get the girl which when compared with all the other Great Moments between qara and a it really CHS what could have been a really solid romance yeah girls are waiting for [Music] [Applause] [Music] us you sure about that moving on so yeah zutara never forget it happened and got got he attempted to give up his feelings for guitar to save her when they reced only for isula to snipe him in the back with lightning nearly killing him with guitar using her magic wire to bring him back from the brink with this relief of him not being dead being the closest thing we get to a mood Shi for Katara as nothing is the same once we get to season 3 as honestly the vibe someone in the writer's room won the OTP debate I just used the spirit water from the North Pole I don't know what I did exactly you say me yes we're left to assume that seeing a nearly die changed something inara but it happened off screen as in season 3 she seems way more aware that she has feelings for a getting Jelly when he's around other girls having seen that feel way more romantic in nature than just intimate she may not realize she's in love but she's starting to realize how she cares is different than how she used to me a courtesy of dying and failing to save the Earth Kingdom waking up to the world believing he's gone takes a significant boost in maturity and angst as trauma will do that to you hating how he feels like he failed the world a second time he starts to feel crushed by his responsibility of saving the world only for his friends to remind him that he doesn't have to do it alone with guitar of course being the first one to hug him during his breakdown after which he's able to slip back into his more casual goofy Antics but that sense of worldliness never fully leaves him a is still 12 but he doesn't feel like that immature kid anymore goofy yes but the last couple months have been horrific and he is feeling it this finally makes Kang slightly palatable as angara finally feel like they're on the same level of maturity which is exhausted now season 3 for me is both the easiest and the most annoying season for this ship they're both blushing at each other they dance even got a kiss in afterwards as a congratulations it's not anything special when it comes to a show Shipping characters together this is pretty much the standard it's not great but it's not making me want to die inside minus that one hallucination you're my forever girl but outside the dancing everything else we get is not particularly Grand we still get tons of greates to explore their bond in meaningful ways nothing about the ship derails or commitment to each other or mess with the Dynamics of the team however despite us finally crawling to what I feel like should be the Baseline for cartoon relationships I still don't love it you want to know why because this is season 3 three seasons three real life years to get to a point where the ship finally stops feeling like desperate pining and start to feel just inevitable I've always said that I personally hate it when shows drag out a ship over the course of the entire series and katang is one of the biggest offenders of this hell it's the ship that made me hate this Trope I would say they were ready to be in a relationship in the early part of the season but there is a point where the answer to who guitar is going to end up with is so obvious that them dancing around it any longer is just annoying it annoys me as an adult and it annoyed me as a kid especially because I shipped it oh yeah did you see this plot twist coming yeah growing up I saw the potential of zutara I probably looked up way more fan art of that than I ever did of gang but when it came to the ship that was actually rooting for in the show it was Kang full stop no contest please just let them hook up i' had seen all the hints how Ang said in episode 1 how the love he felt for his family was REM manifested in his love for qara I cheered for a in all his little Milestones of trying to get closer to qara I was there rooting for him through all of it however looking back at it I don't think I ever actually truly shipped katang what I think I really wanted was closure this show spent three seasons hinting and pushing the idea that guitar and Ang were going to hook up with their being no real alternative for qara as any guy she was semi into disappeared after their episode but especially after the season 2 finale all those little hints all those almost moments of an confessing his feelings it all just builds to this frustrating teasing that basically trains his audience to want something even if they don't actually care for it you could have this exact same setup for any couple and you would get a huge section of the show's fan base to ship them as it's just a recipe designed to create Obsession to keep it almost happening then rinse and repeat till you're so desperate for that next hit that you're willing to just accept crumbs so even though I think the ship is just okay the journey to get there is exhausting the show has so many better things to do that when we go back to this it's like I get it are you going to pull the trigger no is this something that the show is actually having the characters grapple with or is this just something that they bring up when it's convenient like want proof guar and a kiss in the midseason finale and it's not brought up again till the penultimate episode like I'm not asking for the ship to take up more time God no I've seen what happens when they do but I just need the show to at least pretend it wasn't H the POS on whatever these two had going on we kissed at The Invasion and I thought we were going to be together but we're not like it's almost cute that the story acknowledges what it's doing yes crushing somebody in the middle of the war avoiding capture trying to save the world all of it is going to kill your dating game doesn't stop in other shows but here yeah toally I get it but something making sense doesn't make it enjoyable explaining why the ship has been on pause doesn't make the pause feel like the story isn't dragging it just justifies it kind of like how Ang's lack of maturity keeps peeking through when he kisses qara without consent I just said I was confused it was at this moment that he knew he fucked up oh the it's in character crowd just got real quiet or they just add three paragraphs to their comments as yeah this isn't great but it's not the worst example of this in the world Ang kissing Atara is one of those thankfully teachable moments where you can kind of forgive it because he is so young that he's thinking of himself misreading a situation and that he thinks this is what he should do he has no experience dating pitiful little experience actually dealing with women till literally a year ago this is a sign of immaturity not malice we can track how he got to this point as the last time it happened he again kissed Qatar without consent she was surprised but didn't pull away though that might have been shock but probably wasn't intended to be read that way instead they were supposed to have a moment so a didn't really register maybe there was a better way he should have gone about that hence when they're actually finally talking about what happened there's a pause guar is telling him I'm so confused right now and a misreads that and just goes for it only this timear actually yells at him for it causing him to realize just how badly he fumbled that situation now this brings me to the things that kind of turn people off of this ship as yeah I get it I'm sure plenty of people remember a time where something like this might have happened to them or just having a close friend who reveals that they have a crush on you and it just makes everything rough for everybody as what are you supposed to do with that this is a vibe that is all throughout this Arc so if you have attachments to these sort of things it's not really going to win you over especially since A's Arc is just kind of the worst moments of young love we watch him have a crush without realizing it the annoying puppy love eyeing guitar at in her swimsuit to the final intrusive phase where he's acting on it with mixed results the show pretty much gives us the most cringe parts of falling in love as a kid of think the girl you like only sees you as family to not understanding why they can't be with you right this second even if they might slightly return those feelings but while painful and awkward this is not a death sentence what does make this painful and not Salvage of the choice of how they tell this story we don't really ever get a moment to really unpack what happened and how A's been behaving Ang emotionally maturing is a big part of his overall Arc throughout the show but how it applies to qara it's almost incidental he does not change her grow for her a is a better person because of guara that cannot be denied but that's not because they're in love guara is just the MVP but a never grapples with how he's been behaving towards qara they straight up never talk about that Force kissed again we don't ever get a moan of H only up to the recurring flaws in his own behavior that he's been obsessing over Qatar irregardless of her own feelings something that he's been doing for all three seasons but after the kiss they don't talk one-on-one again in the show ever this is the last time they're ever Alone Together together till the war is over and the show is ending so they pretty much say well they might as well suck face I wouldn't call qar a prize Ang one for saving the day in maturing but it's in the ballpark of the hero always gets the girl where the ship is just expected to happen so it's not doing everything that can to make it feel earned it just trains you to want this to be over with and moves on to the actually bigger and better things guitaring have great chemistry as friends but the Avatar franchise is fucking terrible at writing romance as it relies on contrived circumstances tactics that feel less like a slow burn and more like bait and weight guara side of the relationship is criminally underexplored it is all the most painful and cringe moments of young love with none of the actual introspection to make it feel like the couple we get is a product of them overcoming that and proving to us that they are better off romantically instead of the million of other beautiful and amazing ways they are connected katang is a sideshow to the more interesting things in the story it's all buil up to just a giant kiss to cap of the series a while it's cathar Artic in the moment this ship it just isn't it I love anging a guitar I love them individually I love the bond that they share and I love how they both grow and change over the course of the series but them ending up together is fine but the process to get there is exhausting and feels so clunky compared to all the other writing in the series like we can just ignore the pointless arguments about a being actually 112 years old the main was frozen ice we just got to move past that the 12 to 14-year-old thing and just their maturity level is something that needs to be discussed that's really just going to be all up to personal opinion I clearly have biases when it comes to this ship and I'm not going to pretend otherwise but for me Kang is some of my least favorite romantic tropes but worst while the biggest offense this ship commits is that outside of one or two gem moments this couple is too basic in vanilla to make up for all of its flaws there are tons of Great Moments that show how meaningful important they are to one another the show failed to convince me that out of all the ways they connect and relate to one another that dating was the best option for them this ship at its best is mid I know a lot of people have Nostalgia for it but I think we all can sit back and admit that this ship in this romance it isn't that great I know some bitter shippers out there are going to be coming for me but if there's any consolation prize for me ripping into your favorite childhood ship don't worry zutara is next wait the fuck up Samurai we have a city to burn

Channel: Sarcastic Chorus

Views: 375,079

Keywords: avatar, lastairbender

Id: yIjk-ihNB38

Length: 38min 24sec (2304 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 23 2024