abandoned

marsreds:

emletish-fish:

theadamantdaughter:

marsreds:

science-fiction-is-real:

i love the art coming out of zutaraweek, and zutara is actually a half way descent ship, but honestly i really hate the idea of Katara being a “fire lady.”

Katara isn’t defined  by being zuko’s wife or girlfriend, okay?  She’s a water tribe warrior.  She’s going to spend her days after the show building up the water tribe and resurrecting southern style water bending.  She is not going to be wearing red and lounging around the fire nation palace.  I feel like katara loves her culture too much to ever give up her water tribe traditional attire, or even to leave the southern water tribe when there is so much work to be done there.

It’s the same very problem people have with Kataang.  Taking a strong awesome character like katara and turning her into someone’s wife.  no no no no!

???

What are you even talking about?

Katara wouldn’t become “a fire lady” Katara would become THE Fire Lady.

I agree with you, she would spend time building up the Southern Water Tribe, but ultimately the South Pole is too small for Katara.

She would, once things gain inertia to go on without her, grow restless. The natural progression for her character is to have her get into politics, since, you know, we already know that she’s a gifted public speaker (”Imprisoned”), has a mind for tactical thinking (The Guru”), has compassion enough fort the whole world (”The Painted Lady”- “I will never ever turn my back on people who need me!” is the defining Katara line.), and so on.

Literally no one who’s behind the whole Fire Lady thing would ever think that she would “[lounge] around the fire nation palace“. She would be an active participant in world and domestic politics. As she should have been in canon.

The Fire Lady is just a title. People use it because it is the title given to the spouse of the Fire Lord. (Which, ultimately, is what that prompt was about- happy marrieds Zuko and Katara.)

No one would even dream of reducing Katara to Zuko’s wife/girlfriend, the whole appeal of Zutara is how well they work together. It is borderline impossible* to ship Zutara and reduce Katara to Zuko’s wife/girlfriend.

She wouldn’t “leave the southern water tribe when there is so much work to be done there”, she would leave once the work she can do there is done. And turn to do more work worldwide.

Also, as I said here:

“[…] Katara is a Waterbender of the Southern Water Tribe. She has never doubted herself in that. Oh, she wasn’t very good at it at first, but even then she never went: “Oh, maybe I’m just not cut out for this” she went: “Well, I gotta work harder, I’m not there yet, but I will be.”

To think that it is possible for Katara to lose any part of herself, unless she wants to, is to fundamentally misunderstand her personality and her character.

In other words, to, you know, do like canon did.”

*People still manage, but thankfully, most of those types moved on to, idk, reylo, or smthing.

To add to that, all I’ve seen is an incredible effort by the artists/writers to incorporate her Water Tribe heritage and/or colors into her Fire Lady attire, and an incredible effort to uplift all of the Water Tribe attributes that make Katara the wonderful Southern Tribe Fire Lady that she is in a Zutara verse.

Also, getting married does not make you “someone’s wife.” Marriage is a beautiful partnership. Yes, a partnership. I speak from personal experience on that one. You become allies, the closest of friends, and lovers; two halves of the same whole, but not “someone’s wife.” Let’s not put down all the women who’ve chosen to marry their partner.

One of the big drawcards for Zutara for me is how it honours Katara’s character better. I see Katara DOING things with Zuko and this relationship enables her to be a great force good in this world. You can bet that after she’s helped her home become stabilised and fully rebuilt, she could turn her eye to the wider world. Trying to convert to a peacetime economy after a century of war would be extremely difficult for the FN, and would be a place where Katara’s many skills could be best used.

While A@ng may have only wanted a wife/babymaker - Zuko would never see or treat Katara that way. He’d see and treat her like an equal partner. Good grief, she’s not just going to abandon her heritage then lounge round the FN palace ordering servants about.

The title of Firelady would not automatically reduce Katara to nothing more than Zuko’s wife - because nothing reduces you in a relationship of equals. Good marriages are equal partnerships based on mutual love, respect and trust. Also speaking from experience.

The Kat@ang relationship was always unequal, and Katara was tragically reduced to voice-less, statue-less babymaker. In light of that, I understand your worry. But not all marriages would be as detrimental to katara as a character.

“because nothing reduces you in a relationship of equals.”

^^^ ding, ding, ding, we have a winner ^^^