AFS: A Love Epic and Unstoppable
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This page was last updated: July 5th, 2007
This page is linked from: The Aang/Katara Portal
Behind the cuts: Discussion of the Aang/Katara romance in The Guru and The Crossroads of Destiny.
rawles (edited slightly): Look at the connection that they've been building between Aang and Katara since the first episode; the connection that was not only reaffirmed in the season finale but literally made transcendent. (I mean, come on, love is energy, it can't be destroyed. The Air Nomads die and all of the love energy of an entire race is reborn when Aang wakes up, sees Katara, and loves her. Aang lets that love go, dies, then wakes up, sees Katara, and loves her all over again with the exact same blocking that they just reminded us of in the first part of the episode? It doesn't get much more anvilicious than that.) By the end of season 2, they'd finished saying that this love that has been one of the major emotional focii of the show.
Rawles: Shouldn't we be beyond calling it a "crush" considering Aang's feelings for Katara were extensively and explicitly highlighted as being LOVE (transcendental love with the intensity of an entire exterminated race, at that) all over the season finale?
Rawles, writing after an interview with Mike and Bryan in April of 2007: Dude. The major emotional conflict in the season finale was regarding the fact that Aang is in love with Katara. Big time, seriously, with the intensity of an entire destroyed race in love with her. Mike and Bryan, the creators of the show, just did an interview in which they explicitly stated that the Aang/Katara romance was something important to them and in the DNA of the show since they first started thinking of the project five years ago.
debacul writes in this essay: In 'The Guru' (2x19), the idea that the love of Aang's entire civilization was reborn in his bond with Katara is introduced while Aang is visiting with a guru who is going to help him master the Avatar State. While not an inherently romantic idea, it certainly gives a new insight into the depth of their relationship, and hardly allows for anyone to brush their bond off as "shallow" or anything similar. This point is reinforced with the imagery at the end of 'Crossroads of Destiny' (2x20). While Aang is waking up after being raised from the dead by Katara, the blocking and camera work of the moment clearly parallels that of their first meeting in episode one. He wakes up and they love each other, with the love that Aang shared with all the Air Nomads. The strength of their bond is that powerful.
But, going back to 'The Guru', Aang's ability to master the Avatar State is, according to the Guru, hinged on his ability to open his chakras, spiritual pools of energy in his body. On the last chakra, it is revealed that his attachment to Katara is hindering him from mastering the Avatar State, as he must let go of all earthly attachments.
Aang reacts vehemently to the idea of giving up Katara at first, but concedes eventually--until he has a vision of her in danger. Maybe foolishly and maybe selfishly, he rushes to her side, abandoning the Guru and his opportunity to master the Avatar State.
Katara has been taken prisoner by Azula in the Fire Nation coup to overtake the Earth Kingdom capital of Ba Sing Se. After herding up Sokka and Toph, Aang ends up teaming up with Iroh to find Katara. They have a discussion in which Iroh, the Wise Old Man of Avatar, tells Aang that love is more important than power and he was right in his choice. As Iroh is the "conscience" of the series, I wouldn't dismiss his views on the subject.
They end up discovering Katara in a cave with Zuko. Katara and Aang leave to go fight Azula, and they end up being vastly outnumbered and very nearly defeated. Aang, in order to save Katara, attempts to open his last chakra and trigger the fully-mastered Avatar State.
This moment, more than any other, just kills me with an overload of "THEIR LOVE IS TRUE AND EPIC, OMG" feelings. Aang is making the ultimate sacrifice for Katara--giving her up. She is the Most Important Thing to him, the thing keeping him sane, his anchor. He gives her a very heartfelt "I'm sorry Katara" before enclosing himself and meditating. However, while the Avatar State is being activated, he gets struck down by Azula's lightning.
Katara's reaction is absolutely devastating to watch. Her grief is raw and powerful and angry. She immediately begins to cry, and her rage empowers her as she creates a Tidal Wave of Love that allows her to get over everyone in her path and catch Aang before he hits the ground.
Then there is this shot, which is just...I don't know how to describe how heartwrenching it is to me. It's blocked a la the Pietà, a traditional pose of suffering in media (which is actually more appropriate than it usually is, as Aang is a Messiah figure who has just died). Here, her grief is so raw and she's hurting so bad because Aang is very possibly dead and he is the Most Important Thing in her life, too. It's just so powerful.
Iroh fights with Azula and her army to buy Katara time to allow her and Aang to escape. When safely on Appa, she revives him with the water she was given that is taken from the Spirit Oasis in the Northern Water Tribe. It works, Aang hazily opens his eyes and smiles at her before dropping off again, and she couldn't look more elated by the fact that he's alive.
I don't know what's more epic than the fact that her love brought him back from the dead.
Why the Avatar State Had to Go
Love vs. Power
Someone comments: Only Aang's attachment to her is restricted so that his love for her doesn't get in the way of his duties as the Avatar. If he really loves her, he'd let her go long enough to save the world so that they have a world in the first place for him to grow up, get taller than her, and make with the babies to their hearts' content.
Rawles replies, writing after "The Crossroads of Destiny:" But... Aang did try to let go of his attachment to her and it got him killed and the Avatar cycle possibly broken. I don't really see why the mastering Avatar State is seen as an absolute necessity to his saving the world. The concept of controlling it at all was only introduced in season two, long after we were presented with the fairly direct premise of Aang's saving the world (i.e. mastering all the elements and defeating the Fire Lord). Not to mention that when the idea of using it as a tool was introduced it was in a wholly negative light. And even though that was in large part due to the fact that they didn't know what they were doing in that instance, Roku still made a point to essentially warn him against relying on it. Which bears itself out in aforementioned season finale when, you know, exactly what was foreshadowed when Roku imparted the information he did came to pass.
It's been mentioned on various other threads, but Aang's duty is not to master the Avatar State. And even if it was, he ultimately did try, giving up Katara and all, and it didn't save him or anyone else.
I mean, I won't miss it if he never uses it again as, frankly, it was an obvious deus ex machina that served its dramatic purpose and doesn't really have any more use if the story is to have any sort of reasonable conflict or danger at all
Someone's response: I never said anything about the Avatar state. I said his duties as the Avatar, which I personally think should include mastering the Avatar state, since it is a part of being the Avatar.
Rawles' response: But you were arguing that Aang needs to let go of Katara to see to said duties, and the only time Aang's love for/connection to Katara has ever been in any way weighed against his duties as the Avatar (as opposed to actually being a boon in many cases) and him fulfilling them was in The Guru/Crossroads of Destiny when the specific issue was Love Katara vs. Master the Avatar State.
You think he should master it, I think that logically-speaking it would be great, but narratively-speaking it's a dead end and was always meant to go the way of the dodo. Furthermore, I think it was made perfectly clear not just through the fact that his attempt to master it went miserably awry, but also because of the general themes of the story oft-times explicitly stated by various characters (Iroh in this particular instance), that the authorial intent is certainly not to promote the idea that Aang should say "screw you" to love and go for the phenomenal cosmic power. It didn't not save him in the finale because Azula is so awesome; it didn't save him because the entire point is that it can't.
Also, it's not really a disgression since we're specifically talking about Aang and Katara's relationship and its immediate effects.
Will Aang have to give up Katara and master the Avatar State eventually?
Jag writes, obviously putting together Rawles' statements: Don't worry, Aang and Katara will be together when all is said and done.
And Aang isn't going to gain control of the Avatar State, not through clearing the chakras, and not through any other means. The Avatar State was destined to go by the wayside, anyway; it's a narrative deus ex machina that is ditched in season 3 and replaced with, you know, actually mastering the 4 elements and relying on your friends.
And even IF Aang was going to gain control of the Avatar State on the show, it wouldn't be through the emotional detachment recommended by the philosophies of the Air Nomads (which the Guru clearly adheres to). The theme of the show is love and the inherent power within. (I don't mean romantic-love, specifically, but any permutation of love). In "The Serpent's Pass," the lesson learned was that you need not stifle your emotions (as the Air Nomads teach), but embrace them and control them. The same lesson was learned in The Guru/CoD.
It's no accident that the usual Voice of Wisdom on the show brought forth the authorial intent when he said, "You're wise to choose love and happiness over power and war" (paraphrasing here). Entering the Avatar State failed to do what it accomplished, because Azula took him out and killed him before he could release the last chakra and gain control of the state. That was sort of the entire point of the season 2 finale: love is where the power is at. Aang and Zuko made the wrong choices at the Crossroads of Destiny, and both of them suffered or will suffer for it. The point is this: the Avatar State COULDN'T save them from Azula, because it in fact didn't. Chosing power/war over love was the bad decision, was the point. As, again, stated by Iroh, the Voice of Authorial Intent.
Also, on another level, the entire point of the season 2 finale was also that Aang and Katara's romance is indestructable, even by death. I mean, think about it. "The Guru" informs us that Aang's love for Katara is the reincarnated love of an extinct race, and we see this play out as a flashback of Aang awakening into Katara's arms. And then when all is said in done, after Aang "gave up" Katara, he awakens in her arms in exactly the same manner as when he initially awoke in her arms in the South Pole, and loves her in the same exact way. Their love, in other words, is indestructable by death, and the show once again in a very "giant neon sign," anvilicious way, proclaimed Aang/Katara as The OTP of the Show by Authorial Intent.
(Whether or not people want to see Aang/Katara is another matter, but there's just no denying of what's in the text.)
Anyway, I wouldn't worry about Aang giving up Katara. For clear narrative reasons as well as clues from "Escape from the Spirit World" (which is canonical and written by Mike), he's not even going to learn to master the Avatar State in the first place. He's not even going to be able to access his past lives at all, sooooo . . . he'll have to rely on his friends, and fulfill the message of the show as expressed well even in the final "Escape from the Spirit World" comic.
Why the Star Wars (Anakin) Analogy is Flawed
Rawles: People keep making the Anakin/Aang analogy, but it's flawed (for many, many reasons having to do with the tone and mileius of the shows in question, but most especially) because of the fact that Aang only temporarily rejected the Guru's advice. In the moment of truth, Aang did try to let go of Katara to master the Avatar state. And that was what had the disastrous consequences. Aang struggled with doubts in the same way that Anakin did, but in the end Aang chose to try to follow the teaching, Anakin chose to reject them.
The reason that both of these actions ended up with terrible results is because the two texts are very different thematically. With Star Wars, the way that Anakin's story is told, it heavily implies that the Jedi Code is right. That he shouldn't have been allowed emotion. Avatar strongly indicates, however, most particularly by having its normal Voice of Wisdom [=Iroh] explicitly say so, that love is the better choice. Not to mention that Aang was choosing love over power, while Anakin was choosing power in a misguided attempt to preserve his love.
Someone responds: The irony of that "moment of truth" is that Aang did it to save Katara...
Rawles replies: Indeed he did! Which I've mentioned before on various other threads. That doesn't invalidate the fact that he followed the teachings and Anakin didn't.
Someone responds: And actually, it wasn't implied that the Jedi code was right. Otherwise, why would the latter three movies have come first?
Rawles replies: I was speaking entirely in terms of Anakin's story. And in terms of his story, the way it played out, the heavy implication is that they were right in counselling him against emotion because he ignored them and that was his downfall. I'm not saying it's right or even like the authorial intent, I actually find it to be a flaw in the story itself that that can be so easily read into it, but by the facts of the text: if Anakin had followed the teachings instead of feeling everything all the time, he wouldn't have fallen.
Knights of the Old Republic I is one of my favourite video games of all time ever. I hated the sequel, however, and never finished it. I stopped playing sometime around the point when everyone in my freaking party was a Jedi and there was not a single reaction I felt was appropriate to the revelation of Atton's past. And again, I'm not saying that it's the authorial intent that the Jedi teachings be ultimate truth and infallible, but just...what I said above: it's really easily read that way because of the fact that they constantly go OH MY GOODNESS NO EMOTION OR YOU WILL FALL TO THE DARK SIDE and Anakin feels some things and...falls to the dark side.
"Giving Up" Katara
The Emotional Stoicism of the Air Nomads
Rawles, writing in response to the second commercial: Apparently, old dudes who hang out at air temples have some IDEAS about feelings and stuff. See also: "The monks always said hope was a distraction SO WE SHOULD LET GO OF IT." from The Serpent's Pass.
[The Serpent's Pass] wasn't about false hope vs. real faith. It was about Aang's complete absence of hope in the face of Appa's loss and how Bad And Horrible that was. Which would be the reason for all the tears of joy at the end when Aang admits that all his Abandon Hope talk was just him hiding from his feelings before the baby named Hope brought HOPE back to him.
By my estimation, Aang possibly being FORBIDDEN BY FATE AND THE UNIVERSE ETC. to love Katara would pretty clearly be setting up, you know, him eventually REJECTING THAT and SHAPING HIS OWN DESTINY and loving her anyway. MAYBE IT IS JUST ME. BUT LOVE IS TOTALLY THE FIFTH ELEMENT. Not to mention that this kills the whining that people have been doing forever about Aang/Katara having NO OBSTACLES.
(1) There might be other ways to master the Avatar State; (2) "Detatchment" doesn't mean "No Marriage," anyway
Someone writes: There also exists the possibility that none of the Avatars has ever mastered the Avatar State.
Rawles replies: No it doesn't really. We have five different instances of Avatars intentionally activating and then using the Avatar State. Plus, Roku outright said that that he did eventually master the Avatar State. Just because the clearing of chakras was the way Guru Pathik went about it doesn't mean that that's the only way. Guru Pathik was a spiritual brother to the Air Nomads, the teachings of whom we know exhalt the idea of emotional detachment in general. Maybe the other three cultures have different ways of controlling the Avatar State. Not to mention that in the comic we come in after Roku has already been trying to master the Avatar State for months, so who's to say that he hadn't already long since cleared his chakras, but there happened to be more to it for him?
I'm inclined to believe as other people have already posited, that the releasing of "earthly attachment" doesn't mean that Avatars are not allowed to love, or even love specific people, or even love specific people romantically, but rather that they must be able to get to a point where they won't put that specific person's well-being and their attachment to them ahead of the concerns of the rest of the world.
Someone replies: Do you actually understand the concept of romance and marriage? Nevermind, your post answers that clearly enough. By definition, that person becomes the single most important thing in your life, barring children perhaps.
Rawles replies: Yes, I do very well understand the concepts of romance and marriage. And I also understand that what those things mean and what they require is different to different people depending on their circumstances and as such there's no reason for you to be condescending and rude because you feel that people haven't expressed an appropriate understanding of your personal view of them and what they require.
Point being, the different sorts of love and levels of devotion are important especially when you're talking about people in positions where their primary duty is NOT actually to those personally closest to them, but to some other larger whole. Kings and rulers and Slayers and, yes, Avatars by virtue of their jobs might not be able to love in the same way that a random Joe can, but that doesn't mean that they can't love at all. It's not black and white. It's not that simple. Just because someone's duty requires them to be able to prioritize the needs of many people doesn't mean that they don't love the people close to them. It just means that they have a higher purpose and a calling that requires them being able to make decisions for the greater good.
Even in your own post when you mention the caveat of children you've demonstrated one of those gradations of caring and responsibility that exist outside of the realm of fairytale marriage and romance where ONE PERSON ALONE trumps all other concerns with which you could ever be faced. That's unrealistic and, furthermore, when people do value a single person more than everything else in the world it's generally considered unhealthy.
If you can believe that someone who, when faced with such an impossible choice, would choose, say, the lives of their children over the life of their beloved does actually love their spouse/S.O. then I see no reason not to believe also that someone who, when faced with a similarly impossible choice, is capable of choosing the lives of countless people for whom they are responsible over their beloved doesn't also love their spouse/S.O.
And you still haven't addressed the idea that there are alternative ways of mastering the Avatar State that don't go in with the Air Nomad's worship of emotional detachment. Or were you too busy trying to make people feel stupid to actually consider all of the points being put forth?
Someone replies: And if you are suggesting that deeply loving married people aren't completely and overwhelmingly concerned and biased with each other......well then I give up.
Rawles replies: I'm not suggesting that no bias exists. There is always bias, always, as long as you're dealing with sentient beings with feelings and emotions. However, I do believe that a moral enough person who is dedicated to their duty would be capable of making a hard decision. I don't think that just because you love someone you have to be OVERWHELMINGLY biased towards them.
Avatars are all inherently deeply biased just based on the fact that they are born into and live at least the first 16 years of their life in a single nation. They spend their lives, up until what their world considers adulthood, identifying as a member of that nation and a bender of that specific element before they're even told that they are the Avatar. Realistically, that doesn't just go away so they've already essentially failed by the standards you're putting forth.
Like Kyoshi for instance, who as far as we know was unmarried, but who was also very biased towards her own region of birth. She allowed Chin to conquer nearly the entire continent for whatever reason and then only stopped him when he arrived at her home. She wouldn't allow him to wage war on her people.
I'm not even arguing that an entirely unbiased Avatar who was raised in seclusion off on some faraway and entirely neutral place (though, of course, s/he would then probably be even more biased than usual towards whoever had raised them) might not be best for the world. I mean, I could conceivably argue that, but I'm not.
What I'm saying is that it's pretty clear that many an Avatar has lived and done their job and mastered the Avatar State and all with their biases firmly in place, so there is no compelling reason why Aang should have to do it any differently. And there's certainly no factual one.
Aang's love for Katara is a huge part of coping with his irretrievable loss
Someone posits: If finding out all your friends were senselessly murdered to get to you doesn't traumatize you for life, I don't know what will.
Rawles replies: Of course, it was heavily implied that a large part of the reason that he hasn't been noticeably traumatized for life/took it in stride is because of his instaneous and transcendent love for Katara. I mean Guru Pathik did directly relate Aang's ability to let go of/control his grief for the Air Nomads to his love for Katara.
The point of the season 2 finale: love cannot be destroyed
memlu comments: Whenever someone brings up Aang letting her go, I'm going to quote "The Guru" Re: the Airbenders' love coming back to him in another form. See also loving Katara even after letting her go.
Rawles replies: I just finished watching it again. When he wakes up. When he wakes up. And it is their first meeting all over again. I sort of . . . don't understand how anyone cannot understand. He couldn't let go of love for power or to save the world. He let go of love for love. Then love came back to him. Just like the first time. And now maybe never have the Avatar State to fall back on again?!
Memlu replies: Just. "I'm sorry, Katara," and -- the looks on their faces, his when he decides this is what he has to do, and hers when he falls, and then the ending when love comes back. I just. [. . .] LOVE, man.
[[Memlu also mentions elsewhere Katara's tidal wave of loooooove . . . very Chosen One/Protectoress!]].
Rawles replies: We just had a season finale largely about how their love is perhaps actually literally freakin' transcendant. If people don't believe it now, they just...never ever will.
Zutarian: when aang was opening 7 chakra he let her go write ?
Rawles replies: First of all, according to the official site, Aang never cleared the 7th chakra, but disregarding that, the entire theme of love not dying/being reborn is carried out by the mirroring of Aang and Katara's first meeting at the end of Crossroads of Destiny. The Air Nomads all die, the energy of their love is reborn in the form of Aang's love for Katara; thus he wakes up and sees her face and loves her. Aang lets go of that love, dies (?), then he wakes up, sees her face, and loves her. It's a cycle. In the Avatarverse, love, like energy, like matter, cannot be destroyed.
gambitia writes: Katara's actions from Aang's ascendance to the Avatar State on in the finale got some of the most powerful reactions I've ever felt to a TV show. When Katara beamed when Aang started floating up in the Avatar State, my heart swelled with hers. And I felt her devastation and anguish when Aang was shot down, and her pain when she thought her healing didn't work, and her half-crazed joy when it did.
And at the end, when the Earth King says "The Earth Kingdom...has fallen," and that warning music plays, and the camera pans down to Katara cradling Aang, and you can see the deep lines on Katara's face and her fatigue and her worry, and then she looks up and animated eyes have no right to be that powerful. I still get chills everytime I watch that scene.
Rawles (edited slightly): Look at the connection that they've been building between Aang and Katara since the first episode; the connection that was not only reaffirmed in the season finale but literally made transcendent. (I mean, come on, love is energy, it can't be destroyed. The Air Nomads die and all of the love energy of an entire race is reborn when Aang wakes up, sees Katara, and loves her. Aang lets that love go, dies, then wakes up, sees Katara, and loves her all over again with the exact same blocking that they just reminded us of in the first part of the episode? It doesn't get much more anvilicious than that.) By the end of season 2, they'd finished saying that this love that has been one of the major emotional focii of the show.
The Angry Look at Zuko: Not Jealousy
Rawles: I know that people love to read Aang's angry look at Zuko as jealousy, but I, honestly, find that to be more fandom's influence than a wholly accurate reading of the situation. The point of that interchange (and the Gaang's interchange with Iroh earlier) was to highlight the fact that Aang dislikes Zuko and Zuko dislikes him right back. It wasn't blocked like romantic jealousy. Aang and Iroh come in and there isn't any pause or whatever to note Zuko and Katara's proximity and then Aang's jealous reaction to same. They come in and Katara immediately rushes over to Aang and hugs him. Aang doesn't have any reason to be jealous, and he isn't, he just hugs Katara joyfully back. THEN, he catches sight of Zuko and shoots him a dirty look because he just doesn't like him. Zuko returns said dirty look and demands that Iroh tell him what he's doing with the Avatar. (To clarify this on Zuko's end, he never has any sort of WHY ARE YOU INTERRUPTING US reaction to any of it. Another sort of key factor if we're setting up a romantic triangle.) Aang smartmouths at him about it and Zuko gets even more angry. I feel like Aang and Zuko's hostility there was all about the fact that they are enemies and have been since the moment they met and Zuko doesn't understand why Iroh is helping Aang and furthermore he feels betrayed by it.
This page was last updated: July 5th, 2007
This page is linked from: The Aang/Katara Portal
Behind the cuts: Discussion of the Aang/Katara romance in The Guru and The Crossroads of Destiny.
rawles (edited slightly): Look at the connection that they've been building between Aang and Katara since the first episode; the connection that was not only reaffirmed in the season finale but literally made transcendent. (I mean, come on, love is energy, it can't be destroyed. The Air Nomads die and all of the love energy of an entire race is reborn when Aang wakes up, sees Katara, and loves her. Aang lets that love go, dies, then wakes up, sees Katara, and loves her all over again with the exact same blocking that they just reminded us of in the first part of the episode? It doesn't get much more anvilicious than that.) By the end of season 2, they'd finished saying that this love that has been one of the major emotional focii of the show.
Rawles: Shouldn't we be beyond calling it a "crush" considering Aang's feelings for Katara were extensively and explicitly highlighted as being LOVE (transcendental love with the intensity of an entire exterminated race, at that) all over the season finale?
Rawles, writing after an interview with Mike and Bryan in April of 2007: Dude. The major emotional conflict in the season finale was regarding the fact that Aang is in love with Katara. Big time, seriously, with the intensity of an entire destroyed race in love with her. Mike and Bryan, the creators of the show, just did an interview in which they explicitly stated that the Aang/Katara romance was something important to them and in the DNA of the show since they first started thinking of the project five years ago.
debacul writes in this essay: In 'The Guru' (2x19), the idea that the love of Aang's entire civilization was reborn in his bond with Katara is introduced while Aang is visiting with a guru who is going to help him master the Avatar State. While not an inherently romantic idea, it certainly gives a new insight into the depth of their relationship, and hardly allows for anyone to brush their bond off as "shallow" or anything similar. This point is reinforced with the imagery at the end of 'Crossroads of Destiny' (2x20). While Aang is waking up after being raised from the dead by Katara, the blocking and camera work of the moment clearly parallels that of their first meeting in episode one. He wakes up and they love each other, with the love that Aang shared with all the Air Nomads. The strength of their bond is that powerful.
But, going back to 'The Guru', Aang's ability to master the Avatar State is, according to the Guru, hinged on his ability to open his chakras, spiritual pools of energy in his body. On the last chakra, it is revealed that his attachment to Katara is hindering him from mastering the Avatar State, as he must let go of all earthly attachments.
Aang reacts vehemently to the idea of giving up Katara at first, but concedes eventually--until he has a vision of her in danger. Maybe foolishly and maybe selfishly, he rushes to her side, abandoning the Guru and his opportunity to master the Avatar State.
Katara has been taken prisoner by Azula in the Fire Nation coup to overtake the Earth Kingdom capital of Ba Sing Se. After herding up Sokka and Toph, Aang ends up teaming up with Iroh to find Katara. They have a discussion in which Iroh, the Wise Old Man of Avatar, tells Aang that love is more important than power and he was right in his choice. As Iroh is the "conscience" of the series, I wouldn't dismiss his views on the subject.
They end up discovering Katara in a cave with Zuko. Katara and Aang leave to go fight Azula, and they end up being vastly outnumbered and very nearly defeated. Aang, in order to save Katara, attempts to open his last chakra and trigger the fully-mastered Avatar State.
This moment, more than any other, just kills me with an overload of "THEIR LOVE IS TRUE AND EPIC, OMG" feelings. Aang is making the ultimate sacrifice for Katara--giving her up. She is the Most Important Thing to him, the thing keeping him sane, his anchor. He gives her a very heartfelt "I'm sorry Katara" before enclosing himself and meditating. However, while the Avatar State is being activated, he gets struck down by Azula's lightning.
Katara's reaction is absolutely devastating to watch. Her grief is raw and powerful and angry. She immediately begins to cry, and her rage empowers her as she creates a Tidal Wave of Love that allows her to get over everyone in her path and catch Aang before he hits the ground.
Then there is this shot, which is just...I don't know how to describe how heartwrenching it is to me. It's blocked a la the Pietà, a traditional pose of suffering in media (which is actually more appropriate than it usually is, as Aang is a Messiah figure who has just died). Here, her grief is so raw and she's hurting so bad because Aang is very possibly dead and he is the Most Important Thing in her life, too. It's just so powerful.
Iroh fights with Azula and her army to buy Katara time to allow her and Aang to escape. When safely on Appa, she revives him with the water she was given that is taken from the Spirit Oasis in the Northern Water Tribe. It works, Aang hazily opens his eyes and smiles at her before dropping off again, and she couldn't look more elated by the fact that he's alive.
I don't know what's more epic than the fact that her love brought him back from the dead.
Why the Avatar State Had to Go
Love vs. Power
Someone comments: Only Aang's attachment to her is restricted so that his love for her doesn't get in the way of his duties as the Avatar. If he really loves her, he'd let her go long enough to save the world so that they have a world in the first place for him to grow up, get taller than her, and make with the babies to their hearts' content.
Rawles replies, writing after "The Crossroads of Destiny:" But... Aang did try to let go of his attachment to her and it got him killed and the Avatar cycle possibly broken. I don't really see why the mastering Avatar State is seen as an absolute necessity to his saving the world. The concept of controlling it at all was only introduced in season two, long after we were presented with the fairly direct premise of Aang's saving the world (i.e. mastering all the elements and defeating the Fire Lord). Not to mention that when the idea of using it as a tool was introduced it was in a wholly negative light. And even though that was in large part due to the fact that they didn't know what they were doing in that instance, Roku still made a point to essentially warn him against relying on it. Which bears itself out in aforementioned season finale when, you know, exactly what was foreshadowed when Roku imparted the information he did came to pass.
It's been mentioned on various other threads, but Aang's duty is not to master the Avatar State. And even if it was, he ultimately did try, giving up Katara and all, and it didn't save him or anyone else.
I mean, I won't miss it if he never uses it again as, frankly, it was an obvious deus ex machina that served its dramatic purpose and doesn't really have any more use if the story is to have any sort of reasonable conflict or danger at all
Someone's response: I never said anything about the Avatar state. I said his duties as the Avatar, which I personally think should include mastering the Avatar state, since it is a part of being the Avatar.
Rawles' response: But you were arguing that Aang needs to let go of Katara to see to said duties, and the only time Aang's love for/connection to Katara has ever been in any way weighed against his duties as the Avatar (as opposed to actually being a boon in many cases) and him fulfilling them was in The Guru/Crossroads of Destiny when the specific issue was Love Katara vs. Master the Avatar State.
You think he should master it, I think that logically-speaking it would be great, but narratively-speaking it's a dead end and was always meant to go the way of the dodo. Furthermore, I think it was made perfectly clear not just through the fact that his attempt to master it went miserably awry, but also because of the general themes of the story oft-times explicitly stated by various characters (Iroh in this particular instance), that the authorial intent is certainly not to promote the idea that Aang should say "screw you" to love and go for the phenomenal cosmic power. It didn't not save him in the finale because Azula is so awesome; it didn't save him because the entire point is that it can't.
Also, it's not really a disgression since we're specifically talking about Aang and Katara's relationship and its immediate effects.
Will Aang have to give up Katara and master the Avatar State eventually?
Jag writes, obviously putting together Rawles' statements: Don't worry, Aang and Katara will be together when all is said and done.
And Aang isn't going to gain control of the Avatar State, not through clearing the chakras, and not through any other means. The Avatar State was destined to go by the wayside, anyway; it's a narrative deus ex machina that is ditched in season 3 and replaced with, you know, actually mastering the 4 elements and relying on your friends.
And even IF Aang was going to gain control of the Avatar State on the show, it wouldn't be through the emotional detachment recommended by the philosophies of the Air Nomads (which the Guru clearly adheres to). The theme of the show is love and the inherent power within. (I don't mean romantic-love, specifically, but any permutation of love). In "The Serpent's Pass," the lesson learned was that you need not stifle your emotions (as the Air Nomads teach), but embrace them and control them. The same lesson was learned in The Guru/CoD.
It's no accident that the usual Voice of Wisdom on the show brought forth the authorial intent when he said, "You're wise to choose love and happiness over power and war" (paraphrasing here). Entering the Avatar State failed to do what it accomplished, because Azula took him out and killed him before he could release the last chakra and gain control of the state. That was sort of the entire point of the season 2 finale: love is where the power is at. Aang and Zuko made the wrong choices at the Crossroads of Destiny, and both of them suffered or will suffer for it. The point is this: the Avatar State COULDN'T save them from Azula, because it in fact didn't. Chosing power/war over love was the bad decision, was the point. As, again, stated by Iroh, the Voice of Authorial Intent.
Also, on another level, the entire point of the season 2 finale was also that Aang and Katara's romance is indestructable, even by death. I mean, think about it. "The Guru" informs us that Aang's love for Katara is the reincarnated love of an extinct race, and we see this play out as a flashback of Aang awakening into Katara's arms. And then when all is said in done, after Aang "gave up" Katara, he awakens in her arms in exactly the same manner as when he initially awoke in her arms in the South Pole, and loves her in the same exact way. Their love, in other words, is indestructable by death, and the show once again in a very "giant neon sign," anvilicious way, proclaimed Aang/Katara as The OTP of the Show by Authorial Intent.
(Whether or not people want to see Aang/Katara is another matter, but there's just no denying of what's in the text.)
Anyway, I wouldn't worry about Aang giving up Katara. For clear narrative reasons as well as clues from "Escape from the Spirit World" (which is canonical and written by Mike), he's not even going to learn to master the Avatar State in the first place. He's not even going to be able to access his past lives at all, sooooo . . . he'll have to rely on his friends, and fulfill the message of the show as expressed well even in the final "Escape from the Spirit World" comic.
Why the Star Wars (Anakin) Analogy is Flawed
Rawles: People keep making the Anakin/Aang analogy, but it's flawed (for many, many reasons having to do with the tone and mileius of the shows in question, but most especially) because of the fact that Aang only temporarily rejected the Guru's advice. In the moment of truth, Aang did try to let go of Katara to master the Avatar state. And that was what had the disastrous consequences. Aang struggled with doubts in the same way that Anakin did, but in the end Aang chose to try to follow the teaching, Anakin chose to reject them.
The reason that both of these actions ended up with terrible results is because the two texts are very different thematically. With Star Wars, the way that Anakin's story is told, it heavily implies that the Jedi Code is right. That he shouldn't have been allowed emotion. Avatar strongly indicates, however, most particularly by having its normal Voice of Wisdom [=Iroh] explicitly say so, that love is the better choice. Not to mention that Aang was choosing love over power, while Anakin was choosing power in a misguided attempt to preserve his love.
Someone responds: The irony of that "moment of truth" is that Aang did it to save Katara...
Rawles replies: Indeed he did! Which I've mentioned before on various other threads. That doesn't invalidate the fact that he followed the teachings and Anakin didn't.
Someone responds: And actually, it wasn't implied that the Jedi code was right. Otherwise, why would the latter three movies have come first?
Rawles replies: I was speaking entirely in terms of Anakin's story. And in terms of his story, the way it played out, the heavy implication is that they were right in counselling him against emotion because he ignored them and that was his downfall. I'm not saying it's right or even like the authorial intent, I actually find it to be a flaw in the story itself that that can be so easily read into it, but by the facts of the text: if Anakin had followed the teachings instead of feeling everything all the time, he wouldn't have fallen.
Knights of the Old Republic I is one of my favourite video games of all time ever. I hated the sequel, however, and never finished it. I stopped playing sometime around the point when everyone in my freaking party was a Jedi and there was not a single reaction I felt was appropriate to the revelation of Atton's past. And again, I'm not saying that it's the authorial intent that the Jedi teachings be ultimate truth and infallible, but just...what I said above: it's really easily read that way because of the fact that they constantly go OH MY GOODNESS NO EMOTION OR YOU WILL FALL TO THE DARK SIDE and Anakin feels some things and...falls to the dark side.
"Giving Up" Katara
The Emotional Stoicism of the Air Nomads
Rawles, writing in response to the second commercial: Apparently, old dudes who hang out at air temples have some IDEAS about feelings and stuff. See also: "The monks always said hope was a distraction SO WE SHOULD LET GO OF IT." from The Serpent's Pass.
[The Serpent's Pass] wasn't about false hope vs. real faith. It was about Aang's complete absence of hope in the face of Appa's loss and how Bad And Horrible that was. Which would be the reason for all the tears of joy at the end when Aang admits that all his Abandon Hope talk was just him hiding from his feelings before the baby named Hope brought HOPE back to him.
By my estimation, Aang possibly being FORBIDDEN BY FATE AND THE UNIVERSE ETC. to love Katara would pretty clearly be setting up, you know, him eventually REJECTING THAT and SHAPING HIS OWN DESTINY and loving her anyway. MAYBE IT IS JUST ME. BUT LOVE IS TOTALLY THE FIFTH ELEMENT. Not to mention that this kills the whining that people have been doing forever about Aang/Katara having NO OBSTACLES.
(1) There might be other ways to master the Avatar State; (2) "Detatchment" doesn't mean "No Marriage," anyway
Someone writes: There also exists the possibility that none of the Avatars has ever mastered the Avatar State.
Rawles replies: No it doesn't really. We have five different instances of Avatars intentionally activating and then using the Avatar State. Plus, Roku outright said that that he did eventually master the Avatar State. Just because the clearing of chakras was the way Guru Pathik went about it doesn't mean that that's the only way. Guru Pathik was a spiritual brother to the Air Nomads, the teachings of whom we know exhalt the idea of emotional detachment in general. Maybe the other three cultures have different ways of controlling the Avatar State. Not to mention that in the comic we come in after Roku has already been trying to master the Avatar State for months, so who's to say that he hadn't already long since cleared his chakras, but there happened to be more to it for him?
I'm inclined to believe as other people have already posited, that the releasing of "earthly attachment" doesn't mean that Avatars are not allowed to love, or even love specific people, or even love specific people romantically, but rather that they must be able to get to a point where they won't put that specific person's well-being and their attachment to them ahead of the concerns of the rest of the world.
Someone replies: Do you actually understand the concept of romance and marriage? Nevermind, your post answers that clearly enough. By definition, that person becomes the single most important thing in your life, barring children perhaps.
Rawles replies: Yes, I do very well understand the concepts of romance and marriage. And I also understand that what those things mean and what they require is different to different people depending on their circumstances and as such there's no reason for you to be condescending and rude because you feel that people haven't expressed an appropriate understanding of your personal view of them and what they require.
Point being, the different sorts of love and levels of devotion are important especially when you're talking about people in positions where their primary duty is NOT actually to those personally closest to them, but to some other larger whole. Kings and rulers and Slayers and, yes, Avatars by virtue of their jobs might not be able to love in the same way that a random Joe can, but that doesn't mean that they can't love at all. It's not black and white. It's not that simple. Just because someone's duty requires them to be able to prioritize the needs of many people doesn't mean that they don't love the people close to them. It just means that they have a higher purpose and a calling that requires them being able to make decisions for the greater good.
Even in your own post when you mention the caveat of children you've demonstrated one of those gradations of caring and responsibility that exist outside of the realm of fairytale marriage and romance where ONE PERSON ALONE trumps all other concerns with which you could ever be faced. That's unrealistic and, furthermore, when people do value a single person more than everything else in the world it's generally considered unhealthy.
If you can believe that someone who, when faced with such an impossible choice, would choose, say, the lives of their children over the life of their beloved does actually love their spouse/S.O. then I see no reason not to believe also that someone who, when faced with a similarly impossible choice, is capable of choosing the lives of countless people for whom they are responsible over their beloved doesn't also love their spouse/S.O.
And you still haven't addressed the idea that there are alternative ways of mastering the Avatar State that don't go in with the Air Nomad's worship of emotional detachment. Or were you too busy trying to make people feel stupid to actually consider all of the points being put forth?
Someone replies: And if you are suggesting that deeply loving married people aren't completely and overwhelmingly concerned and biased with each other......well then I give up.
Rawles replies: I'm not suggesting that no bias exists. There is always bias, always, as long as you're dealing with sentient beings with feelings and emotions. However, I do believe that a moral enough person who is dedicated to their duty would be capable of making a hard decision. I don't think that just because you love someone you have to be OVERWHELMINGLY biased towards them.
Avatars are all inherently deeply biased just based on the fact that they are born into and live at least the first 16 years of their life in a single nation. They spend their lives, up until what their world considers adulthood, identifying as a member of that nation and a bender of that specific element before they're even told that they are the Avatar. Realistically, that doesn't just go away so they've already essentially failed by the standards you're putting forth.
Like Kyoshi for instance, who as far as we know was unmarried, but who was also very biased towards her own region of birth. She allowed Chin to conquer nearly the entire continent for whatever reason and then only stopped him when he arrived at her home. She wouldn't allow him to wage war on her people.
I'm not even arguing that an entirely unbiased Avatar who was raised in seclusion off on some faraway and entirely neutral place (though, of course, s/he would then probably be even more biased than usual towards whoever had raised them) might not be best for the world. I mean, I could conceivably argue that, but I'm not.
What I'm saying is that it's pretty clear that many an Avatar has lived and done their job and mastered the Avatar State and all with their biases firmly in place, so there is no compelling reason why Aang should have to do it any differently. And there's certainly no factual one.
Aang's love for Katara is a huge part of coping with his irretrievable loss
Someone posits: If finding out all your friends were senselessly murdered to get to you doesn't traumatize you for life, I don't know what will.
Rawles replies: Of course, it was heavily implied that a large part of the reason that he hasn't been noticeably traumatized for life/took it in stride is because of his instaneous and transcendent love for Katara. I mean Guru Pathik did directly relate Aang's ability to let go of/control his grief for the Air Nomads to his love for Katara.
The point of the season 2 finale: love cannot be destroyed
memlu comments: Whenever someone brings up Aang letting her go, I'm going to quote "The Guru" Re: the Airbenders' love coming back to him in another form. See also loving Katara even after letting her go.
Rawles replies: I just finished watching it again. When he wakes up. When he wakes up. And it is their first meeting all over again. I sort of . . . don't understand how anyone cannot understand. He couldn't let go of love for power or to save the world. He let go of love for love. Then love came back to him. Just like the first time. And now maybe never have the Avatar State to fall back on again?!
Memlu replies: Just. "I'm sorry, Katara," and -- the looks on their faces, his when he decides this is what he has to do, and hers when he falls, and then the ending when love comes back. I just. [. . .] LOVE, man.
[[Memlu also mentions elsewhere Katara's tidal wave of loooooove . . . very Chosen One/Protectoress!]].
Rawles replies: We just had a season finale largely about how their love is perhaps actually literally freakin' transcendant. If people don't believe it now, they just...never ever will.
Zutarian: when aang was opening 7 chakra he let her go write ?
Rawles replies: First of all, according to the official site, Aang never cleared the 7th chakra, but disregarding that, the entire theme of love not dying/being reborn is carried out by the mirroring of Aang and Katara's first meeting at the end of Crossroads of Destiny. The Air Nomads all die, the energy of their love is reborn in the form of Aang's love for Katara; thus he wakes up and sees her face and loves her. Aang lets go of that love, dies (?), then he wakes up, sees her face, and loves her. It's a cycle. In the Avatarverse, love, like energy, like matter, cannot be destroyed.
gambitia writes: Katara's actions from Aang's ascendance to the Avatar State on in the finale got some of the most powerful reactions I've ever felt to a TV show. When Katara beamed when Aang started floating up in the Avatar State, my heart swelled with hers. And I felt her devastation and anguish when Aang was shot down, and her pain when she thought her healing didn't work, and her half-crazed joy when it did.
And at the end, when the Earth King says "The Earth Kingdom...has fallen," and that warning music plays, and the camera pans down to Katara cradling Aang, and you can see the deep lines on Katara's face and her fatigue and her worry, and then she looks up and animated eyes have no right to be that powerful. I still get chills everytime I watch that scene.
Rawles (edited slightly): Look at the connection that they've been building between Aang and Katara since the first episode; the connection that was not only reaffirmed in the season finale but literally made transcendent. (I mean, come on, love is energy, it can't be destroyed. The Air Nomads die and all of the love energy of an entire race is reborn when Aang wakes up, sees Katara, and loves her. Aang lets that love go, dies, then wakes up, sees Katara, and loves her all over again with the exact same blocking that they just reminded us of in the first part of the episode? It doesn't get much more anvilicious than that.) By the end of season 2, they'd finished saying that this love that has been one of the major emotional focii of the show.
The Angry Look at Zuko: Not Jealousy
Rawles: I know that people love to read Aang's angry look at Zuko as jealousy, but I, honestly, find that to be more fandom's influence than a wholly accurate reading of the situation. The point of that interchange (and the Gaang's interchange with Iroh earlier) was to highlight the fact that Aang dislikes Zuko and Zuko dislikes him right back. It wasn't blocked like romantic jealousy. Aang and Iroh come in and there isn't any pause or whatever to note Zuko and Katara's proximity and then Aang's jealous reaction to same. They come in and Katara immediately rushes over to Aang and hugs him. Aang doesn't have any reason to be jealous, and he isn't, he just hugs Katara joyfully back. THEN, he catches sight of Zuko and shoots him a dirty look because he just doesn't like him. Zuko returns said dirty look and demands that Iroh tell him what he's doing with the Avatar. (To clarify this on Zuko's end, he never has any sort of WHY ARE YOU INTERRUPTING US reaction to any of it. Another sort of key factor if we're setting up a romantic triangle.) Aang smartmouths at him about it and Zuko gets even more angry. I feel like Aang and Zuko's hostility there was all about the fact that they are enemies and have been since the moment they met and Zuko doesn't understand why Iroh is helping Aang and furthermore he feels betrayed by it.