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Character Name: Katara.
Canon source: Avatar: the Last Airbender
Personality: When first introduced, Katara is portrayed as a caring but somewhat immature 14-year-old, talented but quickly frustrated. Though proud of her waterbending talents, she is all too aware that they are difficult to control and unrefined. Her fierce loyalty to her tribe and culture, her early shortcomings and her jealousy of Aang all incite an urge in her to become a waterbending master, and the beginnings of the determined (and somewhat stubborn) facets of her personality emerge. Of course, as any teenagers are wont to do, she makes a few stupid decisions in order to fulfill her dreams (let's just say a stolen waterbending scroll, an angry prince and pirates are involved), but by the time she's named a waterbending master at the end of season one, she has grown tremendously, and has much better control of both her waterbending and her emotions.
If the Gaang were a boy band, Sokka would be the heartthrob, Aang would be the cute one, Toph would be the bad one, and Katara would be the older brother sister type. Katara is the self-appointed authoritarian-figure of the group, a role that comes easily as she'd been doing it most of her life. When she was small, her mother was killed in a Fire Nation raid, and soon thereafter, her father left for war. Much of the familial responsibilities fell to her. In one of the most touching scenes in the series, Katara overhears her brother tell Toph that because Katara has been taking care of him so long, over time, whenever he thinks about his mother, he can only see Katara's face. This is both good and bad: because she is so used to taking care of everyone else, she's unaware when she becomes overly domineering, self-righteous and downright bossy.
As one of the most compassionate, empathetic characters in this series, Katara has fierce loyalty to her tribe, friends, family and especially Aang. No matter what obstacles they face, what barriers they must traverse, Katara is steadfast in her belief that Aang will save the world. This is lampooned hilariously in the episode Ember Island Players, in which Katara is portrayed as absurdly emotional and melodramatic, prone to randomly bursting into tears and deliver speeches about hope. Though exaggerated, there is a grain of truth in this portrayal: Katara is not only unafraid to show emotion, but her belief in herself and her companions more often than not becomes the glue that holds the group together.
Katara is by far the most trusting of the group, but with the most to lose when that trust is betrayed. She has been known to hold a grudge or seventeen, most notably against the man who killed her mother. When faced with the opportunity to exact revenge, however, she finds herself unable to pull the proverbial trigger. This is likely due to her strict moral set and strong sense of justice. Facing the weak and pitiful man was enough to bring closure; she doesn't need to kill him. It is mark of how far she'd come and how much she'd grown in the year she'd been traveling with Aang. She also holds an epic grudge against Zuko for most of the third season: she'd been the first to trust him, and had even offered to heal his scar, but he repaid her by executing his cruelest face-heel-turn by attacking her and Aang with his sister. She is slow to forgive, but, because she's Katara, she eventually does.
A wonderfully complex character, it's difficult to pin down Katara's personality in a few paragraphs. She's a healer, a caretaker, and a mediator, a fighter, and a believer. She's also a teenager with all the requisite angst, a girl with a crush, and a daughter with abandonment issues. She's more than just the sum of her parts, and someone with infinite potential for growth and development.
History: Here.
Strengths: Katara's biggest strength by far is her waterbending, which, by the time she shows up in-game, has reached mastery level and beyond. She can manipulate water -- any water, from moisture in the air to sweat to the dew on plants to water she carries in a canteen to large oceans - to cut, wave, whip and defend. She has the ability to control the temperature of water at will, melting existing ice, forming it into various shapes (including ice spikes, which are a deadly weapon), freezing water, create giant walls of mist and steam for defense, transform steam into ice, and evaporate large amounts of water. She can also stand, walk and run on the surface of large bodies of water.
Katara is also capable of "bloodbending", a technique that allows a waterbender to control the water in the blood of an opponent. Using this technique, she can bend her opponent to her will, controlling their bodies remotely. Though she is a master of this technique, she is reluctant to use it (with one exception: she used it without remorse on the man she thought had killed her mother).
Late in the first season, Katara discovered that she could use water to heal. She has been shown to use her waterbending to relieve sickness, temporarily alleviate brainwashing, and heal some mortal wounds. She cannot, however, cure all sickness, all brainwashing, or heal severe internal injuries.
Like all waterbenders, her waterbending is most powerful during the full moon.
This is a nice montage of clips of Katara bending.
Weaknesses: Her temper, stubbornness, emotional liability (but hey, she is fourteen), tendency to be overbearing, bossy and preachy and the new moon, when her powers are the weakest.