The more I think about it, the more I realize that Zuko and Katara’s life changing fieldtrip/ revenge murder quest in The Southern Raiders was Absolutely what Katara needed, but not for the reasons that either Zuko or Katara thought
that was the first time Katara got to be actually selfish. Which doesn’t seem right, because Katara goes against what the group says and follows her own moral compass All The Time, but it has Never been for herself
Look way back at The Warriors of Kyoshi. Sokka goes off to brag and makes an idiot of himself and then learns to be a Kyoshi warrior and makes some cool new friends. Aang enjoys the spotlight and just has fun. Meanwhile Katara is trying to heard these two like cats while also going grocery shopping and planning out the trip.
Then, there’s moments where Katara does her own thing, but its never actually for her. In Imprisoned, she only gets captured because she feels responsible for Haru’s capture and she needs to make it up to him. In The Painted Lady, she’s not impersonating a spirit because its fun, she’s doing it because she feels a responsibilty to the people of the town. In The Runaway, she doesn’t seem too happy about her plan to do a scam with Toph, she’s literally just trying to make Toph feel more accepted and bond with her. There are a ton of moments that Seem to be “Katara just doing her own thing because she wants to” until you actually look at them and realize that Katara didn’t actually gain anything from those moments, and someone else did.
And then, FINALLY, in The Southern Raiders, Katara teams up with Zuko, who she absolutely despises, and that’s so important to the quest. Because she doesn’t care if she hurts his feelings or puts too much pressure on him, because so what if he gets hurt? And finally, she’s able, for just a few days, to stop being the mother. One of the most important moments in the episode is where Zuko is the one telling Katara that she needs to get some sleep, because no one ever tells Katara that. She’s the one who pushed everyone else to take care of themselves, why would she need mothering? But Zuko just steps in and takes charge and takes a little bit of the responsibility off of Katara’s shoulders for a minute. He’s the one planning out the trip. He’s standing by her side as she confronts her demons, not in a “you need backup because you’re not strong enough” way, but in a “i care about you and i want to make sure someone is there for you” way
Katara snaps at the beginning of the episode, and it’s been building for a while. She doesn’t just yell at Zuko, she snaps at Aang and Sokka as well.
Literally no one has asked Katara what She wants to do for this entire show. Sokka got to go sneak off and save his dad and his girlfriend. Aang got to flip out when Appa was gone. But, despite the fact that Katara has been mentioning her mother every five seconds since episode one, no one has actually offered to help her deal with it, no one has asked if there’s anything she wants to do or if she wants to talk about it
And i’m absolutely not bagging on the other characters. They’re all literal children, they’re not going to be perfect at emotions, and even katara wasn’t quite sure what she wanted or why she was so upset about her mother’s death
But it wasn’t just the fact that her mom was dead. It was being forced to be the mom, it was having her childhood taken away from her, and her ability to just be a kid and not worry about every other person in the world
So, finally she goes on the murder quest with Zuko, and for the first time, maybe since her mother died, she was able to just mope and obsess and let out all her raw emotions without mothering the people around her. and I don’t think that she realized it was happening, and i don’t think that zuko realized it was happening, but i think that’s a huge part of why katara forgave zuko
(Again not mad at them) but sokka basically told Katara that feeling enraged and violent wasn’t a valid response to their mother’s death because it wasn’t how he felt. He didn’t mean to, he was trying to help her feel better and calm down, but nevertheless, that’s what message was sent to Katara. And Aang told Katara that she needed to be strong enough to forgive her mother’s killer. Meanwhile, Zuko was the only one actually asking Katara what she wanted to do instead of telling her what she should want to do. He just told her that her Actual Feelings were totally valid instead of telling her how she should feel. He told her she was allowed to feel and to be a little broken, while everyone else was telling katara to be strong and happy and motherly.
And anyway i’m really glad that katara actually did get the chance to go on her murder death quest even if she did feel icky afterwards, because that was kind of the entire point. Until then “the fire nation killed my mom” had always been a way to relate to other teens she met on the road and give them some consolance that she understood, or a battlecry to keep her focused on her mission to save the world, but after that episode, it was finally allowed to be trauma that hurt and weighed her down. Aang said that the first step to healing is forgiveness, but honestly, in order to heal, she needed to awknowlege that she had actually been hurt.
Anyway the southern raiders is a really good episode and i adore zutara and the vibes of angsty black hoodie, slightly evil katara, but i also really appreciate how much katara needed to go on that quest
