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Why katara is AWESUM
17 July 2010 02:58 amrewatching Avatar: The Last Air Bender on Animefreak (again). Got to season 3 episode 7.
It's technically a filler episode, but ATLAB's filler episodes are awesome.
And it's technically a "morality tale" episode, though ATLAB's morality tales always end on something insane like "lie cheat and steal: it'll work out in the end if it's for a good cause!", but ATLAB's broken aesops are so charming because they focus less on what's right and what's wrong and instead focus on the importance of taking responsibility for your mistakes and making things right after you've fucked up - which generally means starting from a position of honest and sincere regret and working towards correcting the problem your mistake causes. Which is the correct way to do morality tales if you ask me. Immorality often stems from expecting people to always hove to Right Action without ever faltering (often to a hypocritical extent), but morality stems ultimately from the fact that making amends, through action, through compassion and through caring about the needs of the wronged party, is the only Right Action after a mistake is made. Faith mends no bridges, intent heals no scars, but work and compassion are what justice is built on, what ultimately ends injustice.
BUT THAT'S NOT WHAT I WAS GOING TO TALK ABOUT, you see I totally failed to see what most long time fans already knew but which I'd seen mentioned nowhere else (mostly because ATLAB fandom is obsessed with fucking ZUKO, oh god why does no fandom ever like the likeable characters!? ALWAYS WITH THE BACKSTORY SPOUTING EMO!MANPAIN TYPES, jeesh!*) - basically in S3Ep7, Katara breaks herself and Toph (AKA The Greatest Earthbender in the World) out of a wooden prison, by bending her sweat.
What I'd noticed on the first view through, what I thought was the entirety of the scene, involved Katara realising she could use her sweat to bending their way out of the prison, running on the spot and then using her forehead sweat to bust them out of prison.
BUT THAT'S NOT WHAT HAPPENS. What actually happens is that katara runs on the spot, uses her forehead sweat to make some smallish cuts in the wooden door of the prison, at which point Toph says "you're a genius, a sweaty stinky genius!" at which point Katara drops into a horse stance, sticks her hands beneath her armpits, and then whips her hands out, busting open the prison door USING THE MIGHTY FORCE OF HER PIT SWEAT!!!!!
MIGHTY. ARMPIT. SWEAT. srsly.
My God people, if you haven't watched this show yet, WATCH IT NAOW. It has female characters so bad ass they can destroy the prisons that men bind them with using nothing more than their own armpit sweat.
* I mock, but honestly I was surprised how little Zuko did in the show - fandom latched onto him to such an extent I thought he'd have a comparable presence and role as Aang, Katara and Sokka, and he just didn't. His role was basically to be the source of all information about the fire kingdom for the first two series and what life and politics there are like, and to slowly explain why the fire nation is evul, but the story is set faaaar away from the fire nation so he ends up having to gives us tons and tons of backstory to do that. Aang technically does the same to the same extent with the Air nation, but it's interspersed with Aang being either wacky or getting into a fight so it defines his character far less. But the neat thing about the show is that that is kind of the point really - Zuko is defined by his past and is struggling to overcome it, while Aang overcomes his backstory by getting on with the current story we're watching.
It's technically a filler episode, but ATLAB's filler episodes are awesome.
And it's technically a "morality tale" episode, though ATLAB's morality tales always end on something insane like "lie cheat and steal: it'll work out in the end if it's for a good cause!", but ATLAB's broken aesops are so charming because they focus less on what's right and what's wrong and instead focus on the importance of taking responsibility for your mistakes and making things right after you've fucked up - which generally means starting from a position of honest and sincere regret and working towards correcting the problem your mistake causes. Which is the correct way to do morality tales if you ask me. Immorality often stems from expecting people to always hove to Right Action without ever faltering (often to a hypocritical extent), but morality stems ultimately from the fact that making amends, through action, through compassion and through caring about the needs of the wronged party, is the only Right Action after a mistake is made. Faith mends no bridges, intent heals no scars, but work and compassion are what justice is built on, what ultimately ends injustice.
BUT THAT'S NOT WHAT I WAS GOING TO TALK ABOUT, you see I totally failed to see what most long time fans already knew but which I'd seen mentioned nowhere else (mostly because ATLAB fandom is obsessed with fucking ZUKO, oh god why does no fandom ever like the likeable characters!? ALWAYS WITH THE BACKSTORY SPOUTING EMO!MANPAIN TYPES, jeesh!*) - basically in S3Ep7, Katara breaks herself and Toph (AKA The Greatest Earthbender in the World) out of a wooden prison, by bending her sweat.
What I'd noticed on the first view through, what I thought was the entirety of the scene, involved Katara realising she could use her sweat to bending their way out of the prison, running on the spot and then using her forehead sweat to bust them out of prison.
BUT THAT'S NOT WHAT HAPPENS. What actually happens is that katara runs on the spot, uses her forehead sweat to make some smallish cuts in the wooden door of the prison, at which point Toph says "you're a genius, a sweaty stinky genius!" at which point Katara drops into a horse stance, sticks her hands beneath her armpits, and then whips her hands out, busting open the prison door USING THE MIGHTY FORCE OF HER PIT SWEAT!!!!!
MIGHTY. ARMPIT. SWEAT. srsly.
My God people, if you haven't watched this show yet, WATCH IT NAOW. It has female characters so bad ass they can destroy the prisons that men bind them with using nothing more than their own armpit sweat.
* I mock, but honestly I was surprised how little Zuko did in the show - fandom latched onto him to such an extent I thought he'd have a comparable presence and role as Aang, Katara and Sokka, and he just didn't. His role was basically to be the source of all information about the fire kingdom for the first two series and what life and politics there are like, and to slowly explain why the fire nation is evul, but the story is set faaaar away from the fire nation so he ends up having to gives us tons and tons of backstory to do that. Aang technically does the same to the same extent with the Air nation, but it's interspersed with Aang being either wacky or getting into a fight so it defines his character far less. But the neat thing about the show is that that is kind of the point really - Zuko is defined by his past and is struggling to overcome it, while Aang overcomes his backstory by getting on with the current story we're watching.
