Revenge for a Memory — or the ATLA essay about Katara that no one asked for

Avatar: The Last Airbender is a show set in an Asian-inspired fantasy setting that explores themes such as imperialism, generational trauma, and the effects of violence in all their nuances. One character who they explore this through is Katara, specifically in the episode titled “The Southern Raiders.”

For more context on Katara, she is the last waterbender (someone who can manipulate the element of water) from the Southern Water Tribes – note that she is the last because 8 years ago, the Fire Nation’s imperialistic agenda saw them conducting raids at the South Pole to capture or kill every remaining waterbender. Instead of capturing Katara, however, the Fire Nation officer Yon Rha found Katara’s mother instead, who claimed to be the last waterbender to save Katara’s life. Thus, Katara lost her mother forever.

In “The Southern Raiders,” Katara finally has the chance to track down her mother’s killer and find closure – in whatever form that closure may come. “The Southern Raiders” stands out as one of the most mature and morally ambiguous episodes, one delving deep into Katara’s relationship with love and loss, present and past, and justice and revenge. Within it, the story does not outline any right or wrong path for Katara to choose. Rather, the most she can hope for is to choose the path of least regrets.

_____

“This is a journey you need to take. You need to face this man. But when you do, please don’t choose revenge. Let your anger out, and then let it go. Forgive him.”

– Aang to Katara, before her journey

_____

“But I didn’t forgive him. I’ll never forgive him.”

– Katara to Aang

_____

To forgive is to let go of resentment. And for Katara – for someone who was eight years old when she last saw her mother, for someone whose entire childhood was ripped away in the same second her mother’s life was ripped away from her body, for someone who was forced to mature far too quickly to fill in that hollow space left behind by a ghost – that is too much to ask for. Although violence may not have been the answer, a lack of violence does not mean a lack of anger on Katara’s part. Her trauma has wounded her too much to prevent her grief from spilling into anger, and Katara can let neither her grief nor rage go.

No, forgiveness is not the reason why Katara found closure.

That grief and that rage, however, no longer overwhelm her in the way they used to. Something gives way during that confrontation with Yon Rha, but what is it? What is the realization that frees her from her hurt, that paves the foundation for her healing?
_____

“I always wondered what kind of person could do such a thing, but now that I see you, I think I understand. There’s just nothing inside you, nothing at all. You’re pathetic and sad and empty.”

– Katara
_____

After she spares Yon Rha, Katara tells him that he’s “nothing.” For the individual who clings to the nebulous concepts of “meaning” and “purpose” for their entire lifespan, to be “nothing” is to be faced with eternal damnation. Someone who is “pathetic and sad and empty” is someone who lives but is not alive, running through the motions of each day mechanically and without feeling.

Perhaps the reason why Katara finds closure without forgiveness or revenge is that she chooses the ground in-between. She has found justice without needing to serve it because life, in its cruel and karmic ways, had already reduced Yon Rha to a shell of the man he once was. Had Katara been any more merciless towards Yon Rha, it would still have been merciful compared to how he suffers in his present life. Ending Yon Rha would be a waste of Katara’s efforts.

So Katara says, “I think I understand.”

And so we, the audience, think we understand too. Only then we remember what Katara had said before:

“I always wondered what kind of person could do such a thing, but now that I see you…”

Katara is fourteen when she says “now that I see you.”

She was eight when she first saw Yon Rha.

In a flashback to the death of Katara’s mother, Katara sees that the “kind of person [who] could do such a thing” is someone ominous, terrifying, and inhuman, a portrayal exemplified by the low-angle in which Yon Rha is framed in contrast to the high-angle looking down on Katara. In this shot, Yon Rha towers over Katara both in height and in authority. Thus, she has always imagined her mother’s killer to be the same way he has appeared to her when she was a helpless, vulnerable child – he appears as a militaristic man, an arrogant man, a powerful man.

_____

“Revenge is an act which you want to commit when you are powerless and because you are powerless: as soon as the sense of impotence is removed, the desire evaporates also.”

– George Orwell, “Revenge is Sour”

_____

“That was him. That was the monster.”

– Katara
_____

Katara says that Yon Rha is the monster, but their roles are now reversed – Katara is the aggressor and Yon Rha is the victim; Katara looms over Yon Rha at a low-angle while Yon Rha is looked down upon from a high-angle. Ultimately, a monster is more than their cruelty and vileness; a monster has power; a monster has control over a nightmare.

Only now it is not Yon Rha in control, but Katara.

_____

“I’m not the helpless little girl I was when they came.”

– Katara
_____

In the end, the issue had never been about Katara’s strength – instead, it was about her weakness. As a child, she was vulnerable while Yon Rha was infallible, and so the image of Yon Rha looming over her is the one that persisted for years, plaguing her even as she grew up and grew stronger. Hence, the Yon Rha Katara saw as an eight-year-old is the Yon Rha she would have no qualms about killing.

But that Yon Rha belongs to another time. He belongs to a time in which Katara was weak and Yon Rha was strong, and that time is the past and the past is unbreachable. Thus, revenge can only exist in the ghost of a memory; revenge can only exist in fantasies.

Perhaps the childish fantasy aspect of revenge is why the platitudes “revenge is empty” and “revenge is meaningless” are thrown around so carelessly today, so much so that they no longer hold any weight. Of course, these statements are true in many ways, but they also oversimplify complex emotional responses to trauma. For Katara, revenge is empty because it is not what she needs.

Consciously or subconsciously, Katara recognizes her needs the moment when they’re met – with her suspending shards of ice in the air, all pointed towards Yon Rha. Then, fantasies and illusions shatter, falling away like ice turning back to water and splashing on the ground, unused. Katara now has power, not only through her skill in waterbending, but through the present over the past. Stripped of all his height and authority, the monster that was the Yon Rha of six years ago had already been killed. Now all that is left is her, standing over the humble-villager Yon Rha, over her fear and grief and rage, over the past that once haunted her. Over her memories.
_____

“I wanted to do it. I wanted to take out all my anger at him, but I couldn’t. I don’t know if it’s because I’m too weak to do it or because I’m strong enough not to.”

– Katara
_____

By the end of her journey, the ideologies at conflict during the beginning of the episode are still at war within Katara. Katara holds power over her memories, but she is not at peace with them. Katara is able to forgive some, but she is not able to forgive all. The loss of her mother still hurts, but the loss of Katara’s innocence is replaced by the affirmation of her maturity. She has not let go of her rage, but she is no longer blinded by it.

Still, no matter how bittersweet the ending to this story is, it is also full of hope and new beginnings: The hold old memories had over Katara is broken. Six years’ worth of hurt and damage, though it cannot be smoothed over the course of a few days, can finally begin to heal. The wounds have been cleansed; the ghosts have been chased away. Now, Katara is strong where she was once weak. Now, Katara has found closure.

Now, Katara is free.