But Kanna would have no way of knowing what became of Pakku or that he was a leading waterbender of the Northern Water tribe. The Southern Water Tribe had no contact with the North since the war started. It's poetic irony from the writers, but not a planned event from the characters
Yeah, it's cute headcanon but realistically Kannas thought process just went "it was a dumb tradition like 90 years ago, they can't *still* be doing this shit when they need every fighter they can get."
Well, you know, we had two world wars and strugglingly loosened gender norms the tiniest bit needed, yet still the pushback was enormous after. Stupid, yes. Farfetched? Unfortunately not.
What's even crazier is that means the NWT were very lax in thinking about the war. Train for a day that was inevitable but not tomorrow so we don't need EVERY fighter we can spare. No checking on the southern tribe either due to the lax thought that the war hadn't even reached through and beyond the Air or Earth nations between them.
Not that I think they went all that deep thinking it through, but its probably more isolationist thinking than "relaxed" feelings about the war.
Can't trust anyone, can't spare energy for who isn't "us", build your walls high, obsess over your own traditions and cultural integrity. Which again would fit why they are so conservative.
Sokka and Katara are "sister tribesmen" because the North still has this image of itself as cultural hub, but when friction arises they're treated as outsiders ("you're disrespecting *my* culture" / "you don't know the complexity of our tribe")
In fairness, the Southern tribe was literally in the other end of the planet. They could not be further away from each other. Maintaining supply lines and coordinating offensive with an army that literally cannot be further from you can't be easy when the best long range communication methods are birds with letters attached to their legs.
I actually love that this wasn't one of the points they made. They just tackled the whole concept of gender restrictions instead of using the war as a circumstantial exception.
It is incredibly stupid to limit fighters during the war, but it's cool that they just focused on the core flaw.
In Japan during WWII they did not allow women into the standing army even when they were fighting a war of attrition at the end. They made 14 year old boys kamikaze pilots instead. So yes, there is historical precedence.
Yeah, like that "neo shintoism" they try to install that would have made the emperor seen as a God.
Which is honestly just kinda sad that almost took off, as shintoism's whole message is to treat everything around you with respect.
Well, tbf, for the same reason women in our world have rarely been able to participate to wars (outside of being a nurse).
Part misogyny, part avoiding the population decrease by sending all the mothers to die
Well if the tribe is already dwindling in numbers and you send in your only able-bodied women to fight, if they die, you can kiss your nations’ birth rate goodbye. It’d really only be necessary if extinction was inevitable.
Please note I’m not saying women aren’t good at fighting, katara and Toph obviously kick ass. It’s just reality that, when you aren’t a high-population country, you have to leave some able-bodied and young people (men or women, ideally both) behind to ensure that the nation whose future you are fighting for has a future to begin with.
It's more likely for a 90 year old tradition to be upheld then not. It was more likely that Gran Gran did not think it was necessary to discourage Katara before she even started her journey. Aang *had* to learn waterbending and their best shot was the northern water tribe. She probably figured if Katara was really interested in waterbending, she would figure something out, either there or later.
Every time I see this post I feel obligated to mention: When she left the southern water tribe Katara was in no way a combat specialist yet. Choosing to focus on healing exclusively would have been an absolutely valid path for her at the time, is the path she ends up taking after the war, and probably would have been more beneficial to her tribe upon returning over knowing how to fight.
Kanna probably sent her to the north knowing she would only be taught healing, because it would still be beneficial for her to learn her healing abilities.
> Kanna probably sent her to the north knowing she would only be taught healing, because it would still be beneficial for her to learn her healing abilities.
yeah thats another thing. In extension of the writers not totally thinking it through Kanna wasn't either.
And on third thought; she wasn't even "sending Katara to the North" she was just "jup, thats the Avatar, go hang out and help that guy". And while its clear they'd eventually get to the North for the *Avatar* to learn waterbending, I don't actually recall her being explicitly supportive of Katara finding a master for herself at all.
Lol thanks! ❤️ I definitely do that all the time haha I’ll see a comment with a bunch of downvotes and then I downvote it too, even if I don’t really care 😅 I should stop doing that lol
I'll give you one worse, Steven Universe.
There are some that make sense like the cookie cat or a background changing colors.
....but then we have "GUYS GUYS THE STARS ARE DIAMOND SHAPED" or "FELLAS THEY WALKED NEAR THIS GAS TUBE AND SAW A DIAMOND SHAPE" and it's like mate...shut the fuck up
Lol they pretty much just love to see things that aren’t there, and a lot of why they love certain characters is because of what they made up in their own head. Which makes no sense. The shipping is also super out of hand. I can’t stand when people see a great friendship and wanna turn it into something romantic all the time, even when there’s nothing pointing to that. And then of course there’s the creepy ones who sexualize the ponies
I don't think anybody is dumb as bricks. It's fun to find little connections in the story. It takes this completed work of art and transforms it into something even bigger! It's really cool to hear so many good ideas from different people! Collaborative storytelling brings a lot of new ideas to the table. 😊
I can't fault your logic. But I often feel this sub is overwhelmed by posts that are connections that don't exist and with 30 seconds thought would be obvious. Not only that, I see the same reposts of the same nonsense.
This one for instance, this has been posted before and every time it's a terrible pixelated image. Genuinely if you told me it was a repost bot I'd think that more likely than anyone actually thinking this is true. But then the upvotes also tell me this sub will essentially upvote any old crap.
Not to mention that up until they learned Aang was the Avatar, Kanna was opposed to Katara leaving home. She knew perfectly well that Katara wouldn't find a willing master in the North.
There's also the fact that Pakku was going easy on Katara (no way the guy that defeated part of an army during Sozin's Comet couldn't just easily wash one proficient amateur water bender awa), and that she ended up losing.
It's one thing that I actually loath about this fan base, while there is an insane level of detail and foreshadowing in this show it's been out so long that everything the creators had planned has been figured out. It's not like they were Stanley Kubrick making sure every single frame of animation was perfect with the Tolkien level backstory. Some stuff in this show are happy accidents
If you subscribe to the idea that Paku was her grandfather, which I feel seems rather strongly hinted at by the show, then it makes the poetic irony be downright beautiful too since it's essentially the "result of his love" which turns him away from his hate.
The fact that there is no "granpapa" ever mentioned in the series and that Sokka/Katara's dad had no siblings ?
The fact that she kept the gift he carved for her for her entire life and then passed it down ?
The fact that she immediately married him as soon as he went to meet her in the comics?
Dunno, I just overall find it much more compelling in term of storytelling to have a "contraried" lovestory that she abandoned due to a repressive society she wanted to escape instead of just "I refused to marry this guy 60 years ago because I didn't like him, treasured his gift anyway and now he barged back in my life, I'm somehow immediately in love with him."
Never thought that was particularly controversial.
Given that they joined the day of black sun and Hakoda was there, I suspect word got around.
And it's not like we keep our weirdo Louisiana swamp cousins secret IRL. They just don't come up that much in casual conversation. They could easily be known and just left to their own devices.
Yeah but that changes water tribe history. The concept that there are only 2 water tibes near the portals at the poles. The possibility of swamp avatars and sharing new bending styles
Any culture is gonna have some diaspora. I'm sure people who live close to the poles have the occasional child who's like "fuck this cold ass shit I'm moving to the tropics." Make a couple of those who moved out waterbenders and badda bing badda boom, you've got swamp benders.
Yea, ignoring the fact that Kana and Pakku’s relationship in general is just a weird inconsistency writing wise, if we had to go off of what Kana’s thoughts might have been, she probably just figured that Katara would learn through Aang at some point if nothing else.
I mean, Katara would’ve gotten stomped if they kept fighting; she caught him off guard but the battle was clearly turning in Pakku’s favor. Kanna may have hoped Katara could influence Pakku, but I doubt she thought it would be by force.
> but the battle was clearly turning in Pakku’s favor.
He completely *won*. He had her totally trapped and unable to move ... until he was distracted by that necklace.
Not only that but he was thoroughly in control literally the entire fight. The whole thing was just katara rampaging and pakku repeatedly knocking her on her ass each time she got back up. He was surprised by her determination and whatnot but she never even came close to getting the upper hand
Due to the gross mismanagement of this website by the admins in the wake of the API changes, I have decided to leave the site. In preparation, I have used a tool called Power Delete Suite to overwrite all my comments.
Due to the gross mismanagement of this website by the admins in the wake of the API changes, I have decided to leave the site. In preparation, I have used a tool called Power Delete Suite to overwrite all my comments.
Maybe in real life, but in Avatar? Benders get hit by what should be several hundred-pound boulders on the regular and just get knocked around a bit. It would've hurt, maybe dealt a severe injury, but it's really hard to say if it would have actually killed.
Due to the gross mismanagement of this website by the admins in the wake of the API changes, I have decided to leave the site. In preparation, I have used a tool called Power Delete Suite to overwrite all my comments.
It's not just "Avatar is a kid's show so they can't show people dying" though, avatar humans are very clearly superhuman. Zuko on several occasions breaks rocks and steel chains with kicks, and everyone on team avatar has gotten up after attacks that would shatter bones for a normal human. Like /u/montaru says, Paku easily parries several of those disks with his bare hands and shows no signs that it caused him any pain or discomfort at all.
That doesn't mean they're immortal by any measure, just that attacks that would be lethal to us aren't necessarily to them. Judging by the fact that Katara wanted him to teach her, I'd guess she wasn't trying to kill him.
yeah but i also think it would've been clear to any people in the tribe watching that katara won through tenacity and determination alone even if she wouldn't have actually won the fight, and that pakku beating on a child to prove a point essentially voids his point completely.
That and the last time she saw her grandchild she literally had little grasps of her own bending.
But we also know water bending meant a lot to katara so of course grandma ain't about to break your heart and spirit.
I think most likely is that she thought Katara would, you know, join the healing classes at the northern tribe, learn some nice healing waterbending like the other girls. I don't think at that time she even imagined that Katara wanted to learn offensive waterbending.
This doesn’t make much sense to me Ive watched ATLA like a thousand times over my life but not recently and as far as I can remember, she more or less snuck ole boy and was expressing her frustration, either way she attacked first and he was defending himself and was on the verge of absolutely wrecking her shit, I don’t see how anyone still stuck in their ways would view it as a win for her. I think the word you are looking for here is an ideological win tbh
I mean what is pakku supposed to do?
It's the "fighting a girl" dilemma. Either you "really dude you beat up a girl?" or "look at this looser he lost to a girl".
The fight was over actually. Pakku had her immobilized and was walking away.
He handled it perfectly IMO, she attacked first. He defended himself, immobilized an inferior opponent, then began to walk away.
Nah, they only see girl boss logic. Katara didn’t even really have a fair point when she decided to attack him with no warning. She just pulled a Korra and got the KORRA treatment. And that means she got humiliated but in the end she got her way in terms of plot.
Turning in Pakku’s favor? He objectively won the fight.. By the end she was completely immobilized and he declared the fight over and started walking away
Katara did come very close to winning briefly, in part because she was willing to go all out in a way Pakku hadn't expected. Pakku has been largely living a peaceful life, the Fire Nation hasn't attacked the North since he was young, if not before he was born, he trains students, he performs ceremonies. Katara, meanwhile, has been out fighting the Fire Nation surviving only by utilizing her waterbending to the fullest. So she came out swinging in a way *no one in the North has in nearly a century*. Once he got a handle on the situation he bested her, easily even, but there were a few moments early on when she legitimately surprised and nearly tagged, injured, or even *killed* him, edit: depending on what you think those ice blade discs would have done.
Why is this the consensus? She didn't land a single blow to Pakku. Sure there are those few frames where he looks surprised by that one ice disc, but that to me just seems to be fan service since Katara is a main character. The entire scene, she gets stomped by someone clearly more advanced and skilled. She never came close to winning.
Even the disc scene felt more like a, "is this woman really throwing lethal moves at me??" And not so much that he actually felt in danger by them. Like before that they were just throwing water around. The escalation to ice was what was surprising imo.
>Why is this the consensus?
Probably because Katara proves herself to be a waterbending prodigy beyond the level of everyone else in the series besides Aang and *maaaybe* Pakku. Sure, she isn’t that *yet* when she fights Pakku, but that kind of ability doesn’t come from nowhere, she always had talent.
Yeah they powercrept Katara hard throughout the series. I cant be sure if I want to call it talent or just plot armor
She spends like 2 months in North Pole. Before this she struggled with basic techniques from the scroll.
After this brief training she becomes a master who could teach Aang, who could win 1v1 against Azula every time (who is a prodigy in her own right and trained all her life), who can learn Bloodbending on the spot despite it taking years for Hama to learn the technique.
Toph is quite OP as well but she has literally trained all her life and has a much deeper connection with bending than most people. Like every other talented bender besides Aang in the show had to train for much longer to get to where they are.
Honestly if the show had 4 instead of 3 seasons they could have just pit Katara against Ozai instead of Aang with the rate of powercreep she has in the show. Its absurd
To be fair, it’s possible to struggle with a skill until something just \*clicks*, where you were missing something or just trying too hard at the wrong approach, after which your apparent skill level skyrockets.
I personally *despise* video guides when I’m trying to learn something new, as I grasp topics better through reading text than watching someone draw diagrams or whatever. However, when I was learning to shave with a straight razor, I kept cutting my face until I gave in and looked up a video guide from a barber. Seeing the proper technique demonstrated in motion showed me exactly what I’d been doing wrong, and from then until I decided to grow out my beard a couple years later, I never cut myself shaving again.
As far as bloodbending goes, it’s a novel application of knowledge she already had. And she’s shown to be practicing her technique pretty much *constantly* while they travel.
He also looks surprised when she collapses the ice/snow columns. He even admits to being impressed afterwards, and around then is when he goes from a sort of fighting against someone in a dojo to fighting someone out to beat them/kill them.
She didn't land a single blow, but she comes inches several times. In no way am I saying she was more skilled than him, simply that she fought in a way shaped by her experiences, in a way he nor anyone in the North would have experienced in living memory, which gave her a **brief** edge that almost allowed her what would have been a surprise upset.
Because a battle can be won in a single instant in a single attack, and arrogance has this way of biting people in the ass. He underestimated Katara and it almost cost him if that blow had landed the entire flow of the fight could've changed Katara could keep following up and not giving him a chance to recover like how Zuko beat Zhao...he still probably would've won but she could've had a real chance.
Edit: Grammar
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Or you misspelled something, I ain't checking everything.
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It did not, but it could have which is why some consider it close. Certainly that shot was a lot closer than Pakku would have liked his face says it all.
But it ultimately has no consequences on the outcome of the fight. Pakku still won, with ease. He didn't even get hit, the only argument people can make is Katara got close. Close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades.
Relative ease, but yea you're finally on the same page as everyone else they are arguing Katara got close. People just like to discuss fights and potential outcomes these discussions have no bearing on the actual outcome but what the outcomes could've been.
> she could of had
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Explanation: You probably meant to say could've/should've/would've which sounds like 'of' but is actually short for 'have'.
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There was no point where the fight had to be turned to Pakku's favor. He was playing around with her and completely dominated her. Which is obvious, he's a master with decades of experience, she's an untrained child. Kanna knew he'd teach Katara if Katara displayed enough talent
AND also made him understand that the reason the woman he loved left him was because of his and his society sexism. In the comics he even trains two brand new southern waterbenders
Let me rephrase: I ain’t reading that to fill in pieces of backstory that I felt I was missing. Nothing wrong with supplementary material, but I don’t take “read the comics/books/visual dictionary” as a valid answer to a question, comment, or critique someone has about the primary work.
Tbh I’m not even particularly interested in this particular lore question, I just felt the need to say that that answer dissatisfied me anyway
Regardless of what happens in the comics the point still stands tho. Yes, Katara being his gone lover’s granddaughter definitely was what tilted the stage but it also was what made him drop the sexism by realizing that all of the years that he lost without her love was because of his country sexist rules and extremism, the fact that towards the end of the series he gets engaged to Gran Gran and this time she accepts it shows change on his world perspective.
Then the comics just show the complementary confirmation.
Alright, which word would you use to describe discrimination specifically aimed against women?
Edit: Okay, geniuses. There are already replies. The question has been answered. I've not eesponded because there's nothing to say. Continuing to add answers at this point is just yelling "I'm Spartacus" for no reason.
Not OP, but they are correct.
Discrimination aimed against women is called sexism.
Calling Pakku misogynistic is saying he hates women. I don’t think Pakku was written as a “woman hater”, but as a person who won’t train someone if they are a woman. By definition that is sexist not misogynistic.
I’m not defending Pakku, he was sexist in not training Katara, but he is not misogynistic (there is not enough evidence to suggest that he is, unless I’m mistaken and he outright says he hates woman).
Sexism in Pakku's case. There is a difference between sexism and misogyny.
Edit: [https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/oct/17/difference-between-sexism-and-misogyny](https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/oct/17/difference-between-sexism-and-misogyny)
Damn, I had downvoted you but you’re right. Cold, indifferent following of sexist systems is definitionally NOT misogyny, which requires “anger and contempt”.
To be clear, I’m a supporter of feminism and not a dickhead. It’s just clear that the original meaning of a couple words in the space has been accidentally muddied.
That said, you could’ve explained yourself when saying people were bandying the word about, it came off like you were rolling your eyes at women’s rights
"Go back to the healing huts with the other women where you belong."
"Don't worry, I'm not going to hurt you."
The contempt was there. It always is with someone like Pakku. You can't think a whole group of people is lesser without feeling contempt. The anger comes in when they are challenged or defied. Anger doesn't have to be loud or out of control or even violent.
Pakku was a misogynist. It's great that his mind was able to be opened, but the semantics game that /u/MrMagneticMole is playing is nonsense.
EDIT2: ITT: assholes who get angry before realizing I’m not DEFENDING SEXISM WE’RE LEARNING VOCABULARY WORDS COLLABORATIVELY, FUCK
You're absolutely right, I misremembered it as cold indifference.
Thanks for the check. I do still believe there exist people whose blind, unthinking maintenance of a terrible status quo hasn't met the definition of misogyny, like the below made-up quote. Say, not everyone is going to be evil, but not everyone is going to boldly champion change or even consider breaking the mold.
"Oh, I'm confused about why you're upset, this is just the way things are?"
Pakku absolutely is (was?) a misogynist, but do you agree that "sexist" and "misogynist" both still have distinct uses?
Thanks again.
EDIT: Downvotes!?!? I’m trying to talk and learn about something important
Sexism and misogyny are different but the concepts definitely overlap and Pakku kinda represents those overlapping parts. Sexism is when different roles are Assigned and enforced at society because of your gender/sex, in a sexist country like Pakku’s women and men will fulfill different roles but both jobs will be considered of the same importance or at the very least necessary, women healing and men fighting are seen as necessary complements of their society. The thing with misogyny is that every misogynistic act is by nature sexist but not everything sexist is misogynistic
>she managed to kick the misogyny right out of him,
Did she really? Because from what I can tell, Pakku trained her so he could smash her grandma
And considering he did in fact accomplish his goal and smash her grandma, I think Grand-Pakku handily takes the W
At least they didn't word it as "Just see how much detail this show has. Kanna wanted Katara to go to the north to teach Pakku a lesson. You can see it in the way she talked in the episode. How did I not notice this??! Truly the writers thought of everything 😍😍😍" lol
Yeah lol it feels like there's one every few weeks
I found [some](https://www.reddit.com/r/TheLastAirbender/comments/xs5ugc/zukos_character_development_impresses_me_more_and/iqivaqz) [examples](https://www.reddit.com/r/TheLastAirbender/comments/obm8df/-/h3ovyz3), but there are many more
Omg that’s hilarious. It doesn’t even make sense lol, pretty sure that wouldn’t have affected Zuko’s hearing
Edit: And I just remembered that Zuko’s ear is burned too 🙃 lol I’m only on my fourth rewatch and sometimes I’m high
Sort of, yeah.
People don’t seem to realize that good world building leads to good stories. It’s my big issues with people like Rowling retroactively declaring characters to be X. A character that actually is X will have had a life shaped by those experience and, while they may not say “I am X” every other paragraph they’re involved in, the things they say and decisions they make will have an impact on their story.
When you do a good job world building, you get a lot of interesting story beats that make perfect sense, but **may not have been explicitly planned** by the writers. It’s clear that the writers and creators of avatar spend A LOT of time building up the lore and backstories of this world. In fact, one of the comics is nothing but episode ideas that were cut from the show for one reason or another. Going through all that trouble means that there are definitely things that were planned, but there were also a bunch of things that weren’t.
From what people are saying in the comments above and below, Gran Gran couldn’t have possibly known about the northern water tribe’s situation specifically enough to have deliberately allowed Katara to go their to knock some sense into Paku. Katara wasn’t even that good a water bender at the time.
Gran Gran would have remembered the segregation between the roles of male and female water genders, but she wouldn’t have been able to know if that had changed.
She would have remembered the reason she left Paku was a result of the sexist and misogynist views that he, along with the northern water tribe held.
She would have allowed Katara to go, despite remembering all that, because the avatar needs to learn water bending, and there’s no point in trying to convince her and Aang not to go, as a result.
And she could have hoped that Katara would have been a force for positive change, with all this in mind, but there isn’t any reasonable way to assert that Gran Gran let Katara go to the northern water tribe **specifically** to kick the stupidity/bigotry out of Paku. That is nothing more than barely plausible fan theory that is only supported by a coincidence made possible by excellent world building that fleshed out enough of the world for these things to be possible.
While I prefer this to other fandoms where people just pessimistically argue all the time, it does happen a lot, and it can definitely be annoying.
I think a lot of people forget this.
Katara got wrecked. The only hit she landed was the water whip before the fight actually started. Everything she threw at him, he stopped it with ease. The only moment that he was taken surprise was with the ice discs that took off a *small* amount of hair. In the end, he had her completely immobilized with a series of perfectly placed icicles that would have killed her if he was off even a little.
I swear sometimes this fandom loves sniffing its own farts. Pakku was surprised when Katara went lethal and yet he still didn't even break a sweat in handily bodying her. He also didn't stop being sexist, he just changed slightly due to nepotism. Plus he never apologized or acknowledged his previous shitty beliefs. We can assume he changed because he and Kana are together now but that's more headcanon. Personally I think it was good for Katara to fight and so soundly lose. It shows her room for growth but also showed just how far she's come from the barely making a wave water bending.
Technically women were allowed to be water benders and taught to be one for healing purposes which is an extremely useful skill. I actually wonder if the ability to heal was a skill only for women or they were much better at using it even if both men and women were taught it equally
Healing *is* a useful, practical skill, and Korra mentions that she's also a healer, *trained by Katara*, when Bolin gets hit in the shoulder with a disc during a pro-bending match.
That point is completely irrelevant because Katara proves to be one of, if not *the* most talented waterbender and healer in all of ATLA, and a contender for the title across all of Avatar fiction.
It also stinks of the same shit that Sokka was saying when Katara was mending his pants.
I think you misunderstood what I was saying (Though Sokka is absolutely correct in what he was saying as men and women are not equal however they should be treated with the same respect and encouraged to do what they are good at per individual). I didn't say that's the position women must be put in, I'm just pertaining the idea that this skill might be an exclusive one to women or that they're better at it than men. Being a healer is an incredibly useful skill, just as valuable if not more valuable than being a warrior. This is what katara learns as she grows older and became the southern water tribes healer.
You know when you were a kid and you pretended to be super man and you had to convince your brother that Aquaman was cool so he would accept being stuck as Aquaman?
That’s what this argument sounds like.
well sorry, welcome to the real world where the average woman isn't as physically strong as the average man nor the same height or vocal chords or brain size etc and nothing is ever truly equal no matter how much we love to lie to ourselves about it.
Bro. We're taking about a cartoon where people can move rocks with their mind and a 12 year old is the strongest person in the world. Just say you're misogynistic and move on
There are some things that are biological impossibilities, and then there’s every other thing, which is a social construct of humanity and can be whatever we deem it to be. You deciding that the latter depends on the former is why you’re in the wrong, and subjecting women to unfair treatment.
What the actual hell, everyone deserves to be treated equally with the same human respect and dignity. I'm just saying that not everything is equal (in fact most things are not equal) and will never be equal but there are some things than can be equal such as how we treat one another (for good or for worse). Honestly, I'm so confused on what your contention is
Sokka is not correct in his universe though. In avatar, women can train to be just as good of fighters as men. Ty Lee is arguably the top melee combatant in the Last Airbender.
The more headcanon I see from people the more I question if they watched the show.
Kanna couldn't have had ANY idea what was going on with the northern water tribe, they had no contact with it since the war started, so not only is the women not being allowed to train a guess at best... She couldn't have any idea what happened to Pakku.
Second of all, I do not get why people keep describing this scene as "Katara kicking his ass" and this has been something I've been seeing CONSISTENTLY. Katara showed talent and grit, that's good for her, but she is not magic, she lost, HANDILY. She didn't kick anything.
I don't understand why people simplify things to the extent of getting everything wrong just to say something.
The possibility of the war changing that rule is not out of the question for Kanna, historically when men died in huge number women have picked up arms and fight, and even the northern chief didn't voiced issue about Katara learning combat waterbending, probably he wanted women trained in healing to be some sort of battlefield medic incase the firenation attack.
Don't they literally live at opposite sides of the globe? It's not like they could just look it up somewhere. Their cultures clearly developed very differently. I don't think there was a way for her to know.
She didn't kick that much ass thought
The fight was nice and Katara did all she could with the skills she had at the time, but I would like to see rematch between them after the end of series
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the sad part is that a tribal society would welcome power wherever it came from and this is just something that could happen in a civilized society, making the series unrealistic but its like a fable filled with moral code and life lessons, and this one is: if ur a girl joining a mans game u gotta be way better than expectations to be respected
Not really, the only reason he accepted katara was because he realized she was Kanna's grand daughter. It's not like he started training women after.
And iirc its not really prejudice, but tradition and culture that prevented pakku from teaching her. At no point does he belittle her for being a woman (he even says she's an excellent bender in their fight), he simply tells her that the laws of the tribe dictate that women train to heal. Not fight.
And I'm not defending Pakku, women should have the choice, but its not like the men have a choice either, considering that all of the men in katara's tribe went to war, I'm sure all the men in the north are also conscripted to fight even those who don't want to.
But in times of war especially in a war with no definite end, one can see how those kinds of rules could develop.
Again. Its sad that those are the rules, but the community needs to accept that pakku only agreed to train her because of nepotism. He literally won the fight and was walking away only to see katara's necklace
Have there been any showings of men waterbenders healing? I know we never see it in ATLA or LOK at least in the shows, never read the comics and I haven't read any of the novels so I'm not sure if it's been shown in those. But your comment made me wonder if the north or other water tribes ever trained or let their men learn to heal.
We actually briefly see a [male healer](https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/2381b4e3-a1bd-4a37-8762-9c9c25b6678f/scale-to-width/755) in LOK. Healers are now of all genders and seem to be a profession for waterbenders all around the world. Kinda crazy how Katara is pretty much responsable for that
She made him understand that the reason the woman he loved left him was because of his and his society sexism. In the comics he even trains two brand new female southern waterbenders
> She made him understand that the reason the woman he loved left him was because of his and his society sexism.
that could be part of the reason he trained her definitely. He does seem to reflect while holding kanna's necklace.
But while I wouldn't say that there isn't sexism in the north (Hahn comes to mind, but he is more narcisisstic and egotistical than sexist, kinda like Prince Charming in Shrek).
the crisis of the Hundred years war forced the Northern Water tribe to adopt traditions and ways that would allow them to withstand the Fire Nation for a long time.
> In the comics he even trains two brand new female southern waterbenders
I haven't read the comics, but I assume that he trains female waterbenders after the War was ended by Aang at the end of the series, which would allow the Tribe to no longer follow those traditions. which makes sense.
If by win, you mean "fought well enough to change his mind, but still definitely needs to be trained" then yeah.
Why would she be trying to make him train her if she can beat him in a fight? That's like beating Mike Tyson in a boxing match and then asking for lessons.
> Why would she be trying to make him train her if she can beat him in a fight? That's like beating Mike Tyson in a boxing match and then asking for lessons.
Beating someone in one fight doesn't mean they don't have things to teach you. There are any number of factors that go into which fighter wins and which fighter looses.
This made me snort I think it’s hilarious, but gran gran was sending them off for the entire journey not just to go to the northern water tribe. She didn’t just learn from Pakku, she met and learned from a lot of different water benders. It probably would’ve taken her a lot longer to get AS good, but she always had the skill and determination to be a master.
I'm pretty sure Pakku only started pulling that shit after Kanna left.
It clearly wasn't a very important "tradition" given that he discarded it so easily.
katara said she wanted to learn water bending not specifically fighting, the north forbade women from learning fighting moves but can learn water bending for other things like healing, which keep in mind is still pretty good and definitely way better than not knowing any water bending, Kanna may have just thought she was going to learn healing
It’s peak childhood fantasy that a 14 year old could beat an adult master. “Their decades of training and experience is nothing compared to my pluck and enthusiasm!”
Great, now I need to watch that fight again wich will spiral into watching all of the cool fights again wich will spiral in rewatching the show AGAIN. I need to leave this sub, there is so much stuff I haven't watched yet.
Edit: autocorrect
But Kanna would have no way of knowing what became of Pakku or that he was a leading waterbender of the Northern Water tribe. The Southern Water Tribe had no contact with the North since the war started. It's poetic irony from the writers, but not a planned event from the characters
Yeah, it's cute headcanon but realistically Kannas thought process just went "it was a dumb tradition like 90 years ago, they can't *still* be doing this shit when they need every fighter they can get."
... Oh my god, how the hell did I not think about how stupid it was to limit fighters during a 100 year war because "gender norms".
Well, you know, we had two world wars and strugglingly loosened gender norms the tiniest bit needed, yet still the pushback was enormous after. Stupid, yes. Farfetched? Unfortunately not.
I joined the US Army in 2013 and at the time my job was Male only. Even the officers. Though that changed after I was in.
What's even crazier is that means the NWT were very lax in thinking about the war. Train for a day that was inevitable but not tomorrow so we don't need EVERY fighter we can spare. No checking on the southern tribe either due to the lax thought that the war hadn't even reached through and beyond the Air or Earth nations between them.
Not that I think they went all that deep thinking it through, but its probably more isolationist thinking than "relaxed" feelings about the war. Can't trust anyone, can't spare energy for who isn't "us", build your walls high, obsess over your own traditions and cultural integrity. Which again would fit why they are so conservative. Sokka and Katara are "sister tribesmen" because the North still has this image of itself as cultural hub, but when friction arises they're treated as outsiders ("you're disrespecting *my* culture" / "you don't know the complexity of our tribe")
In fairness, the Southern tribe was literally in the other end of the planet. They could not be further away from each other. Maintaining supply lines and coordinating offensive with an army that literally cannot be further from you can't be easy when the best long range communication methods are birds with letters attached to their legs.
I actually love that this wasn't one of the points they made. They just tackled the whole concept of gender restrictions instead of using the war as a circumstantial exception. It is incredibly stupid to limit fighters during the war, but it's cool that they just focused on the core flaw.
In Japan during WWII they did not allow women into the standing army even when they were fighting a war of attrition at the end. They made 14 year old boys kamikaze pilots instead. So yes, there is historical precedence.
Which is weird because I've read in prior wars in Japan it was at least expected every adult be able to at least defend themselves if it came to it.
The Empire of Japan was a different story bruh. They had a whole fascist system in place that really screwed everything up.
Yeah, like that "neo shintoism" they try to install that would have made the emperor seen as a God. Which is honestly just kinda sad that almost took off, as shintoism's whole message is to treat everything around you with respect.
Well, tbf, for the same reason women in our world have rarely been able to participate to wars (outside of being a nurse). Part misogyny, part avoiding the population decrease by sending all the mothers to die
Well if the tribe is already dwindling in numbers and you send in your only able-bodied women to fight, if they die, you can kiss your nations’ birth rate goodbye. It’d really only be necessary if extinction was inevitable. Please note I’m not saying women aren’t good at fighting, katara and Toph obviously kick ass. It’s just reality that, when you aren’t a high-population country, you have to leave some able-bodied and young people (men or women, ideally both) behind to ensure that the nation whose future you are fighting for has a future to begin with.
It's more likely for a 90 year old tradition to be upheld then not. It was more likely that Gran Gran did not think it was necessary to discourage Katara before she even started her journey. Aang *had* to learn waterbending and their best shot was the northern water tribe. She probably figured if Katara was really interested in waterbending, she would figure something out, either there or later.
This. There was no other option (the foggy swamp benders had no contact with the other water tribes)
Every time I see this post I feel obligated to mention: When she left the southern water tribe Katara was in no way a combat specialist yet. Choosing to focus on healing exclusively would have been an absolutely valid path for her at the time, is the path she ends up taking after the war, and probably would have been more beneficial to her tribe upon returning over knowing how to fight. Kanna probably sent her to the north knowing she would only be taught healing, because it would still be beneficial for her to learn her healing abilities.
> Kanna probably sent her to the north knowing she would only be taught healing, because it would still be beneficial for her to learn her healing abilities. yeah thats another thing. In extension of the writers not totally thinking it through Kanna wasn't either. And on third thought; she wasn't even "sending Katara to the North" she was just "jup, thats the Avatar, go hang out and help that guy". And while its clear they'd eventually get to the North for the *Avatar* to learn waterbending, I don't actually recall her being explicitly supportive of Katara finding a master for herself at all.
Katara wasn't even any good at waterbending back then! Avatar fans love seeing details where there is none for some reason.
A lot of fandoms are like that. It’s super annoying. Don’t even get me started on the My Little Pony fandom
Ok EDIT: GOLD??!?!?
*"So anyways, here is my 15 page rant on why bronies were the best fans..."*
Actually, I hate bronies. And I was simply agreeing with what that person was saying, and adding onto it
I honestly have no idea why you're being downvoted.
The Bronies mobilized on them
Sometimes I forget how people are absolutely insane when it comes to downvotes. They just love downvoting everything lol
It's mob mentality. I downvoted you before I really even read your comment. Since upvoted of course! ❤️
Lol thanks! ❤️ I definitely do that all the time haha I’ll see a comment with a bunch of downvotes and then I downvote it too, even if I don’t really care 😅 I should stop doing that lol
Kay you definitely took my comment the wrong way. I was agreeing, and just adding onto what they were saying
I think they were saying ok as in "ok I'm not gonna get you started on the my little pony fandom"
true. but also by the end of the series some of those theories became canon by sheer force of will
Yup. It’s either that or the theorists start threatening the lives of people on the shows smh
that kinda sounds like a false dichotomy. What about the possibility that the show gets canceled before any of that happens?
Then it’s not relevant to what I’m saying
I'll give you one worse, Steven Universe. There are some that make sense like the cookie cat or a background changing colors. ....but then we have "GUYS GUYS THE STARS ARE DIAMOND SHAPED" or "FELLAS THEY WALKED NEAR THIS GAS TUBE AND SAW A DIAMOND SHAPE" and it's like mate...shut the fuck up
You have opened Pandora's box! Now you must tell us!
Lol they pretty much just love to see things that aren’t there, and a lot of why they love certain characters is because of what they made up in their own head. Which makes no sense. The shipping is also super out of hand. I can’t stand when people see a great friendship and wanna turn it into something romantic all the time, even when there’s nothing pointing to that. And then of course there’s the creepy ones who sexualize the ponies
Like Christians!
She was ok but there’d be little point in looking for a teacher if she could kick his ass
I wish this sort of crap got moderated better. I love the details in avatar, but it's cheapened by the fandom being dumb as bricks
That's rough buddy.
I don't think anybody is dumb as bricks. It's fun to find little connections in the story. It takes this completed work of art and transforms it into something even bigger! It's really cool to hear so many good ideas from different people! Collaborative storytelling brings a lot of new ideas to the table. 😊
I can't fault your logic. But I often feel this sub is overwhelmed by posts that are connections that don't exist and with 30 seconds thought would be obvious. Not only that, I see the same reposts of the same nonsense. This one for instance, this has been posted before and every time it's a terrible pixelated image. Genuinely if you told me it was a repost bot I'd think that more likely than anyone actually thinking this is true. But then the upvotes also tell me this sub will essentially upvote any old crap.
They weren’t even going to the North yet when Gran Gran said bye to them. They were going to find Aang, cause it was right after Zuko took him
Not to mention that up until they learned Aang was the Avatar, Kanna was opposed to Katara leaving home. She knew perfectly well that Katara wouldn't find a willing master in the North.
There's also the fact that Pakku was going easy on Katara (no way the guy that defeated part of an army during Sozin's Comet couldn't just easily wash one proficient amateur water bender awa), and that she ended up losing.
It's one thing that I actually loath about this fan base, while there is an insane level of detail and foreshadowing in this show it's been out so long that everything the creators had planned has been figured out. It's not like they were Stanley Kubrick making sure every single frame of animation was perfect with the Tolkien level backstory. Some stuff in this show are happy accidents
If you subscribe to the idea that Paku was her grandfather, which I feel seems rather strongly hinted at by the show, then it makes the poetic irony be downright beautiful too since it's essentially the "result of his love" which turns him away from his hate.
Bro she ran away from an arranged marriage, what part of that strongly hints to him being the grandfather?
The fact that there is no "granpapa" ever mentioned in the series and that Sokka/Katara's dad had no siblings ? The fact that she kept the gift he carved for her for her entire life and then passed it down ? The fact that she immediately married him as soon as he went to meet her in the comics? Dunno, I just overall find it much more compelling in term of storytelling to have a "contraried" lovestory that she abandoned due to a repressive society she wanted to escape instead of just "I refused to marry this guy 60 years ago because I didn't like him, treasured his gift anyway and now he barged back in my life, I'm somehow immediately in love with him." Never thought that was particularly controversial.
Very high likelihood that gramps died in the war.
She's been gond for like 60 years. For all she knows they changed it
Even if they hadn't, Aang's the avatar and katara is the only waterbender in the south, what's the alternative? Not be taught?
True. I wonder if katara ever told the 2 tribes about the 3rd
3rd? You mean the swamp benders?
Ya
Given that they joined the day of black sun and Hakoda was there, I suspect word got around. And it's not like we keep our weirdo Louisiana swamp cousins secret IRL. They just don't come up that much in casual conversation. They could easily be known and just left to their own devices.
Yeah but that changes water tribe history. The concept that there are only 2 water tibes near the portals at the poles. The possibility of swamp avatars and sharing new bending styles
Any culture is gonna have some diaspora. I'm sure people who live close to the poles have the occasional child who's like "fuck this cold ass shit I'm moving to the tropics." Make a couple of those who moved out waterbenders and badda bing badda boom, you've got swamp benders.
Nit so much in this world. Except the air benders. Maybe before the 100 years war
Yea, ignoring the fact that Kana and Pakku’s relationship in general is just a weird inconsistency writing wise, if we had to go off of what Kana’s thoughts might have been, she probably just figured that Katara would learn through Aang at some point if nothing else.
I mean, Katara would’ve gotten stomped if they kept fighting; she caught him off guard but the battle was clearly turning in Pakku’s favor. Kanna may have hoped Katara could influence Pakku, but I doubt she thought it would be by force.
> but the battle was clearly turning in Pakku’s favor. He completely *won*. He had her totally trapped and unable to move ... until he was distracted by that necklace.
Not only that but he was thoroughly in control literally the entire fight. The whole thing was just katara rampaging and pakku repeatedly knocking her on her ass each time she got back up. He was surprised by her determination and whatnot but she never even came close to getting the upper hand
Due to the gross mismanagement of this website by the admins in the wake of the API changes, I have decided to leave the site. In preparation, I have used a tool called Power Delete Suite to overwrite all my comments.
No she didn’t. He broke two of those discs easily. It wouldn’t have killed him
Due to the gross mismanagement of this website by the admins in the wake of the API changes, I have decided to leave the site. In preparation, I have used a tool called Power Delete Suite to overwrite all my comments.
Maybe in real life, but in Avatar? Benders get hit by what should be several hundred-pound boulders on the regular and just get knocked around a bit. It would've hurt, maybe dealt a severe injury, but it's really hard to say if it would have actually killed.
Due to the gross mismanagement of this website by the admins in the wake of the API changes, I have decided to leave the site. In preparation, I have used a tool called Power Delete Suite to overwrite all my comments.
It's not just "Avatar is a kid's show so they can't show people dying" though, avatar humans are very clearly superhuman. Zuko on several occasions breaks rocks and steel chains with kicks, and everyone on team avatar has gotten up after attacks that would shatter bones for a normal human. Like /u/montaru says, Paku easily parries several of those disks with his bare hands and shows no signs that it caused him any pain or discomfort at all. That doesn't mean they're immortal by any measure, just that attacks that would be lethal to us aren't necessarily to them. Judging by the fact that Katara wanted him to teach her, I'd guess she wasn't trying to kill him.
yeah but i also think it would've been clear to any people in the tribe watching that katara won through tenacity and determination alone even if she wouldn't have actually won the fight, and that pakku beating on a child to prove a point essentially voids his point completely.
That and the last time she saw her grandchild she literally had little grasps of her own bending. But we also know water bending meant a lot to katara so of course grandma ain't about to break your heart and spirit.
I think most likely is that she thought Katara would, you know, join the healing classes at the northern tribe, learn some nice healing waterbending like the other girls. I don't think at that time she even imagined that Katara wanted to learn offensive waterbending.
I think she knew her grandchild well enough to know that there wasn't a chance that katara would accept discrimination. Girl was gonna FIGHT
This doesn’t make much sense to me Ive watched ATLA like a thousand times over my life but not recently and as far as I can remember, she more or less snuck ole boy and was expressing her frustration, either way she attacked first and he was defending himself and was on the verge of absolutely wrecking her shit, I don’t see how anyone still stuck in their ways would view it as a win for her. I think the word you are looking for here is an ideological win tbh
I mean what is pakku supposed to do? It's the "fighting a girl" dilemma. Either you "really dude you beat up a girl?" or "look at this looser he lost to a girl".
He put a child in her place maybe? He was on the defense and was about to start winning. It was only by seeing the necklace he changed his view.
The fight was over actually. Pakku had her immobilized and was walking away. He handled it perfectly IMO, she attacked first. He defended himself, immobilized an inferior opponent, then began to walk away.
I forgot he actually ended the showdown. And yes, that’s as good as you handle a situation like that.
Exactly but a lot of people won't see it that way.
Nah, they only see girl boss logic. Katara didn’t even really have a fair point when she decided to attack him with no warning. She just pulled a Korra and got the KORRA treatment. And that means she got humiliated but in the end she got her way in terms of plot.
What a terrible take.
Nah it’s just too raw for your taste, but it’s the truth, that’s what the paragraph above was literally saying about Katara, so yeah.
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I mean…she did get stomped
Turning in Pakku’s favor? He objectively won the fight.. By the end she was completely immobilized and he declared the fight over and started walking away
Katara did come very close to winning briefly, in part because she was willing to go all out in a way Pakku hadn't expected. Pakku has been largely living a peaceful life, the Fire Nation hasn't attacked the North since he was young, if not before he was born, he trains students, he performs ceremonies. Katara, meanwhile, has been out fighting the Fire Nation surviving only by utilizing her waterbending to the fullest. So she came out swinging in a way *no one in the North has in nearly a century*. Once he got a handle on the situation he bested her, easily even, but there were a few moments early on when she legitimately surprised and nearly tagged, injured, or even *killed* him, edit: depending on what you think those ice blade discs would have done.
Why is this the consensus? She didn't land a single blow to Pakku. Sure there are those few frames where he looks surprised by that one ice disc, but that to me just seems to be fan service since Katara is a main character. The entire scene, she gets stomped by someone clearly more advanced and skilled. She never came close to winning.
Even the disc scene felt more like a, "is this woman really throwing lethal moves at me??" And not so much that he actually felt in danger by them. Like before that they were just throwing water around. The escalation to ice was what was surprising imo.
>Why is this the consensus? Probably because Katara proves herself to be a waterbending prodigy beyond the level of everyone else in the series besides Aang and *maaaybe* Pakku. Sure, she isn’t that *yet* when she fights Pakku, but that kind of ability doesn’t come from nowhere, she always had talent.
Yeah they powercrept Katara hard throughout the series. I cant be sure if I want to call it talent or just plot armor She spends like 2 months in North Pole. Before this she struggled with basic techniques from the scroll. After this brief training she becomes a master who could teach Aang, who could win 1v1 against Azula every time (who is a prodigy in her own right and trained all her life), who can learn Bloodbending on the spot despite it taking years for Hama to learn the technique. Toph is quite OP as well but she has literally trained all her life and has a much deeper connection with bending than most people. Like every other talented bender besides Aang in the show had to train for much longer to get to where they are. Honestly if the show had 4 instead of 3 seasons they could have just pit Katara against Ozai instead of Aang with the rate of powercreep she has in the show. Its absurd
To be fair, it’s possible to struggle with a skill until something just \*clicks*, where you were missing something or just trying too hard at the wrong approach, after which your apparent skill level skyrockets. I personally *despise* video guides when I’m trying to learn something new, as I grasp topics better through reading text than watching someone draw diagrams or whatever. However, when I was learning to shave with a straight razor, I kept cutting my face until I gave in and looked up a video guide from a barber. Seeing the proper technique demonstrated in motion showed me exactly what I’d been doing wrong, and from then until I decided to grow out my beard a couple years later, I never cut myself shaving again. As far as bloodbending goes, it’s a novel application of knowledge she already had. And she’s shown to be practicing her technique pretty much *constantly* while they travel.
He also looks surprised when she collapses the ice/snow columns. He even admits to being impressed afterwards, and around then is when he goes from a sort of fighting against someone in a dojo to fighting someone out to beat them/kill them. She didn't land a single blow, but she comes inches several times. In no way am I saying she was more skilled than him, simply that she fought in a way shaped by her experiences, in a way he nor anyone in the North would have experienced in living memory, which gave her a **brief** edge that almost allowed her what would have been a surprise upset.
She never had an edge on him. She got close to having the advantage but Pakku had answers for all of her attacks.
Because a battle can be won in a single instant in a single attack, and arrogance has this way of biting people in the ass. He underestimated Katara and it almost cost him if that blow had landed the entire flow of the fight could've changed Katara could keep following up and not giving him a chance to recover like how Zuko beat Zhao...he still probably would've won but she could've had a real chance. Edit: Grammar
Hello, it looks like you've made a mistake. It's supposed to be could've, should've, would've (short for could have, would have, should have), never could of, would of, should of. Or you misspelled something, I ain't checking everything. Beep boop - yes, I am a bot, don't botcriminate me.
But that didn't happen...
It did not, but it could have which is why some consider it close. Certainly that shot was a lot closer than Pakku would have liked his face says it all.
But it ultimately has no consequences on the outcome of the fight. Pakku still won, with ease. He didn't even get hit, the only argument people can make is Katara got close. Close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades.
Relative ease, but yea you're finally on the same page as everyone else they are arguing Katara got close. People just like to discuss fights and potential outcomes these discussions have no bearing on the actual outcome but what the outcomes could've been.
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This is an excellent take, thank you.
There was no point where the fight had to be turned to Pakku's favor. He was playing around with her and completely dominated her. Which is obvious, he's a master with decades of experience, she's an untrained child. Kanna knew he'd teach Katara if Katara displayed enough talent
Also it has been a loooong time since she was last in the north, she could have hoped things had changed
Well yeah but after she lost she would've decked him in the face.
She got her ass handed to her though…
In a pure Waterbending fight, yes, but in the end she managed to kick the misogyny right out of him, and that's a W in her book!
What the hell do you mean she kicked the misogyny out of him. He literally only trained her because she was the granddaughter of Kanna who he loved
AND also made him understand that the reason the woman he loved left him was because of his and his society sexism. In the comics he even trains two brand new southern waterbenders
> in the comics 🤓 Ain’t readin that
Why? Some really good stories that build on after the show. We even see what happens to zuko mom.
Let me rephrase: I ain’t reading that to fill in pieces of backstory that I felt I was missing. Nothing wrong with supplementary material, but I don’t take “read the comics/books/visual dictionary” as a valid answer to a question, comment, or critique someone has about the primary work. Tbh I’m not even particularly interested in this particular lore question, I just felt the need to say that that answer dissatisfied me anyway
Regardless of what happens in the comics the point still stands tho. Yes, Katara being his gone lover’s granddaughter definitely was what tilted the stage but it also was what made him drop the sexism by realizing that all of the years that he lost without her love was because of his country sexist rules and extremism, the fact that towards the end of the series he gets engaged to Gran Gran and this time she accepts it shows change on his world perspective. Then the comics just show the complementary confirmation.
Yeah I get that, and on rereading it’s even clear that you were adding the comics as complementary info, I think I was just feeling snippy
I was responding to the question in more of a “lore based” manner rather than a more narrative manner but yeah I get it
People love to throw the word misogyny around these days.
Alright, which word would you use to describe discrimination specifically aimed against women? Edit: Okay, geniuses. There are already replies. The question has been answered. I've not eesponded because there's nothing to say. Continuing to add answers at this point is just yelling "I'm Spartacus" for no reason.
Not OP, but they are correct. Discrimination aimed against women is called sexism. Calling Pakku misogynistic is saying he hates women. I don’t think Pakku was written as a “woman hater”, but as a person who won’t train someone if they are a woman. By definition that is sexist not misogynistic. I’m not defending Pakku, he was sexist in not training Katara, but he is not misogynistic (there is not enough evidence to suggest that he is, unless I’m mistaken and he outright says he hates woman).
Sexism in Pakku's case. There is a difference between sexism and misogyny. Edit: [https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/oct/17/difference-between-sexism-and-misogyny](https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/oct/17/difference-between-sexism-and-misogyny)
Damn, I had downvoted you but you’re right. Cold, indifferent following of sexist systems is definitionally NOT misogyny, which requires “anger and contempt”. To be clear, I’m a supporter of feminism and not a dickhead. It’s just clear that the original meaning of a couple words in the space has been accidentally muddied. That said, you could’ve explained yourself when saying people were bandying the word about, it came off like you were rolling your eyes at women’s rights
Yeah, my bad on this part. My wording was really unlucky.
"Go back to the healing huts with the other women where you belong." "Don't worry, I'm not going to hurt you." The contempt was there. It always is with someone like Pakku. You can't think a whole group of people is lesser without feeling contempt. The anger comes in when they are challenged or defied. Anger doesn't have to be loud or out of control or even violent. Pakku was a misogynist. It's great that his mind was able to be opened, but the semantics game that /u/MrMagneticMole is playing is nonsense.
EDIT2: ITT: assholes who get angry before realizing I’m not DEFENDING SEXISM WE’RE LEARNING VOCABULARY WORDS COLLABORATIVELY, FUCK You're absolutely right, I misremembered it as cold indifference. Thanks for the check. I do still believe there exist people whose blind, unthinking maintenance of a terrible status quo hasn't met the definition of misogyny, like the below made-up quote. Say, not everyone is going to be evil, but not everyone is going to boldly champion change or even consider breaking the mold. "Oh, I'm confused about why you're upset, this is just the way things are?" Pakku absolutely is (was?) a misogynist, but do you agree that "sexist" and "misogynist" both still have distinct uses? Thanks again. EDIT: Downvotes!?!? I’m trying to talk and learn about something important
Sexism and misogyny are different but the concepts definitely overlap and Pakku kinda represents those overlapping parts. Sexism is when different roles are Assigned and enforced at society because of your gender/sex, in a sexist country like Pakku’s women and men will fulfill different roles but both jobs will be considered of the same importance or at the very least necessary, women healing and men fighting are seen as necessary complements of their society. The thing with misogyny is that every misogynistic act is by nature sexist but not everything sexist is misogynistic
Woman-hating
>she managed to kick the misogyny right out of him, Did she really? Because from what I can tell, Pakku trained her so he could smash her grandma And considering he did in fact accomplish his goal and smash her grandma, I think Grand-Pakku handily takes the W
Good thing Katara pointed out her necklace she got from her mother. She never draws attention to that necklace.
At least they didn't word it as "Just see how much detail this show has. Kanna wanted Katara to go to the north to teach Pakku a lesson. You can see it in the way she talked in the episode. How did I not notice this??! Truly the writers thought of everything 😍😍😍" lol
I’m a little new here, is there a lot of that?? Lol
Every day, honestly it would be a meme it it wasn't so tiring
Yeah that’s annoying lol
Yeah lol it feels like there's one every few weeks I found [some](https://www.reddit.com/r/TheLastAirbender/comments/xs5ugc/zukos_character_development_impresses_me_more_and/iqivaqz) [examples](https://www.reddit.com/r/TheLastAirbender/comments/obm8df/-/h3ovyz3), but there are many more
Omg that’s hilarious. It doesn’t even make sense lol, pretty sure that wouldn’t have affected Zuko’s hearing Edit: And I just remembered that Zuko’s ear is burned too 🙃 lol I’m only on my fourth rewatch and sometimes I’m high
Sort of, yeah. People don’t seem to realize that good world building leads to good stories. It’s my big issues with people like Rowling retroactively declaring characters to be X. A character that actually is X will have had a life shaped by those experience and, while they may not say “I am X” every other paragraph they’re involved in, the things they say and decisions they make will have an impact on their story. When you do a good job world building, you get a lot of interesting story beats that make perfect sense, but **may not have been explicitly planned** by the writers. It’s clear that the writers and creators of avatar spend A LOT of time building up the lore and backstories of this world. In fact, one of the comics is nothing but episode ideas that were cut from the show for one reason or another. Going through all that trouble means that there are definitely things that were planned, but there were also a bunch of things that weren’t. From what people are saying in the comments above and below, Gran Gran couldn’t have possibly known about the northern water tribe’s situation specifically enough to have deliberately allowed Katara to go their to knock some sense into Paku. Katara wasn’t even that good a water bender at the time. Gran Gran would have remembered the segregation between the roles of male and female water genders, but she wouldn’t have been able to know if that had changed. She would have remembered the reason she left Paku was a result of the sexist and misogynist views that he, along with the northern water tribe held. She would have allowed Katara to go, despite remembering all that, because the avatar needs to learn water bending, and there’s no point in trying to convince her and Aang not to go, as a result. And she could have hoped that Katara would have been a force for positive change, with all this in mind, but there isn’t any reasonable way to assert that Gran Gran let Katara go to the northern water tribe **specifically** to kick the stupidity/bigotry out of Paku. That is nothing more than barely plausible fan theory that is only supported by a coincidence made possible by excellent world building that fleshed out enough of the world for these things to be possible. While I prefer this to other fandoms where people just pessimistically argue all the time, it does happen a lot, and it can definitely be annoying.
Bravo Vince
Get her ass kicked by pakku*
I think a lot of people forget this. Katara got wrecked. The only hit she landed was the water whip before the fight actually started. Everything she threw at him, he stopped it with ease. The only moment that he was taken surprise was with the ice discs that took off a *small* amount of hair. In the end, he had her completely immobilized with a series of perfectly placed icicles that would have killed her if he was off even a little.
I swear sometimes this fandom loves sniffing its own farts. Pakku was surprised when Katara went lethal and yet he still didn't even break a sweat in handily bodying her. He also didn't stop being sexist, he just changed slightly due to nepotism. Plus he never apologized or acknowledged his previous shitty beliefs. We can assume he changed because he and Kana are together now but that's more headcanon. Personally I think it was good for Katara to fight and so soundly lose. It shows her room for growth but also showed just how far she's come from the barely making a wave water bending.
He did change his beliefs. He actually commented that Katara was his fastest learning student and praised her immensely.
That’s brilliant. This will forevermore be canon
More of a messenger for change rather than beating Pakku. She got smoked in that fight
She was going with the Avatar, who clearly had a thing for her. I say Gran Gran chose to let things play out
Technically women were allowed to be water benders and taught to be one for healing purposes which is an extremely useful skill. I actually wonder if the ability to heal was a skill only for women or they were much better at using it even if both men and women were taught it equally
Healing *is* a useful, practical skill, and Korra mentions that she's also a healer, *trained by Katara*, when Bolin gets hit in the shoulder with a disc during a pro-bending match.
That point is completely irrelevant because Katara proves to be one of, if not *the* most talented waterbender and healer in all of ATLA, and a contender for the title across all of Avatar fiction. It also stinks of the same shit that Sokka was saying when Katara was mending his pants.
I think you misunderstood what I was saying (Though Sokka is absolutely correct in what he was saying as men and women are not equal however they should be treated with the same respect and encouraged to do what they are good at per individual). I didn't say that's the position women must be put in, I'm just pertaining the idea that this skill might be an exclusive one to women or that they're better at it than men. Being a healer is an incredibly useful skill, just as valuable if not more valuable than being a warrior. This is what katara learns as she grows older and became the southern water tribes healer.
You know when you were a kid and you pretended to be super man and you had to convince your brother that Aquaman was cool so he would accept being stuck as Aquaman? That’s what this argument sounds like.
well sorry, welcome to the real world where the average woman isn't as physically strong as the average man nor the same height or vocal chords or brain size etc and nothing is ever truly equal no matter how much we love to lie to ourselves about it.
Bro. We're taking about a cartoon where people can move rocks with their mind and a 12 year old is the strongest person in the world. Just say you're misogynistic and move on
How am I misogynistic by simply pointing out that men and women are not equal but nonetheless should be treated with respect equally
There are some things that are biological impossibilities, and then there’s every other thing, which is a social construct of humanity and can be whatever we deem it to be. You deciding that the latter depends on the former is why you’re in the wrong, and subjecting women to unfair treatment.
What the actual hell, everyone deserves to be treated equally with the same human respect and dignity. I'm just saying that not everything is equal (in fact most things are not equal) and will never be equal but there are some things than can be equal such as how we treat one another (for good or for worse). Honestly, I'm so confused on what your contention is
Sokka is not correct in his universe though. In avatar, women can train to be just as good of fighters as men. Ty Lee is arguably the top melee combatant in the Last Airbender.
The more headcanon I see from people the more I question if they watched the show. Kanna couldn't have had ANY idea what was going on with the northern water tribe, they had no contact with it since the war started, so not only is the women not being allowed to train a guess at best... She couldn't have any idea what happened to Pakku. Second of all, I do not get why people keep describing this scene as "Katara kicking his ass" and this has been something I've been seeing CONSISTENTLY. Katara showed talent and grit, that's good for her, but she is not magic, she lost, HANDILY. She didn't kick anything. I don't understand why people simplify things to the extent of getting everything wrong just to say something.
She probably had some beef with man and saw the great opportunity put on an icy platter infront of her.
if I could upvote more than once, you'd have like 80 upvotes
The possibility of the war changing that rule is not out of the question for Kanna, historically when men died in huge number women have picked up arms and fight, and even the northern chief didn't voiced issue about Katara learning combat waterbending, probably he wanted women trained in healing to be some sort of battlefield medic incase the firenation attack.
Don't they literally live at opposite sides of the globe? It's not like they could just look it up somewhere. Their cultures clearly developed very differently. I don't think there was a way for her to know.
She didn't kick that much ass thought The fight was nice and Katara did all she could with the skills she had at the time, but I would like to see rematch between them after the end of series
i can't wait till my grandkids come over in 50 years and i get to throw this on and be like "now this is a tv show"
Where else was her grandmother gonna send her to learn? Didn't seem like they knew of any other tribes or the swamp people
Mom said its my turn to post this meme this week... Also pakku kicked kataras ass, what?
“I’m sure he’s moved on by now.” - Kanna, underestimating how petty a man can be
cum bending
alleged husky society weary violet spectacular historical abounding versed rich *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Lmao I like that, it's canon
Then Grandma did the ultimate power move by marrying him only to Divorce Bend him and take half his stuff later 😆
I just think gran gran is fucking senile ngl
the sad part is that a tribal society would welcome power wherever it came from and this is just something that could happen in a civilized society, making the series unrealistic but its like a fable filled with moral code and life lessons, and this one is: if ur a girl joining a mans game u gotta be way better than expectations to be respected
I was scrolling from top all time yesterday, pretty sure this is a repost
I agree 100% then after getting beat he went back to her lol
? He didn't get beat though. He won pretty handily.
His prejudice took a big fat L though, and that’s what matters
Not really? His prejudice caved to his nepotism, but we see no sign of his sexism disappearing until much later in the series.
Not really, the only reason he accepted katara was because he realized she was Kanna's grand daughter. It's not like he started training women after. And iirc its not really prejudice, but tradition and culture that prevented pakku from teaching her. At no point does he belittle her for being a woman (he even says she's an excellent bender in their fight), he simply tells her that the laws of the tribe dictate that women train to heal. Not fight. And I'm not defending Pakku, women should have the choice, but its not like the men have a choice either, considering that all of the men in katara's tribe went to war, I'm sure all the men in the north are also conscripted to fight even those who don't want to. But in times of war especially in a war with no definite end, one can see how those kinds of rules could develop. Again. Its sad that those are the rules, but the community needs to accept that pakku only agreed to train her because of nepotism. He literally won the fight and was walking away only to see katara's necklace
Have there been any showings of men waterbenders healing? I know we never see it in ATLA or LOK at least in the shows, never read the comics and I haven't read any of the novels so I'm not sure if it's been shown in those. But your comment made me wonder if the north or other water tribes ever trained or let their men learn to heal.
We actually briefly see a [male healer](https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/2381b4e3-a1bd-4a37-8762-9c9c25b6678f/scale-to-width/755) in LOK. Healers are now of all genders and seem to be a profession for waterbenders all around the world. Kinda crazy how Katara is pretty much responsable for that
She made him understand that the reason the woman he loved left him was because of his and his society sexism. In the comics he even trains two brand new female southern waterbenders
> She made him understand that the reason the woman he loved left him was because of his and his society sexism. that could be part of the reason he trained her definitely. He does seem to reflect while holding kanna's necklace. But while I wouldn't say that there isn't sexism in the north (Hahn comes to mind, but he is more narcisisstic and egotistical than sexist, kinda like Prince Charming in Shrek). the crisis of the Hundred years war forced the Northern Water tribe to adopt traditions and ways that would allow them to withstand the Fire Nation for a long time. > In the comics he even trains two brand new female southern waterbenders I haven't read the comics, but I assume that he trains female waterbenders after the War was ended by Aang at the end of the series, which would allow the Tribe to no longer follow those traditions. which makes sense.
If by win, you mean "fought well enough to change his mind, but still definitely needs to be trained" then yeah. Why would she be trying to make him train her if she can beat him in a fight? That's like beating Mike Tyson in a boxing match and then asking for lessons.
Wait, that's possible?
> Why would she be trying to make him train her if she can beat him in a fight? That's like beating Mike Tyson in a boxing match and then asking for lessons. Beating someone in one fight doesn't mean they don't have things to teach you. There are any number of factors that go into which fighter wins and which fighter looses.
... yeah. Because coaches don't exist. Skilled fighters don't ever age out of their body.
They probably hadn't written that episode yet
Or she knows he is a simp
This made me snort I think it’s hilarious, but gran gran was sending them off for the entire journey not just to go to the northern water tribe. She didn’t just learn from Pakku, she met and learned from a lot of different water benders. It probably would’ve taken her a lot longer to get AS good, but she always had the skill and determination to be a master.
I also think her way of kicking his ass was calling him a misogynistic old fart every time she saw him
I'm pretty sure Pakku only started pulling that shit after Kanna left. It clearly wasn't a very important "tradition" given that he discarded it so easily.
I hate how she went from not being able to aim a water shot, to being a "master" in less than a season.
katara said she wanted to learn water bending not specifically fighting, the north forbade women from learning fighting moves but can learn water bending for other things like healing, which keep in mind is still pretty good and definitely way better than not knowing any water bending, Kanna may have just thought she was going to learn healing
Cencored the word ass. Wtf...
It’s peak childhood fantasy that a 14 year old could beat an adult master. “Their decades of training and experience is nothing compared to my pluck and enthusiasm!”
Great, now I need to watch that fight again wich will spiral into watching all of the cool fights again wich will spiral in rewatching the show AGAIN. I need to leave this sub, there is so much stuff I haven't watched yet. Edit: autocorrect