Avatar: The Last Airbender is a treasured animation with a dedicated fanbase that loved following the journey of Aang, Katara, Sokka, and the rest of Team Avatar. Their adventure across the four elemental nations has inspired and fascinated fans across the world. Spawning several comics, a sequel series, and a questionable live-action movie, the series is a staple of animated television.
While the journey was the best part, fans were also attached to the relationships that the characters formed. The Avatar fandom has an entire subset obsessed with the different fan couples. One popular -- and very real -- romantic relationship is the one between Katara and Aang. The young Avatar is smitten from the first time he sees her. When it comes to Katara, she eventually grows to love the fun-loving, determined hero, too.
By Legend of Korra, the pair married and had three children. They raised wonderful leaders and benders, and single-handedly saved airbending from the brink of vanishing. Their relationship is vital to Aang's journey and the legacies at the core of Korra's. However, the couple didn't get to have much screen time. Instead, most of their stories focus on their friendship. Most of their romantic relationship technically happens off screen. Because of that, sometimes the more interesting facts about their relationship fall to the wayside.
With that said, here are 25 Crazy Revelations About Aang And Katara's Relationship.
When Katara and Aang became adults, they married and had three dynamic children. Their first born, Bumi, was a firecracker with no bending powers. Their second child, Kya, was born a waterbender with a fierce heart, much like her mother. Third, and finally, they had Tenzin, who became an airbender.
Though Aang didn't get to spend nearly as much time with his two eldest children, he was dearly devoted to his entire family. All of his children think of him fondly and always want to make him proud. Aang left an impressive legacy, but the wisdom and kindness that he imparted on his children was equally impressive.
Early in their journey through the Earth Kingdom, Team Avatar ran into several villages that were enslaved or ravaged by the Fire Nation. One of their most notable encounters was with the Freedom Fighters, a group of orphans who banded together to fight back against the Fire Nation soldiers. Their leader was the suave, unmovable Jet. Katara instantly had a crush on him.
The feeling was mutual and the two eventually shared a kiss. However, their relationship dissolved when Team Avatar discovered that Jet's tactics were brutal. He hurt civilians and soldiers alike. The group changed their ways after encountering Team Avatar, but Jet and Katara were never romantically involved afterwards.
Katara took quickly to waterbending. Before they found a master, she taught Aang. While they were on the road and Aang was trying to learn different forms of bending, she decided to personally train with him to hone his skills.
After Aang's passing, Katara became the new Avatar's waterbending teacher. She and Korra spent many hours together mastering the techniques. She's the only known waterbender to be the main bending tutor of two different Avatars, as Toph also taught both Avatars. She taught Korra metalbending, though, as Korra already knew how to earthbend.
Connecting to the Avatar State is a very complicated process. After a brush with the Fire Nation at his old Air Temple, Aang sought guidance. Guru Pathik agreed to help him, but Aang struggled to open the seventh chakra that would make him one with the Avatar State. After all, it required him to disconnect from all worldly binds, which meant giving up on his feelings for Katara.
Aang refused, but the guru warned that this might ruin his connection to the Avatar State forever. Despite this warning, though, Aang risked his Avatar role by leaving the seventh chakra closed.
Katara changed the world when she found a boy trapped in an iceberg. Freeing him released the Avatar back into their universe. It was a once-in-a-lifetime moment for her.
However, Aang felt differently about the experience. Instead of realizing the impact of the moment, he immediately fell in love with the girl who saved him. She was hopeful, powerful, and kind. From then on, Aang's crush only grew as he got to know more and more about Katara. Though Katara wasn't initially interested in him romantically at first, eventually she also developed strong feelings for Aang.
The entirety of Avatar: The Last Airbender happened while Aang was twelve years old. Throughout that year, he learned how to bend all four elements well enough to fight the Fire Lord. He also made several powerful friends, one of which was the girl he went on to marry, Katara.
Near the end of the series, emotions run high for both of the young teens. Katara has conflicting feelings for Aang, while he feels his own emotions bubbling over. This eventually leads to the two kissing several times, trying to figure out how they feel and what they want. The show later ends with the two sharing a passionate kiss. He may have only been twelve, but Aang knew what he wanted.
In episode 14 of the series, "The Fortuneteller", the gang visit a city that relies on the word of an elderly psychic. The decide to seek out the psychic for guidance. Aang asks about his love prospects and, while initially disappointed, is given some hope. Katara, similarly, is told that she will have a great romance with a powerful bender.
Though the fortuneteller ends up being a fake, her prophecies do foreshadow Aang and Katara's relationship. When Aang uses his bending to save the village from an erupting volcano, Sokka remarks that he's a powerful bender. When she hears that comment, Katara suddenly has a comprehensive look on her face. It seems like the psychic wasn't wrong about everything.
During their travels throughout the Fire Nation, Team Avatar ran into a lot of interesting people and were put in some intense situations. One of the oddest, and most fun, was the Footloose situation in episode "The Headband". The students there are rigidly taught pro-Fire Nation propaganda and aren't allowed to have to too much fun.
In response, the fun-loving Aang sets up a secret dance in a local cave and starts teaching the local kids how to dance. After showing off a bit with some secret airbending tactics, he invites Katara to the floor. Her own athleticism and flowing waterbending style, mixed with his airbender boosts, make them the best dancers there... until the party eventually gets busted, of course.
Aang and Katara didn't officially get together until the end of the series, but the young Avatar was already in good standing long before then. Not only was he one of her closest friends, but he was also close with her family. Before they left the South Pole, her Gran-Gran accepted him and wished them well.
Similarly, when they found Sokka and Katara's dad, both he and Aang got along well and worked together to stop the Fire Lord. The best example, though, is Katara's brother Sokka. Sokka and Aang are close friends, and it's obvious that Sokka has known about Aang's crush for a long time. He may find it disgusting when they kiss, but he supports his sister and friend nonetheless.
16 They Almost Kissed In "The Cave Of Two Lovers"
"The Cave Of Two Lovers" is a fun episode, but also a terrible one. It gives Katara and Aang time to explore their feelings for each other, but it also includes annoying characters from the Earth Kingdom.
As legend goes, the Cave of Two Lovers was the meeting place for a couple driven apart by warring villages.They met in the caves in secret, letting their love light their way. However, to the average eye, the cave is dank and dark. When their torches start going out, Katara and Aang wonder if a kiss is what fuels the light. However, before their lips can touch, their torch goes out and the luminescent rocks in the walls reveal themselves.
Near the end of Book Three: Fire, Team Avatar and their allies were mounting a counter-strike against the warmongering Fire Nation. As tensions rose, so did other emotions. Aang was sure of himself: he loved Katara. However, she struggled with her emotions and thus wasn't sure how she really felt about him.
She had feelings for him, but he was about to go into a battle they didn't know if he was ready for it. It was hard to accept her romantic feelings for someone who she might lose the next day. It wasn't until after Fire Lord Ozai was defeated and Aang returned to her that she realized that she did love him.
14 They Call Each Other "Sweetie"
When Avatar: The Last Airbender ended, the creators commissioned a few graphic novels to wrap up a few loose ends. These novels included the mystery of Zuko's mother and the aftermath of Fire Nation occupation. In both, Aang and Katara were finally an official couple, with pet names and all. In fact, the two had quickly taken to calling each other "sweetie."
Some fans and characters weren't too happy about this, however. Sokka, in particular, said that this kind of affection gave him "the oogies." Though the pet name wasn't a huge hit, it was nice to see the heroes of the story being happy together after all of the hardships that they had endured.
When Aang got trapped in the iceberg, he put the Avatar Cycle in jeopardy. After all, if he stayed in that ice forever, the Avatar Cycle would have ended with him, since he had to pass away before a new Avatar could be born. The world would have lost all of that knowledge, power, and the deep connection to the spirit world.
Katara was the one who broke him out of the ice and, in turn, saved the Avatar Cycle. Though her waterbending powers were new and scary to her at the time, she saved the world by setting him free. Without him, it would have been harder, if not impossible, to bring the nations together and stop the Fire Nation takeover.
The Harmony Restoration Movement brought up a lot of issues for Katara and Aang. They struggled with what mixed heritage would mean for their children, and what it would mean for Aang's last airbender status. After all, if he had no airbending children, that form of bending would disappear with him.
However, the two decided to stay together anyway. Lucky for them, their third child, Tenzin, was an airbender and could therefore pass on the genes. He became a master, leader, and father of his own airbending brood and preserved the rare bending style. When the Harmonic Convergence happened in Legend of Korra, new airbenders thankfully had a great master to teach them.
Since Katara and Aang were very young when they started falling in love with one another, they were understandably immature. Because of this, they would easily become jealous. Aang was extremely jealous of her time spent with Jet and even Zuko. Out of the pair, he was the most actively jealous one.
However, Katara also had her moments. Katara was envious of On Ji when Aang taught her how to dance. She was also jealous when an airbending fan club dedicated to Aang was formed. Young love can be volatile, and jealousy can be ugly, but at least the pair seemed to grow out of it. After all, they were only young pre-teens when they first got together.
While waterbending may seem like it's one of the most peaceful forms of bending, it has its darker side. One form of waterbending is bloodbending, which is the art of using the water in a person's veins to control them.
Initially, Katara was thrilled to meet a powerful waterbender named Hama in the Fire Nation. However, the more she learned, the darker things became. Eventually, the group learned that Hama used her bloodbending to hurt innocent Fire Nation civilians. Though Katara can use the power, she did not pass it along to Aang. As far as fans know, she kept the dark, manipulative technique to herself. After all, every time she watched people use it, all it caused was pain.
When it came to their kids, Aang and Katara gave them names that meant a lot to them. Their first son was named after Aang's childhood best friend and Earth King, Bumi. They named their daughter Kya, after Katara's lost mother. After that, they named their last son Tenzin. While there was no specific character who shared the same name, Monk Gyatso was named after a real, famous monk, and that real monk's first name was Tenzin.
For such high-profile children, Aang and Katara certainly gave their kids names with significant legacies. Each child surpassed those expectations and more, as they all became great leaders and masters, sharing their parents legacy with the world.
Because of his young age and his inexperience, Aang struggled with going in and out of the Avatar State. He even found the Avatar State hard to control at times. Over the years, though, he grew and learned, becoming more skilled with the state. However, whenever he was out of control in the Avatar State, Katara seemed to be the only person who was able to calm him down.
For example, when he found out that the Air Temples were desolated and that his pseudo-father, Gyatso, was gone, he transformed into the Avatar State unconsciously. With the Fire Nation hot on their tails, it was only Katara's kindness and bravery that was able to calm him down and save him from himself.
On Avatar: The Last Airbender's soundtrack, there is a song called "The Avatar's Love". The entire song can also be heard at the end of the series, when Aang and Katara kiss. However, bits and pieces of it are also played throughout the series, whenever the pair has a romantic moment. One of the most iconic examples of this is the moment that the two shared together in "The Cave Of Two Lovers".
Though the show had a lot of hopeful pairings, it's clear from this song alone that the writers always meant for Katara and Aang to end up together. After all, that's quite a coincidental name for a song if they didn't mean for the two to eventually fall in love.
As a master waterbender, Katara is skilled in a breadth of water techniques. One of the most useful techniques throughout the series was her healing skills. Whenever Team Avatar was injured during a fight, she would patch them up. She was even able to save Aang from a devastating lightning attack that could have easily taken his life.
However, her physical healing wasn't the only thing that was useful to Aang. Her emotional support and kindness also helped to keep him level headed in any impossible situation. After all, he was just a twelve year old fighting a Fire Lord, regardless of his Avatar status. She helped him keep it together, healing his mind and body.
When the Fire Nation invasion was stopped, the world was once again a safe place. However, that didn't change the fact that they had decimated the Air Temples and made Aang the only remaining airbender left alive.
Thankfully, the birth of Aang and Katara's son, Tenzin, changed all of that. After being the only airbender for so long, Aang now had a fellow airbender to teach his knowledge to. All he had to do was train him. Tenzin and Aang spent a lot of time together honing in his skills, ensuring that Tenzin could lead the next generation of airbenders. If they didn't have Tenzin, the art of traditional airbending would have ended with Aang.
Since she grew up in the Fire Nation blockaded South Pole, all Katara had ever known is oppression. She was raised on the hopeful stories of the Avatar, but like everyone else, she was discouraged by the fact that an Avatar hadn't been around for years. When she found Aang in the iceberg and realized that he was someone who could change her world for the better, from that moment onward, she believed in his ability to make things better.
No matter what happened to them throughout their travels, Katara continued to support and trust the young Avatar. Despite his age and size, she never underestimated him. This helped to develop their bond and eventually led them to fall in love.
Whenever the Avatar passes on, the new Avatar is soon born after. Throughout his life, Avatar Aang accomplished a lot. However, he never got to meet his own grandchildren. After all, Korra is 16 years old when fans meet her in Legend of Korra, and Jinora, Tenzin's eldest child, is only about 10. This means that Aang never got to experience the joys of being a grandparent -- particularly, the grandparent of four boisterous airbenders.
Aang would have loved his grandchildren and would have happily taken part in their whimsical antics. He definitely would have air-scootered around with them. However, he unfortunately never got the chance. Instead, Korra got to know them in his absence.
After the Fire Nation was stopped, Zuko took over from his father. In the aftermath, he and Aang tried to work together to remove the Fire Nation occupation in other lands, particularly in the Earth Kingdom. However, this wasn't as easy as they thought. Certain villages had been there so long that they had blended Fire and Earth traditions.
Because of this, nations were disagreeing and clashing all over again. Zuko refused to destroy the blended villages, while the Earth Kingdom wanted to peacefully remove all Fire Nation infrastructure. In the conflict, Aang almost destroyed Zuko. However, Katara stopped him from hurting his friend and kept the peace.
The Harmony Restoration movement caused a lot of trouble. It threatened not only well-established, blended villages, but also world peace.
Katara and Aang also almost broke up because of the conflict. Being two benders from two different nations, they worried about their compatibility and how it would effect their children. They also worried about the future of the airbenders if they stayed together. The two went through a lot of emotional turmoil, but eventually, they decided to stay together. Considering how awesome Bumi, Kya, and Tenzin are, we consider the decision a good one.
Are there any revelations we missed about Aang and Katara's relationship in Avatar: The Last Airbender? Let us know in the comments!
Fan art by Artipelago, Ohlookitscazz, NanFe, and BlackCrow06.