Katara

Origin

During her childhood, Katara's tribe was under attack by the Fire Nation who were hunting for Waterbenders in the South Pole. Katara's mother made the ultimate sacrifice to protect her daughter when she told one Fire Nation soldier that she is a Waterbender. Katara's father left them in order to fight the Fire Nation to protect his tribe. At the age of 8, Katara and Sokka only had Gran Gran with them in their tribe as they worked to survive. Katara assumed the motherly role while Sokka assumed the hunter role in the household.

Creation

Katara is created by Bryan Konietzko and Michael Dante DiMartino as one of the main protagonists in their series Avatar: The Last Airbender that aired on the Nickelodeon channel. She makes her first appearance in Episode 1: The Boy in the Iceberg, her first comic appearance in Avatar: The Promise, and her first movie appearance in the live action film The Last Airbender.

In the The Women of Avatar: The Last Airbender feature of the The Complete Book 3 Collection DVD, Bryan Konietzko and Michael Dante DiMartino comment on how they viewed Katara as the deuteragonist. Other inspirations include making Katara a bender due to the creators' experiences with their sisters.

Katara is voiced by Mae Whitman in the English version and Eriko Tokaji in the Japanese version of Avatar the Last Airbender series. She is voiced by Eva Marie Saint in the Legend of Korra series. For the live adaptation movie, she is portrayed as Nicola Peltz.

Evolution

Appearance

Katara has dark skin and blue-greyish eyes. For her hair style, she has braided ponytail, and she has unique bangs that comes from the front of her forehead and back to her nape. For her South Pole clothing, it is a thick fur coat (garb) that is made from animals with a long skirt and boots, and it has has blue and white color scheme. As she journeys with Aang and Sokka to other lands, she wears a lighter clothing, a blue and white robe similar to how Xiaolin monks wear. To top it off, she wears her grandmother's necklace around her neck that comprises of light blue inscribed coin shaped object. In the Fire Nation, she changes her hair style by having a bun on the top with hair being frizzle at the back. She wears a red and black color dress and takes off her beloved necklace.

Personality

Generally, Katara is a calm, kind, compassionate, and respectful person. However, she can lose control when others disrespect her especially in a sexist manner. For example, Sokka tries to establish roles for men and women and puts down his sister, and Katara vents her rage by yelling at Sokka while her waterbending goes out of control. Though, Katara acts different with Master Pakku who does not allow women to learn waterbending. She challenges the master. In Katara's journey with her Aang and the gang, she often assumes the motherly role as she consoles Aang who goes in Avatar State during the loss of Monk Gyatso and Appa. Katara is often the one who tries to keep everyone together. This is seen during the desert trek when Aang loses Appa and when the gang blame Toph during Azula's pursuit.

Relationships

Characters	Their Relationships
Katara and Aang	Katara is like a big sister to Aang especially whenever Aang goes into Avatar State, Katara is the only one who can calm him down. Their relationship gradually shifts from friends to questionable to lovers. There are instances where Katara and Aang are jealous when one of them is attracted to others. For Katara, she finds Aang irritating when Aang entertains his so called fangirls. During training, Katara teaches Aang to waterbend, and she is envious at how quickly Aang learns. When Aang calls her Sifu Katara, Katara feels proud to Aang's teacher. At the end of the series, Aang and Katara share another kiss. In the Promise comics, they are announced boyfriend and girlfriend. They often call themselves pet names.
Katara and Sokka	Being siblings, they often had arguments. Since Sokka is give the role to protect his tribe by his father, Sokka sometimes put down his sister and waterbending abilities with some of his sexist comments. In response, Katara would vent her rage or tells him to do things that she does for him such as sewing his pants. As the series progressed, they grow and mature to love each other.
Katara and Toph	Due to Katara's motherly nature and Toph's rebellious nature, the two did not get along at first. There is a lot of friction between Katara and Toph's teaching philosophies and other things such as hygiene. In one example, Katara and Toph argue with each other during the Azula's pursuit. Toph did not enjoy Katara being motherly towards her since Toph did not have respectable parents. They did make up. In Ba Sing Se, Katara has Toph experienced being a girl. When one of the city girls insult Toph, Katara cheers up Toph, and the two get revenge on the city girls. At the end of day, the two enjoy a spa. Over time, their relationship strengthens when they often battle their foes together.
Katara and Zuko	At first, Katara and Zuko are enemies when Zuko tries to hunt down Aang and hurt the gang every time. Though, Katara gets learn more about Zuko when they are trapped underground. Zuko explains how he lost his mother, and Katara relates to him since she lost her mother as well. After Zuko has given up his hunt for the Avatar and turn himself in to Aang, Katara did not trust Zuko due to Zuko's betrayal of her trust back in Ba Sing Se. Zuko earns back Katara's trust when he help Sokka rescue her father from a Fire Nation prison. Futhermore, Zuko helps Katara to bring closure to her revenge quest when he stops Katara from killing the man who murdered her mother. The two share a hug.

Story Arcs

Book One: Water

She and her brother find Aang trapped in ice, and they find out that Aang is the Avatar from Zuko. The Avatar has to learn how to bend all 4 elements, and like Aang, Katara wants to learn how to bend water. After Katara and Aang trip a Fire Nation trap, Zuko and his troops spot the signal flare and invade Katara's village. Aang turns himself in, and Katara and Sokka ride on Appa to rescue Aang. With a successful rescue, they head off to the northern water tribe to learn how to bend water.

Upon arrival, they come across the water bending master known as Master Pakku who refuses to teach Katara because she was a woman. While Aang learns waterbending from Pakku, Katara learns waterbending from Aang; however, Pakku catches Aang teaching Katara, waterbending. He stops teaching Aang. However, he notices that Katara was wearing her grandmother's engagement gift that he gave Katara's grandmother roughly 50 years ago. He decides to accept her and teaches her how to bend water. Pakku decides let Katara teach Aang waterbending due to how much potential Katara has. Later on, Zhao invades the north pole, and Zuko attacks Aang who is meditating and journeying to the spirit world. Katara fights Zuko only to be defeated when the sun rises. After Zuko kidnaps Aang and gets stuck during a snow storm, Katara and her gang rescues Zuko and Aang. When Zhao kills Yue, Aang goes into Avatar State and defeat Zhao's army.

Book: Earth

On the way to Ba Sing Se, Katara and the gang find out from Bumi that Aang must find another earthbending teacher. In the forest, Aang receives a vision about his future teacher while Katara sees her mother. They eventually encounter Toph who joins the team after Aang helped her defeat a bunch of Toph's rivals. During training, Katara tries to tell Toph to practice positive reinforcement with Aang who is having trouble earthbending. When they are forced to help a couple cross Serpent's Pass, Katara helps her group with Aang's help. After arriving safely, she helps deliver the couple's baby. When they approach Ba Sing Se, Katara and her gang have to destroy the Fire Nation's Drill. In Ba Sing Se, Katara and Toph work together to get the Earth King's attention, but the Dai Li hinders them. After they defeat the Dai Li and free Appa at the cost of Jet's life, they gain the support of the Earth King. However, Azula and her team infiltrate the Dai Li and pretend to be the Kyoshi Warriors. During the ambush, Azula traps Katara and Zuko underground. During that time, she learns about Zuko and how his loss of his mother relates to her situation. Before Katara can heal Zuko's face with her special water, Katara gets free and finds herself aiding Aang who is fighting Azula. Despite Iroh and Katara's words, Zuko betrays Katara and Iroh. When Aang is struck by lightning, Katara hurries to heal him with her special water.

Book: Fire

In the third season, Aang has to learn how to bend fire, and it is also where Katara is forced to learn how to bloodbend. After a failed invasion, Zuko joins the team; however, Katara does not trust him at all. She threatens Zuko, but she begins to treat him as an ally when Zuko helped Sokka bring her father and when Zuko aid Katara in finding the man who killed her mother. Though, Zuko stops Katara from killing him. Katara becomes a lot more closer to Zuko.

During the Sozin's Comet reign, Katara goes with Zuko to defeat Azula. Yet, Zuko wants to battle Azula alone. When Zuko is about to defeat Azula, Azula fires lightning at Katara, but Zuko save Katara in the nick of time. Katara and Zuko work together to defeat Azula who is having a nervous breakdown. After Aang has defeated the Fire Lord, everyone celebrates. Aang and Katara share another kiss as the series end.

The Promise

*Note: This comic book series take place after the Avatar the Anime series.

Aang and Zuko reach an agreement to evacuate the Fire Nation colonies and move them back to their original country. However, Katara and Aang learn that Zuko has stopped the movement due to one of the colonies.

(To be Cont.)

Legend of Korra

Note: This series is the sequel to Avatar the Last Airbender series and takes 70 years after its events.

Katara is the only survivor of her generation. She and Aang had three children: Kya, Bumi, and Tenzin. Her son Tenzin has married Pema whose family comprise of Jinora, Ikki, Meelo, and Rohan. She helps the young Avatar, Korra, with her bending, and after Korra meets Tenzin who cannot teach her, Katara lets Korra escape to Republic Island. When Korra has lost her bending powers from Amon, Katara attempts to heal Korra but to no avail. Somehow, Korra gains her bending back with the help of Aang.

Powers

Katara is the last remaining water bender from the South Pole's water tribe. Katara is a water bending master whose abilities greatly improved throughout the series.

Waterbending

• She can bend water to assume both offensive and defensive forms such as the octopus form.
• She is very creative with her waterbending. In tough situations when there is no sign of water, she would use her own sweat as weapon.
• Ice Element: She can freeze liquids that contain water molecules in them. She was even able to freeze every single rain drop and turn them into spears using her hydrokinesis powers.
• Healing: She has amazing healing powers as she is able to heal Aang of a mortal wound caused by the fire nation princess Azula. She has used this many times.

Bloodbending

• Since all life has water in them especially in their blood, Katara can bloodbend and manipulate foes like puppets under the full moon. However, she is unlikely to use this technique due to how dangerous it is.

Other Media

She is a character in several video games.

• Nicktoons MLB (XBLM, DS, X360, Wii)
• The Last Airbender (Wii, DS)
• Avatar the Last Airbender: Into the Inferno (PC)
• Avatar : Legends of the Arena (PC)
• Avatar: The Last Airbender - The Burning Earth (XBLM, PS2, GBA, DS, X360, Wii)
• Avatar: The Last Airbender (Xbox, PSP, DS, GC, PS2, PC, GBA, Wii)

Merchandise

Katara has a LEGO minifigurine based on her character.