godgivenlemonade: (S/G → Different brand of idiocy?)
godgivenlemonade ([personal profile] godgivenlemonade) wrote in [personal profile] these_balls 2013-03-13 05:34 am (UTC)

Katara | Avatar: The Last Airbender | Expired reserve

Player
Name: Koree
Livejournal Username: [personal profile] godgivenlemonade
E-mail: cassietwin83@gmail.com
AIM/MSN: godgivenlemonade
Timezone: CST
Current Characters in Route: Piper McLean ([personal profile] sweettalker)

Character
Name: Katara
Series: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Timeline: Book 3: Series finale (After meeting up with Hakoda, Suki, and the Kiyoshi warriors)
Canon Resource Links:

- http://avatar.wikia.com/wiki/Katara

- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katara_%28Avatar:_The_Last_Airbender%29

Personality: Warning: Lots of spoilers below, and so much of Katara's character development is seen -IN CANON- that much of this just focuses on covering those major points. I'm very sorry for the TL;DR aspect here!

Katara's dominant personality traits are generally positive ones, or at the very least neutral. She's pretty much a happy and balanced individual, especially considering she comes from a world where she's basically a rebel fighting a war for she and her companions lives. She is absolutely ATROCIOUS at telling jokes (I swear, Sokka used up all traces of the family humor.), something that becomes apparent much later on in the series. She's funny enough when she's just being witty and sarcastic, but please, PLEASE do not ever ask her to tell an actual joke. She seems to be pretty good at telling ghost stories, though. She becomes something of a stick in the mud as the show goes on. She loves to be around water or snow, naturally. When she loses her bending powers she feels helpless and empty without those powers as they've been a part of her since she was almost too young to remember. Having them stripped away from her feels like losing a vital piece of her identity.

From the very start of the series Katara is undeniably the mother-hen type. When she and Sokka were little the Southern Raiders attacked their village in search of the last water bender in the South pole (from which it is safe to assume that Katara had already discovered her powers when she was very little). Katara and Sokka had been playing when the tell-tale black snow began to fall. Even though Katara rushed home to their mother she only arrived in time to find Kaya already being confronted by the ship's captain. She was told to go find her father but when they made it back Kaya was "already gone" (I don't believe it's ever said outright that she was killed in the hut.). This means Katara was the last one to see Kaya alive.

This left Katara with a deeply rooted anger (and hatred) for the man responsible and to a lesser degree anger towards the Fire Nation itself. Because of the loss of their mother at such an early age for both kids Katara was left as the only female figure in the family aside from their Gran-Gran. She began to actively fill the void Kaya left behind. Laundry, cooking, taking care of them when they were sick or hurt, scolding, almost all of it. She certainly knows how to nag like a mom, too, but you can truly say that she does it out of love.

The aforementioned anger towards the Fire Nation was mostly hidden under an even stronger sense of fear towards it. When she met Aang he challenged her to overcome her fears in order to become a better bender. She'd tried to teach herself for years while lacking another bender in their tribe but sadly she didn't seem to get that far. She might have seemed hesitant but in my opinion Katara really jumped at the chance to learn more about the gift that had been left to her, that her mother had (unbeknownst to Katara) died to protect. She probably really would have left with Aang for the North pole if Aang hadn't recognized how much pain doing so would have brought her. It worked out in the end since Katara and Sokka ended up going on those famously grand adventures with Aang anyway. As they traveled she learned water bending fast-- though not faster than Aang.

She's displayed a well rounded range of emotions, not all of them "good". She was jealous and competitive towards Aang as they were learning together and she felt completely outpaced by the young avatar. She even became so envious and spiteful that she stole a water bending scroll-- from pirates(!), so technically that made her more like Robin Hood and not an actual thief(!) --to try to learn. Surprisingly that plan blew up in their faces when the pirates came after them and it also drew the attention of the avatar-hunting Fire Nation.

She's head strong, stubborn, and has a fierce sense of justice as well as a penchant for grand speeches, demonstrated when she decided to pose as an earth bending prisoner to rescue a friend. After seeing the prisoner's plight she took this plan of action a step further and coerced her brother, Aang, and friend into breaking them all out. Katara can also be a little controlling. At the very least she's subconciously dead set on being the parental figure in the group when it comes to the domestic things. Sokka might be the "leader" in planning their next moves but Katara runs the chores, and Katara says that the work HAS to be divided fairly. When Toph joins the group her independent attitude regarding chores clearly did not fit into Katara's plans. The two butted heads pretty badly over it, with things coming down to a screaming match, ending usually with Toph earth bending to teach Katara some form of a lesson.

As the show progresses Katara has a lot of other major developments. I'll only talk about two in specific.

- At the Northern tribe Katara is forced to chose between openly defying years of sexist tradition or silencing herself so that Aang can learn water bending. If you saw the show you know well enough how THAT ended. Katara is NOT very good at keeping silent like a good little woman. In case you didn't then I'll tell you: At first she tried to be compliant, settled for learning in secret from Aang after his own training, but they were found out by Pakku who then refused to teach Aang any further. When told that she would have to apologize to get Pakku to take Aang back as his student she struggled and finally seemed to submit.... only to turn around and challenge Pakku's manhood, picking a fight, and finally proving that she was worthy of learning from Pakku. Later on she was declared a master water bender. Ironically this also propelled her ahead of Aang in skill level, and she became his assigned (by Pakku) teacher from that point on.

- During their travels incognito through the Fire Nation she encounters another bender from the Southern tribe, Hama. The seemingly gentle inn-keeper uncovers a dark and twisted aspect of their abilities as benders: Blood bending. In a bid to pass the skill onto a successor to help bring down the Fire Nation (or maybe just for the purpose of corrupting someone else) Hama tricked a completely unwilling, pleading Katara into learning it in order to protect Aang and Sokka. This particular plot point is ESPECIALLY key. I think that it's at this point that Katara's innocence is completely fractured. To have that kind of power over another person goes against everything Katara holds to be right, but the ability is like a drug. Once she's used it the first time she was much less hesitant the next time the need arose. It's a dangerous skill in the hands of someone who can show so little remorse while caught up in the act. It's a terrible responsibility and Katara is loathed to have it. The idea that one day she might come around and realize she's done some terrible, monsterous deed is a bit much for her to bear. She seems to be bottling up her feelings on the matter though, as it's never explained exactly how she feels about it, even after Zuko sees her using it.

After this point Katara's personality takes on a very dark, and I do mean dark edge. Most of the time she seemed normal enough, but there were several instances closer to the end after Zuko joined the group. His presence seemed to be the trigger, more than anything. Her "reception" of him was by far the coldest. She snapped at him often, insulted, accused, and provoked him at any given chance. Any attempts at helping her were met with a total lack of gratitude until finally confronted about it. Katara confesses to being furious with him for breaking her trust so completely when she was the first one to give him a chance-- doubling the severity of the wound. Worse still is the fact that she's using him as a target for her rage towards the Fire Nation for what happened to her mother. Thankfully Zuko does re-earn her trust by enabling her to confront her past demons, in spite of the opinions of Aang and Sokka on the matter. Ultimately it was for the best. Katara was completely blinded by her growing thirst for revenge. Confronting her mother's killer seems to have soothed her rage back into it's corner again despite her failure to take revenge. Zuko was forgiven in the process.

After what happened to Jet you would probably think Katara would have learned a lesson on how silly it is to hold grudges towards people who've changed (Zuko). There's the matter of trust, for Katara, however. It's also at least in small part likely because she was afraid that as soon as she forgave him he'd be taken away too and he almost was actually; both situations ended with Jet/Zuko lying at her feet with a grave injury that she had to try to heal. The difference was that she was actually able to save Zuko.

As to her relationships with the others: Sokka is her dorky, protective older brother. They bicker sometimes but she loves him and it shows. She keeps up with him very well, will scold him when needed, and is usually the first to try to cheer him up or expresses concern for his well being. Toph seems to be the only one unafraid to call Katara out on her bull shit. Because of it they seem to have a pretty honest relationship. Usually with the others she immediately feels guilty and stops either before or right after a line has been crossed. That's not to say that Katara doesn't feel guilt over things that she's said to Toph, more that she gets so caught up in the moment that it's usually long after the two have argued that Katara's guilt sets in. It's cleansing in a way. Of the group Katara is the most protective towards Aang. He represents hope for Katara, maybe more than anything else. Not only is he the avatar, the world's last hope, but it's because of Aang that Katara was able to learn water bending, see the world, really laugh and have fun again instead of being a grown up trapped in a teenager's body. She's very motherly towards him, and accordingly he's still very childish. Katara is admittedly confused about his feelings towards her and hers towards him.

Overall Katara has done a lot of growing over the series. She hates to see her loved ones in pain, especially Aang. Seeing him go into the avatar state because of rage or grief is heartbreaking for her. There is a fierce protectiveness to her, much exactly like that of a mother bear. She encompasses the aspects and duality of her element so very, very well: Gentle yet fierce, nurturing yet firm, adaptable yet stubborn, patient, enduring, soothing, and most of all always moving forward. None of the obstacles of her past have kept her from going on and living life. Some of them might slow her down but like water blocked up by a bolder eventually she'll wear it down and find her way through. This is exactly why I think that in time she'll inevitably find it in herself to forgive, even if it takes longer.

Strengths/Weaknesses:

+ Katara is a natural born home maker, pretty much.
+ Master water bender
+ Usually very perceptive and resourceful
+ Strong sense of self discipline
+ Has experience from her first trip to Johto

- Easily drawn into other people's problems by her urge to help the less fortunate, she's a meddler
- Has difficulty (to put it mildly) putting her pride aside and admitting that said meddling is wrong
- Morals seem a touch shady at times (see: stealing from pirates isn't wrong but cheating a cheater IS)
- Defensive about the fact that she's so motherly
- Has one hell of a temper when pushed
- Without water bending she doesn't really have anything else by means of self defense

Pokémon Information
Affiliation: Trainer Breeder (If it's possible to app her into a different class this time.)
Starter: Lapras - Kishi (Set back to level 30)
Password: Scrambled Eggs

Samples

Note: I reused the samples from her previous app, but I can write fresh ones if requested.

First Person Sample: [ Katara decided to bypass doing an "introduction" post this time. She already knows her way around Johto, intimately at that. Why she'd ended up back was anyone's guess, let alone hers. She's seen enough people come and go to know the drill, too.

None of her Pokemon were present? Check. Woke up back in "mom's" house? Yep. No badges, and stuck in New Bark Town? Yeah, she's starting from scratch.

So don't mind too much if her video (despite being late) is short.

Bemused smile is bemused. ]


It looks like Johto wasn't quite done with me yet.

[ Speaking of, the video feed is on the move! She seems to already be heading down Route twenty nine. YEP. She knows the drill, and the Piplup comfortably situated on her shoulder looks excited. WE GOT THIS, BROSIS. ]

New starter, no badges... I hope that everyone's alright. If anyone here ended up with my Pokemon, could you let me know? You don't have to return them if you don't want to, I'd just like to know if they're okay. [ Because there's a chance someone like ENVY got one. >B| ] It looks like I'm starting over again.

[ Discreetly shaky breath. She'd planned to call a few people by name but after several months she's more worried about the disappointment of NOT getting an answer. The names form but won't come out, so she's forced to recover quickly (Piplup's attention is definitely elsewhere still). ]

So I... I thought it would be easier to ask for anyone I know to contact me, if you're still here, so... [ And here she musters up her strength and puts on a smile like nothing in the world is wrong. ] Call me? I can't wait to hear from you guys again.

[ Seems like as good a place as any to end the feed, right? Right. ]

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