Katara

"water"

- You're looking at the only Waterbender in the whole South Pole.

Katara is a Waterbender who, just like her older brother Sokka, was born and raised in the Southern Water Tribe by her grandmother, Kanna. Katara was the last Waterbender in her Tribe, and led a normal teenage life until she and her brother discovered an Air Nomad named Aang frozen in a block of ice. When she finds out he is none other than the Avatar, lost for a hundred years, she becomes hopeful that he is the one who will save the war-torn world. Katara and her brother leave their Tribe behind to travel with Aang, helping him to finally put a stop to the Fire Nation's devastation.

Along their travels, Katara's Waterbending abilities grow steadily with Aang's, until she surpasses him and becomes the Avatar's Waterbending teacher. Her mastery over the element makes her a formidable ally to their group, and she becomes a close friend and mentor to Aang. Once Aang fulfills his destiny and stops the war, Aang and Katara begin a close romantic relationship.

Background
Fourteen years old and the only Waterbender left in the whole South Pole, Katara had to grow up rather quickly. A strong, brave girl who speaks and stands up for what she believes in, she has suffered through much sadness in her life, but still manages to hold on to hope. Her mother Kya was killed in an attack by the Southern Raiders when she was 8 years old, and her father Hakoda left to fight in the war when she was 12. She felt abandoned and betrayed by him leaving even though her Gran Gran was there for her. Raised in a small Southern Water Tribe with her older brother Sokka, they were mostly taken care of by their grandmother, Gran Gran. While Sokka was off "playing soldier", Katara was cooking, cleaning, and doing the laundry. She is very motherly and protective of Sokka, even though she doesn't admit it. Things haven't been easy, but she never lost hope that it would get better and that the Avatar would return. Katara also narrates the show's opening sequence.

During "The Southern Raiders", it is revealed that the Fire Nation attacked Katara's tribe in an attempt to kill her, the last Waterbender. Kya sacrificed herself to save Katara's life by claiming that she was the last Waterbender, and was in turn killed by the raiders. Katara would not discover this truth for years, but was devastated by Kya's death.

Personality
When she was a young girl, Katara's mother was killed in a Fire Nation raid. This event is shown to have a tremendous impact on Katara's life and personality and has arguably shaped her into the person she is now. This tragedy has seemingly made her emotionally driven, as she is often reduced to tears. According to Sokka, Katara largely prevented their family from falling apart and took many responsibilities, to the point where she largely filled the void left by their mother (to the point where he pictures her in place of his mother). As such, Katara has a very maternal personality, and often acts as a motherly figure to the group, something that occasionally irritates the rebellious Toph. This loss is also part of what drives her in her fight against the Fire Nation, although she does not exhibit as much outward prejudice as her brother. She is also a bit of a stickler for morality (to the point of causing Sokka and Aang to faint from shock when she states she wants to pull a scam), as she berates Toph for scamming people.



Katara is probably the most mature member of the group, rarely taking part in Sokka and Aang's goofy pranks, though she does have a good sense of humor. She is very kind and caring, playing the role of the group's mother. In "The Desert", it was Katara who held the group together in its most desperate moments. Katara is extremely faithful, and was one of the few people who held out hope of the Avatar returning to save the world.

On the other hand, Katara can be overly domineering at times. For all her kindness and compassion she is sometimes very self-righteous, has a rather nasty temper and can be extremely fierce when provoked. She also is very set in her ideals and frequently refuses to relent on her views in the face of opposition. Combined with her strong sense of compassion, this gives her a very strong sense of justice and she will run headlong into often dangerous situations to help others (best illustrated in "Imprisoned" and "The Painted Lady"). Her short temper has frequently clashed with others; she showed open (but short lived) jealousy of Aang's talent in "The Waterbending Scroll", is frequently perturbed by Toph's confrontational and rebellious nature ("The Chase" and "The Runaway") and holds a considerable grudge against those who have threatened Aang (Zuko) or done things she considers morally wrong (Jet). In "The Western Air Temple" she shows open outright hostility to Zuko and even threatens to kill him if he slips back to his old ways. Despite being one of the more compassionate members of the group, Katara is one of the least willing to let go of a grudge, especially against those who she feels have betrayed her trust. She was hostile to Jet (Lake Laogai) and Zuko (The Southern Raiders), long after they had joined the group and gained the trust of everyone else. However, this could be because their betrayal of her was far more personal than their betrayal of anyone else. Katara had lingering feelings for Jet, and had offered to try and heal Zuko's scar. She also remained argumentative with her father because she felt that he had abandoned them when he left to fight in the war.

Throughout season one, Katara was marked by a fierce desire to learn Waterbending, viewing it as a part of her and her culture that needed to be expressed. She also may have viewed it as a hope for rebuilding her tribe. Her enthusiasm for Waterbending has caused her to constantly train herself in this art, and she is overjoyed when she finally finds a master to teach her formally. She has grown to a Waterbending master extremely quickly, and master Pakku states that it is because of her enthusiasm and passion for the art.

As shown in "The Chase", Katara gets extremely irritable with lack of sleep.



Motherly and feminine as she might be, an in-canon comic strip in the Nickelodean magazine shows that Katara isn't afraid to to go beyond her femine looks and way of being to achieve what she wants. When she and Toph were denied entrance to a rowdy pub because of the both of them being girls they dressed up as boys. Katara in particular showed her masculine side when wanting to ride a mechanized bull and actually showing herself to be willing to start an all out brawl with some of the guys there who mocked her ability to stay on the bull. The whole thing ended with Toph dragging Katara away before things came to a head.

Later Katara and Toph are seen in a spa reflecting on how being a girl isn't so bad at all.

Waterbending
Katara's most notable skill is her Waterbending. Over the course of the series, she has gone from a beginner to one of the most powerful bending masters seen.

Katara was identified as a Waterbender when she was a small child. Her father searched all around the South Pole for a Waterbender to teach her, but there were none to be found. So, for many years, Katara taught herself a few basic moves.



By the beginning of Season One, Katara was able to push and pull water, pull some of it out of a source and manipulate it (to the point where she was able to catch a fish in a small globe), and freeze water into ice. However, she had little control over her power, and could occasionally lose control of the water around her when she became enraged. Her Waterbending was amateurish until the episode "The Waterbending Scroll", when she stole a scroll of Waterbending moves, and taught herself the "Single-Water Whip". After this, she begins demonstrating more advanced Waterbending, and uses it skillfully in battle. In "Jet", she fights off a few Fire Nation soldiers, and streams powerful blasts of water to knock Jet against a tree and freezes him there. She also learns how to draw water from underground geysers.

In "Bato of the Water Tribe", she bends a massive wave of water powerful enough to hold up a ship over rocks, and bends a wave of perfume into the air and dumps it onto Nyla. In "The Northern Air Temple", she uses water from snow to freeze several Fire Nation tanks. In "The Waterbending Master", Katara fights against the seasoned Waterbending Master, Pakku. Although Pakku holds the upper hand throughout the fight, Katara demonstrates her raw talent. She uses water aggressively in streams and whips, is able to deflect most of Pakku's attacks, and demonstrates powerful ice attacks. Pakku even calls her an excellent Waterbender as he is fighting her. Master Pakku allows her to be his student after discovering Katara's Gran Gran was his lost fiancee. Katara advances more quickly than any student Pakku's ever trained. In "The Siege of the North, Part 1", she fights and defeats Zuko with the added power of the near-full moon. During the fight, she knocks him off his feet, deflects his attacks, imprisons him in a dome of ice, and later, a wave of ice. Though she is defeated by Zuko after the sun rises, she fights him again (in The Siege of the North, Part 2) with the full moon and defeats him easily. At the end of Season One, Pakku declares her a Waterbending Master.



In Season Two, Katara would regularly demonstrate her Waterbending mastery in battle. In "Return to Omashu", she manages to block Mai's hand arrows with ice, and freezes her hand into ice, before Ty Lee cuts off her chi. In "The Swamp", Katara cuts apart the vines holding her with the water in her pouch. Later, she, Aang and Sokka fight against Huu. During the fight, Katara creates large waves in the swamp water, freezes a part of the swamp monster, and creates a coil of water that she uses to blast a hole into the monster. She also creates large round blades out of the water, and uses them to cut up Huu's monster, defeating him. In "The Blind Bandit", she easily defeats two Earthbending students by freezing them into ice.

In "The Chase", Katara fights Ty Lee, using the water in her pouch to fend off her chi blocking attacks, and forces her to cartwheel away with disks of razor-sharp water. She also stops Azula from killing Aang by catching her hand in a water whip. In "The Serpent's Pass", she and Aang make an underwater bubble for the group to travel in and makes a bridge of ice. She also surfs around on a surfboard of ice and, together with Aang, creates a massive whirlpool to defeat the Serpent. In "The Drill", she rapidly condenses water vapor into ice. In "Lake Laogai", she uses ice spikes similar to Mai's shuriken to pin Jet to the wall in the alley. In "The Earth King", Katara and the others fight off the Royal Earthbender Guards. Katara defeats dozens of them with whips and streams of water. In "The Crossroads of Destiny", Katara and Aang fight against Zuko and Azula. Katara manages to cut Azula's hair with a water blade, and creates two enormous whips of water, which she uses to briefly trap Azula. These whips are able to match Zuko's enormous fire whips later. Finally, when Katara is surrounded by Dai Li agents, she defends herself with the octopus form, and rides on an enormous wave which knocks down these agents and Zuko. Then, she escapes on a stream of water, carrying Aang.



Katara's Waterbending would become even more advanced in Season Three. During a fight with a Fire Nation ship, Katara uses a huge wave to separate the two ships and creates a huge steam barrier between them for cover. Then, when they get hit by a harpoon, Katara uses her frosty breath of Waterbending to freeze the hole in the ship's hull, thus repairing it. In "The Headband", Katara creates a fountain out of ice for beverages as well as the glasses they use to drink them. In "The Painted Lady", Katara creates a cover of steam and runs on water. She uses crashing waves and precise missiles of water to destroy a Fire Nation factory (along with Aang). She also blasts a Fire Nation river craft into the air and against a cliff. In "Sokka's Master", Katara transports a huge bubble of water from a nearby creek to put out a fire. In "The Runaway", Katara uses her own sweat as a water knife to break out of a prison.

In "The Puppetmaster", Katara learns new Waterbending moves from the old Waterbender Hama. She learns how to pull water out of thin air and out of plants. She also learns Bloodbending, the ability to control the water in a human body, manipulating them like a puppet. During the Day of Black Sun, Katara fights against the Fire Nation guards at the capital, destroying several guard towers with Sokka and defeating many soldiers. In "The Western Air Temple", she rains ice spikes onto the Combustion Man. During "The Southern Raiders", Katara creates a dome of water by manipulating rain and creates ice spikes to almost kill Yon Rha. During the full moon that night, where her waterbending was at its peak, she nearly took down the whole Fire Nation ship of the Southern Raiders by herself. Finally, in "Sozin's Comet, Part 4: Avatar Aang", she freezes herself and Azula into a block of ice, thaws the center of it, and chains Azula to a grate.

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Katara's Waterbending abilities also give her the ability to heal by manipulating the chi paths in a person's body. She accidentally discovered this ability in "The Deserter", after Aang accidentally burned her hands. She used this ability at the end of the episode to heal Aang's own burn. She developed this ability more after training with Yugoda.

In "The Avatar State", she gains a small vial of water from the Spirit Oasis, which contains special properties. Katara was going to use the Spirit Oasis on Zuko to heal his facial scar, but then Aang and Iroh burst in. She uses this water to save Aang from death after he is shot in the back with lightning by Azula in "The Crossroads of Destiny". In Lake Laogai], Katara unsuccessfully attempts to heal [[Jet after being fatally wounded by Long Feng. During the invasion, Katara's father Hakoda was injured while taking out a fire blaster tower. She healed him to the point where he could walk again. During the third part of Sozin's Comet :Into the Inferno, Azula and Zuko have an Agni Kai. Azula generates lightning and aims it at Katara. But luckily Zuko jumped in front of Katara and let the lightning shock him. She successfully healed him after binding Azula to the water grate.

Trivia



 * In the Avatar Series Pilot, Katara is named Kya. The name Kya was later given to her previously unnamed mother.
 * In "The Runaway", Toph described her as being motherly. Sokka explained that it is because after their mom died, she filled in her spot and took on her responsibility.
 * According to Aunt Wu, the fortuneteller, Katara will have her third great grandchild before quietly passing away in her sleep.
 * In "The Avatar State" with "Extras", bonus commentary, it was confirmed that Katara mastered waterbending in the short time it she was at the north pole, making her the first female student of master Pakku, and possibly, the quickest person to ever master waterbending.
 * Katara is a playable character in the "Avatar Legends of the Arena" online game, she is unlocked through the use of a "Secret Code". Aside from her appearance and name she is played just like any other character.
 * Katara is the first person to be heard in the series, which is during the opening sequence.
 * Katara is the only character who can comfort Aang enough to take him out of the Avatar State, even at his maddest. In "The Desert", while everyone ran for cover, she calmly walked over to him, grabbed his arm, and calmed him down.
 * Other than in the opening sequence, Katara is the first person to bend in the series.
 * In some Avatar comics, her name is misspelled "Takara" instead of "Katara". Coincidentally, "takara" is a Japanese word meaning "treasure".
 * Katara's voice actor, Mae Whitman, has previously worked with Dante Basco, Zuko's voice actor, when they provided the voices for Rose and Jake respectively in American Dragon: Jake Long. In that show, Rose served as Jake's love interest.
 * Katara's name could also be derived from catarata, which is both Portuguese and Spanish for "waterfall".
 * Katara also means curse in Greek.
 * Her name is also the name of an Indian punching sword.
 * She's the only member of Team Avatar who never met Fire Lord Ozai.
 * Katara is the only person to touch Zuko's scar in the series.
 * Katara's bathing suit is a white bikini with a towel-like bottom and her top appears differently in seasons 2 and 3.

Relationships

 * Katara's Relationships

Relatives

 * Gran Gran Kanna (grandmother)
 * Hakoda (father)
 * Sokka (elder brother)
 * Kya (mother)
 * Pakku (step-grandfather)

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