Talk:Bato of the Water Tribe/@comment-71.15.97.196-20120705212959/@comment-70.26.120.189-20120716124949

"Aang was family... but family wouldn't just leave him without even thinkning [sic] about it".

We must remember that Sokka and Katara and 16 and 14 respectively. It cannot be expected that they will be completely rational all the time, especially when the choice is so emotional. As well, I think that Sokka and Katara probably felt betrayed by Aang not only because he had kept the map from them, but because he didn't trust them to go to the North Pole with him, as they had promised.

You are right that Sokka is a hotheaded character, and so it is understandable that he immediatly stormed off. I would like to point out that Katara did not "just FLAT OUT LEAVE HIM", and in fact she was torn between the Aang and Sokka the entire time. Its hard to say why she followed Sokka, but she did.

Also, Katara did not forsake her waterbending training. She put it on hold so that she could go see her father, who she missed very much. I do not believe that waterbendening was a major point in Katara's decision, as she did not mention it once. Indeed, I would have been unhappy with either Aang or Katara if they had brought up waterbending training. Sokka and Katara didn't travel all the way across the world just for waterbending training. They did it to help Aang, their friend.

I think that the true testament to Katara and Sokka's loyalty to Aang is that they do come back. That takes a lot more courage and maturity then one might think.

The message of this episode is that people do stupid things, but we have to work through them.

All the characters did something stupid in this episode. Aang hid the map. Katara and Sokka left Aang to go to the North Pole all by himself, after promising to go with him.

But all the characters also managed to work through their problem in the end. Aang freely gave the map back, and Sokka and Katara returned to Aang. It is not the issues they had this episode that should be used to define them as a broken famil. The way that they overcame the issues should define them as a resilliant and cohesive group.