All coincidental, I swear. Ah, we'll see. it's not like I've never suffered from Why Is The Fandom Gone (and/or Inexistent) Syndrom before. ^_^;
I love the ep, because I've got a kink for good guys having their moral compasses severely disturbed by personal issues, especially revenge. But I've looked around and seen that everyone sees the ending as, basically, saying that Aang was right all along about what Katara needed. I disagree with that. She couldn't realise that she couldn't/wouldn't kill the guy until she tried to.
Before she went on her quest for revenge, she had two possibilities, revenge or forgiveness. She couldn't forgive him, so it only makes sense that she'd go for revenge. The other thing she could've done was... do nothing - the same she'd done until then, except that suddenly she knew how to find the person who had killed her mother. It's not a piece of information you can forget; either she could resolve to let it go (implying forgiveness), either she could go after him and extract revenge.
It's only after she's tried killing that she can realise she can't kill him. It's important that it's not a decision, because a decision would lead her to make up her mind about her feelings for the killer, which we know from the end is not the case.
In fact, this is a one-episode-sized reproduction of Zuko's character arc: the bad decisions (Katara's deciding to go for revenge, Zuko's choice in Ba Sing Se) are necessary to reach the good decision. Or to say it otherwise, you have to be in a certain situation to realise it's not what you wanted after all.
That was long and rambly. I'd like to know why you didn't like it, too.
no subject
I love the ep, because I've got a kink for good guys having their moral compasses severely disturbed by personal issues, especially revenge. But I've looked around and seen that everyone sees the ending as, basically, saying that Aang was right all along about what Katara needed. I disagree with that. She couldn't realise that she couldn't/wouldn't kill the guy until she tried to.
Before she went on her quest for revenge, she had two possibilities, revenge or forgiveness. She couldn't forgive him, so it only makes sense that she'd go for revenge. The other thing she could've done was... do nothing - the same she'd done until then, except that suddenly she knew how to find the person who had killed her mother. It's not a piece of information you can forget; either she could resolve to let it go (implying forgiveness), either she could go after him and extract revenge.
It's only after she's tried killing that she can realise she can't kill him. It's important that it's not a decision, because a decision would lead her to make up her mind about her feelings for the killer, which we know from the end is not the case.
In fact, this is a one-episode-sized reproduction of Zuko's character arc: the bad decisions (Katara's deciding to go for revenge, Zuko's choice in Ba Sing Se) are necessary to reach the good decision. Or to say it otherwise, you have to be in a certain situation to realise it's not what you wanted after all.
That was long and rambly. I'd like to know why you didn't like it, too.