Die for Our Ship/Western Animation/Avatar: The Last Airbender

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


A show with a wide cast of characters that openly courted Ship Tease throughout its history? Naw, that couldn't possibly spawn anything! Let's just count them down.

  • Mai: Good Lord, her treatment by most of the A:TLA Fan Dumb defines this trope. At first, most Zuko/Katara shippers were apathetic to little!Mai. Even when she came back, all grown up, in season 2 to help Azula pursue the Gaang, most Zutarians viewed her as just a slightly annoying side-character... until season 3 episode 1, when the audience first saw her make out with Zuko. Then Mai became the target of the great Zutarian Fan Dumb. As Mai and Zuko's canon relationship blossomed, the Zutarian bashing only intensified. Katara was the character these fangirls identified with, and Zuko was the character these fangirls wanted to tap. When Mai moved in on the boy they wanted, the Zutarians hit her with everything they had, as if this had happened in real life.
  • Aang: Since they can't kill off the Kid Hero, many Zutara shippers make Aang so childish that he makes Honey-sempai look like a man of deep gravitas. The most rabid of these shippers go so far as to call him "Bryke's special little Gary Stu" or "self-insert golden boy" for daring to get his happy ending with the girl he likes; Deviant ART and Livejournal are littered with angry rants and "intelligent" essays blasting the Aang/Katara pairing, taking Alternative Character Interpretation to extremes by twisting Aang into a selfish little bastard who "only won Katara as a prize for being the Special Hero", accusing Kataang of being "creepy" or "sexist" and clinging to the rejected kiss scene in "The Ember Island Players" as "evidence" of this, completely discounting two and a half seasons of friendship and development.
    • Others assume Avatars must either be Celibate Heroes or else rapidly became villainous. Until Word of God and a canon episode discredited this idea implicitly, this was one of the primary means of pushing Aang to the side; due to ancillary material, it was fiercely contested by Kataang shippers during the long drought of new TV eps of 2007. Of course, the "celibate" angle has now become Hilarious in Hindsight, as the live-action The Last Airbender film actually does portray the idea that Avatars can never have families as a plot-point (namely, it was why Aang fled his responsibility as the Avatar in the film, as opposed to being afraid his life would change for the worse, and that he would be taken away from his mentor/father figure, Gyatso). Certain fans have noted this, and have used it to try and support this angle (despite it being canon to the film, and only the film), but on the other hand, most fans would rather ignore the film entirely.
    • Other shippers discounted Aang because he was 12 years old. They usually assigned a big sister/little brother type relationship to Aang and Katara, villainizing neither and viewing their relationship as one that they would naturally grow out of as they got older, or claiming that a romance between them would be creepy Shotacon even though Katara was only two years older (forgetting that Zuko is two years older than Katara) than Aang. There's also the camp that claims that because Katara has a maternal personality towards the team, Aang's attraction to her is "Oedipal"...which makes no sense since Katara is not actually his mother (biologically or otherwise). Then the sequel series had Word of God identifying Tenzin as Aang and Katara's son before it aired, thus confirming that their relationship did last beyond the "teenage hormones" stage. Needless to say, this simple declaration set the Kataang vs. Zutara wars aflame again.
    • A few Toph/Katara shippers are nasty to Aang in their fanfics, twisting him into a jealous asshole who just wants to hurt Toph for "stealing" Katara from him.
  • Jin: Jin had quite a few attacks on her from a vocal section of the Zutara fans and even some early Maiko fans. Most of it called her a slut or a gold digger (even though she canonically didn't know Zuko was a prince), apparently because she is more endowed than most of the girls. Rage against her was relatively short lived -- it quickly became clear that she would not be a recurring character or have any lasting romantic interest in Zuko.
  • Zuko: A section of the Katara/Aang fandom have become openly hostile to Zuko due to the extreme popularity of the non-canon Zuko/Katara ship, calling him emo and ugly.
  • Katara: Extreme Maiko and Aang/Toph fans bash Katara as a Canon Sue who became far too good at water bending far too quickly.
  • Suki: You'd be surprised at the number of Toph/Sokka shippers who were saddened and angered to discover that Suki was still alive. Now they're the poster Love Triangle for Avril Lavigne's "Girlfriend." A few Sokka/Azula shippers have recently come out of the woodwork to bash Suki as well.
  • Song: Song got similar treatment as Jin by diehard Zutara shippers and a few Maiko shippers back in the day. The most common accusation was that she was a Mary Sue; nowadays, Song is usually just flat-out ignored since she only showed up in one episode and never appeared or got referenced again.
  • Sequel Series The Legend of Korra is already showing signs of this. Korra, the Action Girl lead, has gotten buttloads of Ship Tease with her Tall, Dark and Handsome companion Mako, who's also a talented fire bender -- the most resentful and rabid Zutara shippers not only latched on these two and claimed that they were "Bryke's apology to Zutara shippers" (. . .), but they have started to bash the crap out of the local cute girl, Asami Sato, whom they see as a threat. (Warning: the link contains MASSIVE slutshaming and misogynistic language against Asami, and enough animated gifs to make your browser crash). The whole situation is nicely summed up here as well.
    • There were also a lot of people around online to note a truly massive Double Standard--Asami became The Scrappy for many for asking out the unattached Mako, whereas Tahno (who flirted with Korra, but is a Jerkass to Asami's Spoiled Sweet) became an Ensemble Darkhorse.
    • Not as severe, but Bolin and Tahno have also been bashed just because some people ship them with Korra.
      • However, many Makorra shipper admitted to feeling very awkward or saddened when Korra kissed Mako one day after her date with Bolin, only for Bolin (who'd even brought her flowers) to witness the kiss and run off crying. It takes the rest of the episode for them to even function as a team again. This even led to some switching ships.
    • And apparently, Mako is getting hate too. It looks like some viewers identify so uncomfortably much with Korra that they think she is entitled to Mako's affections, therefore Mako having some chemistry with Asami means that he's a shallow Ungrateful Bastard who only judges women for their looks (which brings lots of Beauty Is Bad and slutshamey pre-judgements in regards to Asami herself), and that he doesn't "deserve" Korra's love. It's more obvious when we see that a good part of said Vocal Minority ship Korra with Mako's brother Bolin, whom they see as "the right choice" for bonding more easily with her (bringing some Unfortunate Implications about Korra owing Bolin love because he treats her well).
      • And then, there are the "Makorra" 'shippers who insist—even after seeing how devastated she was at finding out that her father was working for the Equalists—that Asami must secretly be Daddy's Little Villain. Or the 'shippers who think Mako is standing in the way of a Korra/Asami pairing.
      • And, you know, they're ignoring the quick but poignant moment when Korra tells Mako that Asami needs him right now, signaling to most non-Makorra fans that she's let go of that for now.
    • Pema got a lot of hate after episode six when we found out the person Tenzin used to be with was Lin Bei Fong. Some shippers have claimed Tenzin only went for Pema because she was young and willing to have children, and plenty are accusing her of being a home wrecker when all she did was confess her feelings, even when Tenzin says that his relationship with Lin was failing anyway.
      • The whole "accusation of being a homewrecker" thing wrote itself in episode five with the arguably obnoxious way she described this love triangle, stating that the other woman was "wrong" for Tenzin, and throwing that into her advice for Korra to follow her heart -- which Korra took to mean "take what you want", creating a Makorra moment where Korra essentially pushed Mako into cheating on Asami. This was all before the confirmation that the other woman was Lin (during which Korra even called Tenzin a "heartbreaker" in an almost congratulatory tone), let alone Lin's subsequent moments of awesome in battle which don't seem to be set to stop anytime soon. Knowing how familiar Bryke are with the rabid shippers now, it's almost like they set her up for this trope on purpose.
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