#bryke fought tooth and nail to get them in there like that
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Actually, John O’Bryan or Joshua Hamilton (I forgot which one) confirmed on the Braving the Elements Podcast that Zutara was in the original bible and that there was a fight in the writer’s room for making it canon. He even says he’s still Zutara, that they did it wrong, and that in an alternative universe they’re together.
But his version doesn’t really make sense bc the original bible that can be accessed online doesn’t confirm ANY ships. Also, kataang was literally hinted in the pilot. Not to mention that either Joshua or John - whoever wrote CoTL - literally confirmed that Mike and Aaron made him write Omashu for Kataang’s romance. One of them (Joshua or John) pitched the episode as just being a story of Sokka suffering with the nomads, but Mike and Aaron felt it was important to tie Oma and Shu to Kataang. I also believe it was Joshua Hamilton who wrote the inaccurate “Avatar Extras” that confirmed that Zuko was supposed to be Katara’s love interest.
So essentially, what happened was the following (imo): In the early development stage prior to book 1, the idea of Zuko and Katara were thrown around. Some of the writers might’ve latched onto it and, as a result, the ship was teased in late 3.5 (especially given how POPULAR the ship was in 2005-2008). However, Bryke and Aaron felt that Kataang was always the natural direction and made sense story wise. And ultimately, that’s what happened as endgame. The creators and the head writer feeling that a popular fanon ship with a friendship developed in under 5 episodes doesn’t make for a romantic endgame, in addition to a preference for Kataang.
At the end of the day, no one is denying that Zutara wasn’t teased (not even Bryke themselves). We just don’t think it’s a plausible endgame that makes sense as per the series. I can also sort of understand why some of the writers would still prefer Zutara - it does sound intriguing on paper (very YA and disney), but doesn’t make any sense execution wise. Good on the creators for denying that shit.
Assuming that's true at all, and that is something I likely truly won't do until I search said podcast and hear it myself because God knows zutarians lie all the time, that still make it the power-struggle some people claim it was.
One writer having an idea, latching onto it, and then trying to pass it off as "my idea was totally going to be canon at one point, trust me even though everyone else on the team says another thing and the actual main couple was present from episode one."
And even if we exclude the Kataang angle in Cave Of Two Lovers (that Joshua did write) an intervention on his writting process would still be necessary. I love Sokka, but watching over 20 minutes of him just being annoyed would get repetitive and boring really fast. It makes far more sense to balance it out with two of the other main characters learning about a legend of a city the viewers are familiar with (and will see being at the mercy of the Fire Nation) the following episode. It makes the episode more engaging and reminds us of what will be at stake if the Fire Nation wins.
Another thing that makes this story hard to believe for me, is the fact that Joshua didn't write any episodes until book 2 (though obviously that doesn't mean he couldn't be part of the creative team in some other ways), of all the episodes he did write only "The Chase" has Katara and Zuko interacting at all or so much as mentioning each other, he was the one who wrote Boiling Rock Part 2 which has some major Maiko moments, and he was also part of creating the episode "Ember Island Players" which mocks the very idea of Zutara and has the characters themselves be visibly uncomfortable when they hear of it.
Even if we assume that man was secretly hoping Zutara would be a thing alll along, it seems pretty clear to me that he is NOT this "Zutara champion" that hates the canon ships and fought tooth and nail to make his OTP happen, but the other evil writers stopped him.
Hell, let's look at someone who has been very openly shipping Zutara for years: Dante Basco, aka Zuko. That man has said he refuses to watch the live action movie and to say anything too bad about it because he's an actor and doesn't want to risk angering a guy that could end up being his boss in the future. This same Dante has REPEATELY said Zutara is his favorite ship, and that even though he really likes how the show ended, he wishes that pairing had had a chance to happen.
He says that without any fear, and doesn't seem to have suffered any consequences for it. To me, that shows that "Zutara VS Kataang/Maiko" is not the epic power-struggle amongst the team that zutarians love to pretend it was. It was just people throwing ideas around. Some were used, some were not. Just the ordinary creative process, not a ship war.
And once again, this is me assuming that there's any chance that Joshua ever wanted Zutara to be a thing, and that this is not just another case of obsessive fans lying to everyone again to convince themselves they have canon validation. God knows Zutarians have cried wolf MANY times (and I'm amused that in this version, Aaron Ehasz is one of the "bad guys", even though they are still using that fake interview of him confirmig a zutara endgame as proof that their ship was supposed to be canon. These people lie so much, they lost track of who they claim is "one of them" or not).
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(( Yes I’m kinda an old, cranky fan, I’ve seen the franchise since day one release date and I was there for the finale for the original series and LoK, I finished LoK a little late but otherwise I was t here waaaayyy before it got trendy
shakes my fist like an old grumpy lady
it ESPECIALLY annoys me when people, fresh from She-Ra and Steven Universe come watch LoK and get mad when Korrassami gets so little canon stuff and IT’S LIKE
you either got morons who are like: oh they only put in a lgbt relationship to get More Attention (which is OUTRIGHT FALSE because THERE WAS NO PRECEDENT AND DEMAND FOR THAT YET LIKE WE HAVE NOW)
and people who are like: oh they barely had tot ry and got all the credit
listen
if you hadn’t seen avatar and you saw She-Ra and Steven Universe first, you’re experiencing shit in reverse - LoK was the first show to have a queer couple ON SCREEN IN A KID’S SHOW AND IN 2014 THAT WAS A HUGE FUCKIN DEAL OKAY
KORRA AND ASAMI WALKED SO CATRA AND ADORA COULD RUN
it was so wild to me seeing She-Ra’s finale with that OPEN KISS bc bitch I WAS THERE WITH KORRA AND ASAMI WHEN THAT FIRST HAPPENED
anyway rant over
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Mako deserved better tbh
He absolutely did, and I’m still salty about it tbh.
Like, literally Mako’s only real ‘crime’ in the series was daring to have feelings for two girls at the same time, and handling the resulting fallout poorly. And it’s really interesting to me (and by interesting I mean fucking infuriating) that there are so many people who blame Mako for, for instance, not telling Asami about Korra kissing him in book 1, but they don’t blame Korra for kissing Mako without his consent in the first place. I have lost count of how many times I’ve seen takes to the effect of ‘I can’t believe Mako kissed Korra while she was on a date with his brother’ and I’m like....I know the writing for lok overall wasn’t that great, and the love triangle was horribly mishandled, but did y’all really forget what actually happened in the actual show???
Don’t even get me started on book 2, because I could (and have lmfao) write literal essays on the way the fandom, and the show, and Korra herself, mistreated Mako, and blamed him both for the things that were his fault and the things that weren’t, and refused to grant him any latitude for being a teenage boy in a difficult situation with a traumatic history and a desperate need for therapy, all the while excusing Korra for her faults and bad actions because she was a teenage girl and also the avatar and I guess the one thing she really got from Aang was a ‘get out of consequences free’ card that she used liberally throughout the entire show.
(Except when Bryke wanted to brutally torture her on screen, but that’s another rant entirely.)
Anyway, like, it really kills me because there is so much potential in Mako’s backstory and character. He witnessed his parents’ brutal murder as a young child, and he spent much of the rest of his childhood acting as his brother’s sole provider--he went hungry frequently to ensure that Bolin wouldn’t, he committed crimes and worked with gangs and fought tooth and nail to be able to provide for his brother, and he did absolutely everything he could to shield Bolin from the things he had to do, while still trying to encourage him to toughen up because the world was not going to be kind to either of them no matter what he did. Of course he was going to be pissed about Korra waltzing in and expecting a place on his pro-bending team--that, need I remind this fandom, was literally his and Bolin’s livelihood on the line--and, from his perspective, showing off her privilege and proving that she had no idea what she was doing and would probably be more of a liability than an asset. (And, what d’you know, he realized he’d made assumptions about her and apologized!)
And I just....Mako deserved better. A lot better. From the show and from the fandom.
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