Book One: Water
Katara comes from the water tribe where she is the last remaining waterbender in her village. Her mom was killed by fire benders and her father and the other men left to fight in the hundred year war. She and her brother, Sokka, found Avatar Aang and Appa, his sky bison, frozen in ice. After an intense argument with Sokka, the combination of her emotions and lack of control of her powers resulted in her accidentally destroying the surrounding area, and subsequently freeing Aang from the ice. Her and her brother took Aang back the her village, where trouble was caused because Zuko , an evil fire bender and the banished Prince of the Fire Nation, was tracking the avatar and came to the village to look for him. Aang agreed to give himself up but later escaped. Katara and Sokka agreed to travel with him.
Their main goal was to get to the Northern Water Tribe, there they could find a Waterbending master for both Aang and Katara. They traveled for a long time, but they finally reached the North Pole where they went inside and found a waterbending teacher, Master Pakku. However, he would not teach Katara because she was a girl, and as such she was furious and later fought him to prove her worth. She lost but he found her amulet and realized that it was her Grandmother’s. He had been engaged to her but she turned him down. Realizing this, he agreed to teach Katara. She became his best student, easily surpassing everyone else. Everything was going great until the fire nation came. Their goal was to destroy the water tribe and destroy the moon. The fire nation succeeded but Princess Yue, Sokka’s girlfriend, sacrificed herself to save the moon spirit. Then, Aang went into the avatar state and sent the Fire Nation ships away. Since they had to leave, Katara became Aang’s new Waterbending teacher.
Book Two: Earth
Next, they had to go to the Earth Kingdom to find an Earth Bending teacher for Aang. Before leaving, Master Pakku gave the Gaang several gifts, including a vial of water from the Spirit Oasis at the North Pole to Katara, which was said to have “special properties”. First, they tried King Bumi, Aang’s old friend, but he said that he needed a teacher who waited for the right time to strike. So, they went to an underground Earthbending tournament and found Toph, a blind girl and prodigious earth bender. She later agreed to travel with the group after running away from her family. It wasn’t long before Katara became furious with Toph because she only pulled her own weight and never helped the group. Overtime, Toph became a member of the group and they became good friends. They later travelled to Ba Sing Se because they had crucial information about an eclipse to give to the Earth King, and someone had stolen Appa and they thought that he would be their. They later realized that an evil man named Long Feign was trying to take over the Earth Kingdom. They stopped him and found Appa, who had already been freed by Zuko. Azula, Mai, and TyLee had already attacked and defeated the Kioshi Warriors, using their uniforms as disguises to infiltrate the Earth Kingdom. When the trio tried to overthrow the Earth King, Katara tried to help stop them. Despite this, their efforts were in vain because Azula won after she convinced Zuko to fight for her, the Earth Kingdom fell, and Aang was killed in the Avatar State. Luckily, Katara used the water fom the Spirit Oasis to bring him back to life.
Book Three: Fire
The entire world believes that Aang is dead . Their new plan is to find their allies from around the wrld and attack the Fire Nation on the Day of Black Sun. The Day of Black Sun is an eclipse that will take the Firebender’s powers away for a time.
Later on the gang grab some clothes that were drying off an old man’s property. Apparently Aang’s clothes were a school uniform because he was caught “skipping” later in the day. That night in a cave all of them decide that this was a good for Aang to enroll into a Fire Nation school. Later Aang gets into trouble and Sokka and Katara pose as his parents. Aang points out that the school is too strict and the kids need to loosen up and have fun. With this he decides to throw a dance party. At the party Aang and Katara are the first ones to dance to show the other kids how to dance. After this a teacher is told by a student of this party and the gang escape quickly.
The gang then arrive at a fishing village, Katara disguises herself as their idol, the Painted Lady. She healed the people and gave them food. When Aang figures out it’s Katara he helps her destroy the Fire Nation factory who was polluting the water. When the Fire Nation soldiers think it is the people of the village who stole their food and took their medicine and destroy their factory with the help of Aang, Toph, Appa, Sokka, and Katara as the Painted Lady destroys the Fire Nation soldiers.
When they stop for a few days they have to get money. Toph using sneaking and cheating which Katara disagrees with. They have a fight but later apologize to each other and make a plan for to get more money. Katara helps Fire Nation capture Toph (who by now is wanted). When Katara collects the money they are captured by Combustion man and are thrown into a wooden cave. Katara uses her sweat to break out and they escape from Combustion who was fighting Aang and Sokka.
In “The Puppetmaster” after Sokka tells a not so scary story in the woods Katara tells one that involves her mom. It’s about Nini, a friend of her mother’s who disappeared during a harsh winter in the Southern Water Tribe. Leaving everyone scared, an old woman named Hama appeared. She lets them stay at her house for awhile after hearing people were disappearing. When Hama is not there they search trhe house and come across a locked door. Toph metalbends the door unlocked and they go into to see a chest. They try to unlock but are caught by Hama. She unlocks it to reveal a water tribe comb. During dinner she tells she was captured and brought to the Fire Nation. She then trains Kataara how to obtain water from the air and from plants. At a full moon Hanna tries to teach how to blood bend but refuses. When they duel Katara is about to win when Aang and Sokka show up. Hama controls both of them and makes them attack Katara. She holds them on to different trees by ice but Hama breaks them free and throws them at each other but Katara stops them. She then holds Hama until she is arrested. Hama tells her that her work is done by teaching Katara waterbending. She then breaks down in tears.
The gang take a rest four days before the Day of the Black Sun and Aang starts to stress about facing Firelord Ozai. After two days of waking in the middle of the night because of Aang’s screaming Katara tries to relieve his stress. They do yoga in a steam area but it fails along with Sokka and Toph’s techniques. Katara, Sokka, and Toph make Aang a soft bed out of koala sheep’s wool that were nearby and Aang finally rested.
In the first part of “The Day of Black Sun” the gang are waiting for their friends and Katara sees fog and asks Sokka if the fog would affect the invansion but Sokka can tell that is the invasion. Toph and Aang earthbend docks for the water tribe ships and they welcome the people, among being the swampbenders, Haru and his dad and especially their dad.Katara and everyone shout with feelings of victory when Katara’s dad assures everyne of the Fire Nation’s demise after explaining the plan. Everyone then prepares for the battle to come. Katara and the swampbenders create a fog cover to hide themselves as they try to pass through the Gates of Azulong. But a fire net is brought up. Everyone hides as Fire solierds come on board. But no one is found because they used submarines with Katara and the swampbenders moving the subs. When they come up for air Katara, Sokka, and Toph give Aang a big grop good luck hug before he face the Firelord. As the two are left alone Katara tells Aag about how much she has seen him grow. Aang doubts if he comes back but as Katara assures him Aang gives her a kiss without notice and blushes as Aang leaves. She then hops on to Appa and creates a water bubble around her and Appa’s face as they go underwater and then head to land for the battle.
As they come in Katara and Appa dodge large harpoons being shot at them along with the submarines. As one sub is caught Appa flies up and Katara snaps the chain that’s attached to the arrow with water and frees it. They come onto land and the Earthbanders come out in tanks with the water tribe soldiers and earthbenders running out and attacking and the Swampbender You, making a big seaweed monster. Sokka, Katara, and their dad rides on Appa. Sokka sliced the harpoon guns with his sword, their dad used bombs, and Katara froze some the soliers. Katara and Sokka take out oe battlemech while their dad takes one out by himself. he comes out injured. Katara heals Hakodo as fast as she can while Sokka assumes leadership.
Katara was able to heal Hakodo mostly but not fully. She see’s Aang in the distance as he comes to tell them that everyone has evacuated the city. Sokka, Toph, and Aang go search for an underground passsage of some sort while Katara stays behind. As the eclipse approaches everyone puts on special glasses. The three come back after the eclipse to say they have failed because Azula distracted them . Firenation hot air ballons and zeppelins start to fly out. Aang and Katara fly up to destroy the ballons. They realized that they weren’t trying to attack the fighters but the subs. They would not be able to get to them in time so they would have to surrender.
Katara’s dad orders that the older people stay behind and the youngest members leave. She is now with Aang, Sokka, Toph, Haru, The Duke, and Teo on their way to the Western Air Temple. They are all oblivious to Zuko who is following them in a war balloon. When Zuko tries to join the group Katara is furious that he would even try to do this after all that they went through. Though the Gang eventually let Zuko in Katara told him that if he tried to do anything to hurt Aang, that she will make sure it is the last thing he’ll do. Katara soon went out of her way to be rude to Zuko even though the rest of the Gang was becoming friends with him. Katara finally became friends with Zuko when she went on a journey with him to find her mother’s killer and possibly her mother too. Zuko tells Katara that he knows what it is like to lose a mother to the war.
Azula soon attacked the Western Air Temple and everyone fled to Zuko’s old vacation home. Sokka came across a poster of an ad for a play about the avatar. They all went to the play and found out that it is way below their expectations. Katara was portrayed by a fat woman who cried at everything and had feelings for Zuko and not Aang. Aang was disturbed by this play asking Katara if it was true that she didn’t love him. Katara told him that this was no time to talk about that. Aang kissed Katara again and she ran away.
The next morning to everyone’s surprise Aang was missing. Zuko said that he knew someone who would be able to find Aang. But when they found the woman bounty hunter she informed everyone that Aang was gone. They then decided to find Zuko’s uncle, Iroh. They eventually found Iroh with everyone’s old masters to form the Order of the White Lotus. Zuko knew that he had to fight Azula and decided to take Katara along with him. They arrived on Aapa right when Azula was going to be crowned Fire Lord. Zuko said that he was going to become Fire Lord today and not Azula. Azula challeged him to a duel and Zuko accepted for he saw that something was off about Azula. Katara watched helplessly from the sidelines as the duel raged on. Azula saw Katara wasn’t even prepared for a fight, and shot a bolt of lightning at her. Zuko knew he could redirect the lightning if it was directed at him, but he instead jumped into the lightning bolt to save Katara. Katara went forward to try and heal him but Azula began to attack her. Katara led Azula around to a drain, where she grabbed a chain. Right when Azula was about to strike her, Katara froze water around them and slowly thawed it out around them until she had Azula chained to the drain. Katara then ran over to Zuko and healed the burn on his chest.
Katara and her family were at the ceremony where Zuko became the new Fire Lord. At the end of the ceremony, Aang and Katara kissed.
Powers and Abilities
Katara’s Waterbending abilities have progressed significantly throughout the series.
When Katara was first introduced, she was not a very skilled Waterbender at all. It took her a lot of concentration to lift an orb of water with a fish in it out of the water, and she could barely direct where she was bending the water.
As the series progressed, her powers developed. She was able to perform the Water Whip, and was able to freeze Jet to a tree.
By the time the Gang reached the North Pole, her Waterbending had improved so much, she was able to fight Master Pakku for a while. She was able to create disks of ice, make ice pillars form and even make ice grow around her feet for a rooted stance against an attack.
By the second season, Katara had been deamed a Waterbending Master. Now, Katara was able to do such things as the Octopus Form, create a bubble for everyone to walk in under the sea, surf at great speeds on large bodies of water, create tidal waves and even developed a move in which she covers her limbs in water allowing her to fight a lot better. She could also bend a lot more water than she could previously do. She was able to hold her own and bind Azula’s limbs with water in the Cross Roads of Destiny battle.
By season 3, Katara’s Waterbending had grown even more. An example of this is when she manages to flood the factory that was polluting the lake with out much effort. When the Gang met Hama, a Southern Tribe Waterbender who had been captured by the Fire Nation, she taught Katara where there is life, there is water, showing her how to pull water from the air and from trees and plants. Hama was going to teach Katara how to Bloodbend, an advanced form of Waterbending where the Waterbender bends the water in another persons body to control they’re limbs (this can only be done under a full moon though, when Waterbending is at its most powerful), but Katara said that she didn’t want that much control over people. Katara then figured out that Hama had been kidnapping the people using Bloodbending, and Hama Bloodbends Katara, but she is able to resist, as her Waterbending is more powerful than Hama’s. The two battle, and Katara shows amazing Waterbending skills, even stopping a gigantic pellet of water causing it to splinter into droplets. Katara was then forced into Bloodbending Hama, to stop her from killing Aang and Sokka.
In her final battle with Azula, she shows bending abilities far beyond what most masters can even do. She creates ice slides to enhance her mobility and dodge around Azula’s comet amped fireblasts, blocks a charged lightning attack from Azula, and manages to encase Azula and herself in a flash freeze, which she escapes by simply breathing through her nose to hollow the inside of the ice into water, where she chains Azula to the a drain.
Katara has the ability of the Waterbending sub-skill, healing, using the restoring properties of water. Her healing abilities have been shown to heal physical and in one case mental injuries, and using the water from the Spirit Oasis, Katara was able to bring Aang back from what is speculated to be dead. In the Legend of Korra series she is renowned as the greatest healer in the world.
Katara’s waterbending abilities continued to progress and grow throughout the sequel comic series. By this time, Katara was able to create floating ice-bridges in order to pseudo fly. She was able to take out The Rough Rhinos, a group of powerful weapon experts and firebenders, and she could take out large amounts of guards with very limited amounts of water. She performs the complex water orb technique, and blocks a punch from General Old Iron, a being capable of trading blows with Avatar State Aang. She has even gained the ability to control plant life, as shown in “The Search”.
For more information on Waterbending and Healing, visit the Benders page.