Random Thought: The Avatar - Too Young For a Relationship?

I finished reading Avatar: The Last Airbender - The Promise last night. I'll talk more about that in another post, but it made me want to watch the series again, so I fired up the ol' Netflix queue.

As I was watching it, I was reminded of how cute it was to see Aang crushing on Katara and all the other characters dealing with teenage problems as they get ready to fight the Fire Lord, but then I remembered something very important. Aang was only supposed to be about eleven or twleve years old when he came out of the ice. He's way too young to be putting serious moves on Katara! What is up with that?

I understand that this is a cartoon but in some ways, doesn't that make it worse? Young kids watched or are going to watch it. At that age, do they really need to be thinking about how to put the moves on a possible crush?

Maybe I'm being a grumpy old lady shaking her cane yelling at the kids to get off her lawn, but even if the kid shows remarkable maturity and wisdom beyond his years, they are still a kid. Also, eventually, there are still those pesky little things called hormones that will rear their ugly head at some point. So why push a pre-teen into a relationship with a teen?

Don't get me wrong, I grew up on Disney and rom-coms, so I always end up rooting for the 'ships that seem to make sense (even when they don't), and I loved that Aang got the girl, but come on, he's twelve! I can't be the only one thinking this, can I? 

In an ideal world, I would have them have a sweet, young "romance," but then break them up, and give them a chance to experience other relationships. Then I'd bring them back together because they've matured enough to really understand what a relationship is, and they are each other's first and last love. Maybe I'm asking too much from a children's cartoon, but given that Legend of Korra exists, maybe I'm not. What do you think?

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