PersonalityBeing another protagonist of the show, Katara also receives a lot of attention from reviewers. She is described as "smart, capable; almost a generic anime heroine".[21] In addition to these features, she also is "kind, brave, and passionate."[22]

Katara is also very nurturing, acting as den mother for the group. She usually cooks their meals and washes their clothes. She takes responsibility for her brother, Sokka, and later Toph, and especially Aang (although initially she took a very mercenary attitude toward him, viewing him more as someone who could help her become a Waterbender than a friend). These tendencies were shaped by the fact that her tribe's losses from Fire Nation raids and the departure of so many members of the tribe to fight the Fire Nation forced her (as well as her brother Sokka) to take on numerous responsibilities beyond her age. Her maternal instincts, while with good intentions, can sometimes make her bossy.

Katara tends to be the most sensitive and compassionate member of the group (with the possible exception of Aang.) She can be very kind and generous, and she tends to be the most trusting in new situations. However, she can become very angry if someone hurts or insults her, or especially if she feels someone has betrayed her; she can allow anger to cause her to say or do unwise things, and she can carry a grudge against someone who has betrayed her for a long time, as was the case with Zuko.

Her relationship with Aang is complicated. On the one hand, a part of her tends to view him with great, almost reverential respect, befitting his role as the Avatar. At the same time, she is very protective of Aang, almost in the manner of an older sister, as she is sensitive to the fears he feels due to his responsibilities as the Avatar, and his pain and grief over the loss of all his fellow Airbenders. She seems unaware of his romantic feelings (even though she shares mutual feelings for Aang) for her until he kisses her on the eve of the invasion in Book Three. However, by the end of the series, she and Aang kiss once more.

Despite her kind and loving nature, a darker side of her was shown in the episode "The Southern Raiders". When Zuko revealed he knew who killed her mother, she went off with him to hunt down and kill the man. When Aang objected to her hunting down someone in cold blood, she rather contemptuously dismissed him, stating that his pacifist beliefs made him unable to understand, prompting Aang to remind her of the pain and rage he felt when he learned that the Fire Nation had exterminated every other Airbender. When Sokka sided with Aang, Katara stated rather coldly that if he believed Aang was right, Sokka did not love their mother as much as Katara did, a statement that clearly hurt him. What made it worse was the fact that Zuko also sided with her, creating a division that clearly showed. At the time, Zuko was only trying to help Katara, and at the end of the episode admits that violence was not what she needed. She Bloodbended on someone who she believed was the killer without remorse. When she finally found the correct man, she manipulated rain into dozens of large ice spikes which she sent at the man. However, her good side managed to overcome her rage, and she stopped herself before the ice made contact with the man. Rather than be a murderer, she left the man with the knowledge that he was pathetic and empty, and the guilt of what he did.

In addition to her bossiness, Katara is also very stubborn, often butting heads with the abrasive, independent and often hygienically challenged Toph. She feels that she should help everybody, and as a result she was hurt by a boy named Jet who used her and her friends in order to try and take out a Fire Nation town. When she and Jet met again later in the series, her anger initially remained, and she attacked him. Her stubborn nature and eagerness to help everyone pay off, however, when she stands up to Sokka, saying she will not turn her back on anyone who needs her, in order to save a village that only appears in the episode "The Painted Lady".