It's not just sibling rivalry, there's also a lot of Bad Dads. Ozai, Yakone, and Hiroshi are obviously the worst offenders, but Toph's dad was kind of a jerk too. And Yue's dad seemed like he loved her, but that didn't stop him from trying to marry her off to a self-absorbed prick, and I'm pretty sure he could tell how unhappy she was about it, at least toward the end.

Thankfully, we do see some good dads too, like Hakoda, Tyro, and Tonraq, plus some good father figures, like Gyatso and Iroh.

What about sister/mother figures? You've got Katara's and Zuko's families, but I don't remember any prominent sister/sister pairings, just sister/brother ones. I feel like the former is severely underrepresented in media that isn't specifically geared towards young females.

>>112947
>good dads too, like Hakoda, Tyro, and Tonraq
How did you forget Tenzin. He almost makes up for all the bad dads by himself.

>>112946
For what it's worth, the same dynamic never appears twice. Azula and Zuko seem to have been set against each other from the very beginning. Iroh and Ozai were probably always distant due to the huge age gap. Amon and Tarrlok used to be very close and in the end genuinely thought they were doing what was best for each other.

>>112960
I wouldn't say Azula and Zuko were set against each other from the beginning. Even in 'Zuko Alone', where we see Azula picking on him and Mai, we later see that the two were playing together happily when the news about Lu Ten's death came. And then there's the hazy flashbacks that Zuko has in The Storm, which shows two figures running and playing in the hills, although that's unclear as to whether Azula is the second one.

So I'd say there's always been a mixture of affection and intense rivalry there, it's just the latter often won out, which is pretty much the opposite of Amon and Tarrlock.

>>112960
>How did you forget Tenzin. He almost makes up for all the bad dads by himself.

Sorry, I was really tired when I wrote that and started off with only ATLA characters at first, then added in the LoK ones later and somehow missed Tenzin, for which I now must hang my head in shame. You're completely right about him, he's a fantastic dad. Oh, and let's not forget Aang himself. Even though we haven't actually seen Daddy Aang and his kids in anything other than fanart, you know he'd be great, and just look at how his kids turned out. Can't wait til we see more of them.

And now I'm wondering about Zuko and Sokka. I can totally see Zuko acting like pic related, trying to overcompensate for his own lousy father. Mai would probably keep him in check, but I bet he'd be the type to spoil his daughter. There hasn't been any official word on whether Sokka and Suki spawned yet, but I bet Sokka would be a really fun dad with his wacky antics and attitude. You can tell from the flashbacks in LoK that it's carried over at least a little into his adult life, so he'd be good with kids.

>>112957
>I don't remember any prominent sister/sister pairings, just sister/brother ones. I feel like the former is severely underrepresented in media that isn't specifically geared towards young females.

I think you're right about that, unfortunately. And also like you said, sister/mother relationships aren't very common either. Mothers seem to get the short end of the stick overall, which is why it was nice to see more of them in LoK. Given the fit that Nick pitched about having a female lead in the first place, we're probably lucky they got any focus at all.