I don't know if that's totally fair. Katara was the mother figure, Sokka, while comic relief, was also perfectly level-headed and also the one with the balls.

I have a bigger problem with the original because Katara has no arc at all, she plays the mother hen the entire show, except like one fucking episode they threw in right before the finale with bloodbending because the writers thought it up too late in the series to do anything with it.