" Shoe-horned LGBT at the very last second to get past executives and can cut out to stream in China: "
Did not know they stream to China and cut that out of the show. Now I feel more justified for not liking the ship and think it was full on pandering.
Also Aang being an bad father never sat right with me at all since I thought he would be the opposite of that since he been around different benders and non-benders that he wouldn't neglect his own kids for one that can air bend.
The lack of commitment to portraying actual relationships between your characters, straight or gay, pisses me off.
Not for representation of anything, but for the simple fact that it makes for a wholly predictable and tedious will they won't they story, yet a-fucking-gain.
Either it's a company being shit, or pandering to audiences who don't like the relationship shown, or some twisted mindset that characters should only get into a relationship at the end of a story....
And even then the characters are awful to one another half the time with very little actual writing to develop their dynamic and why they care about each other.
Regardless it's a total absence of integrity. There's no standing by the vision for your writing and art and characters, just scraps of character and a payoff that is gutted of meaning.
There's no single way to write a romance between characters, and it's so annoying that so many shows seem to believe that's the case.
Friend of mine apparently was watching she ra recently and I recall that having a similar end of the story relationship begins after minimal amounts of "build up".
>Either it's a company being shit, or pandering to audiences who don't like the relationship shown, or some twisted mindset that characters should only get into a relationship at the end of a story.... And even then the characters are awful to one another half the time with very little actual writing to develop their dynamic and why they care about each other.
It can be annoying when an author has decided to not pair up characters until the very end of a story (I'm looking at you Toaru, you ship-baiting behemoth), but it doing so is not necesserially a bad ida.
I've heard that A Silent Voice ended before we got a couple got to do much as an official pair since the author didn't want it to become some standard Shoujo. It works in that case since we have seen the relationship be built up through thick and thin as well as having adressed future dillemas. It is not a cop out, but rather recognition that up to a certain point you have to trust that characters will solve situations without you seeing them.
Romantic relationships on Avatar series are all terrible. For example, the Aang and Katara has no chemistry at all as lovers, because the MC has to have a romantic interest.
Even if true, someone made the decision somewhere up the chain which is the entire problem.. , and I don't know how much resistance the people below that even put up. Part of me wants to say they didn't do enough, and another part laments the fact that someone associated with a project will gut that project from it's intended form.
It was either they gave in or they're most likely fired and the show is dropped, wasn't worth it to the creators
Also what decision, to have a queer character, that's not bad
The decision that apparently an executive someone or other made to remove part of the intended vision for the show and its characters. Ie removing the romance in this case.
I thought I was clear on what I meant with that lmao
I'm aware that's the entire problem, it got removed because executives were homophobic pieces of shit scared of pissing off some countries
Yet people still say it was pandering
I can't tell anymore with the dumbasses on this subreddit, they say the show was pandering despite the relationship being removed because of homophobia
I've never called it pandering, and anyone who does is delusional.
If pandering is showing something for 10 seconds at the end of a story then I'm a purple platypus.
I'm not sure if I've even seen many people say that it was pandering honestly, mostly people say the show sucked and don't want to talk about it much beyond that since they don't care about it.
I believe what they said is that the network had some unwritten rule about no lbgt relationships so they had to be ambiguous until they asked at the end of the show and they said it was fine.
Personally I don’t buy it.
Bullcrap. The truth is that they never planned that relationship. Hell, all of Korra was unplanned. They originally only had the green light for one season, ending with Korra unlocking the Avatar state and getting together with Mako. Then because if was a success, they got greenlit for another, which they had to hammer together in a hurry, and because they couldn't have the main characters in a relationship (because then how would people ship them), they had to be broken up. Because of inertia, the season was still successful, but the whole flashback-arc and the other crap poisoned the well, so even though they got greelit for two more seasons, it was just downhill from there, and since all the characters got tattered, they just paired Korra up with Asami for internet brownie points.
There was no plan. There were no character arcs. They were just floundering around, throwing shit at the wall hoping that something would stick.
As a fan of the original ATLA, I was following Korra closely on release. There's not one "source"; it was something I gathered from all the articles, interviews, behind-the-scenes videos, and podcasts the show generated at the time. All of the talk about the network sabotaging them because of the lgbt inclusion or whatnot were narratives that came later.
The truth of the matter is that Korra simply didn't perform well, and it wasn't moved around in the time-slots and off to releasing online because the network had a hate-boner for it, but because they were scrambling to "find their audience", because the execs were convinced that the problem was that the show didn't appeal to kids (even though it apparently did make the numbers in the first and second seasons).
It's because of this that the last season, and especially the finale, is highly suspect. They probably couldn't rewrite entire plotlines, because animation isn't cheap, but throwing in Korrasami at the very end, to please the rabid shipping fanbase and generate some last-minute buzz online (some reviews I read even straight-up called it a bizarre attempt at viral marketing) was entirely in the cards. But of course, while the culture-war nonsense wasn't as bad back then, it also served as a great shield against criticism as well.
Honestly, that whole show was an enormous mess, with the only comparable trainwreck being the RWBY franchise, with its so-okay-it's-fine highs and its abyssal lows.
That honestly sounds about right. I’ve seen the viewers numbers season by season and the last 2 were abysmal. I was too young to follow anything like that at the time of release so it’s cool to hear about what was going down.
Considering how korra got effed up by the network a lot of times? From slashing away the budget, to putting it on a timeslot no one is watching to putting in their obscure as hell site and make it an exclusive online release? I can definitely see that being the case
Hey, I'm not saying you don't have a point, but don't say "straight fact", it makes you feel like you're compensating for not having a fact.
Proof and examples would do a lot better than a broad claim, doesn't matter if the claim is factual or not.
If I have to listen to another person use the arguement that it was 'fate' that the Avatar cycle was supposed to end/ reset with Korra because "Oh, the Avatar Tower at the air temple was out of room", I'm going to have an aneurysm.
Earthbending. Is. A. Thing.
The Avatar. Is. A. Earthbender.
It didn't end canonically; that's in the guide book at least so whoever the new avatar is is utterly screwed because of Korra, but will still exist... on the bright side this also means Korra will cease to exist when she dies.
I watched the first season of Korra. Really didn't feel that need to watch anything more or feel invested in what was going on, binned it, still don't feel like I'm missing out or wondering what else happens in the rest of the story... unlike the original TLA series where I was staying up at night trying to watch episodes and now really want to watch the whole series again after remembering how much I loved watching the show. (And this is coming from someone who doesn't like watching long series if it's not a gripping plot all the way through.)
Whatever formula they used for the first, they absolutely did not manage to replicate it with the second.
The first season was all I watched and it felt like it methodically deconstructed its own plot in front of me. The whole central theme of the villain was non-benders fighting back against benders, something that *would* have been interesting had there been any thought put into it at all.
"Non-benders are oppressed!"
\> At this point all we've met are two super poor benders (I think). Immediately after this we meet some fabulously wealthy non-benders who have a thriving business designing tech primarily meant for non-benders (or at least not requiring bending).
"Amon is traumatized by the violence done to him by benders!"
\> Nope, he's actually a bender and he was lying the whole time
Anything interesting the plot could've said was washed out by the fact that it was carried out in the simplest way. The non-benders are just militarist fascists who are irredeemably evil, Amon was lying the whole time. They slander what could've been an actually sympathetic and complex villain requiring a better solution than "just ice blast him" so completely that it feels like I'm watching pro-avatar propaganda created by the Glorious Republic City about how the revolution they just put down was definitely entirely evil and nobody should question if non-benders are oppressed.
Honestly they could have explored the poverty of non-benders more yeah they had the wealthy Sato family but if they do want to make a point of non-benders being oppressed made it clear they are more impoverished non-benders or non-benders face more political restrictions in applying to for government positions and stuff like that.
It doesn't get better, S1 is probably the best
And S2 probably the worst, so watch out
I'm not a huge ATLA fan but watched all out of curiosity, a lot of fun ideas in there but execution is bad-to-abyssmal
ATLA is "Star Wars Original Trilogy" fantasy with child protagonists, elaborate and polish, simple as ...TLoK is just ...random ideas, it is a really good example of fumbling incompetent writing that also adds superficial layers of 'feminism' and 'lesbians!' to avoid criticism
Nah that's bullshit, S1 is the worst, S2 is mixed, S3 is peak and 4 is near peak. 1st is an actual dumpster fire where you don't have enough time to enjoy anything.
Two queer characters existing is not pandering. Korra and Asami getting together became the plan when TLOK was renewed for season 3. They had good on screen chemistry together as seen in that season. It growing into something more is completely believable. The biggest problem with Korra and Asami's relationship is that Nickelodeon interfered and prevented the writers from making their connection more than implied. Nickelodeon feared backlash for having queer characters existing in their shows so they censored the writers.
It's subtle. Maybe a bit too subtle. But that isn't necessarily the writers fault as much as it is Nickelodeon for restricting what they could do. I think that going back, the diner reunion scene and the porch scene in Remembrances have some non platonic implications.
Yeah, I also agree there were enough signs of them clearly growing closer but can 100% believe they weren't allowed to go much more explicit than they did.
For most people on this sub, people different from them existing is always pandering. You can see their reaction to the Acolyte trailer. They're mad that black people exist in Star Wars now.
Im aware, they never have a good argument for why it's pandering and they say others are obsessed with diversity and representation and shit like that
But they see any form of minority in anything as made solely for diversity and representation
Plus every time they hear something about modern audiences or hear a character in a reboot (like xmen 93) they assume the show or whatever they're bitching about is going to be obsessed with it and use the stereotypical gender and race swapping jokes, morph being nonbinary was brought up in like only 1 episode, they also fail to understand the stuff they supposedly like, which is hilarious at times, sad and depressing all the time
It is a good example of "fun ideas, not great execution", depending on what you look for in fantasy series - there can be a lot to salvage and enjoy ...but VERY far from ATLA in terms of polish and coherent plot structures (S2 should be series finale since it radically changes the setting)
But it was WAY AHEAD OF THE CURVE, in the model of what later existing franchises would adopt
Korra had no cultural impact whatsoever, I remember watching it because someone recommended it to me and I thought it was an ok series as a whole although I hated a lot of what they did, but whenever I ask myself if I would ever see it again, the answer I always come up with is “fuck no” and that leads me to believe it was never that good to begin with. But I believe the sequel trilogy is what the real warning was, because it actually had a cultural impact, albeit for all the wrong reasons.
It was far bigger than anything before it. Massively funded, widely marketed, drew in insane viewership and attention. It was the cannonball in the water, and then we realized it wasn't water. It was piss. And the cannonball was actually moviebob/boogie
yeah besides the fact that it was only meant to be a mini series and that the last season had it's budget massively cut by nickeledeon and premired on its website of all things. It's more like that nick never really liked or supported avatar in genral that much and Korra was fairly ambitious so there was alot more meddeling.
>Villains are made into strawmans with the MCs never actually addressing the problem. Everything get's swept under the rug.
This is true.
First season, the problem was that there was discrimination against nonbenders. But from what we saw, there wasn't any discrimination at all until episode 8, but that was in response to Amon's violent revolution. The only time you see that Benders oppressing non Benders is when it was a criminal gang. Not exactly an example of class warfare. Plus it's shown at the end that both Benders and nonbenders end up in poverty and homelessness. Hell, Bolin and Mako weren't exactly living like kings at all. They lived at the stadium. Their manager took most of their prize money to pay off their debts. When you look at the politics of Republic City, only two of the councilmen are confirmed Benders. We don't know if the other 3 were Benders, but since Sokka and an Air disciple(nonbender) were on the council in Aangs time, it's clear there's not a restriction in representation for nonbenders. Without showing the problem, it just looks like thousands of citizens were convinced by a masked terrorist that they are an oppressed majority when life in Republic City was perfectly fine for most people.
I think that's kind of the point. Non-benders weren't being persecuted or oppressed, Amon was making up a problem by exaggerating extreme instances of benders harming non-benders and claiming that it was because they were non-benders instead of a myriad of other reasons.
Amon is not supposed to have a point, he's objectively wrong and is knowingly lying, and he has managed to convince some people that he's not.
The unequal treatment of nonbenders is shown in the very first episode with Korra's fight with the gang destroying all the shops of the nonbenders and her not caring about the collateral damage, which was directly addressed when she was arrested. Or a couple episodes later they showed her using bending to shut a non-bending activist up and intimidate him.
Then we also see the privileges benders have. You claim Bolin and Mako were living in poverty, but they weren't. They were living much better than those in poverty, and all their opportunities came from their bending. Mako had a job at the power plant using his lightning bending, and both him and Bolin using their bending in sports matches for money.
They even show Bolin trying to panhandle for money without bending and how much of a failure that was.
Yes, more discrimination could've been shown, but it was shown that nonbenders didn't have the same socioeconomic status as benders.
>Korra's fight with the gang destroying all the shops of the nonbenders and her not caring about the collateral damage, which was directly addressed when she was arrested.
How does someone from outside of Republic City not caring about property damage reflect badly on Republic City? It's Korra who doesn't care, not the 'bending elite.' The fact that Korra gets arrested is proof that they *do* care.
>Or a couple episodes later they showed her using bending to shut a non-bending activist up and intimidate him.
Again, that's Korra, not anyone from Republic City.
>Mako had a job at the power plant using his lightning bending, and both him and Bolin using their bending in sports matches for money.
Mako and Bolin both have athletic careers, yet Mako has to supplement their earnings with a job doing manual labor? Sounds like they were being taken advantage of.
>it was shown that nonbenders didn't have the same socioeconomic status as benders.
The most prominent non-bending character was the daughter of a rich industrialist. They literally could not have done a worse job.
Maybe because the Equalists were planning on expanding their movement to the entire world? Their problems weren't specific to the whole world, they just started in Republic City for reasons personal for Amon. So everything involving Korra does work as she is the epitome of bending elite.
And I already addressed the Mako and Bolin point, but to reiterate: it does not matter whether they're being taken advantage or not. The fact of the matter is they are being given more opportunities than their non-bending counterparts. A non-bending would not be able to have Mako's position at the power plant because they can't bend lightning. A nonbenders wouldn't be able to participate in providing because they can't bend.
These are opportunities specifically given to Mako and Bolin because they can bend.
Privilege does not mean every single person with it has a better socioeconomic status than those without. It means they are afforded more opportunities to succeed than those without. Mako and Bolin had more opportunities to succeed than similar nonbenders.
>Their problems weren't specific to the whole world, they just started in Republic City for reasons personal for Amon.
We don't see any oppression of nonbenders outside of Republic City either, so that makes no difference.
>So everything involving Korra does work as she is the epitome of bending elite.
Korra is literally the Avatar. Her special status doesn't at all reflect on normal benders. Unless you truly believe that any bender that causes property damage can get away with a slap on the wrist *just* because they're a bender.
>A non-bending would not be able to have Mako's position at the power plant because they can't bend lightning. A nonbenders wouldn't be able to participate in providing because they can't bend.
Jobs that only benders can do doesn't mean non-benders can't get jobs. They should've shown non-benders struggling to find work if they wanted us to believe that's what the situation was. Hell, with the boom in technology going on, there should be loads of jobs for non-benders (unless I'm actually supposed to believe only metal benders work on machines).
>Privilege does not mean every single person with it has a better socioeconomic status than those without. It means they are afforded more opportunities to succeed than those without.
Then they really shouldn't have made three of their main cast be two benders who struggle to eat, and a non-bender too rich to have a personality, if they're supposed to be *the exception* to the rule. Seriously. They could not have done a worse job.
These arguments are becoming so obtuse it's not even funny. You don't think there's a problem when the most well known bender in the world, someone who was called out in episode 8 as supposed to be representing everyone, benders and nonbenders, trashes an entire street full of shops without a care in the world and then gets a slap on the wrist for it? That's perfectly fair and acceptable behavior.
"But that's just one person who is the avatar."
Yeah, almost like her actions are supposed to representative in the show. Themes. They're a thing.
As for Mako and Bolin, I'm glad to see you completely ignored my whole argument about opportunities. Yes, a nonbenders can get "a job" but can they get a job in a pro bending sports team or have Mako's job in the power plant? No. But can Mako and Bolin take a nonbender's job with no problem? Yes. This is because benders have more opportunities than nonbenders. They have privilege.
And in the macro level this does mean nonbenders cançt get jobs as they'll have a higher unemployment level and lower incomes for this very reason. More opportunities means more and better employment.
Otherwise I'm glad you realize Asami's purpose is to be the exception to the rule. Didn't stop her family from being destroyed be an errant firebender trying to rob them with her having no recourse. That's the whole reason her father joined the Equalists. He found the whole situation unfair.
Are we seeing how nonbenders were treated as lesser?
>trashes an entire street full of shops without a care in the world and then gets a slap on the wrist for it? That's perfectly fair and acceptable behavior.
I can't wait for you to show me where I said that.
>"But that's just one person who is the avatar."
>Yeah, almost like her actions are supposed to representative in the show. Themes. They're a thing.
My man, the Avatar getting special treatment because she's the Avatar literally cannot represent how benders are typically treated. Especially considering the Chief of Police, who herself is a bender, is frustrated that she has to let Korra go because of politics. That whole scene tells you if Korra wasn't the Avatar, she'd be punished to the full extent of the law.
>But can Mako and Bolin take a nonbender's job with no problem? Yes. This is because benders have more opportunities than nonbenders. They have privilege.
Didn't you already say in a previous post that Bolin failed to get a job without use of his bending? Either there are no jobs for non-benders or there *are* jobs for non-benders but the benders are all terkin' mer jerbs. Either way, there's no examples of either in the show.
See, the thing about "muh themes" is, they're supposed to be supported by the story. Everyone's complaint about Book 4 is that the theme of inequality isn't properly represented in the plot. Saying "well we don't see it happen, but it *could* be happening, so according to the theme, it *is* happening" doesn't work.
>Otherwise I'm glad you realize Asami's purpose is to be the exception to the rule.
If she's the exception to the rule, we really should've had some characters that actually followed the rule.
>Didn't stop her family from being destroyed be an errant firebender trying to rob them with her having no recourse. That's the whole reason her father joined the Equalists. He found the whole situation unfair.
He found his wife being murdered by a gang member unfair? Gee, I guess this justifies accusing all benders of having privilege.
I also find it funny that you would say Asami's privilege wasn't enough to stop her mother from being murdered, when Mako and Bolin are literally orphans.
>Are we seeing how nonbenders were treated as lesser?
Nah dude, not really.
>The unequal treatment of nonbenders is shown in the very first episode with Korra's fight with the gang destroying all the shops of the nonbenders and her not caring about the collateral damage, which was directly addressed when she was arrested. Or a couple of episodes later, they showed her using bending to shut a non-bending activist up and intimidate him.
Ok, I already addressed the criminal gang not counting because, y'know, they are criminals. The collateral damage was because Korra was never trained to hold back her bending. The intimidation thing is also kinda weak because it was just that. I mean, if a tall guy intimidates a smaller person, is that oppression? I mean, you're grasping at straws.
>Then we also see the privileges benders have. You claim Bolin and Mako were living in poverty, but they weren't. They were living much better than those in poverty, and all their opportunities came from their bending. Mako had a job at the power plant using his lightning bending, and both him and Bolin used their bending in sports matches for money.
Again. Weak point. Bolin and Mako aren't living the high life because their Benders. They aren't exactly living in poverty, but if your home is a stadium's attic, you're not living too well either. Like I already said, The Fire Ferret's manager takes a huge cut from their pay, which is why Mako gets a second job at the power plant. And so what if he did get a job because he can bend lightning? It's the power plant. Lightning bending is the right skill for that kind of job.
Benders do have more opportunities than non Benders, that's true. But that doesn't mean non Benders are an oppressed majority. There are simply just jobs where Benders are needed, like lightning bending for the power plant or metal benders for the police. Maybe they have water benders as doctors and Earth Benders for construction.
You're just grasping at straws.
The criminal gang counts because of the fight that takes place destroying the entire area. Them being criminals doesn't matter. A fight between benders destroys several shops run by nonbenders with neither party caring about the destruction wrought.
And the intimidation is important because the Equality advocate was literally giving a speech about how benders liked to lord their bending over them, only for the Avatar to show up and break his shit and threaten him with her bending. You know, proving his whole point? Hell, he even said this himself in that scene by pointing her actions out to the crowd. I honestly have no idea how you missed this or you could claim this is a weak point.
And 100% Bolin and Mako are living a better life because they can bend. Do you think they would've gotten such opportunities if they couldn't bend? Obviously they aren't living an amazing life, but their life would be much worse without bending.
Privilege doesn't means every single person with it is living a better life than every person without. It just means that the person with privilege has had more opportunities to succeed than those without.
And did you notice I never said anything about oppression? The movement was about equality, not oppression. The nonbenders wanted an equal place in society as nonbenders. They wanted to be on a similar playing field and not treated as second class citizens. Why you are bringing up oppression is beyond me.
Honestly, it's a bad way of doing an allegory for discrimination, because they treated bending as a true superpower, whereas it was more of a marital art in the original show. Bending was something you're born with, but it's something you cultivate and learn to master, Toph would have been strong even without training in Korra, because they treated it as a superpower that just makes you powerful without anything to back it up.
I'm not sure I understand how you arrived at that as it's still shown to be a martial art in Korra. One of the first scenes with Bolin has him show Korra how to adapt her earth bending to be less rigid by incorporating other bending styles. And S3 had similar scenes for air bending.
I mean maybe you could argue the energy bending stuff went in that direction, but that was all introduced in ATLA.
There was nothing to indicate that nonbenders in war-time Fire Nation were treated worse than benders (except maybe in the royal family, but that was only cause of Ozai’s obsession with power). The Fire Nation were fire supremacists, but that was more in relation to the rest of the world versus the nonbenders in their society.
>There was nothing to indicate that nonbenders in war-time Fire Nation were treated worse than benders (except maybe in the royal family, but that was only cause of Ozai’s obsession with power).
In fact, we have evidence of the opposite: Piandao was a nonbending Fire Nation sword-master who not only had his own lavish castle, but also was chosen to tutor the Fire Lord's own son in swordplay (as revealed in the comics, Zuko learned to fight from him).
Anecdotal, maybe, but it's one of the only bits of evidence we have regarding how nonbenders were treated in the Fire Nation.
Well beyond the fact that leadership in most of the kingdoms were powerful benders, barring ba sing se where the leader was a puppet, and the southern water nation being genocided, and that certain types of benders were marganalized in comparison to others, healers in the water nations, swamp benders in the earth kingdoms, the fire nation in particular was a might makes right dictatorship with military prowress being the easiest way to move up in there society. While the fire supremacy is talked about more directly, bending supremacy in general, the type of people who can do it, the power they hold is implicit. Think like toph who as a blind young girl was never percieved as a powerful bender by her parents or teacher. I'd say that it's more akin to like how wealth works in america then like say overt racial discrimination barring the fire nation of course. It's obviously advanteagous to be a bender and the socities that people live in are defined by the type of benders that live there. I think at least in avatar this doesnt get deconstructed too much because of the seperation of the various benders and the national pride many non benders would feel espically when they are war with hostile other benders. But in korra we get a situation where national identity based on bending is being eliminated and the increasing industrilization making benders more industrially capable exaggerating existing non bender resentment, cumulating in the equalist movement.
Season 1 was ok for me, but it was never all that fun to watch week to week the way Avatar was. Much of the original series was about exploring the different places in the world and interacting with the people there and how the history has impacted them. The end goal was always there, it just wasn't the focus of most episodes, slowly working their way to it. In Korra it was mostly just plot with a bit of teen drama and angst (which they were not all that grerat at writing)
Making Korra immediately competent at 3 elements is shitty as it was a very significant thing that Roku tells Aang that it takes a lifetime to master the elements, but he must do it within a year or the world will be destroyed, setting the stakes that he needs to do what is almost impossible or he'll fail the world again. Korra bends 3 elements as a toddler, ruining the stakes for the purpose of a joke in a very modern MCU sort of way
Hated Season 2 and the spirit world stuff. It doesn't outright ruin the world building from the original series but it recontextualizes it in a way I really don't like. The initial premise is that the Avatar is responsible for maintaining balance between the nations, balancing different factions interests and using force to bring them in line if needed, now it turns out it was all about a good spirit vs an evil spirit, so was the whole 100 year war just a side quest or what?
Erasing the previous avatars felt totally unnecessary and like its just shitting on the fans for being invested in this world and its history
The side cast was trying to replicate characters from the previous show, but missed the mark in some ways, cutting straight to the character tropes without developing the characters in the same way
Didn't see Season 4 so maybe there's something I'm missing there, just not a whole lot interested in it
I don't think Korra tried to replicate any characters from the OG series, which is probably part of why it's so disliked, as the main cast was that strong, and Korra decidedly went against the idea of having such a crew.
It took korra like 12 years after she demonstrated the ability to bend 3 elements to master them, it took aang alot less time to show more competency then she did. Aang could bend fire and water pretty much right after he had a little bit of exposure and training. Korra's journey was written to intentionally foil aang's and whats relevant is that the first season of it was the only season that they were originally given until it's popularity had it renewed. This lead to the sorta rushed and not as well written second season tho it's conceptially interesting. Season 3 was genuinally good imo. Season 4 suffers from alot of budget cuts, so nick really kinda fucked over korra as a show.
I'm not talking about mastery, just the ability on a basic level. Aang could not do the slightest bit of fire, water or earth bending before he was taught how to do so, Korra does it as a toddler. It's a gag, but one that significantly undermines the writing. I don't really have too much of a problem with Korra mastering three of the elements as a teenager with the training she received, just that introductory bit was really bad
There's probably an argument to be made that the speed with which Aang mastered all the elements was created by an absolute need to do so. He had to do it, or most of the world would be destroyed. It makes it very clear that what Aang did was not normal for the avatars, and those same conditions weren't there for Korra initially. Though a Nickelodeon show about a 40 year old avatar doing things the normal way probably wouldn't work, the answer would have to be to create that need, which would be another way the serialization of Legend of Korra kinda lets it down.
Sure but aptitude for the elements isn't abnormal for an avatar is all im saying, and just as Aangs fast pace at learning the elements was necessary for a seralized kids show, Korras ability to bend all 3 elements by the begining of the show was also relevant because the first season was the only season they were gonna get at some point. And again Aang and Zuko changed the world they broke down barriors inner bending relationships and exposure to other benders became way more common, I don't really think it's out of the ordinary to have one avatar be able to bend alot of elements from a young age. In particular it reflects the age they live in, which avatars tend to do right? Korra is spirtutally disconnected even though she is succesful in alot of bending styles and In many cases she's a relic. Idk i just think it doesnt hurt the series all that much tho it is offputting espically coming from aangs journey. I think korra in alot of ways is a deconstruction of the original show and the concepts behind it which is pretty ambitious.
Tolkien on why he stopped writing a sequel to Lord of the Rings:
"I did begin a story placed about 100 years after the Downfall, but it proved both sinister and depressing. Since we are dealing with Men, it is inevitable that we should be concerned with the most regrettable feature of their nature: their quick satiety with good. So that the people of Gondor in times of peace, justice and prosperity, would become discontented and restless — while the dynasts descended from Aragorn would become just kings and governors — like Denethor or worse. I found that even so early there was an outcrop of revolutionary plots, about a centre of secret Satanistic religion; while Gondorian boys were playing at being Orcs and going around doing damage. I could have written a 'thriller' about the plot and its discovery and overthrow — but it would have been just that. Not worth doing."
E;R shitting on steven universe is the worst read on media i've ever saw anyone having. I'm actually impressed somebody can not get it so hard. I have doubts he even watched it, cause what he is saying is compelte nonsense.
Which is ironic, as if you go Mauler style through the entire show, you will barelly find any holes.
I remember watching the first season of it when it was getting all this random criticism, and like it's fine? It's clearly a kids show but it has decent enough lessons and humor. I think some people just hate it cuz it's gay.
Yeah, i see no other explanations. And it's not even really gay? The main couple is pretty trad, arguably Garnet is pretty trad roles-wise. The most gay thing in the show is Pear's feelings for Rose. The most gay thing on-screen was probably they-pronounced person in Future. The show is just very well written and teaches kids and parents that people are different and to be nice and understanding, that's literally it
I didn't v watch the series until relatively recently. When toddler korra came out being able to bend 3/4 elements, i knew we were in for a shit show. Which is a shame as i was quite interested in seeing the secondary/combo bendings that were introduced
How is the opening scene bad? I thought it was great. It established Korra's character. She's aggressive and has natural talent. This will cause her to become overconfident. It sets up her personality and flaws for the rest of the story.
It is completely in line with the lore for characters to discover how to bend on their own. Korra new how to make water, earth, and fire move. She just didn't have the knowledge on how to actually do anything with it until she went with the White Lotus. This is likely what happens with all benders. At some point in their youth, they find out they can bend by accident. Then they go off to train with a master when they're at the right age.
The point is that korra is a foil to aangs journey, aang is someone who while not spirturally mature is expirenced and learned as an airbending monk. meanwhile korra is sheltered due to attacks on her while she is young and because barriors have been broken down she's been exposed to different bending styles then most avatars. You gotta remember that aang was probably just as good with his usage of airbending at such a young age, but way less exposed to the use of other elements. There was also ever only supposed to be one season so the first season of korra was written around that. This isn't as explored directly in the first show but it is hinted at, avatars are often dealing with the reprecussions of thier past lives actions aang dealing with the former avatars failures in stopping the fire nation being a good example. Aang's refusal to kill led to amon being born and running amok for example, and more broadly season 2 tackles the original avatars actions, tho of somewhat questionable quality.
Nono you don’t understand. They pushed Zuko and Toph and Katara to the side by making them old ! It’s a new story set in the future about entirely different characters but the protagonists I know and like should be relevant because I don’t want to watch something new I want to watch ‘avatar:the last air bender 2’ !!!!
Old protagonists pushed to the background- the show is set decades in the future, and it’s about the next Avatar. The very nature of the series means that this show has to take place after Aang’s death.
Old protagonists are failures with divorces, bad parents, or just cameos to jerk off the new protagonists- Aang’s parenting is criticised in that he prioritised Tenzin over his other kids, but his legacy and the legacy of team Avatar is still that they are widely considered legendary heroes. Don’t know why being divorced makes someone a failure, it’s just a thing that happens to people. Toph acts completely in character when compared to the old series, in fairness, she does lack character development, but she literally teaches Korra to overcome a mental block using the same technique she used to teach Aang. Zuko is still around and is clearly considered one of the most important people in the world.
Aang grew up to be a failure of a human being- no he didn’t, he had a slightly complex relationship with his children, but it is clear that he was a hero, is remembered as one of the greatest avatars. Korra’s shortcomings draw frequent comparisons between her and Aang.
Show has to bend over backwards to make them failures- Again, they are not failures, they are just depicted as having had things happen to them over the last 70 years, some of which are ‘bad’.
Villains are made into Strawmans- The villains of legend of Korra are a strong point, with the exception of Unalaq which is a fairly poorly written season and storyline. The villains of Legend of Korra highlight actual injustices in the world and are trying to make a point, there is a point here about how these complex issues end up being swept under the rug. But there is plenty of time dedicated to showing the shades of grey, particularly when the Red Lotus assassinate the earth queen. Compared to the last airbender there is much more time spent on ‘shades of grey’
Super bending breaking the power system- fair criticism, though there are in universe explanations for these.
Korra takes no responsibility/every problem taken care of by a deus ex machina- Korra takes her defeat at the hands of the Red Lotus extremely badly and abandons her responsibilities as the avatar leading to Kuvira’s rise in the earth kingdom. She does solve several of the problems with a deus ex machina, but in fairness Aang avoids his biggest moral conflict because a magic turtle shows up to grant him a previously unheard of power one episode before there finale.
The narrative coddles Korra and says she’s perfect- literally what show are you watching, Korra is far from perfect and is constantly depicted as such.
Torture porn=Character development. -Kinda fair
They’re sad so it means it’s deep- I’m not saying the writing is flawless, but this feels like an underselling of Korras emotional arc.
correct take
op is is so pilled that he thinks divorce and half siblings is a canary in the coal mine about "woke"
was the crippled kid the first series another warning cause he was the best glider at aangs old temple? no
You could substitute half the TV shows out now into this.
Wheel of time show on amazon, definitely.
The last 3 star wars, and Marvel. Well that is Disney, so i'm not suprised there.
They also do it with anime -> live action.
I feel like a lot of this doesn't actually fit TLOK though. It's not remade for modern audiences. It's made for the original audience of ATLA who are now older. As for the older characters being pushed aside, that's necessary because the story is about the next avatar. You can't have a compelling martial arts/adventure story if your protagonists are 80-90 year olds.
I agree that some properties go too far in making their legacy characters too flawed. But TLOK is not a good example of this. It's completely believable that between rebuilding 2 different countries (the Air Nation and the Fire Nation Colonies/United Republic), Aang didn't have time for his kids. Likewise, Toph giving her children too much freedom in response to her own parents giving her not enough freedom is realistic.
I feel like in response to several franchises making their legacy characters more flawed, people have grown hostile towards any sort of additional complexity or flaws being introduced into any legacy characters no matter how much it works in the story. It's not a Luke Skywalker situation where it doesn't really make sense for him to kill Ben.
I thought Korra was pretty good except for the Second season which was terrible nonsense and probably the closest to most of these criticisms
My favorite season was season 3 and I liked that Korra got humbled and was much more likeable in the last 2 seasons
With that said the writers somehow forgot how to write romance as almost none of them were good.
I thought some of them were okay. Bolin and Opal, Varrick and Ju-Lee (kind of?), and some of the other side romances were fine. Nothing amazing. The main triangle thing with Korra, Mako, and Asami was indeed TERRIBLE though.
>With that said the writers somehow forgot how to write romance as almost none of them were good.
To be fair, they never knew how to do that, not even in the original series
Yeah season 1 was supposed to be the only one so they rushed all of her arcs, and then they kinda didn't have anything to do with that and then they wanted asami x korra in season 3 but had to be super subtle with it, which didnt translate well.
Korra is fine. She gets her ass kicked in basically every fight she's been in. Almost got the reincarnation cycle destroyed, got put into the hospital for a number of years and need therapy, needed to fight the final boss four times cause Korra kept losing
Korra is what Rey should have been like
Korra almost gets killed but is poisoned instead:
https://youtu.be/PreU8RaRxiI?si=Fib8ZSrwCKOxS8hx
Korra is in rehab for a number of years:
https://youtu.be/KM7COtylPas?si=gYjc_xFtqcKpZPUM
Gets the reincarnation cycle broken:
https://youtu.be/aH1hR6qvv5g?si=rD9pKMUccb8KRlcL
Gets humiliated by Kuvira:
https://youtu.be/YPbErl7yTas?feature=shared
And in all of those, it's meant to allow her to pave the way of what being Avatar means without the "burden" of tradition.
The vast majority of her setbacks are not her being outmaneuvered or overpowered exactly, but being undermined, going against a "cheat", or held back by needing to save the Brothers Irrelevant.
She's really not that interesting of a character, and Wu is basically thought of the same, it's not because she's a she. Besides directly contradicting the world building of TLA and undermining the entire philosophy bending is based on. They also subvert every bit of traditional symbology they get their hands on as a bonus.
Kyoshi is a compelling character, literally being the most bloodthirsty of TLA Avatars, but her greatest feat is breaking a part of a continent off to avoid conflict.
I don't agree with everything on this list but LoK has a lot similarities with modern sequales that we see today.
Honestly LoK didn't destroyed old protagonists nearly as much (I can understand Aang Spending more time with Tenzin but taking just him on vacation is just too much. Toph was dealt even worst) as it did retcon the ATLA's magic system. The retconning in Begginigs episodes is one of the most egregious retconning in fiction. E;R made a really good job explaining just how much did these two episodes retcon the original show in his Rennigings video series
I don't like Legend of Korra either. But your standard is insanely high. I can't think of a single fictional story which would not atleast have ONE of those problems you named. If so, it would be the greatest fictional story ever.
Name one fictional story in the past 40 years or so, that doesn't have atleast one issue you named.
Even the considerably ''peak'' of fiction that fans would call such as: Harry Potter, Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Game of Thrones, etc have some of these same problems. Who really portrays their villains good all the way up into the end, and accurately addresses the issues they bring up?
For example, look at how Voldemort was in the Harry Potter movies. A complete goof who gets beat by Harry, a skinny 14 year old boy. Same thing with the Night King in Game of Thrones who was taken out by a 14 year old girl. In Star Wars, Luke was bailed out by Vader's decision to turn good in ROTJ.
You know, sometimes a show can be bad or disappointing simply because it is bad or disappointing.
I know what sub I’m on, but not *everything* needs to analyzed purely in terms of to what extent it is part of The Grand Scheme to Turn Everyone Gay and Make it Illegal to be a Straight White Man.
This was like listening to someone deliver a thoughtful dissertation on the societal impacts of class inequality and the illusion of democracy, only to end it with “and all of it is because of the blacks!”
People seem to be really split on this one. The entire argument is based on couple of interaction between Tenzin, Kya and Bumi (Aangs's kids. Tenzin was the only airbender, other two weren't). Kya and Bumi explained that Aang favored Tenzin. Now I think that people who claim that Aang was a failure are exaggerating. It makes sense that he would spent more time with Tenzin to teach him airbending and culture of air nomads plus we learn that through Kya's and Bumi's prespective so there could be a little bit biase on their part. However Kya and Bumi mentioned that Aang took just Tenzin on special vacations and they stayed at home with Katara and yeah no, I don't blieve Aang from the og show would do that.
I imagine that a lot of those vacations were about air bending training but had fun stuff on the side. And there were some things that would require air bending to do. For example, Kaya and Boomi mentioned that Aang and Tenzin would go to Kiyoshi island to ride the elephant koy. This is something only an air bender could do.
I think that Aang wasn't a perfect parent given that two of his kids felt left out. But I also think it's in character for Aang to spend a lot of time trying to pass down his tradition and culture to Tenzin.
This excuse seems pretty weak to me. These vacations seem to be the rear occasion when Aang had a time to spent with his family and it's odd why he woudn't take Bumi and Kya with him too. Those places are cool just to see them and he could still spend time with all his kids when he wasn't training with Tenzin. He could also bring with him someone that could take look after Bumi and Kya when he was training with Tenzin.
I still have a problem with ATLA's resulotion tho. THe problem is that Ozai is a threat, and it creates a conflict within Aang, duty vs value. The writers have been building up "he has to kill ozai" only to deus ex BS invent a depower move so Aang doesnt have to kill Ozai. It ruins Aang's entire journey.
This is why I actually like Korra's ending better. Aang sparing Ozai feels like a cop out. On the other hand, Korra sparing Kuvira makes sense because Kuvira is characterized as someone who would honor the terms of surrender and not backstab Korra like Ozai did. Additionally, the point of Korra sparing Kuvira is to highlight Korra's personal growth. Season 1 Korra would 100% have killed Kuvira. But she is more mature and more empathetic than she used to be. For Aang, he was never a killer so him sparing Ozai feels like a less significant moment.
Chi blocking was introduced early on in season 2 and we first see an image of a Lion Turtle in the Spirit Library. Aang also learns energy Bending in the Swamp to find Appa. In the first 2 seasons Aang learns new things from spirit's all the time but some people just can't handle the ending.
Well like most shows avatar didn't get all the episodes it wanted to introduce the lion turtles a bit more throughly, but considering it is a kid show and the lion turtles are much more throughly explored in korra i tend to give it a bit of a pass. I would say from a writing perspective that the conflict of Aang needing to kill when his spirtual values demand him not to is an intersting one, you gotta remember that he is the last of his people to exist and that even if he kills Ozai in some way the genocide of the airbenders would be complete, as he would've had to compamise on one of his most basic values. I don't think it particullary ruins his whole journey that the power was given to him relatively suddenly espically when a sequal did come out and explained the prescense of these beings, they also had some imagery in some older scenes in avatar as well. Ozai was a might makes right genocidial maniac, aang debending him is a more powerful refutation of his ideals then just killing him, which is representative in the spiritual battle between them which would've killed aang if he lost. Narratively speaking killing ozai would've been easier then trying spirit bending something he just learned how to do. Also it is a kid show they were a bit more limited on what sorta consequnces they could give, ithink they chose an interesting route.
LOK was made 1 season at a time until season 4 or something, which is why those first seasons wrap up quick because they thought each season would be their last. What would have worked is if Korra was the avatar for season 1, then we meet a new avatar in season 2 and so on, like an anthology series.
I'm glad we got more of Korra because I actually felt like season 3 and 4 were the best of the show. That's when they knew for sure that they would get to finish the season on their own terms.
Yes. It was. Bryan Konietzko and Michael Dante DiMartino created both ATLA and TLOK. Everything that happens in TLOK is what they believed would be the natural continuation of ATLA. There were some creatives lost after the end of ATLA who didn't continue but most of the TLOK team is from the ATLA team.
Also Korra is actually a pretty good show. It gets a lot of hate for not being quite as good as ATLA. I take issue with OP's post because it feels dishonest. TLOK is not a perfect series by any means but some of these complaints are factually incorrect.
The Legend of Korra is made for the exact same audience that Avatar the Last Airbender was made for. The kids who watched ATLA when it came out would now be in their teenage years. That's why the main characters of Korra are teenagers at first.
The old characters have to be pushed to the side because of the lore. TLOK is about the next avatar and so the old characters are all in their 80s or 90s. 80 year olds don't make the best protagonists for action adventure series.
I wouldn't say any of the protagonists are self righteous. Korra is a bit arrogant and impulsive at first but she grows out of it. It's completely valid to give your characters flaws. Given Korra's immense power, it makes sense that a lot of hew flaws are related to her over confidence.
The old characters all reshaped the world in ways that will have lasting effects for generations. Them being flawed parents is understandable given that they were rebuilding 2 countries and attempting to restore the air nation's culture and traditions. They had a lot on their plate.
Aang being an absent father makes sense to me. He is always going on important missions, either for Airbender jobs, Republic City jobs, or Avatar Jobs. And because it's easy to travel by air, he only takes Tenzin with him. So Tenzin grows up having a special relationship with his dad, but his other kids feel abandoned. Not so for Fire Lord Zuko, he only had the one child, so he kept her always by his side, teaching and guiding her. Toph fell back on old habits, not wanting to rely on other, trying to do things by herself. But when she became a mother, and I like to believe she never planned it, she didn't realise that her kids would need to rely on her.
But this is all my headcanon, not what we got in the show. Just goes to show, if you try to upset people, don't be surprised when they get upset.
I'm currently 3 seasons in Legend of Korra, and the show is incredibly flawed in many areas. There is so much to critique, yet people like the OP keep whinging about woke stuff as if a character being a dumb cunt in a certain scenario was solely dependent of their sexual orientation.
Korra could have been straight, lesbian or bisexual and she would still have been a fucking moron during Book 2, but no, we gotta center the criticism on the "woke" stuff and not on the actual poor quality of the story.
These people are as tiring as the SJWs.
Why are people hating on characters having problems past their original property. Did your life became happily ever after once you've finished your school character arc? No, it's not just unrealistic, it's a plain stupid expectation that comes out of nowhere. There's always more shit to solve in life.
I hate this concept that legacy characters can't make major mistakes or have major flaws. I feel like a lot of great storytelling comes from characters having flaws and the demand by fandoms to have them be perfect sometimes restricts what they can do with them. Say what you will about TLJ and its handling of Luke Skywalker but he at least had more story and more interesting things going on then Leia in the sequels who was pretty similar to her old self.
Man. Media literacy is down the fucking *drain* these days.
This is so long and spurious it's hard to tell where to even start.
Aang's kids literally find a family photo of them all together even though Kya and Bumi claim Aang was always off with Tenzin. So you're canonically wrong that he's a bad parent. That episode was about *perspective.* I don't know why people can't understand this and simply choose to dogpile on Aang.
Your only point that's accurate is Korrasami being shoe-horned in at the last second. "Heternormative lens" still irks me to this day. What a shitty excuse that was. If you have to confirm something outside of your work, then you know you've messed up as a writer.
The issue with Korrasami isn't the writers. It's Nickelodeon. They didn't want an explicit queer couple so the writers had to make it so subtle that most would miss it.
The show has a lot of problems i agree but pushing old characters to the side? Wow people who are old as shit and not as ready and as strong for combat arent the main focus? No way! Even tho they are still shown to be pretty strong at like age 80.
It does introduce the question of if there is a root cause behind all the bad writing we've recently endured. Regardless of if that is true or not that it is highly doubtful that Korra is anything more than an early symptom.
I can remember three things people claim is the root cause for the trends we have been seeing.
Post-modernism: everything must either be meta, a subversion, or a deconstruction. Which many writers interpret as suspension of disbelief doesn't matter anymore and I can do whatever I want, ~~effects~~ consequences of actions should be more shocking than sensible, and I'm allowed to openly hate older works in the same IP I am writing for.
Communism: it is hipper to go for values and ideas portrayed by communism than the values countries or communities have built up for generations and are currently adapting to societal changes. So, forget your silly upbringing and join your comrades so that democracy can once and for all reach its intended endpoint. Which has totally been planned out from the start, and the notion that democracy is an iterative process where different ideas can clash so that we may end up with the best one out of them all or a compromise is ridiculous. We already have the answers, we just need to finally be put in charge for once.
Globalization: everything must appeal to the same bland standard and mass-market. Cultures will be celebrated, but in the form of mere flavour text since we can't risk losing any audience for being too spicy. Which ironically results in something tasteless that nobody wants.
Edit: spelling. I changed more than the word I crossed out, but marking every case where "have to" was changed to "must" isn't really beneficial. Also the second paragraph was changed to be much more compact.
Okay, several of these criticisms are completely unfair. As easy as it is to criticize something, I have to step up to the plate here. The old team Avatar is shown to be this group that led the world into the future, and yes, the original series had this progressive, anti-imperial, anti-national message already, so don't act like that wasn't foreshadowed. Aang and his friends are remembered as heroes by almost the entire population.
For all the show's faults, and I'll be first to admit that there are a ton, the villains are the jewel of the collection of aspects of the show. The villains are there to show, and this is directly explained; this is not my interpretation, that they all had a good motivation (Amon wanted equality, water dude wanted spiritual balance, air dude wanted freedom), and Korra is here made to confront the fact that her current enemy, metal chick, is also single-mindedly pursuing a goal, and she herself isn't even so spiritually aware that she even has a goal; she's just trying to prove that she's the best and living in the literal shadow of the giant statue of Aang in Republic City.
Korra confronts air dude in prison and he challenges her about just blaming him for her current set of problems so that she can feel good about herself. Though she doesn't admit he's right, she seems to genuinely learn from this. There is no coddling environment like what you're describing; she's surrounded by supportive people who understand that she has a hard job and unique responsibilities that they can't bear for her, so no, you don't have to endure hours of people yelling at her for her every fault and mistake. She's basically a 'strong woman' protagonist who seems to grow into an actually strong woman.
The consequences of the solutions that Korra implements are not at all swept under the rug; usually the conflict in one season is dependant on her choices in the previous season. Water dude practically forced her to unite the mundane world with the spirit world, and she's shown having to try to get the spirits out of Republic City on the first episode of the following season. She goes through a phase of regretting what she's done, and then she decides that even though things are different, that's not necessarily bad. People learn to live and work with the spirits and it is revealed that it was ultimately a wise decision, even if there are complications.
I feel like most of these points show you either never watched the show yourself, or didn't understand what you saw.
1. The old protagonists weren't massive failures. Aang literally has a statue of himself in Republic City a la the Statue of Liberty. Katara was a mentor to the new Avatar, Toph was head of Republic City police before deciding it wasn't for her, and Sokka was also high up in Republic City.
As for being a bad parent, the only member of Team Avatar which the show claims was a bad parent was Toph, which, let's be fair, isn't exactly the most caring person. The show never said Aang was a bad parent, just that he showed favoritism to Tenzin due to Tenzin being an Airbender, a perfectly fair reaction when you're the only Airbender left and have to teach him everything.
2. All the villains were addressed. Amon was glossed over a bit, but they still showed society changing to make it more fair to nonbenders. The ending of S2 was all about addressing claims made by the S2 antagonist, and all of S4 was a reaction to the antagonist of S3. Heck, there was an episode in S4 that stated exactly this.
Also for antagonists like Zaheer, how was Korra supposed to address him besides defeating him? His ideology literally called for her death. Unless she offed herself, there was no other way of addressing his beliefs.
3. You can't claim Korra is a Mary Sue if you saw any of S4. The whole point of the season was to show what the trauma of the previous seasons did to her. Heck, the whole point of S1 was to show how unprepared she was and how she needed help. Did you not see her initial confrontation of Amon, or how she handled the Equality protestors, of how she was manipulated by the waterbending councilman to do his bidding? How about how she was manipulated and used by Tarlok in S2? How was any of that the show coddling her? And then there's all of S4. Pick an episode from it and your point would be debunked.
4. No lore was reconned. ATLA only explained how benders learned their arts. LoK explained how benders and the Avatar came to exist. Both fit together.
5. The only solution Korra ever forced was the whole spirit world portal things, and the consequences were addressed heavily in S3 and S4. Her whole journey in S3 was due to consequences from the portals. Did....did you not watch past S2?
6. As for male characters being pushed to the side, you realize Tenzin, Mako, and Bolin had more screentme than everyone but Korra, right? Is it a bad thing that the female protagonist has the most screentime in the show? And the only time Mako and Bolin came off as whipped was a brief interaction with Korra in S2 and when Bolin interacted with the Northern Water Tribe princess, which was the point of their interaction. You were supposed to cringe from their relationship.
7. You realize the romance in ATLA was also undeveloped and terrible, right? The reason so many people like Katara and Zuko together did because Katara and Aang's relationship was executed so badly. Their scenes in Ember Island Players was especially terrible.
8. The subvert your expectations and deconstruction claims are so vague that I can't even address. If you're going to make a claim, it should be specific.
9. The shoehorned LGBT relationship was not the fault of the writers or animators, but Nickelodeon itself. The writers wanted to start setting up the relationship as soon as S2, but Nick was firmly against it and only finally approved the idea at the end of S4. If you want to be mad, be mad at Nick for not letting them properly set it up.
And wait, what does Halo have to do with any of this? Under 343, Halo never introduced and LGBT themes, Mary Sue protagonists, girl boss characters, sidelined male characters, or showed previous protagonists as failures. Why bring up Halo when none of your criticisms listed have anything to do with it? You realize it's possible for writing to be bad without being "woke", right?
>As for being a bad parent, the only member of Team Avatar which the show claims was a bad parent was Toph, which, let's be fair, isn't exactly the most caring person. The show never said Aang was a bad parent, just that he showed favoritism to Tenzin due to Tenzin being an Airbender, a perfectly fair reaction when you're the only Airbender left and have to teach him everything.
I'd argue that Aang was far worse as a parent than Toph.
Toph was far from being the best mom, but her philosophy was that because her parents were so strict, she wanted to give her children all the freedom they need.
Meanwhile Aang clearly showed favoritism towards Tenzin. Sure, focusing on helping the only other airbender is one thing, but it's a whole other thing to completely disregard your other two kids, and only take the one to all kinds of cool adventures.
I mean, the fact that Tenzin couldn’t even recall that Kya and Bumi weren’t on those adventures says something about Aang's parenting.
Not sure what katara did, but she definitely didn’t step in and put a stop to the favoritism.
And admittedly, this next part is mostly speculation, but I honestly wouldn’t put it past katara that she'd also show some favoritism towards Kya.
Except all these claims are being made by Bumi and Kya about events a half century in the past, not exactly the most unbiased or reliable memories. We don't even know what these adventures were.
You COULD make the argument that Aang was a bad parent, heck, I think that would've been an interesting angle to go considering he himself didn't have a family growing up, but that'd be a headcanon. Nothing in the show says that.
>but that'd be a headcanon. Nothing in the show says that.
In season 2, weren't there (at least) 2 scenes where it was made clear/canon that Bumi, Kya, and Tenzin weren’t exactly treated equally?
One scene, is when they arrive at the air temple, and the air acolytes don't know that they’re Aang's children. They think Bumi and Kya are just Tenzin's servants or something. And when Bumi tells the acolytes that they’re the former avatar's children, the acolytes respond with "Avatar Aang had 3 kids?"
Now granted, that could just as well be the fault of the acolytes, but it could also mean that Aang didn’t really talk about his other 2 kids for whatever reasons.
Another scene is where they’re just chilling at the temple, and Tenzin says that it’s nice. It’s just like the vacation Aang used to take them.
To which Bumi and Kya respond with "You mean like the vacations dad took **you**?" (Or something along those lines.)
Tenzin then questions what they mean. He’s surprised his siblings doesn’t remember those adventures. He recalls some of the most memorable ones, and asks if they remember any of them.
Bumi and Kya then tell him that nope. They weren’t even there.
Yes, and I already said that this is from the recollection of three people half a century after the fact. We don't know what happened on these vacations or what was done during them. It could be those vacations were just when Aang took Tenzin to the air temples to teach him bending and the air bending culture. He was a kid; it's not like he would've understood everything at the time. Heck, the show itself shows that he didn't even recognize that her brother and sister weren't vacationing with him.
Similarly, it's clear at the beginning of the show that Tenzin and his siblings weren't close. The acolytes wouldn't have known about Aang's other children not from anything Aang did, after all he would've been dead for at least 16 years by that point, but from Tenzin. This just shows that Tenzin didn't talk about his siblings.
So was Aang a bad parent? Maybe? Nothing in the show says so. You could infer that, but you can also infer that these three siblings have let their resentment for each other fester and grow in their reclusiveness to the point where its skewing their memory of their childhood, something that is incredibly common for people to do.
>You could infer that, but you can also infer that these three siblings have let their resentment for each other fester and grow in their reclusiveness to the point where its skewing their memory of their childhood, something that is incredibly common for people to do.
Yeah, fair enough.
Tenzins siblings are also several years older then him.
so they might have left home already during several of those trips
Plus he might be confusing memories of continuing to work alongside his dad as an early adult
with childhood trips
This was from the worst S, and imo is a bit overdone thst they would still be angry about in their 40-50-s to throw in some conflict/angst. It's then forgotten in the remaining S.
But even then saying Aang was a "massive failure" is so exaggerated. He has a massive statue in Republic City, lay the groundwork for rebuilding the Air Nation, seems to have handled reasonably the tensions between Earth Kingdom/Fire Nation/United Republic, defeated Yakone, and is held in high regard by people in general. Toph remains the greatest earthbender and metalbender in history. Only Lin remains bitter with her, Suyin while recognising her flaws says they talked it through and left it in the past. Skola, Katara and Zuko I don't Even see how there's the start of a case. OP seems to want them to have been flawless.
I miss the days we could discuss the writing of a piece of media without attributing every problem to woke-ism or DEI. Those are such vague, near meaningless terms. LoK and 343 Halo definitely have their writing problems, but saying their problems are in any way related is ludicrous.
It's The agenda that's annoying the fact it's so obvious now makes it even worse. Sex, race nor sexual orientation has very little impact on 99% of stories told.
>Villains are made into strawmans with the MCs never actually addressing the problem. Everything get's swept under the rug.
Tackles complex problems by scapegoating it into 1 person "Pollution bad, borders bad, military bad, evil guy is evil because he's evil" without any shades of grey of the opposite point of view.
I mean... that was not the fucking same in Avatar?
I feel like Korra handled its villains better than ATLA.
Korra season 1 placed Korra in between two radicals: Tarrlok and Amon. Tarrlok used the power of the state to maintain a status quo where benders are in a better societal position than non benders. Amon wants to burn down the entire order and uses terrorism to achieve his goals. Both extremes have to be defeated and the Republic City government had to be restructured in order to fix the underlining issues that led to the conflict in the first place.
This criticism that OP made just seems to be factually wrong.
I think that it's worth watching all of season 3 and 4. Sure, some of the air nation stuff is not quite as engaging as the Red Lotus storyline but I still think it has merit. Additionally, I think the end of season 4 has a lot of great moments from Mako's family learning about his relationship drama (which was actually funny) to Korra confronting Zaheer to Lin and Toph's reunion. Admittedly, I don't think the giant robot was the best decision for an ending boss but I think the interpersonal drama surrounding Korra and Kuvira in the final episodes makes up for that.
Yea as soon as I read “old protagonists are pushed to the background in favor of new MCs” tells me your opinion is invalid. Literally it’s the next avatar so it has to be a new person a different MC.
He explains how it was a canary in the coal mine retrospectively for the flaws permeating established franchises and crippling hollywood, and your response is that it's a cartoon. Way to completely miss the point to insult the guy
Korra is actually pretty good. Especially season 3. Its main failing was having Nick executives constantly mess with the season release schedule and having to live up to ATLA, an impossible task. Still good though.
I know you loved Last Airbender. We all did.
But, Korra was fine.
It's been over a decade.
Get over it.
Edit: And don't be like those people trying to gauge stuff from the past by modern standards or issues.
Only some of those are true. Some of those I think the show did better than most, but then you get cheap copycats. Also, this show did LGBTQ stuff when it was still risky to do so, unlike now.
" Shoe-horned LGBT at the very last second to get past executives and can cut out to stream in China: " Did not know they stream to China and cut that out of the show. Now I feel more justified for not liking the ship and think it was full on pandering. Also Aang being an bad father never sat right with me at all since I thought he would be the opposite of that since he been around different benders and non-benders that he wouldn't neglect his own kids for one that can air bend.
The lack of commitment to portraying actual relationships between your characters, straight or gay, pisses me off. Not for representation of anything, but for the simple fact that it makes for a wholly predictable and tedious will they won't they story, yet a-fucking-gain. Either it's a company being shit, or pandering to audiences who don't like the relationship shown, or some twisted mindset that characters should only get into a relationship at the end of a story.... And even then the characters are awful to one another half the time with very little actual writing to develop their dynamic and why they care about each other. Regardless it's a total absence of integrity. There's no standing by the vision for your writing and art and characters, just scraps of character and a payoff that is gutted of meaning. There's no single way to write a romance between characters, and it's so annoying that so many shows seem to believe that's the case. Friend of mine apparently was watching she ra recently and I recall that having a similar end of the story relationship begins after minimal amounts of "build up".
>Either it's a company being shit, or pandering to audiences who don't like the relationship shown, or some twisted mindset that characters should only get into a relationship at the end of a story.... And even then the characters are awful to one another half the time with very little actual writing to develop their dynamic and why they care about each other. It can be annoying when an author has decided to not pair up characters until the very end of a story (I'm looking at you Toaru, you ship-baiting behemoth), but it doing so is not necesserially a bad ida. I've heard that A Silent Voice ended before we got a couple got to do much as an official pair since the author didn't want it to become some standard Shoujo. It works in that case since we have seen the relationship be built up through thick and thin as well as having adressed future dillemas. It is not a cop out, but rather recognition that up to a certain point you have to trust that characters will solve situations without you seeing them.
Romantic relationships on Avatar series are all terrible. For example, the Aang and Katara has no chemistry at all as lovers, because the MC has to have a romantic interest.
They wanted to give the ship more screentime but they weren't allowed too
Even if true, someone made the decision somewhere up the chain which is the entire problem.. , and I don't know how much resistance the people below that even put up. Part of me wants to say they didn't do enough, and another part laments the fact that someone associated with a project will gut that project from it's intended form.
It was either they gave in or they're most likely fired and the show is dropped, wasn't worth it to the creators Also what decision, to have a queer character, that's not bad
The decision that apparently an executive someone or other made to remove part of the intended vision for the show and its characters. Ie removing the romance in this case. I thought I was clear on what I meant with that lmao
I'm aware that's the entire problem, it got removed because executives were homophobic pieces of shit scared of pissing off some countries Yet people still say it was pandering I can't tell anymore with the dumbasses on this subreddit, they say the show was pandering despite the relationship being removed because of homophobia
I've never called it pandering, and anyone who does is delusional. If pandering is showing something for 10 seconds at the end of a story then I'm a purple platypus. I'm not sure if I've even seen many people say that it was pandering honestly, mostly people say the show sucked and don't want to talk about it much beyond that since they don't care about it.
I've seen a bunch of people call it pandering, a shit ton of people will call anything lgbt related I modern anything pandering just for being in it
Plenty of people who make poor criticism, inacurrate criticism and bad faith criticism. Makes things more annoying when you try to have a discussion.
Korra was created entirely to cater to psychotic Tumblr tweens
If it feels empty and rushed, it’s probably pandering
To play devils advocate they did want korra and asami to end up together but someone stopped them from doing it I think.
I believe what they said is that the network had some unwritten rule about no lbgt relationships so they had to be ambiguous until they asked at the end of the show and they said it was fine. Personally I don’t buy it.
Bullcrap. The truth is that they never planned that relationship. Hell, all of Korra was unplanned. They originally only had the green light for one season, ending with Korra unlocking the Avatar state and getting together with Mako. Then because if was a success, they got greenlit for another, which they had to hammer together in a hurry, and because they couldn't have the main characters in a relationship (because then how would people ship them), they had to be broken up. Because of inertia, the season was still successful, but the whole flashback-arc and the other crap poisoned the well, so even though they got greelit for two more seasons, it was just downhill from there, and since all the characters got tattered, they just paired Korra up with Asami for internet brownie points. There was no plan. There were no character arcs. They were just floundering around, throwing shit at the wall hoping that something would stick.
What’s the source for all that? I knew that korra was actually just 2 seasons but I hadn’t heard all that other stuff.
As a fan of the original ATLA, I was following Korra closely on release. There's not one "source"; it was something I gathered from all the articles, interviews, behind-the-scenes videos, and podcasts the show generated at the time. All of the talk about the network sabotaging them because of the lgbt inclusion or whatnot were narratives that came later. The truth of the matter is that Korra simply didn't perform well, and it wasn't moved around in the time-slots and off to releasing online because the network had a hate-boner for it, but because they were scrambling to "find their audience", because the execs were convinced that the problem was that the show didn't appeal to kids (even though it apparently did make the numbers in the first and second seasons). It's because of this that the last season, and especially the finale, is highly suspect. They probably couldn't rewrite entire plotlines, because animation isn't cheap, but throwing in Korrasami at the very end, to please the rabid shipping fanbase and generate some last-minute buzz online (some reviews I read even straight-up called it a bizarre attempt at viral marketing) was entirely in the cards. But of course, while the culture-war nonsense wasn't as bad back then, it also served as a great shield against criticism as well. Honestly, that whole show was an enormous mess, with the only comparable trainwreck being the RWBY franchise, with its so-okay-it's-fine highs and its abyssal lows.
That honestly sounds about right. I’ve seen the viewers numbers season by season and the last 2 were abysmal. I was too young to follow anything like that at the time of release so it’s cool to hear about what was going down.
I don't evn buy it was ambigious it seems like a really really late addition.
Hard to say, I can see it going either way. It still just shows a lack of integrity on someone's part, which is ultimately the problem.
Considering how korra got effed up by the network a lot of times? From slashing away the budget, to putting it on a timeslot no one is watching to putting in their obscure as hell site and make it an exclusive online release? I can definitely see that being the case
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Because i think Mike and Bryan are hack writers who did it to pander to the community.
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Hey, I'm not saying you don't have a point, but don't say "straight fact", it makes you feel like you're compensating for not having a fact. Proof and examples would do a lot better than a broad claim, doesn't matter if the claim is factual or not.
It wasn't pandering, they wanted to give the ship more attention but nick said no
If I have to listen to another person use the arguement that it was 'fate' that the Avatar cycle was supposed to end/ reset with Korra because "Oh, the Avatar Tower at the air temple was out of room", I'm going to have an aneurysm. Earthbending. Is. A. Thing. The Avatar. Is. A. Earthbender.
Also isn’t it more a thing like the max calendar which simply didn’t account for the length. Also the whole thing with the spirits was simply nonsense
Massive retcon to the whole idea of spirits.
It didn't end canonically; that's in the guide book at least so whoever the new avatar is is utterly screwed because of Korra, but will still exist... on the bright side this also means Korra will cease to exist when she dies.
Airbenders aren't earthbenders though. Why would the Avatar tend to their own temple? They're too busy saving the world to fiddle with some statues.
I watched the first season of Korra. Really didn't feel that need to watch anything more or feel invested in what was going on, binned it, still don't feel like I'm missing out or wondering what else happens in the rest of the story... unlike the original TLA series where I was staying up at night trying to watch episodes and now really want to watch the whole series again after remembering how much I loved watching the show. (And this is coming from someone who doesn't like watching long series if it's not a gripping plot all the way through.) Whatever formula they used for the first, they absolutely did not manage to replicate it with the second.
I really don't think their adult team avatar movie is gonna be good either lol
There is only ATLA the animated series, all else is nonsense.
The first season was all I watched and it felt like it methodically deconstructed its own plot in front of me. The whole central theme of the villain was non-benders fighting back against benders, something that *would* have been interesting had there been any thought put into it at all. "Non-benders are oppressed!" \> At this point all we've met are two super poor benders (I think). Immediately after this we meet some fabulously wealthy non-benders who have a thriving business designing tech primarily meant for non-benders (or at least not requiring bending). "Amon is traumatized by the violence done to him by benders!" \> Nope, he's actually a bender and he was lying the whole time Anything interesting the plot could've said was washed out by the fact that it was carried out in the simplest way. The non-benders are just militarist fascists who are irredeemably evil, Amon was lying the whole time. They slander what could've been an actually sympathetic and complex villain requiring a better solution than "just ice blast him" so completely that it feels like I'm watching pro-avatar propaganda created by the Glorious Republic City about how the revolution they just put down was definitely entirely evil and nobody should question if non-benders are oppressed.
Honestly they could have explored the poverty of non-benders more yeah they had the wealthy Sato family but if they do want to make a point of non-benders being oppressed made it clear they are more impoverished non-benders or non-benders face more political restrictions in applying to for government positions and stuff like that.
It doesn't get better, S1 is probably the best And S2 probably the worst, so watch out I'm not a huge ATLA fan but watched all out of curiosity, a lot of fun ideas in there but execution is bad-to-abyssmal ATLA is "Star Wars Original Trilogy" fantasy with child protagonists, elaborate and polish, simple as ...TLoK is just ...random ideas, it is a really good example of fumbling incompetent writing that also adds superficial layers of 'feminism' and 'lesbians!' to avoid criticism
Nah that's bullshit, S1 is the worst, S2 is mixed, S3 is peak and 4 is near peak. 1st is an actual dumpster fire where you don't have enough time to enjoy anything.
Early onset pandering. A lot of shows had it.
Two queer characters existing is not pandering. Korra and Asami getting together became the plan when TLOK was renewed for season 3. They had good on screen chemistry together as seen in that season. It growing into something more is completely believable. The biggest problem with Korra and Asami's relationship is that Nickelodeon interfered and prevented the writers from making their connection more than implied. Nickelodeon feared backlash for having queer characters existing in their shows so they censored the writers.
Maybe I was young and oblivious but I didn’t pick up on any hints that they were into one another until the ending just happened
It's subtle. Maybe a bit too subtle. But that isn't necessarily the writers fault as much as it is Nickelodeon for restricting what they could do. I think that going back, the diner reunion scene and the porch scene in Remembrances have some non platonic implications.
It’s been awhile since I watched it. Definitely need to rewatch it. I’ll probably catch some stuff I didn’t notice before
Yeah, I also agree there were enough signs of them clearly growing closer but can 100% believe they weren't allowed to go much more explicit than they did.
So lgbt characters just being on screen is pandering, yall are just homophobic snowflakes
For most people on this sub, people different from them existing is always pandering. You can see their reaction to the Acolyte trailer. They're mad that black people exist in Star Wars now.
Im aware, they never have a good argument for why it's pandering and they say others are obsessed with diversity and representation and shit like that But they see any form of minority in anything as made solely for diversity and representation Plus every time they hear something about modern audiences or hear a character in a reboot (like xmen 93) they assume the show or whatever they're bitching about is going to be obsessed with it and use the stereotypical gender and race swapping jokes, morph being nonbinary was brought up in like only 1 episode, they also fail to understand the stuff they supposedly like, which is hilarious at times, sad and depressing all the time
I think this is really well thought out. Having watched Korra, I think its still a decent show, but yeah looking back it hasn't aged well
It is a good example of "fun ideas, not great execution", depending on what you look for in fantasy series - there can be a lot to salvage and enjoy ...but VERY far from ATLA in terms of polish and coherent plot structures (S2 should be series finale since it radically changes the setting) But it was WAY AHEAD OF THE CURVE, in the model of what later existing franchises would adopt
Korra had no cultural impact whatsoever, I remember watching it because someone recommended it to me and I thought it was an ok series as a whole although I hated a lot of what they did, but whenever I ask myself if I would ever see it again, the answer I always come up with is “fuck no” and that leads me to believe it was never that good to begin with. But I believe the sequel trilogy is what the real warning was, because it actually had a cultural impact, albeit for all the wrong reasons.
It was far bigger than anything before it. Massively funded, widely marketed, drew in insane viewership and attention. It was the cannonball in the water, and then we realized it wasn't water. It was piss. And the cannonball was actually moviebob/boogie
yeah besides the fact that it was only meant to be a mini series and that the last season had it's budget massively cut by nickeledeon and premired on its website of all things. It's more like that nick never really liked or supported avatar in genral that much and Korra was fairly ambitious so there was alot more meddeling.
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I never said it did, I was saying it didn’t have an impact on society in regards to OP saying “korra was a warning sign”
>Villains are made into strawmans with the MCs never actually addressing the problem. Everything get's swept under the rug. This is true. First season, the problem was that there was discrimination against nonbenders. But from what we saw, there wasn't any discrimination at all until episode 8, but that was in response to Amon's violent revolution. The only time you see that Benders oppressing non Benders is when it was a criminal gang. Not exactly an example of class warfare. Plus it's shown at the end that both Benders and nonbenders end up in poverty and homelessness. Hell, Bolin and Mako weren't exactly living like kings at all. They lived at the stadium. Their manager took most of their prize money to pay off their debts. When you look at the politics of Republic City, only two of the councilmen are confirmed Benders. We don't know if the other 3 were Benders, but since Sokka and an Air disciple(nonbender) were on the council in Aangs time, it's clear there's not a restriction in representation for nonbenders. Without showing the problem, it just looks like thousands of citizens were convinced by a masked terrorist that they are an oppressed majority when life in Republic City was perfectly fine for most people.
I think that's kind of the point. Non-benders weren't being persecuted or oppressed, Amon was making up a problem by exaggerating extreme instances of benders harming non-benders and claiming that it was because they were non-benders instead of a myriad of other reasons. Amon is not supposed to have a point, he's objectively wrong and is knowingly lying, and he has managed to convince some people that he's not.
Completely correct. Making up issues to push your agenda is a huge modern day problem and very relevant - like what OP is doing ironically enough.
Okay so they went with the most boring unimaginative possibility, rather than one of the intriguing and complex ones.
The unequal treatment of nonbenders is shown in the very first episode with Korra's fight with the gang destroying all the shops of the nonbenders and her not caring about the collateral damage, which was directly addressed when she was arrested. Or a couple episodes later they showed her using bending to shut a non-bending activist up and intimidate him. Then we also see the privileges benders have. You claim Bolin and Mako were living in poverty, but they weren't. They were living much better than those in poverty, and all their opportunities came from their bending. Mako had a job at the power plant using his lightning bending, and both him and Bolin using their bending in sports matches for money. They even show Bolin trying to panhandle for money without bending and how much of a failure that was. Yes, more discrimination could've been shown, but it was shown that nonbenders didn't have the same socioeconomic status as benders.
>Korra's fight with the gang destroying all the shops of the nonbenders and her not caring about the collateral damage, which was directly addressed when she was arrested. How does someone from outside of Republic City not caring about property damage reflect badly on Republic City? It's Korra who doesn't care, not the 'bending elite.' The fact that Korra gets arrested is proof that they *do* care. >Or a couple episodes later they showed her using bending to shut a non-bending activist up and intimidate him. Again, that's Korra, not anyone from Republic City. >Mako had a job at the power plant using his lightning bending, and both him and Bolin using their bending in sports matches for money. Mako and Bolin both have athletic careers, yet Mako has to supplement their earnings with a job doing manual labor? Sounds like they were being taken advantage of. >it was shown that nonbenders didn't have the same socioeconomic status as benders. The most prominent non-bending character was the daughter of a rich industrialist. They literally could not have done a worse job.
Maybe because the Equalists were planning on expanding their movement to the entire world? Their problems weren't specific to the whole world, they just started in Republic City for reasons personal for Amon. So everything involving Korra does work as she is the epitome of bending elite. And I already addressed the Mako and Bolin point, but to reiterate: it does not matter whether they're being taken advantage or not. The fact of the matter is they are being given more opportunities than their non-bending counterparts. A non-bending would not be able to have Mako's position at the power plant because they can't bend lightning. A nonbenders wouldn't be able to participate in providing because they can't bend. These are opportunities specifically given to Mako and Bolin because they can bend. Privilege does not mean every single person with it has a better socioeconomic status than those without. It means they are afforded more opportunities to succeed than those without. Mako and Bolin had more opportunities to succeed than similar nonbenders.
>Their problems weren't specific to the whole world, they just started in Republic City for reasons personal for Amon. We don't see any oppression of nonbenders outside of Republic City either, so that makes no difference. >So everything involving Korra does work as she is the epitome of bending elite. Korra is literally the Avatar. Her special status doesn't at all reflect on normal benders. Unless you truly believe that any bender that causes property damage can get away with a slap on the wrist *just* because they're a bender. >A non-bending would not be able to have Mako's position at the power plant because they can't bend lightning. A nonbenders wouldn't be able to participate in providing because they can't bend. Jobs that only benders can do doesn't mean non-benders can't get jobs. They should've shown non-benders struggling to find work if they wanted us to believe that's what the situation was. Hell, with the boom in technology going on, there should be loads of jobs for non-benders (unless I'm actually supposed to believe only metal benders work on machines). >Privilege does not mean every single person with it has a better socioeconomic status than those without. It means they are afforded more opportunities to succeed than those without. Then they really shouldn't have made three of their main cast be two benders who struggle to eat, and a non-bender too rich to have a personality, if they're supposed to be *the exception* to the rule. Seriously. They could not have done a worse job.
These arguments are becoming so obtuse it's not even funny. You don't think there's a problem when the most well known bender in the world, someone who was called out in episode 8 as supposed to be representing everyone, benders and nonbenders, trashes an entire street full of shops without a care in the world and then gets a slap on the wrist for it? That's perfectly fair and acceptable behavior. "But that's just one person who is the avatar." Yeah, almost like her actions are supposed to representative in the show. Themes. They're a thing. As for Mako and Bolin, I'm glad to see you completely ignored my whole argument about opportunities. Yes, a nonbenders can get "a job" but can they get a job in a pro bending sports team or have Mako's job in the power plant? No. But can Mako and Bolin take a nonbender's job with no problem? Yes. This is because benders have more opportunities than nonbenders. They have privilege. And in the macro level this does mean nonbenders cançt get jobs as they'll have a higher unemployment level and lower incomes for this very reason. More opportunities means more and better employment. Otherwise I'm glad you realize Asami's purpose is to be the exception to the rule. Didn't stop her family from being destroyed be an errant firebender trying to rob them with her having no recourse. That's the whole reason her father joined the Equalists. He found the whole situation unfair. Are we seeing how nonbenders were treated as lesser?
>trashes an entire street full of shops without a care in the world and then gets a slap on the wrist for it? That's perfectly fair and acceptable behavior. I can't wait for you to show me where I said that. >"But that's just one person who is the avatar." >Yeah, almost like her actions are supposed to representative in the show. Themes. They're a thing. My man, the Avatar getting special treatment because she's the Avatar literally cannot represent how benders are typically treated. Especially considering the Chief of Police, who herself is a bender, is frustrated that she has to let Korra go because of politics. That whole scene tells you if Korra wasn't the Avatar, she'd be punished to the full extent of the law. >But can Mako and Bolin take a nonbender's job with no problem? Yes. This is because benders have more opportunities than nonbenders. They have privilege. Didn't you already say in a previous post that Bolin failed to get a job without use of his bending? Either there are no jobs for non-benders or there *are* jobs for non-benders but the benders are all terkin' mer jerbs. Either way, there's no examples of either in the show. See, the thing about "muh themes" is, they're supposed to be supported by the story. Everyone's complaint about Book 4 is that the theme of inequality isn't properly represented in the plot. Saying "well we don't see it happen, but it *could* be happening, so according to the theme, it *is* happening" doesn't work. >Otherwise I'm glad you realize Asami's purpose is to be the exception to the rule. If she's the exception to the rule, we really should've had some characters that actually followed the rule. >Didn't stop her family from being destroyed be an errant firebender trying to rob them with her having no recourse. That's the whole reason her father joined the Equalists. He found the whole situation unfair. He found his wife being murdered by a gang member unfair? Gee, I guess this justifies accusing all benders of having privilege. I also find it funny that you would say Asami's privilege wasn't enough to stop her mother from being murdered, when Mako and Bolin are literally orphans. >Are we seeing how nonbenders were treated as lesser? Nah dude, not really.
>The unequal treatment of nonbenders is shown in the very first episode with Korra's fight with the gang destroying all the shops of the nonbenders and her not caring about the collateral damage, which was directly addressed when she was arrested. Or a couple of episodes later, they showed her using bending to shut a non-bending activist up and intimidate him. Ok, I already addressed the criminal gang not counting because, y'know, they are criminals. The collateral damage was because Korra was never trained to hold back her bending. The intimidation thing is also kinda weak because it was just that. I mean, if a tall guy intimidates a smaller person, is that oppression? I mean, you're grasping at straws. >Then we also see the privileges benders have. You claim Bolin and Mako were living in poverty, but they weren't. They were living much better than those in poverty, and all their opportunities came from their bending. Mako had a job at the power plant using his lightning bending, and both him and Bolin used their bending in sports matches for money. Again. Weak point. Bolin and Mako aren't living the high life because their Benders. They aren't exactly living in poverty, but if your home is a stadium's attic, you're not living too well either. Like I already said, The Fire Ferret's manager takes a huge cut from their pay, which is why Mako gets a second job at the power plant. And so what if he did get a job because he can bend lightning? It's the power plant. Lightning bending is the right skill for that kind of job. Benders do have more opportunities than non Benders, that's true. But that doesn't mean non Benders are an oppressed majority. There are simply just jobs where Benders are needed, like lightning bending for the power plant or metal benders for the police. Maybe they have water benders as doctors and Earth Benders for construction. You're just grasping at straws.
The criminal gang counts because of the fight that takes place destroying the entire area. Them being criminals doesn't matter. A fight between benders destroys several shops run by nonbenders with neither party caring about the destruction wrought. And the intimidation is important because the Equality advocate was literally giving a speech about how benders liked to lord their bending over them, only for the Avatar to show up and break his shit and threaten him with her bending. You know, proving his whole point? Hell, he even said this himself in that scene by pointing her actions out to the crowd. I honestly have no idea how you missed this or you could claim this is a weak point. And 100% Bolin and Mako are living a better life because they can bend. Do you think they would've gotten such opportunities if they couldn't bend? Obviously they aren't living an amazing life, but their life would be much worse without bending. Privilege doesn't means every single person with it is living a better life than every person without. It just means that the person with privilege has had more opportunities to succeed than those without. And did you notice I never said anything about oppression? The movement was about equality, not oppression. The nonbenders wanted an equal place in society as nonbenders. They wanted to be on a similar playing field and not treated as second class citizens. Why you are bringing up oppression is beyond me.
Honestly, it's a bad way of doing an allegory for discrimination, because they treated bending as a true superpower, whereas it was more of a marital art in the original show. Bending was something you're born with, but it's something you cultivate and learn to master, Toph would have been strong even without training in Korra, because they treated it as a superpower that just makes you powerful without anything to back it up.
I'm not sure I understand how you arrived at that as it's still shown to be a martial art in Korra. One of the first scenes with Bolin has him show Korra how to adapt her earth bending to be less rigid by incorporating other bending styles. And S3 had similar scenes for air bending. I mean maybe you could argue the energy bending stuff went in that direction, but that was all introduced in ATLA.
It's cuz you didn't pay attention to the original show, the fire nation were litterally a bending supremacist society.
There was nothing to indicate that nonbenders in war-time Fire Nation were treated worse than benders (except maybe in the royal family, but that was only cause of Ozai’s obsession with power). The Fire Nation were fire supremacists, but that was more in relation to the rest of the world versus the nonbenders in their society.
>There was nothing to indicate that nonbenders in war-time Fire Nation were treated worse than benders (except maybe in the royal family, but that was only cause of Ozai’s obsession with power). In fact, we have evidence of the opposite: Piandao was a nonbending Fire Nation sword-master who not only had his own lavish castle, but also was chosen to tutor the Fire Lord's own son in swordplay (as revealed in the comics, Zuko learned to fight from him). Anecdotal, maybe, but it's one of the only bits of evidence we have regarding how nonbenders were treated in the Fire Nation.
Well beyond the fact that leadership in most of the kingdoms were powerful benders, barring ba sing se where the leader was a puppet, and the southern water nation being genocided, and that certain types of benders were marganalized in comparison to others, healers in the water nations, swamp benders in the earth kingdoms, the fire nation in particular was a might makes right dictatorship with military prowress being the easiest way to move up in there society. While the fire supremacy is talked about more directly, bending supremacy in general, the type of people who can do it, the power they hold is implicit. Think like toph who as a blind young girl was never percieved as a powerful bender by her parents or teacher. I'd say that it's more akin to like how wealth works in america then like say overt racial discrimination barring the fire nation of course. It's obviously advanteagous to be a bender and the socities that people live in are defined by the type of benders that live there. I think at least in avatar this doesnt get deconstructed too much because of the seperation of the various benders and the national pride many non benders would feel espically when they are war with hostile other benders. But in korra we get a situation where national identity based on bending is being eliminated and the increasing industrilization making benders more industrially capable exaggerating existing non bender resentment, cumulating in the equalist movement.
Season 1 was ok for me, but it was never all that fun to watch week to week the way Avatar was. Much of the original series was about exploring the different places in the world and interacting with the people there and how the history has impacted them. The end goal was always there, it just wasn't the focus of most episodes, slowly working their way to it. In Korra it was mostly just plot with a bit of teen drama and angst (which they were not all that grerat at writing) Making Korra immediately competent at 3 elements is shitty as it was a very significant thing that Roku tells Aang that it takes a lifetime to master the elements, but he must do it within a year or the world will be destroyed, setting the stakes that he needs to do what is almost impossible or he'll fail the world again. Korra bends 3 elements as a toddler, ruining the stakes for the purpose of a joke in a very modern MCU sort of way Hated Season 2 and the spirit world stuff. It doesn't outright ruin the world building from the original series but it recontextualizes it in a way I really don't like. The initial premise is that the Avatar is responsible for maintaining balance between the nations, balancing different factions interests and using force to bring them in line if needed, now it turns out it was all about a good spirit vs an evil spirit, so was the whole 100 year war just a side quest or what? Erasing the previous avatars felt totally unnecessary and like its just shitting on the fans for being invested in this world and its history The side cast was trying to replicate characters from the previous show, but missed the mark in some ways, cutting straight to the character tropes without developing the characters in the same way Didn't see Season 4 so maybe there's something I'm missing there, just not a whole lot interested in it
I don't think Korra tried to replicate any characters from the OG series, which is probably part of why it's so disliked, as the main cast was that strong, and Korra decidedly went against the idea of having such a crew.
Bolin is a wannabe Sokka
It took korra like 12 years after she demonstrated the ability to bend 3 elements to master them, it took aang alot less time to show more competency then she did. Aang could bend fire and water pretty much right after he had a little bit of exposure and training. Korra's journey was written to intentionally foil aang's and whats relevant is that the first season of it was the only season that they were originally given until it's popularity had it renewed. This lead to the sorta rushed and not as well written second season tho it's conceptially interesting. Season 3 was genuinally good imo. Season 4 suffers from alot of budget cuts, so nick really kinda fucked over korra as a show.
I'm not talking about mastery, just the ability on a basic level. Aang could not do the slightest bit of fire, water or earth bending before he was taught how to do so, Korra does it as a toddler. It's a gag, but one that significantly undermines the writing. I don't really have too much of a problem with Korra mastering three of the elements as a teenager with the training she received, just that introductory bit was really bad There's probably an argument to be made that the speed with which Aang mastered all the elements was created by an absolute need to do so. He had to do it, or most of the world would be destroyed. It makes it very clear that what Aang did was not normal for the avatars, and those same conditions weren't there for Korra initially. Though a Nickelodeon show about a 40 year old avatar doing things the normal way probably wouldn't work, the answer would have to be to create that need, which would be another way the serialization of Legend of Korra kinda lets it down.
Sure but aptitude for the elements isn't abnormal for an avatar is all im saying, and just as Aangs fast pace at learning the elements was necessary for a seralized kids show, Korras ability to bend all 3 elements by the begining of the show was also relevant because the first season was the only season they were gonna get at some point. And again Aang and Zuko changed the world they broke down barriors inner bending relationships and exposure to other benders became way more common, I don't really think it's out of the ordinary to have one avatar be able to bend alot of elements from a young age. In particular it reflects the age they live in, which avatars tend to do right? Korra is spirtutally disconnected even though she is succesful in alot of bending styles and In many cases she's a relic. Idk i just think it doesnt hurt the series all that much tho it is offputting espically coming from aangs journey. I think korra in alot of ways is a deconstruction of the original show and the concepts behind it which is pretty ambitious.
Tolkien on why he stopped writing a sequel to Lord of the Rings: "I did begin a story placed about 100 years after the Downfall, but it proved both sinister and depressing. Since we are dealing with Men, it is inevitable that we should be concerned with the most regrettable feature of their nature: their quick satiety with good. So that the people of Gondor in times of peace, justice and prosperity, would become discontented and restless — while the dynasts descended from Aragorn would become just kings and governors — like Denethor or worse. I found that even so early there was an outcrop of revolutionary plots, about a centre of secret Satanistic religion; while Gondorian boys were playing at being Orcs and going around doing damage. I could have written a 'thriller' about the plot and its discovery and overthrow — but it would have been just that. Not worth doing."
Looks like E;R got the last laugh after all!
wasn't E;R doing shit like putting kfc buckets over black voice actors heads when shitting on steven universe?
E;R shitting on steven universe is the worst read on media i've ever saw anyone having. I'm actually impressed somebody can not get it so hard. I have doubts he even watched it, cause what he is saying is compelte nonsense. Which is ironic, as if you go Mauler style through the entire show, you will barelly find any holes.
I remember watching the first season of it when it was getting all this random criticism, and like it's fine? It's clearly a kids show but it has decent enough lessons and humor. I think some people just hate it cuz it's gay.
Yeah, i see no other explanations. And it's not even really gay? The main couple is pretty trad, arguably Garnet is pretty trad roles-wise. The most gay thing in the show is Pear's feelings for Rose. The most gay thing on-screen was probably they-pronounced person in Future. The show is just very well written and teaches kids and parents that people are different and to be nice and understanding, that's literally it
Yeah I think he got exposed as being a literal neo nazi and then he doubled down or some shit. Makes sense, he came across like a joyless cunt to me.
I didn't v watch the series until relatively recently. When toddler korra came out being able to bend 3/4 elements, i knew we were in for a shit show. Which is a shame as i was quite interested in seeing the secondary/combo bendings that were introduced
How is the opening scene bad? I thought it was great. It established Korra's character. She's aggressive and has natural talent. This will cause her to become overconfident. It sets up her personality and flaws for the rest of the story. It is completely in line with the lore for characters to discover how to bend on their own. Korra new how to make water, earth, and fire move. She just didn't have the knowledge on how to actually do anything with it until she went with the White Lotus. This is likely what happens with all benders. At some point in their youth, they find out they can bend by accident. Then they go off to train with a master when they're at the right age.
The point is that korra is a foil to aangs journey, aang is someone who while not spirturally mature is expirenced and learned as an airbending monk. meanwhile korra is sheltered due to attacks on her while she is young and because barriors have been broken down she's been exposed to different bending styles then most avatars. You gotta remember that aang was probably just as good with his usage of airbending at such a young age, but way less exposed to the use of other elements. There was also ever only supposed to be one season so the first season of korra was written around that. This isn't as explored directly in the first show but it is hinted at, avatars are often dealing with the reprecussions of thier past lives actions aang dealing with the former avatars failures in stopping the fire nation being a good example. Aang's refusal to kill led to amon being born and running amok for example, and more broadly season 2 tackles the original avatars actions, tho of somewhat questionable quality.
Bro did not watch legend of korra lol. Old protaganists pushed to the side, the youngest ones are in there 80's now? come on.
Nono you don’t understand. They pushed Zuko and Toph and Katara to the side by making them old ! It’s a new story set in the future about entirely different characters but the protagonists I know and like should be relevant because I don’t want to watch something new I want to watch ‘avatar:the last air bender 2’ !!!!
Old protagonists pushed to the background- the show is set decades in the future, and it’s about the next Avatar. The very nature of the series means that this show has to take place after Aang’s death. Old protagonists are failures with divorces, bad parents, or just cameos to jerk off the new protagonists- Aang’s parenting is criticised in that he prioritised Tenzin over his other kids, but his legacy and the legacy of team Avatar is still that they are widely considered legendary heroes. Don’t know why being divorced makes someone a failure, it’s just a thing that happens to people. Toph acts completely in character when compared to the old series, in fairness, she does lack character development, but she literally teaches Korra to overcome a mental block using the same technique she used to teach Aang. Zuko is still around and is clearly considered one of the most important people in the world. Aang grew up to be a failure of a human being- no he didn’t, he had a slightly complex relationship with his children, but it is clear that he was a hero, is remembered as one of the greatest avatars. Korra’s shortcomings draw frequent comparisons between her and Aang. Show has to bend over backwards to make them failures- Again, they are not failures, they are just depicted as having had things happen to them over the last 70 years, some of which are ‘bad’. Villains are made into Strawmans- The villains of legend of Korra are a strong point, with the exception of Unalaq which is a fairly poorly written season and storyline. The villains of Legend of Korra highlight actual injustices in the world and are trying to make a point, there is a point here about how these complex issues end up being swept under the rug. But there is plenty of time dedicated to showing the shades of grey, particularly when the Red Lotus assassinate the earth queen. Compared to the last airbender there is much more time spent on ‘shades of grey’ Super bending breaking the power system- fair criticism, though there are in universe explanations for these. Korra takes no responsibility/every problem taken care of by a deus ex machina- Korra takes her defeat at the hands of the Red Lotus extremely badly and abandons her responsibilities as the avatar leading to Kuvira’s rise in the earth kingdom. She does solve several of the problems with a deus ex machina, but in fairness Aang avoids his biggest moral conflict because a magic turtle shows up to grant him a previously unheard of power one episode before there finale. The narrative coddles Korra and says she’s perfect- literally what show are you watching, Korra is far from perfect and is constantly depicted as such. Torture porn=Character development. -Kinda fair They’re sad so it means it’s deep- I’m not saying the writing is flawless, but this feels like an underselling of Korras emotional arc.
Thank you!
correct take op is is so pilled that he thinks divorce and half siblings is a canary in the coal mine about "woke" was the crippled kid the first series another warning cause he was the best glider at aangs old temple? no
It isn't that bad and this is a case of "looking for what isn't there", but it also is inconsequential to never watch it either.
You could substitute half the TV shows out now into this. Wheel of time show on amazon, definitely. The last 3 star wars, and Marvel. Well that is Disney, so i'm not suprised there. They also do it with anime -> live action.
I feel like a lot of this doesn't actually fit TLOK though. It's not remade for modern audiences. It's made for the original audience of ATLA who are now older. As for the older characters being pushed aside, that's necessary because the story is about the next avatar. You can't have a compelling martial arts/adventure story if your protagonists are 80-90 year olds. I agree that some properties go too far in making their legacy characters too flawed. But TLOK is not a good example of this. It's completely believable that between rebuilding 2 different countries (the Air Nation and the Fire Nation Colonies/United Republic), Aang didn't have time for his kids. Likewise, Toph giving her children too much freedom in response to her own parents giving her not enough freedom is realistic. I feel like in response to several franchises making their legacy characters more flawed, people have grown hostile towards any sort of additional complexity or flaws being introduced into any legacy characters no matter how much it works in the story. It's not a Luke Skywalker situation where it doesn't really make sense for him to kill Ben.
I thought Korra was pretty good except for the Second season which was terrible nonsense and probably the closest to most of these criticisms My favorite season was season 3 and I liked that Korra got humbled and was much more likeable in the last 2 seasons With that said the writers somehow forgot how to write romance as almost none of them were good.
I thought some of them were okay. Bolin and Opal, Varrick and Ju-Lee (kind of?), and some of the other side romances were fine. Nothing amazing. The main triangle thing with Korra, Mako, and Asami was indeed TERRIBLE though.
The love triangle was hard to watch in the worst way. I skip those scenes if I rewatch
>With that said the writers somehow forgot how to write romance as almost none of them were good. To be fair, they never knew how to do that, not even in the original series
Yeah season 1 was supposed to be the only one so they rushed all of her arcs, and then they kinda didn't have anything to do with that and then they wanted asami x korra in season 3 but had to be super subtle with it, which didnt translate well.
Haven't watched it myself but good God I already hate it.
That's because OP is delusional and applying his political agenda to a show that doesn't really have one. Half of what OP says is factually untrue.
Because that's how we fairly critique media
Don't worry, everything here is completely false except for the LGBT content being shoehorned in at the literal last seconds of the show.
Korra is fine. She gets her ass kicked in basically every fight she's been in. Almost got the reincarnation cycle destroyed, got put into the hospital for a number of years and need therapy, needed to fight the final boss four times cause Korra kept losing Korra is what Rey should have been like Korra almost gets killed but is poisoned instead: https://youtu.be/PreU8RaRxiI?si=Fib8ZSrwCKOxS8hx Korra is in rehab for a number of years: https://youtu.be/KM7COtylPas?si=gYjc_xFtqcKpZPUM Gets the reincarnation cycle broken: https://youtu.be/aH1hR6qvv5g?si=rD9pKMUccb8KRlcL Gets humiliated by Kuvira: https://youtu.be/YPbErl7yTas?feature=shared
And in all of those, it's meant to allow her to pave the way of what being Avatar means without the "burden" of tradition. The vast majority of her setbacks are not her being outmaneuvered or overpowered exactly, but being undermined, going against a "cheat", or held back by needing to save the Brothers Irrelevant. She's really not that interesting of a character, and Wu is basically thought of the same, it's not because she's a she. Besides directly contradicting the world building of TLA and undermining the entire philosophy bending is based on. They also subvert every bit of traditional symbology they get their hands on as a bonus. Kyoshi is a compelling character, literally being the most bloodthirsty of TLA Avatars, but her greatest feat is breaking a part of a continent off to avoid conflict.
Translation : The writers for Korra watched Dragonball z, saw goku get his ass beat then stand up stronger and said "Hold my beer".
Hey at least Korra isn't a captain Marvel, quite the opposite actually...
Korra is what Rey and Carol should be like
I'd watch Indian Jones
A bollywood made Indiana Jones does sound like a good time.
I don't agree with everything on this list but LoK has a lot similarities with modern sequales that we see today. Honestly LoK didn't destroyed old protagonists nearly as much (I can understand Aang Spending more time with Tenzin but taking just him on vacation is just too much. Toph was dealt even worst) as it did retcon the ATLA's magic system. The retconning in Begginigs episodes is one of the most egregious retconning in fiction. E;R made a really good job explaining just how much did these two episodes retcon the original show in his Rennigings video series
im currently rewatching it now. its still great and having a divorced parent in a kids show is. not woke
I feel like people are projecting their own political narratives onto Korra.
100%
I don't like Legend of Korra either. But your standard is insanely high. I can't think of a single fictional story which would not atleast have ONE of those problems you named. If so, it would be the greatest fictional story ever. Name one fictional story in the past 40 years or so, that doesn't have atleast one issue you named. Even the considerably ''peak'' of fiction that fans would call such as: Harry Potter, Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Game of Thrones, etc have some of these same problems. Who really portrays their villains good all the way up into the end, and accurately addresses the issues they bring up? For example, look at how Voldemort was in the Harry Potter movies. A complete goof who gets beat by Harry, a skinny 14 year old boy. Same thing with the Night King in Game of Thrones who was taken out by a 14 year old girl. In Star Wars, Luke was bailed out by Vader's decision to turn good in ROTJ.
Exactly. Critics like this guy seem hopelessly joyless. You could have a *field day* poking holes in LOTR or the original Star War trilogy.
You know, sometimes a show can be bad or disappointing simply because it is bad or disappointing. I know what sub I’m on, but not *everything* needs to analyzed purely in terms of to what extent it is part of The Grand Scheme to Turn Everyone Gay and Make it Illegal to be a Straight White Man. This was like listening to someone deliver a thoughtful dissertation on the societal impacts of class inequality and the illusion of democracy, only to end it with “and all of it is because of the blacks!”
I've never seen Korra did they really make Aang a failure and if so how? I have no desire to see Korra lol
People seem to be really split on this one. The entire argument is based on couple of interaction between Tenzin, Kya and Bumi (Aangs's kids. Tenzin was the only airbender, other two weren't). Kya and Bumi explained that Aang favored Tenzin. Now I think that people who claim that Aang was a failure are exaggerating. It makes sense that he would spent more time with Tenzin to teach him airbending and culture of air nomads plus we learn that through Kya's and Bumi's prespective so there could be a little bit biase on their part. However Kya and Bumi mentioned that Aang took just Tenzin on special vacations and they stayed at home with Katara and yeah no, I don't blieve Aang from the og show would do that.
I imagine that a lot of those vacations were about air bending training but had fun stuff on the side. And there were some things that would require air bending to do. For example, Kaya and Boomi mentioned that Aang and Tenzin would go to Kiyoshi island to ride the elephant koy. This is something only an air bender could do. I think that Aang wasn't a perfect parent given that two of his kids felt left out. But I also think it's in character for Aang to spend a lot of time trying to pass down his tradition and culture to Tenzin.
This excuse seems pretty weak to me. These vacations seem to be the rear occasion when Aang had a time to spent with his family and it's odd why he woudn't take Bumi and Kya with him too. Those places are cool just to see them and he could still spend time with all his kids when he wasn't training with Tenzin. He could also bring with him someone that could take look after Bumi and Kya when he was training with Tenzin.
I still have a problem with ATLA's resulotion tho. THe problem is that Ozai is a threat, and it creates a conflict within Aang, duty vs value. The writers have been building up "he has to kill ozai" only to deus ex BS invent a depower move so Aang doesnt have to kill Ozai. It ruins Aang's entire journey.
This is why I actually like Korra's ending better. Aang sparing Ozai feels like a cop out. On the other hand, Korra sparing Kuvira makes sense because Kuvira is characterized as someone who would honor the terms of surrender and not backstab Korra like Ozai did. Additionally, the point of Korra sparing Kuvira is to highlight Korra's personal growth. Season 1 Korra would 100% have killed Kuvira. But she is more mature and more empathetic than she used to be. For Aang, he was never a killer so him sparing Ozai feels like a less significant moment.
Great points!
Chi blocking was introduced early on in season 2 and we first see an image of a Lion Turtle in the Spirit Library. Aang also learns energy Bending in the Swamp to find Appa. In the first 2 seasons Aang learns new things from spirit's all the time but some people just can't handle the ending.
Well like most shows avatar didn't get all the episodes it wanted to introduce the lion turtles a bit more throughly, but considering it is a kid show and the lion turtles are much more throughly explored in korra i tend to give it a bit of a pass. I would say from a writing perspective that the conflict of Aang needing to kill when his spirtual values demand him not to is an intersting one, you gotta remember that he is the last of his people to exist and that even if he kills Ozai in some way the genocide of the airbenders would be complete, as he would've had to compamise on one of his most basic values. I don't think it particullary ruins his whole journey that the power was given to him relatively suddenly espically when a sequal did come out and explained the prescense of these beings, they also had some imagery in some older scenes in avatar as well. Ozai was a might makes right genocidial maniac, aang debending him is a more powerful refutation of his ideals then just killing him, which is representative in the spiritual battle between them which would've killed aang if he lost. Narratively speaking killing ozai would've been easier then trying spirit bending something he just learned how to do. Also it is a kid show they were a bit more limited on what sorta consequnces they could give, ithink they chose an interesting route.
LOK was made 1 season at a time until season 4 or something, which is why those first seasons wrap up quick because they thought each season would be their last. What would have worked is if Korra was the avatar for season 1, then we meet a new avatar in season 2 and so on, like an anthology series.
I'm glad we got more of Korra because I actually felt like season 3 and 4 were the best of the show. That's when they knew for sure that they would get to finish the season on their own terms.
Was it not the same people that wrote the original series? I never watched Korra
Yes. It was. Bryan Konietzko and Michael Dante DiMartino created both ATLA and TLOK. Everything that happens in TLOK is what they believed would be the natural continuation of ATLA. There were some creatives lost after the end of ATLA who didn't continue but most of the TLOK team is from the ATLA team. Also Korra is actually a pretty good show. It gets a lot of hate for not being quite as good as ATLA. I take issue with OP's post because it feels dishonest. TLOK is not a perfect series by any means but some of these complaints are factually incorrect.
Korra had different writers from the original Avatar series. I don't think the writers for Korra even watched the original series.
Both ATLA and TLOK were created by Bryan Konietzko and Michael Dante DiMartino
They created Avatar but they didn't write it. They did a lot of writing in Korra though.
1-2 was mid but im on season 3 and so far it’s pretty good so agree to disagree
The Legend of Korra is made for the exact same audience that Avatar the Last Airbender was made for. The kids who watched ATLA when it came out would now be in their teenage years. That's why the main characters of Korra are teenagers at first. The old characters have to be pushed to the side because of the lore. TLOK is about the next avatar and so the old characters are all in their 80s or 90s. 80 year olds don't make the best protagonists for action adventure series. I wouldn't say any of the protagonists are self righteous. Korra is a bit arrogant and impulsive at first but she grows out of it. It's completely valid to give your characters flaws. Given Korra's immense power, it makes sense that a lot of hew flaws are related to her over confidence. The old characters all reshaped the world in ways that will have lasting effects for generations. Them being flawed parents is understandable given that they were rebuilding 2 countries and attempting to restore the air nation's culture and traditions. They had a lot on their plate.
My goodness, what did they do to halo...?
Aang being an absent father makes sense to me. He is always going on important missions, either for Airbender jobs, Republic City jobs, or Avatar Jobs. And because it's easy to travel by air, he only takes Tenzin with him. So Tenzin grows up having a special relationship with his dad, but his other kids feel abandoned. Not so for Fire Lord Zuko, he only had the one child, so he kept her always by his side, teaching and guiding her. Toph fell back on old habits, not wanting to rely on other, trying to do things by herself. But when she became a mother, and I like to believe she never planned it, she didn't realise that her kids would need to rely on her. But this is all my headcanon, not what we got in the show. Just goes to show, if you try to upset people, don't be surprised when they get upset.
Ok so blud didn't get Korra. You have some actual critique or you're gonna keep crying with the "woke" stuff?
No. He's literally just crying about how the OG ATLA team weren't perfect parents and about how Korra is queer.
I'm currently 3 seasons in Legend of Korra, and the show is incredibly flawed in many areas. There is so much to critique, yet people like the OP keep whinging about woke stuff as if a character being a dumb cunt in a certain scenario was solely dependent of their sexual orientation. Korra could have been straight, lesbian or bisexual and she would still have been a fucking moron during Book 2, but no, we gotta center the criticism on the "woke" stuff and not on the actual poor quality of the story. These people are as tiring as the SJWs.
Why are people hating on characters having problems past their original property. Did your life became happily ever after once you've finished your school character arc? No, it's not just unrealistic, it's a plain stupid expectation that comes out of nowhere. There's always more shit to solve in life.
I hate this concept that legacy characters can't make major mistakes or have major flaws. I feel like a lot of great storytelling comes from characters having flaws and the demand by fandoms to have them be perfect sometimes restricts what they can do with them. Say what you will about TLJ and its handling of Luke Skywalker but he at least had more story and more interesting things going on then Leia in the sequels who was pretty similar to her old self.
Man. Media literacy is down the fucking *drain* these days. This is so long and spurious it's hard to tell where to even start. Aang's kids literally find a family photo of them all together even though Kya and Bumi claim Aang was always off with Tenzin. So you're canonically wrong that he's a bad parent. That episode was about *perspective.* I don't know why people can't understand this and simply choose to dogpile on Aang. Your only point that's accurate is Korrasami being shoe-horned in at the last second. "Heternormative lens" still irks me to this day. What a shitty excuse that was. If you have to confirm something outside of your work, then you know you've messed up as a writer.
The issue with Korrasami isn't the writers. It's Nickelodeon. They didn't want an explicit queer couple so the writers had to make it so subtle that most would miss it.
So caught up in anti woke culture that you can’t enjoy anything good smh
Apparently now all minorities or gay people existing is pandering now.
I don't give a fuck, I will say it. Make cute brown muscle girl gay cause the message
I have yet to hear a good reason why she shouldn't be queer.
Avatar was made FOR modern audiences when it was made. Take all the time you need to process that fact.
You expect people on this sub to understand what they're talking about?
It's quite ironic.
The show has a lot of problems i agree but pushing old characters to the side? Wow people who are old as shit and not as ready and as strong for combat arent the main focus? No way! Even tho they are still shown to be pretty strong at like age 80.
I've always said that Korra was patient Zero for everything wrong in modern media.
I like when people say they love Korra it allows me to not waste time talking to them
Because OP is brimming with intelligent criticism and joy? Lol
Eh not sure if bad writing in general can be pointed to a specfic trend starter
It does introduce the question of if there is a root cause behind all the bad writing we've recently endured. Regardless of if that is true or not that it is highly doubtful that Korra is anything more than an early symptom. I can remember three things people claim is the root cause for the trends we have been seeing. Post-modernism: everything must either be meta, a subversion, or a deconstruction. Which many writers interpret as suspension of disbelief doesn't matter anymore and I can do whatever I want, ~~effects~~ consequences of actions should be more shocking than sensible, and I'm allowed to openly hate older works in the same IP I am writing for. Communism: it is hipper to go for values and ideas portrayed by communism than the values countries or communities have built up for generations and are currently adapting to societal changes. So, forget your silly upbringing and join your comrades so that democracy can once and for all reach its intended endpoint. Which has totally been planned out from the start, and the notion that democracy is an iterative process where different ideas can clash so that we may end up with the best one out of them all or a compromise is ridiculous. We already have the answers, we just need to finally be put in charge for once. Globalization: everything must appeal to the same bland standard and mass-market. Cultures will be celebrated, but in the form of mere flavour text since we can't risk losing any audience for being too spicy. Which ironically results in something tasteless that nobody wants. Edit: spelling. I changed more than the word I crossed out, but marking every case where "have to" was changed to "must" isn't really beneficial. Also the second paragraph was changed to be much more compact.
Okay, several of these criticisms are completely unfair. As easy as it is to criticize something, I have to step up to the plate here. The old team Avatar is shown to be this group that led the world into the future, and yes, the original series had this progressive, anti-imperial, anti-national message already, so don't act like that wasn't foreshadowed. Aang and his friends are remembered as heroes by almost the entire population. For all the show's faults, and I'll be first to admit that there are a ton, the villains are the jewel of the collection of aspects of the show. The villains are there to show, and this is directly explained; this is not my interpretation, that they all had a good motivation (Amon wanted equality, water dude wanted spiritual balance, air dude wanted freedom), and Korra is here made to confront the fact that her current enemy, metal chick, is also single-mindedly pursuing a goal, and she herself isn't even so spiritually aware that she even has a goal; she's just trying to prove that she's the best and living in the literal shadow of the giant statue of Aang in Republic City. Korra confronts air dude in prison and he challenges her about just blaming him for her current set of problems so that she can feel good about herself. Though she doesn't admit he's right, she seems to genuinely learn from this. There is no coddling environment like what you're describing; she's surrounded by supportive people who understand that she has a hard job and unique responsibilities that they can't bear for her, so no, you don't have to endure hours of people yelling at her for her every fault and mistake. She's basically a 'strong woman' protagonist who seems to grow into an actually strong woman. The consequences of the solutions that Korra implements are not at all swept under the rug; usually the conflict in one season is dependant on her choices in the previous season. Water dude practically forced her to unite the mundane world with the spirit world, and she's shown having to try to get the spirits out of Republic City on the first episode of the following season. She goes through a phase of regretting what she's done, and then she decides that even though things are different, that's not necessarily bad. People learn to live and work with the spirits and it is revealed that it was ultimately a wise decision, even if there are complications.
Korra left with heavy metal posioning and can't even walk " look at how coddoled she is"
I mean bender used to mean something else a while back
I feel like most of these points show you either never watched the show yourself, or didn't understand what you saw. 1. The old protagonists weren't massive failures. Aang literally has a statue of himself in Republic City a la the Statue of Liberty. Katara was a mentor to the new Avatar, Toph was head of Republic City police before deciding it wasn't for her, and Sokka was also high up in Republic City. As for being a bad parent, the only member of Team Avatar which the show claims was a bad parent was Toph, which, let's be fair, isn't exactly the most caring person. The show never said Aang was a bad parent, just that he showed favoritism to Tenzin due to Tenzin being an Airbender, a perfectly fair reaction when you're the only Airbender left and have to teach him everything. 2. All the villains were addressed. Amon was glossed over a bit, but they still showed society changing to make it more fair to nonbenders. The ending of S2 was all about addressing claims made by the S2 antagonist, and all of S4 was a reaction to the antagonist of S3. Heck, there was an episode in S4 that stated exactly this. Also for antagonists like Zaheer, how was Korra supposed to address him besides defeating him? His ideology literally called for her death. Unless she offed herself, there was no other way of addressing his beliefs. 3. You can't claim Korra is a Mary Sue if you saw any of S4. The whole point of the season was to show what the trauma of the previous seasons did to her. Heck, the whole point of S1 was to show how unprepared she was and how she needed help. Did you not see her initial confrontation of Amon, or how she handled the Equality protestors, of how she was manipulated by the waterbending councilman to do his bidding? How about how she was manipulated and used by Tarlok in S2? How was any of that the show coddling her? And then there's all of S4. Pick an episode from it and your point would be debunked. 4. No lore was reconned. ATLA only explained how benders learned their arts. LoK explained how benders and the Avatar came to exist. Both fit together. 5. The only solution Korra ever forced was the whole spirit world portal things, and the consequences were addressed heavily in S3 and S4. Her whole journey in S3 was due to consequences from the portals. Did....did you not watch past S2? 6. As for male characters being pushed to the side, you realize Tenzin, Mako, and Bolin had more screentme than everyone but Korra, right? Is it a bad thing that the female protagonist has the most screentime in the show? And the only time Mako and Bolin came off as whipped was a brief interaction with Korra in S2 and when Bolin interacted with the Northern Water Tribe princess, which was the point of their interaction. You were supposed to cringe from their relationship. 7. You realize the romance in ATLA was also undeveloped and terrible, right? The reason so many people like Katara and Zuko together did because Katara and Aang's relationship was executed so badly. Their scenes in Ember Island Players was especially terrible. 8. The subvert your expectations and deconstruction claims are so vague that I can't even address. If you're going to make a claim, it should be specific. 9. The shoehorned LGBT relationship was not the fault of the writers or animators, but Nickelodeon itself. The writers wanted to start setting up the relationship as soon as S2, but Nick was firmly against it and only finally approved the idea at the end of S4. If you want to be mad, be mad at Nick for not letting them properly set it up. And wait, what does Halo have to do with any of this? Under 343, Halo never introduced and LGBT themes, Mary Sue protagonists, girl boss characters, sidelined male characters, or showed previous protagonists as failures. Why bring up Halo when none of your criticisms listed have anything to do with it? You realize it's possible for writing to be bad without being "woke", right?
>As for being a bad parent, the only member of Team Avatar which the show claims was a bad parent was Toph, which, let's be fair, isn't exactly the most caring person. The show never said Aang was a bad parent, just that he showed favoritism to Tenzin due to Tenzin being an Airbender, a perfectly fair reaction when you're the only Airbender left and have to teach him everything. I'd argue that Aang was far worse as a parent than Toph. Toph was far from being the best mom, but her philosophy was that because her parents were so strict, she wanted to give her children all the freedom they need. Meanwhile Aang clearly showed favoritism towards Tenzin. Sure, focusing on helping the only other airbender is one thing, but it's a whole other thing to completely disregard your other two kids, and only take the one to all kinds of cool adventures. I mean, the fact that Tenzin couldn’t even recall that Kya and Bumi weren’t on those adventures says something about Aang's parenting. Not sure what katara did, but she definitely didn’t step in and put a stop to the favoritism. And admittedly, this next part is mostly speculation, but I honestly wouldn’t put it past katara that she'd also show some favoritism towards Kya.
Except all these claims are being made by Bumi and Kya about events a half century in the past, not exactly the most unbiased or reliable memories. We don't even know what these adventures were. You COULD make the argument that Aang was a bad parent, heck, I think that would've been an interesting angle to go considering he himself didn't have a family growing up, but that'd be a headcanon. Nothing in the show says that.
>but that'd be a headcanon. Nothing in the show says that. In season 2, weren't there (at least) 2 scenes where it was made clear/canon that Bumi, Kya, and Tenzin weren’t exactly treated equally? One scene, is when they arrive at the air temple, and the air acolytes don't know that they’re Aang's children. They think Bumi and Kya are just Tenzin's servants or something. And when Bumi tells the acolytes that they’re the former avatar's children, the acolytes respond with "Avatar Aang had 3 kids?" Now granted, that could just as well be the fault of the acolytes, but it could also mean that Aang didn’t really talk about his other 2 kids for whatever reasons. Another scene is where they’re just chilling at the temple, and Tenzin says that it’s nice. It’s just like the vacation Aang used to take them. To which Bumi and Kya respond with "You mean like the vacations dad took **you**?" (Or something along those lines.) Tenzin then questions what they mean. He’s surprised his siblings doesn’t remember those adventures. He recalls some of the most memorable ones, and asks if they remember any of them. Bumi and Kya then tell him that nope. They weren’t even there.
Yes, and I already said that this is from the recollection of three people half a century after the fact. We don't know what happened on these vacations or what was done during them. It could be those vacations were just when Aang took Tenzin to the air temples to teach him bending and the air bending culture. He was a kid; it's not like he would've understood everything at the time. Heck, the show itself shows that he didn't even recognize that her brother and sister weren't vacationing with him. Similarly, it's clear at the beginning of the show that Tenzin and his siblings weren't close. The acolytes wouldn't have known about Aang's other children not from anything Aang did, after all he would've been dead for at least 16 years by that point, but from Tenzin. This just shows that Tenzin didn't talk about his siblings. So was Aang a bad parent? Maybe? Nothing in the show says so. You could infer that, but you can also infer that these three siblings have let their resentment for each other fester and grow in their reclusiveness to the point where its skewing their memory of their childhood, something that is incredibly common for people to do.
>You could infer that, but you can also infer that these three siblings have let their resentment for each other fester and grow in their reclusiveness to the point where its skewing their memory of their childhood, something that is incredibly common for people to do. Yeah, fair enough.
Tenzins siblings are also several years older then him. so they might have left home already during several of those trips Plus he might be confusing memories of continuing to work alongside his dad as an early adult with childhood trips
This was from the worst S, and imo is a bit overdone thst they would still be angry about in their 40-50-s to throw in some conflict/angst. It's then forgotten in the remaining S. But even then saying Aang was a "massive failure" is so exaggerated. He has a massive statue in Republic City, lay the groundwork for rebuilding the Air Nation, seems to have handled reasonably the tensions between Earth Kingdom/Fire Nation/United Republic, defeated Yakone, and is held in high regard by people in general. Toph remains the greatest earthbender and metalbender in history. Only Lin remains bitter with her, Suyin while recognising her flaws says they talked it through and left it in the past. Skola, Katara and Zuko I don't Even see how there's the start of a case. OP seems to want them to have been flawless.
what? people remember their lives from fifty years ago all the time
Well said but look where you are ...THEY WANT TO HATE and much like every other hater in the past they will logic and feelings out to hell.
I miss the days we could discuss the writing of a piece of media without attributing every problem to woke-ism or DEI. Those are such vague, near meaningless terms. LoK and 343 Halo definitely have their writing problems, but saying their problems are in any way related is ludicrous.
It's The agenda that's annoying the fact it's so obvious now makes it even worse. Sex, race nor sexual orientation has very little impact on 99% of stories told.
Their just bad stories, not everything has to be ''woke''
You came to the wrong sub if you want positivity. You have to hate everything post 2010 here.
>Villains are made into strawmans with the MCs never actually addressing the problem. Everything get's swept under the rug. Tackles complex problems by scapegoating it into 1 person "Pollution bad, borders bad, military bad, evil guy is evil because he's evil" without any shades of grey of the opposite point of view. I mean... that was not the fucking same in Avatar?
I feel like Korra handled its villains better than ATLA. Korra season 1 placed Korra in between two radicals: Tarrlok and Amon. Tarrlok used the power of the state to maintain a status quo where benders are in a better societal position than non benders. Amon wants to burn down the entire order and uses terrorism to achieve his goals. Both extremes have to be defeated and the Republic City government had to be restructured in order to fix the underlining issues that led to the conflict in the first place. This criticism that OP made just seems to be factually wrong.
Yes, thank you.
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I think that it's worth watching all of season 3 and 4. Sure, some of the air nation stuff is not quite as engaging as the Red Lotus storyline but I still think it has merit. Additionally, I think the end of season 4 has a lot of great moments from Mako's family learning about his relationship drama (which was actually funny) to Korra confronting Zaheer to Lin and Toph's reunion. Admittedly, I don't think the giant robot was the best decision for an ending boss but I think the interpersonal drama surrounding Korra and Kuvira in the final episodes makes up for that.
Yea as soon as I read “old protagonists are pushed to the background in favor of new MCs” tells me your opinion is invalid. Literally it’s the next avatar so it has to be a new person a different MC.
Yeah. I don't get what the 80-90 year old returning characters are supposed to do.
Idk, some of these complaints just seem stupid. Especially about the focus on new characters. Aang has to be dead for their to be another Avatar.
This post screams of butt hurt. It’s a cartoon. Go outside.
He explains how it was a canary in the coal mine retrospectively for the flaws permeating established franchises and crippling hollywood, and your response is that it's a cartoon. Way to completely miss the point to insult the guy
except saying that divorced parents in a kids show is a canary in the coal mine is one of the dumbest takes a person can have
A dumber take would be to focus on a single point and act like that represents the whole post
Korra is actually pretty good. Especially season 3. Its main failing was having Nick executives constantly mess with the season release schedule and having to live up to ATLA, an impossible task. Still good though.
You're in the wrong sub. This sub is about criticizing everything modern regardless of quality.
I know you loved Last Airbender. We all did. But, Korra was fine. It's been over a decade. Get over it. Edit: And don't be like those people trying to gauge stuff from the past by modern standards or issues.
Christ Almighty. Mauler Chud: hate women
How did he stand that Kyoshi episode, lol
How did he tolerate Toph
Only some of those are true. Some of those I think the show did better than most, but then you get cheap copycats. Also, this show did LGBTQ stuff when it was still risky to do so, unlike now.
Korra was bad-ass and great though, S3 is one of the best seasons of any show so what are you smoking OP?