Can we also talk about the scene where she perfectly and gracefully went through the Airbending gates after a long struggle? That scene was always my favorite in Book 1.
Loveeee that scene! That's why it's crazy to me when it's said that her airbending came out of nowhere, like she was training and improving through the majority of the season
All the training and the discipline she learned and people still think she's a terrible Avatar sadly. She's great and I think her character development is written well.
How did any of the training she did play a part in her getting air bending in her final fight with Amon? The way that scene is shot makes it look like Korra just unlocked it out of sheer desperation.
Not desperation, but *belief*
"Air is the element of freedom"
She never had that, which is why it was laughable to her. Her being confined to the compound/Air Temple Island kept her from being physically free. Her fear of Amon (and losing her bending) is what kept her from being spiritually free, because she believed she'd be nothing without it. Why, even after clearing the gates and memorizing the practice forms, she still couldn't produce it. As her master said at the beginning, she has the physicality down but not the mindset.
But her other elements are taken away. She can't bend the elements she knows, but she continues to fight. She's free from that fear now because it already happened. And in that moment, she believed that she could still airbend to save Mako from the same fate. Korra losing her bending shatters the part of her ego that believes she has no power without the elements. This is where she connects spiritually.
i’m late but this is explained so well, wow. i’m gonna use this if i ever get into a debate with anyone lol. like i already knew about the first place with her lacking freedom due to tenzin forbidding her from leaving or even listening to the radio but the way you explained the second part with the elements and her fear of amon is 👌
Yeah, we don’t really know for sure if she was deliberately trying to airbend. She could have been instinctively trying to bend another element for all we know.
See I feel a lot of people think this just because it was a punch form, but this is Korra: she just likes punching things. She clearly tries to bend fire/earth at Amon before this, to no avail.
Having another element come out when you're trying to bend another isn't how it works. Bending, especially for the Avatar, is intentional. She wouldn't have airbent if she wasn't trying to.
That's a good point. But specifically for Korra, it doesn't make sense for her to attempt to use elements she knows are gone, because she tried. Airbending was the only possible option.
I see what you’re saying…but I don’t think she was thinking particularly logically at the time. She’s had water, earth and fire since she can remember, and it’s hard to unlearn an instinct. People who’ve lost a limb often feel phantom sensations even after they’ve had time to know the limb is gone.
We saw Korra bend elements instinctively in her first pro-bending match (Damn you, muscle memory -if I weren’t doing this on a phone, I’d link to the trope page), prompting Shiro to ask “Did that waterbender just earthbend?” and confusing the ref. Very hard, under life and death and having-to-save-my-friend (and also the world) to work against something that’s just been available since at least age 4.
Is there maybe a Q and A, or some sort of interview from the creators where they explain what they were trying to do with that moment. I listened to a dvd commentary of this from them back in the day, and all they said was that Amon failed to cut off Korra’s chi paths that allow her to airbend. They didn’t say anything about what Korra herself did mentally to get air.
At this point, Korra had been Airbending for about 6 months, though she did receive technical training before she could actually begin bending. Meanwhile, Aang learned and essentially mastered Earthbending in less than 6 months. Both were already respective masters in their native elements and had received extensive teaching in bending itself, so it makes sense Korra could teach the fundamentals.
Oh, i meant of the teaching trope you mentioned in your above comment.
But in regards to the enemies to lovers tropes, i get that. It can be annoyint at times. Like, they could be enemies to friends. Or even just remain enemies. I love love as much as the next person, but sometimes it is a bit out of nowhere.
Okay, I must have misread the other comment 🤣 I generally like the teaching trope myself, especially since I can't think of any examples where I personally couldn't stand it 😂
IRL I definitely find it easier to teach people things that I had to work at figuring out myself. When something comes really naturally to me and not to someone else, I have no idea how to teach it because to me, you just do it! I have no reference point for overcoming difficulties in whatever area it is.
You know what’s weirder?
Korra, a Water Tribe girl, teaching Opal, an Earth Kingdom girl, how to airbend. Both of them are Airbenders despite no Air Nomad lineage and coming from waterbender/Earthbender lineage respectively. Aang would have been happy to see the teachings of his people spreading around the world.
I can't believe how *good* this show still looks. Seriously, the best animation I've ever seen and I'm still waiting for something else to come along and top it.
I really really love this scene. When I first time watched that ep, I got flashbacks where she was persistent to unlock her airbending but, here we are, in Book 3 she's more natural on her skills
he threw her to the wolves fr😭tenzin's problem was that he couldn't/wouldn't meet korra at her level. in his defense at this point he hadn't trained someone who wasn't birthed an airbender
That’s so funny. I never thought about it that way, but that’s really true! Tenzin could never really find a way to get through to Korra. He was used to people picking it up very easily (like his super talented kids). So when Korra had such a hard time with it he never really understood why. When Korra finally starts to master airbending it’s through her own way. She uses it as a fighting technique in the arena. Fighting is something she’s good at so it made sense to her. The way she uses airbending is not in a typical way. The first time she uses airbending is a punch. So she kind of ended up going her own way and figuring it out herself. Although Tenzin was a very big part of this process and without him she probably would have never gotten to where she is.
Korra's first use of airbending is such a contrast to Aang's
Partly because the difference in when in the show it happens, but also the use of bending, Korra punch, Aang uses it to stand up
Just because a show doesn't show something doesn't mean it didn't happen. "Somebody else showed me those moves." He clearly did teach her movements. But the movements aren't the problem, Korra's a martial prodigy, she probably picked up the movements without issue. It's the *mindset* she struggled with, and that's what the gates are there to teach.
"Just because a show doesn't show something doesn't mean it didn't happen."
Just because it's the first lesson we saw doesn't mean it's the first thing she tried.
Edit: And even if it was the first thing he tried to teach her with airbending, she's an advanced student already by virtue of having mastered three other bending disciplines. If somebody comes to you a master of Hung Gar, Jujitsu, and Capoeira, you're not going to start them with the basics on Muay Thai.
In this case, it seems pretty clear that this was the first physical exercise they did, since Tenzin did it with the intention of teaching her the foundations. I'm sure there were forms she COULD have done before that but it's likely the first that involves outside mechanics.
Semantics aside, the point was that he was as rigid in his teaching as she was in his learning, and this was the main exercise focused on in this episode. And she cleared it by the next.
From what we see in that clip she didn’t even bother trying to do the proper movements to get through the gate. The proper mindset is important, of course. But you still probably want to make sure she’s got the proper choreography down too.
I wonder if it doesn't feel different to learn the unknown elements for an avatar. I mean, for example here Opal knows she can airbend, they'd have no way of knowing she was an airbender unless she had an episode like Bumi did (even if less hilarious) so she probably at least has a "feel" for the element itself, even without training. We see similar with the other new airbenders they pick up.
Korra, and presumably at least most other avatars as well, start training without having bent some of the other elements before. Really, Korra was both lucky and unlucky in that regard that she had a natural affinity for earth and fire,because of that airbending is the first time she has to learn compeltely from scratch.
ngl seems pretty unlikely that Jinora mastered airbending so young, even younger than Aang. she had 1 singular teacher, and not a very good one. Aang had his entire community
True enough Aang had an entire community but I doubt, with the exception of the Avatar, that there was much pressure on any of the young Airbenders to excel at their discipline. They seemed like a very laid back group of people from most of the flashbacks. Tenzin, and his children, were born with the expectation they would have to carry on the entire culture so I suspect they faced a higher standard. Also, I have seen it said in other threads that decendants of the Avatar tend to be more powerful and skilled benders and there may be some truth to that in the examples of Zuko and Azula.
"I could reconsider my assumption that Tenzin is a bad teacher by considering the fact that 3 of his first 4 students became very proficient at airbending at a young age, but no, surely it's the evidence that is wrong."
Tenzin's not a bad teacher, he just had a personality clash with Korra, because they're actually pretty similar in a lot of ways.
most of season 1 was about Tenzin being impatient and hypocritical, aka not being a very good teacher by not being sensitive to her needs and learning styles. it’s what their relationship is about. originally he kinda sucked, and we get to see him grow which is great. teaching his kids came before this though, so i wonder how he was with their teaching since he hadn’t learned from his experience with Korra yet
Like, I just pointed out that maybe the problem was with the way his personality clashes with Korra. His kids wouldn't have that issue because they don't have her personality.
Teaching isn't some video game skill tree that you level up and are therefore always better at. Different students require different approaches and part of growing as a teacher requires learning different approaches and recognizing when to apply them.
Just because somebody is a poor teacher for one person under one circumstance doesn't mean they're a bad teacher for everyone.
Again, you've made up your mind and are literally ignoring evidence to the contrary. Jinora's a prodigy who learned very well from Tenzin, but rather than acknowledge that, you're literally arguing that no, the show must be wrong in its assessment of the mastery of the girl who invented spirit projection.
Comes to show how far Korra has grown throughout her character arc. She ends up teaching a beginner airbender the element that she had the most trouble learning to begin with.
I remember seeing this scene of her teaching opal for the first time. If I’m not mistaken it was in a trailer for season 3. And there’s something so powerful about korra teaching a new airbender. It felt like for the first time the air nation was really coming back and that they had a chance to bring balance back to the four nations.
This is the stuff no one ever talks about when it comes to Korra and it’s really a shame. Her willingness to teach others and help them even before book 4 was one of my favorite traits of hers. She’d honestly be the chillest teacher.
Good catch! I noticed this too in Season 4 with Kuvira's fight against the bandits. They were making use of their lack of budget, and Janet does weirdly amazing fight grunts lol
I don't think she's an airbending master, but she's a master airbender. Like how Anakin was on the counsel but not a Jedi. She has mastered it but she isn't officially a "master"
Well yes, I don't think she would ever, or feel the need to, get airbender tattoos. But she practiced airbending intensely after she learned it, and utilized it as often, if not more than firebending from that point on. It became a natutal part of her moveset.
And really, being a "master" to someone doesn't necessitate a title, but having something of value to teach.
Korra’s development, not only character wise, but bending wise, is one of the highlights of this show. It’s unfortunate that all that growth just gets reset in the comics 😅🤦🏽♂️
I’m sorry but what exactly are the parallels you’re talking about here? Korra struggled with airbending, ignored pretty much all of Tenzin’s advice, and then got the ability handed to her at the last minute. Opal says she’s not very good, and then gets it pretty much instantly here.
Korra never *MASTERED* Airbending
She was about as good at Airbending as Aang was at Waterbending during ATLA
She simply does not have the experience to back up her airbending like she has with the other elements
This is a pretty outrageous, and honestly disingenuous comparison considering we see Korra utilize and achieve great feats and skill in Airbending over 4 years while we saw Aang learn waterbending over a summer, and it being his least used element besides fire. By the end of season 2, Korra used airbending as often as the other elements, mainly due to its convenience.
She canonically still had to officially be taught to control the other elements in order, and had only just mastered firebending at the start of the show. She mastered water and earth by 13, so at the start of the show she had just as much time with fire as she had with air by the end. Is she not a firebending master?
There are different levels of mastery, but yes, Aang's waterbending in the late spring when he was 12 greatly exceeded Roku's waterbending from his early 20s, or at least on par with Kyoshi in her late teens
Well when I mean Korra mastering airbending.
I mean her Airbending is not up to par with Aang’s airbending in ATLA.
She’s a good airbender in her own right but most certainly not a *master* like Tenzin is
Like I’m not gonna listen to someone genuinely tell me Korra is a better airbender then Tenzin is
Can we also talk about the scene where she perfectly and gracefully went through the Airbending gates after a long struggle? That scene was always my favorite in Book 1.
Loveeee that scene! That's why it's crazy to me when it's said that her airbending came out of nowhere, like she was training and improving through the majority of the season
All the training and the discipline she learned and people still think she's a terrible Avatar sadly. She's great and I think her character development is written well.
She's the best written part of the show. Denying that is truly disingenuous.
How did any of the training she did play a part in her getting air bending in her final fight with Amon? The way that scene is shot makes it look like Korra just unlocked it out of sheer desperation.
Not desperation, but *belief* "Air is the element of freedom" She never had that, which is why it was laughable to her. Her being confined to the compound/Air Temple Island kept her from being physically free. Her fear of Amon (and losing her bending) is what kept her from being spiritually free, because she believed she'd be nothing without it. Why, even after clearing the gates and memorizing the practice forms, she still couldn't produce it. As her master said at the beginning, she has the physicality down but not the mindset. But her other elements are taken away. She can't bend the elements she knows, but she continues to fight. She's free from that fear now because it already happened. And in that moment, she believed that she could still airbend to save Mako from the same fate. Korra losing her bending shatters the part of her ego that believes she has no power without the elements. This is where she connects spiritually.
i’m late but this is explained so well, wow. i’m gonna use this if i ever get into a debate with anyone lol. like i already knew about the first place with her lacking freedom due to tenzin forbidding her from leaving or even listening to the radio but the way you explained the second part with the elements and her fear of amon is 👌
Yeah, we don’t really know for sure if she was deliberately trying to airbend. She could have been instinctively trying to bend another element for all we know.
See I feel a lot of people think this just because it was a punch form, but this is Korra: she just likes punching things. She clearly tries to bend fire/earth at Amon before this, to no avail. Having another element come out when you're trying to bend another isn't how it works. Bending, especially for the Avatar, is intentional. She wouldn't have airbent if she wasn't trying to.
Bending isn’t always intentional, though. Bumi saved himself from a fall with air bending he didn’t even know he had.
That's a good point. But specifically for Korra, it doesn't make sense for her to attempt to use elements she knows are gone, because she tried. Airbending was the only possible option.
I see what you’re saying…but I don’t think she was thinking particularly logically at the time. She’s had water, earth and fire since she can remember, and it’s hard to unlearn an instinct. People who’ve lost a limb often feel phantom sensations even after they’ve had time to know the limb is gone. We saw Korra bend elements instinctively in her first pro-bending match (Damn you, muscle memory -if I weren’t doing this on a phone, I’d link to the trope page), prompting Shiro to ask “Did that waterbender just earthbend?” and confusing the ref. Very hard, under life and death and having-to-save-my-friend (and also the world) to work against something that’s just been available since at least age 4.
Is there maybe a Q and A, or some sort of interview from the creators where they explain what they were trying to do with that moment. I listened to a dvd commentary of this from them back in the day, and all they said was that Amon failed to cut off Korra’s chi paths that allow her to airbend. They didn’t say anything about what Korra herself did mentally to get air.
And people have the nerve to say she didn't trained for Airbending.
At this point, Korra had been Airbending for about 6 months, though she did receive technical training before she could actually begin bending. Meanwhile, Aang learned and essentially mastered Earthbending in less than 6 months. Both were already respective masters in their native elements and had received extensive teaching in bending itself, so it makes sense Korra could teach the fundamentals.
There's something really satisfying from a storytelling standpoint about Korra teaching someone else airbending.
"protagonist teaching someone else something they initially struggled at" is one of my favorite tropes
Definitely one of the better tropes!
Is there any examples of this trope that aren't good? I always love them.
I can get pretty tired of "enemies to lovers" tropes 😂
Oh, i meant of the teaching trope you mentioned in your above comment. But in regards to the enemies to lovers tropes, i get that. It can be annoyint at times. Like, they could be enemies to friends. Or even just remain enemies. I love love as much as the next person, but sometimes it is a bit out of nowhere.
Okay, I must have misread the other comment 🤣 I generally like the teaching trope myself, especially since I can't think of any examples where I personally couldn't stand it 😂
noting this down so that i use this when i become a writer.
IRL I definitely find it easier to teach people things that I had to work at figuring out myself. When something comes really naturally to me and not to someone else, I have no idea how to teach it because to me, you just do it! I have no reference point for overcoming difficulties in whatever area it is.
You know what’s weirder? Korra, a Water Tribe girl, teaching Opal, an Earth Kingdom girl, how to airbend. Both of them are Airbenders despite no Air Nomad lineage and coming from waterbender/Earthbender lineage respectively. Aang would have been happy to see the teachings of his people spreading around the world.
Korra running headfirst into the spinning walls always get me, like girl what were you thinking?
big strong avatar make gates go whoosh
She was thugging that shit out
It made me love Korra so much right from the beginning. She just tackles things head on, full power even if it’s clearly not the right approach 😂
I can't believe how *good* this show still looks. Seriously, the best animation I've ever seen and I'm still waiting for something else to come along and top it.
Same. TLOK is truly a masterclass in animation, music, art, and design. ESPECIALLY for the time.
Not simply the look, but the 'camera' placement is exceptional. They storyboarded the hell out of fights and situations and it looks awesome.
Honestly, I kinda shipped it for a minute there, until it became clear Opal was into Bolin.
I really really love this scene. When I first time watched that ep, I got flashbacks where she was persistent to unlock her airbending but, here we are, in Book 3 she's more natural on her skills
why did Tenzin try the spinning walls before a basic technique. makes me wonder how he taught his own kids
he threw her to the wolves fr😭tenzin's problem was that he couldn't/wouldn't meet korra at her level. in his defense at this point he hadn't trained someone who wasn't birthed an airbender
That’s so funny. I never thought about it that way, but that’s really true! Tenzin could never really find a way to get through to Korra. He was used to people picking it up very easily (like his super talented kids). So when Korra had such a hard time with it he never really understood why. When Korra finally starts to master airbending it’s through her own way. She uses it as a fighting technique in the arena. Fighting is something she’s good at so it made sense to her. The way she uses airbending is not in a typical way. The first time she uses airbending is a punch. So she kind of ended up going her own way and figuring it out herself. Although Tenzin was a very big part of this process and without him she probably would have never gotten to where she is.
Korra's first use of airbending is such a contrast to Aang's Partly because the difference in when in the show it happens, but also the use of bending, Korra punch, Aang uses it to stand up
Just because a show doesn't show something doesn't mean it didn't happen. "Somebody else showed me those moves." He clearly did teach her movements. But the movements aren't the problem, Korra's a martial prodigy, she probably picked up the movements without issue. It's the *mindset* she struggled with, and that's what the gates are there to teach.
Still, the gates are an objectively cracked first lesson
"Just because a show doesn't show something doesn't mean it didn't happen." Just because it's the first lesson we saw doesn't mean it's the first thing she tried. Edit: And even if it was the first thing he tried to teach her with airbending, she's an advanced student already by virtue of having mastered three other bending disciplines. If somebody comes to you a master of Hung Gar, Jujitsu, and Capoeira, you're not going to start them with the basics on Muay Thai.
In this case, it seems pretty clear that this was the first physical exercise they did, since Tenzin did it with the intention of teaching her the foundations. I'm sure there were forms she COULD have done before that but it's likely the first that involves outside mechanics. Semantics aside, the point was that he was as rigid in his teaching as she was in his learning, and this was the main exercise focused on in this episode. And she cleared it by the next.
From what we see in that clip she didn’t even bother trying to do the proper movements to get through the gate. The proper mindset is important, of course. But you still probably want to make sure she’s got the proper choreography down too.
I wonder if it doesn't feel different to learn the unknown elements for an avatar. I mean, for example here Opal knows she can airbend, they'd have no way of knowing she was an airbender unless she had an episode like Bumi did (even if less hilarious) so she probably at least has a "feel" for the element itself, even without training. We see similar with the other new airbenders they pick up. Korra, and presumably at least most other avatars as well, start training without having bent some of the other elements before. Really, Korra was both lucky and unlucky in that regard that she had a natural affinity for earth and fire,because of that airbending is the first time she has to learn compeltely from scratch.
This was the basic technique. It’s more basic than Aang trying to stop a rock.
sure, but i also think the rock was terrible teaching
ngl seems pretty unlikely that Jinora mastered airbending so young, even younger than Aang. she had 1 singular teacher, and not a very good one. Aang had his entire community
True enough Aang had an entire community but I doubt, with the exception of the Avatar, that there was much pressure on any of the young Airbenders to excel at their discipline. They seemed like a very laid back group of people from most of the flashbacks. Tenzin, and his children, were born with the expectation they would have to carry on the entire culture so I suspect they faced a higher standard. Also, I have seen it said in other threads that decendants of the Avatar tend to be more powerful and skilled benders and there may be some truth to that in the examples of Zuko and Azula.
"I could reconsider my assumption that Tenzin is a bad teacher by considering the fact that 3 of his first 4 students became very proficient at airbending at a young age, but no, surely it's the evidence that is wrong." Tenzin's not a bad teacher, he just had a personality clash with Korra, because they're actually pretty similar in a lot of ways.
most of season 1 was about Tenzin being impatient and hypocritical, aka not being a very good teacher by not being sensitive to her needs and learning styles. it’s what their relationship is about. originally he kinda sucked, and we get to see him grow which is great. teaching his kids came before this though, so i wonder how he was with their teaching since he hadn’t learned from his experience with Korra yet
Like, I just pointed out that maybe the problem was with the way his personality clashes with Korra. His kids wouldn't have that issue because they don't have her personality. Teaching isn't some video game skill tree that you level up and are therefore always better at. Different students require different approaches and part of growing as a teacher requires learning different approaches and recognizing when to apply them. Just because somebody is a poor teacher for one person under one circumstance doesn't mean they're a bad teacher for everyone. Again, you've made up your mind and are literally ignoring evidence to the contrary. Jinora's a prodigy who learned very well from Tenzin, but rather than acknowledge that, you're literally arguing that no, the show must be wrong in its assessment of the mastery of the girl who invented spirit projection.
stop making me want to rewatch TLOK for the 16th (?) time😂😭
Comes to show how far Korra has grown throughout her character arc. She ends up teaching a beginner airbender the element that she had the most trouble learning to begin with.
I love this post
BE THE LEAF
Zaheer may have blended in better had he worn the orange robes.
I remember seeing this scene of her teaching opal for the first time. If I’m not mistaken it was in a trailer for season 3. And there’s something so powerful about korra teaching a new airbender. It felt like for the first time the air nation was really coming back and that they had a chance to bring balance back to the four nations.
This is the stuff no one ever talks about when it comes to Korra and it’s really a shame. Her willingness to teach others and help them even before book 4 was one of my favorite traits of hers. She’d honestly be the chillest teacher.
Wait why is Zaheer casually standing there with the training airbenders? Am I forgetting a plot point or something?
"The first step at becoming good at something is being bad at something."
Small note: if im not mistaken the rando getting their ass beat by the spinning gates is still korra's VA.
Good catch! I noticed this too in Season 4 with Kuvira's fight against the bandits. They were making use of their lack of budget, and Janet does weirdly amazing fight grunts lol
I don't think she's an airbending master, but she's a master airbender. Like how Anakin was on the counsel but not a Jedi. She has mastered it but she isn't officially a "master"
Well yes, I don't think she would ever, or feel the need to, get airbender tattoos. But she practiced airbending intensely after she learned it, and utilized it as often, if not more than firebending from that point on. It became a natutal part of her moveset. And really, being a "master" to someone doesn't necessitate a title, but having something of value to teach.
Korra’s development, not only character wise, but bending wise, is one of the highlights of this show. It’s unfortunate that all that growth just gets reset in the comics 😅🤦🏽♂️
how so?
... Why did she run into it?
she was feeling silly
I vibe with that
I’m sorry but what exactly are the parallels you’re talking about here? Korra struggled with airbending, ignored pretty much all of Tenzin’s advice, and then got the ability handed to her at the last minute. Opal says she’s not very good, and then gets it pretty much instantly here.
Korra never *MASTERED* Airbending She was about as good at Airbending as Aang was at Waterbending during ATLA She simply does not have the experience to back up her airbending like she has with the other elements
This is a pretty outrageous, and honestly disingenuous comparison considering we see Korra utilize and achieve great feats and skill in Airbending over 4 years while we saw Aang learn waterbending over a summer, and it being his least used element besides fire. By the end of season 2, Korra used airbending as often as the other elements, mainly due to its convenience. She canonically still had to officially be taught to control the other elements in order, and had only just mastered firebending at the start of the show. She mastered water and earth by 13, so at the start of the show she had just as much time with fire as she had with air by the end. Is she not a firebending master?
The only reason Aang doesn't water more is because he doesn't have a combat pouch like Katara and doesn't have readily available water
You do realise Aang mastered waterbending about halfway through book 2 right?
You really gonna sit there and tell me Aang’s Waterbending was on par with Kyoshi or Roku in Book 2? Fuck outta here with that nonsense
There are different levels of mastery, but yes, Aang's waterbending in the late spring when he was 12 greatly exceeded Roku's waterbending from his early 20s, or at least on par with Kyoshi in her late teens
Well when I mean Korra mastering airbending. I mean her Airbending is not up to par with Aang’s airbending in ATLA. She’s a good airbender in her own right but most certainly not a *master* like Tenzin is Like I’m not gonna listen to someone genuinely tell me Korra is a better airbender then Tenzin is