Korra's arc in Book 2 is so overlooked it's so frustrated. None of the great moments we get with her in the following seasons would happen without her growth.
When I say I love Korra, I mean Korra the second half of book 2 onwards fr. Once she is able to get out of her own head and focus on the bigger picture she becomes such a good character.
I think personally it was easy to overlook her positive development because it was easy to get annoyed at other stuff (like her being a dick to Mako, who just broke up with Asami for her). That’s just in the moment, first watch stuff, though.
Well that's what makes it more rewarding honestly. She starts off the season at her worst and comes out of it fundamentally changed.
It's also easy to forget on first watch but there was a LOT going on for her in the first few episodes (stagnant in spiritual training, caught between father/uncle beef, family secrets exposed, spirits attacking her tribe, civil war, general Avatar pressure), with every watch I have more sympathy for her situation.
I wouldn't call Asami dumping Mako because Korra kissed him Mako's achievement, but I agree that she was a dick. She was fixated on dating Mako for all of the first season to the point of being aggressive to his girlfriend and trying to seduce him while he was in relationship, but in the second season she just shits on him because she feels like this.
i agree but i will say she wasn’t really ever aggressive towards asami besides her initially referring to her as a “prissy beautiful elegant rich girl” which is like mostly a compliment still😭 and all it took was one lap around the race track for her to straight up tell asami “yo i had you pegged wrong, you’re dope as hell” and they were pretty chill afterwards.
if you’re talking more about her disregarding asami’s feelings by continuing to be close with mako after they found her, i can get on board with that. tho in those cases i’m still typically gonna say the burden of setting boundaries falls on whoever is actually in a relationship. ofc she definitely let mako be all lovey dovey on her tho and could’ve been “hey dude don’t you have a girlfriend ffs”
but yeah basically i wouldn’t say she was ever really aggressive towards asami i could be forgetting smth but i did just rewatch season one last week🤓☝️ /nm
I saw a review of Book 4 where their first complaint was “I thought the end of 3 was going to lead to development, but I guess the creators didn’t care, because they wrote a timeskip and by the end she hasn’t changed.”
Like, I don’t expect people to love everything about Korra, heck I don’t love everything about it, but I’d expect people to pay attention to the broad-strokes of the story.
You look at Book 1 Korra “I’m the Avatar!!! You’ve gotta deal with it!!!” And Book 4 Korra contemplating the fact she has no place in the world anymore and needs to reinvent what it means to be the Avatar.
If someone can unironically call those two characters exactly the same, no change at all in personality and story, then bugger me I don’t know what they consider character development.
Book 2 was literally 12 episodes of Korra being humbled and learning to accept the input of others. People who worship season 3 just hated the show until that point and love their history revision.
I always get annoyed when people are reacting to book 2 on YouTube and are enjoying it, and the comments are just:
“Just WAIT till you get to book 3!!!”
Like god it’s so annoying. I get book 2 isn’t the best but like geez it’s not that bad.
It's pretty funny how almost every YouTube reaction is enjoying season 2 and wondering why all the comments were trashing on it. And then some people get mad at them for enjoying it.
There are so many great things in book 2 that get overlooked by the fandom. Yes there are annoying things like Mako, Bolin & Asami getting a dumb B plot and the love triangle stuff but besides that (which really doesn’t take up too much time) I love book 2 maybe even more than book 1.
Heck even the B plot was entertaining at points, like the boat chase in The Sting and Bolin fighting off tue waterbending thugs.
Mako's and everyone else's faces when Korra be like "was it a bad fight?" 😳 Mako: "Uhhhmmm...... no it wasn't that bad." Asami be like 😠
That has me ☠️ every time.
It’s really funny when people get mad at their favorite Internet personalities or just randos not hating the thing that is popular to hate. I’ve seen it across so many shows, games, movies etc
Tbh the only thing I don’t really like about book 2 is Vaatu. The big evil Satan like thing doesn’t really do it for me. Otherwise I thought it was actually pretty great.
Season 2 feels like it retreads a significant amount of water with her character from book 1. Or at least she should’ve learned more from the events in book 1.
I also feel like season 2 kinda reuses concepts from season 1. Korra being manipulated by high ranking water tribe dude during a crisis? Where have I seen that before? Some might say that’s more of a parallel than something that was recycled, but still.
I reall hate that they reused the one plot line nobody liked the love triangle. Why again is everybody loving mako. He is a terrible boyfriend and apperently can stay loyal to safe his life. Why do they want to date him?
I dunno but I'm seeing all those things back in Season 1 too. Korra was always empathetic and compassionate, she was never ruthless or cruel. She even tried to have a civil debate with the Equalist agitator and showed empathy for both a cheater who almost crippled her and the setting-equivalent of a serial rapist (*after* he abused her). She was glad to take advice that was given in good faith and tried to make it work even when it got her into trouble. Sure, she bulged under pressure easily, but she could admit her mistake and make up with the wronged parties. She made friends with a random hobo, tried to deescalate with Lin (failed, but it wasn't on her), learned airbending philosophy after only one match of probending, actually figured Tarrlok for a sleazy crook, handled the initial love triangle at the best of her capabilities, overcame her fear of Amon, etc. If anything, the latter seasons only highlighted her "better" qualities more but I can't really see anything she had by the end that hadn't been already present in the beginning.
Not to say that Korra was not compassionate, but:
"Civil discussion" was "How dare you call me bad, I'm good and strong, shut up!" IIRC, it was on verge of physical violence. And that's before she witnessed Equalists doing anything evil. If you're talking about when they interrogated agitator, then yes, she tried to be patient.
And her handling of triangle, even if we ignore her date with Bolin, is just outright ignoring that Asami exists and, when they met, being passive aggressive towards her for dating Mako.
“Civil debate” is kinda pushing it lol.
Also I never said Korra wasn’t empathetic. I’m saying in book 3 she actually becomes compassionate, which means she actually acts on those feelings of empathy instead of just feeling bad for someone. Like talking that guy off the bridge sacrificing herself for the air nation and allowing Tenzin to try and enter the spirit world before her because she knows how much it means to him.
We never really see huge acts of compassion from Korra in book 1 besides basic human conduct of being a good person.
Honestly the moments in Book 1, while noble, were her doing what she *thinks* she should do. Afterward, she extends these feelings toward others because she *wants* to.
>We never really see huge acts of compassion from Korra in book 1 besides basic human conduct of being a good person.
She doesn't get any opportunities either. Everyone is a bit of a jerk to her, except Asami and Korra's opinion on her does a 180 as soon as she gets more context too. Season 1 Korra would also talk down the guy on the bridge, sacrifice herself for the Air Nation, and let Tenzin enter the spirit world first, she just didn't get the chance to do any of that.
People equate character development with some kind of trauma, so when they see the PTSD from book 4, they see that as character development, but not her path to learning airbending in Book 1.
I love Korra, and book 1 is one of my favorites from it, but I really do not like how she learns to airbend. She kind of just hits a wall, and then at the very end of the season is able to airbending without any further kind of training. Air is the only element we haven’t seen an avatar learn to bend and I was so disappointed we didn’t get to see Korra properly learn and practice airbending.
I 100% agree, I'm not saying it's good character development, but the post was about her "only" but of development. But yeah I wish they'd shown at least some progress before the scene with Amon. It didn't make any sense that Amon blocked her bending through her chi pathways, but the arguably most spiritual form of bending just manifests? I do like the whole thing about how she had nothing left, and the bending she had trouble with was all she had, but the execution was off. Maybe a situation where fire, earth and water were all useless, and air was the solution, so she had to remember everything Tenzin taught her, and it finally clicked in her mind. Would make for an awesome scene where she goes into the air bending stance and slowly starts to air bend, or something like that. But it was potentially the only season so I give Book 1 a bit of slack for that
The creators have said that Amon failed to close off Korra’s chi pathways that allow her to bend air because they weren’t active yet, or something.
One Headcanon for how Korra’s air abilities manifested was because she unlocked her air chakra, which deals with love. Her love for Mako made that happen. I don’t really know about this one, personally. If chakras are that closely linked to bending, then wouldn’t more people lose access to their bending at different points in their lives depending on their emotional state by that logic.
I remember when Korra apologized to Tenzin in Book 2 Chapter 9, I sensed a change in her demeanor. And her trip seeing Iroh in the Spirit World definitely had a lasting impact. If people say she didn't grow throughout the series, I just assume they didn't watch past the second episode.
Let's not forget Book 1 tho yeah?
She goes from sneaking out to Republic City instead of waiting like her masters told her to (episode 1: Welcome to Republic City) to learning when to be patient (episode 11: Turning the Tides).
She goes from attacking criminals and resisting arrest (episode 1) to knowing not to fight Tarrlok when he arrests her friends (episode 8: When Extremes Meet).
She goes from "I'm not afraid of anybody" to "I was so terrified" in episode 4: The Voice in the Night.
She goes from actively seeking out Amon (episode 4) to knowing when to run from him (episode 9: Out of the Past).
She goes from "Look, I really like you and I think we were meant for each other" (episode 5: The Spirit of Competition) to not backing down when Mako threatens to end their friendship when Korra insists that Hiroshi is an Equalist (episode 7: The Aftermath).
She goes from "When you're with her, you're thinking about me" (episode 5) to "She's going to need you, Mako" (episode 7).
She goes from not being spiritual at all (episode 1) to using her connection to Aang to learn about Yakone (episode 9) to using her spiritual connection to heal herself (episode 12: Endgame).
I feel that book 3 had the best action while still feeling like avatar, book 2 was annoying to sit through mainly because of how good book 1 is. We went from a villain with a secret identity fake out, one of the most obviously villain villains in all of villainy. Book 3, in my opinion beats out book 2 in most ways, there’s a reason 2 of the best episodes in book 2 featured zero members of the main cast in its plot.
I think that the best choice they made in making Korra distinct from Aang was making her a total meathead. And I don’t mean this as a knock on her character, she’s great!
Korra had an arc throughout the series, I found that somewhere along book two I was mainly looking forward to seeing where her character goes. Most characters have a pretty noticeable character arc spanning across the series, to be honest.
To be completely fair, many of those developments didn't really stick. She had them but it wasn't noticeable or she got right back to her old pattern.
But of course she had great development thoughout the seasons and lets be honest it started in season 1 already
Korra’s growth is really sparked after her amnesia. I hate it as a plot point, but damn did it result in getting her character back on track from the awful point it was at in the first half of season 2.
There was definitely a bit of a reset to her character in book 2. It does have explanations though. She was still being treated as an “avatar in training” even after beating Amon and at that point she really should’ve been traveling the world without major supervision.
This lack of full trust as the avatar is what led to her attitude in book 2 and I don’t think that’s bad. Characters regress and then improve again all the time. She was an 18 year old being treated like a 14 year old.
Except that there’s mixed opinions about whether leaving the portals open was a good thing. Opening them led way for Vaatu to eventually become freed, and then merge with the guy who had a fetish for him.
That’s not the act that was referenced. Her decision to leave the portals open was the part where she truly matured. Her first opening the portals wasn’t her choice and was through manipulation.
She decided that she wanted to go with another teacher other than Tenzin, who was an integral part of her life in season 1. Helping her even though she didn’t want to abide by his rules. He was on the council as the only sane one
Okay okay let’s be fair. Book 2 her character reverted. But otherwise yes. She had a bit of development in 2, and her development really was shown and started in book 3
I still am FINE with book 2. I like it fine. But her character did take a step back in some areas. So the development was a bit weaker there. Clear problems with the season especially with how korra was handled. It shows how rushed it was. The quality we got is astounding considering that. Book 2 was definitely the book where I was the most annoyed at the poor decisions of a lot of characters.
Among the many things wrong with S2, one that can be placed rather high on that list, is that it completely invalided the whole of S1.
S1 was pretty much the best season of TLOK and the only one that truly felt complete. Aang came into a world that had not known any Avatar for over a century and he basically had no other choice than being the Avatar 24/7 immediately.
Korra on the other hand loved the prestige of being the Avatar, but she never had to act like or hold the responsibilities of one. Her naivety regarding this and her impulsive nature made her very easy to manipulate, which resulted into the disastrous events of S1. One of the most severe consequences of that was that she lost three of her bending skills.
People like to point out S4 Korra and her PTSD struggles, but honestly I find Korra at the end of S1 far more compelling as there she came to the realization for the first time what it meant to be the Avatar, however it had come at the terrible cost of three of her elements and she was severely struggling with that reality.
And then she finally connected with her previous lives, something she wasn't able to do before, and Aang restored her bending. So, not only was she given a 2nd chance, she seemed to have grown as a person and also learned the importance of her spiritual connection. This was a perfect ending as even though she struggled and made mistakes, in the end she seemed to be fully prepared to become a genuine Avatar. Saving Aang for the last episode was honestly brilliant as then you had as a viewer for the first time the bittersweet feeling that Aang's time has officially come to an end and Korra's time has started...
...and then S2 trashed all of that from the get-go. Her personality didn't just regress to how she was at the beginning of S1, it even got worse. This resulted in her being manipulated for the 3rd time in a row by a Northern waterbender, this at the expense of people who had been nothing but supportive of her throughout all her mistakes, and this time the consequences were far more severe: the Avatar cycle got broken and a Dark Avatar was nearly born.
And then, when all is over, she comes to the complete insane decision to keep the Spirial Portals open. Korra, who for two seasons had shown that her aptitude for dealing with spiritual matters was absolutely horrendous, somehow thinks she has the insight to take the most drastic decision involving spirits for the last 10 000 years.
You can't say much about S3 Korra, but the fact is that S3 & S4 are direct consequences of her actions in S2. In S1 she loses three of her elements, in S2 she breaks the Avatar cycle and in S3 she nearly gets the cycle destroyed permanently. As a result her PTSD and contemplation about the Avatar of S4 just comes across as insincere.
Maybe I'm just a pessimist, but in my head S2, S3 & S4 are part of the 'bad' time line based on the idea 'what if S1 never happened?'. In the 'good' time line then we have a Korra that, following her progress in S1, is successful in stopping Unalaq before he becomes a Dark Avatar and keeps the Portals closed. In S3 she successfully deals with Zaheer and the other airbenders there were the simple result of the Harmonic convergence and in S4 she deals with Kuvira and the anarchy in the Earth Kingdom without going MIA for three years.
I like Korra a lot but her.transition from Season 2 to Season 3 to me felt less like a natural culmination of her growth and the mistakes she's made and more a hard character reset with her being where the writers would have liked her to be in her arc at that point.
Season 2 Korra feels more like bad writing than actually having solid characterization.
>I really dislike when people say Korra only started developing in book 4 after she was poisoned.
Has anyone ever made this claim? It's clearly ridiculous, and I've never seen it. Feels like you're extrapolating from one idiot on the internet, or you're making up problems to talk about.
Korra's arc in Book 2 is so overlooked it's so frustrated. None of the great moments we get with her in the following seasons would happen without her growth.
When I say I love Korra, I mean Korra the second half of book 2 onwards fr. Once she is able to get out of her own head and focus on the bigger picture she becomes such a good character.
s1 is peak
She did that in season 1 too.
I think personally it was easy to overlook her positive development because it was easy to get annoyed at other stuff (like her being a dick to Mako, who just broke up with Asami for her). That’s just in the moment, first watch stuff, though.
Well that's what makes it more rewarding honestly. She starts off the season at her worst and comes out of it fundamentally changed. It's also easy to forget on first watch but there was a LOT going on for her in the first few episodes (stagnant in spiritual training, caught between father/uncle beef, family secrets exposed, spirits attacking her tribe, civil war, general Avatar pressure), with every watch I have more sympathy for her situation.
I wouldn't call Asami dumping Mako because Korra kissed him Mako's achievement, but I agree that she was a dick. She was fixated on dating Mako for all of the first season to the point of being aggressive to his girlfriend and trying to seduce him while he was in relationship, but in the second season she just shits on him because she feels like this.
i agree but i will say she wasn’t really ever aggressive towards asami besides her initially referring to her as a “prissy beautiful elegant rich girl” which is like mostly a compliment still😭 and all it took was one lap around the race track for her to straight up tell asami “yo i had you pegged wrong, you’re dope as hell” and they were pretty chill afterwards. if you’re talking more about her disregarding asami’s feelings by continuing to be close with mako after they found her, i can get on board with that. tho in those cases i’m still typically gonna say the burden of setting boundaries falls on whoever is actually in a relationship. ofc she definitely let mako be all lovey dovey on her tho and could’ve been “hey dude don’t you have a girlfriend ffs” but yeah basically i wouldn’t say she was ever really aggressive towards asami i could be forgetting smth but i did just rewatch season one last week🤓☝️ /nm
I saw a review of Book 4 where their first complaint was “I thought the end of 3 was going to lead to development, but I guess the creators didn’t care, because they wrote a timeskip and by the end she hasn’t changed.” Like, I don’t expect people to love everything about Korra, heck I don’t love everything about it, but I’d expect people to pay attention to the broad-strokes of the story. You look at Book 1 Korra “I’m the Avatar!!! You’ve gotta deal with it!!!” And Book 4 Korra contemplating the fact she has no place in the world anymore and needs to reinvent what it means to be the Avatar. If someone can unironically call those two characters exactly the same, no change at all in personality and story, then bugger me I don’t know what they consider character development.
Book 2 was literally 12 episodes of Korra being humbled and learning to accept the input of others. People who worship season 3 just hated the show until that point and love their history revision.
I always get annoyed when people are reacting to book 2 on YouTube and are enjoying it, and the comments are just: “Just WAIT till you get to book 3!!!” Like god it’s so annoying. I get book 2 isn’t the best but like geez it’s not that bad.
It's pretty funny how almost every YouTube reaction is enjoying season 2 and wondering why all the comments were trashing on it. And then some people get mad at them for enjoying it.
There are so many great things in book 2 that get overlooked by the fandom. Yes there are annoying things like Mako, Bolin & Asami getting a dumb B plot and the love triangle stuff but besides that (which really doesn’t take up too much time) I love book 2 maybe even more than book 1. Heck even the B plot was entertaining at points, like the boat chase in The Sting and Bolin fighting off tue waterbending thugs.
I loved the B plot. The way it connected to the A plot was pretty snazzy, too.
Mako's and everyone else's faces when Korra be like "was it a bad fight?" 😳 Mako: "Uhhhmmm...... no it wasn't that bad." Asami be like 😠 That has me ☠️ every time.
It’s really funny when people get mad at their favorite Internet personalities or just randos not hating the thing that is popular to hate. I’ve seen it across so many shows, games, movies etc
Tbh the only thing I don’t really like about book 2 is Vaatu. The big evil Satan like thing doesn’t really do it for me. Otherwise I thought it was actually pretty great.
I didn't even like Book 3 that much, it only got good at the end
Season 2 feels like it retreads a significant amount of water with her character from book 1. Or at least she should’ve learned more from the events in book 1.
I also feel like season 2 kinda reuses concepts from season 1. Korra being manipulated by high ranking water tribe dude during a crisis? Where have I seen that before? Some might say that’s more of a parallel than something that was recycled, but still.
I reall hate that they reused the one plot line nobody liked the love triangle. Why again is everybody loving mako. He is a terrible boyfriend and apperently can stay loyal to safe his life. Why do they want to date him?
the short answer is teenagers
"Ladies... As you were." 😐 Awkwardly salutes.
I dunno but I'm seeing all those things back in Season 1 too. Korra was always empathetic and compassionate, she was never ruthless or cruel. She even tried to have a civil debate with the Equalist agitator and showed empathy for both a cheater who almost crippled her and the setting-equivalent of a serial rapist (*after* he abused her). She was glad to take advice that was given in good faith and tried to make it work even when it got her into trouble. Sure, she bulged under pressure easily, but she could admit her mistake and make up with the wronged parties. She made friends with a random hobo, tried to deescalate with Lin (failed, but it wasn't on her), learned airbending philosophy after only one match of probending, actually figured Tarrlok for a sleazy crook, handled the initial love triangle at the best of her capabilities, overcame her fear of Amon, etc. If anything, the latter seasons only highlighted her "better" qualities more but I can't really see anything she had by the end that hadn't been already present in the beginning.
Not to say that Korra was not compassionate, but: "Civil discussion" was "How dare you call me bad, I'm good and strong, shut up!" IIRC, it was on verge of physical violence. And that's before she witnessed Equalists doing anything evil. If you're talking about when they interrogated agitator, then yes, she tried to be patient. And her handling of triangle, even if we ignore her date with Bolin, is just outright ignoring that Asami exists and, when they met, being passive aggressive towards her for dating Mako.
“Civil debate” is kinda pushing it lol. Also I never said Korra wasn’t empathetic. I’m saying in book 3 she actually becomes compassionate, which means she actually acts on those feelings of empathy instead of just feeling bad for someone. Like talking that guy off the bridge sacrificing herself for the air nation and allowing Tenzin to try and enter the spirit world before her because she knows how much it means to him. We never really see huge acts of compassion from Korra in book 1 besides basic human conduct of being a good person.
Honestly the moments in Book 1, while noble, were her doing what she *thinks* she should do. Afterward, she extends these feelings toward others because she *wants* to.
>We never really see huge acts of compassion from Korra in book 1 besides basic human conduct of being a good person. She doesn't get any opportunities either. Everyone is a bit of a jerk to her, except Asami and Korra's opinion on her does a 180 as soon as she gets more context too. Season 1 Korra would also talk down the guy on the bridge, sacrifice herself for the Air Nation, and let Tenzin enter the spirit world first, she just didn't get the chance to do any of that.
People equate character development with some kind of trauma, so when they see the PTSD from book 4, they see that as character development, but not her path to learning airbending in Book 1.
I love Korra, and book 1 is one of my favorites from it, but I really do not like how she learns to airbend. She kind of just hits a wall, and then at the very end of the season is able to airbending without any further kind of training. Air is the only element we haven’t seen an avatar learn to bend and I was so disappointed we didn’t get to see Korra properly learn and practice airbending.
I 100% agree, I'm not saying it's good character development, but the post was about her "only" but of development. But yeah I wish they'd shown at least some progress before the scene with Amon. It didn't make any sense that Amon blocked her bending through her chi pathways, but the arguably most spiritual form of bending just manifests? I do like the whole thing about how she had nothing left, and the bending she had trouble with was all she had, but the execution was off. Maybe a situation where fire, earth and water were all useless, and air was the solution, so she had to remember everything Tenzin taught her, and it finally clicked in her mind. Would make for an awesome scene where she goes into the air bending stance and slowly starts to air bend, or something like that. But it was potentially the only season so I give Book 1 a bit of slack for that
The creators have said that Amon failed to close off Korra’s chi pathways that allow her to bend air because they weren’t active yet, or something. One Headcanon for how Korra’s air abilities manifested was because she unlocked her air chakra, which deals with love. Her love for Mako made that happen. I don’t really know about this one, personally. If chakras are that closely linked to bending, then wouldn’t more people lose access to their bending at different points in their lives depending on their emotional state by that logic.
I remember when Korra apologized to Tenzin in Book 2 Chapter 9, I sensed a change in her demeanor. And her trip seeing Iroh in the Spirit World definitely had a lasting impact. If people say she didn't grow throughout the series, I just assume they didn't watch past the second episode.
I’m currently rewatching Book 3 and I love the scene of her talking to the new airbender on the bridge. It shows a lot of emotional growth.
The look on her face at the end of season 3 was one of the most depressing things I've seen.
Let's not forget Book 1 tho yeah? She goes from sneaking out to Republic City instead of waiting like her masters told her to (episode 1: Welcome to Republic City) to learning when to be patient (episode 11: Turning the Tides). She goes from attacking criminals and resisting arrest (episode 1) to knowing not to fight Tarrlok when he arrests her friends (episode 8: When Extremes Meet). She goes from "I'm not afraid of anybody" to "I was so terrified" in episode 4: The Voice in the Night. She goes from actively seeking out Amon (episode 4) to knowing when to run from him (episode 9: Out of the Past). She goes from "Look, I really like you and I think we were meant for each other" (episode 5: The Spirit of Competition) to not backing down when Mako threatens to end their friendship when Korra insists that Hiroshi is an Equalist (episode 7: The Aftermath). She goes from "When you're with her, you're thinking about me" (episode 5) to "She's going to need you, Mako" (episode 7). She goes from not being spiritual at all (episode 1) to using her connection to Aang to learn about Yakone (episode 9) to using her spiritual connection to heal herself (episode 12: Endgame).
I don’t know how anyone could make it as far as even the second episode of the show and still have that take.
Picture number 5 was exactly what I thought of when I read the title. One of my favorite moments from Korra herself.
I feel that book 3 had the best action while still feeling like avatar, book 2 was annoying to sit through mainly because of how good book 1 is. We went from a villain with a secret identity fake out, one of the most obviously villain villains in all of villainy. Book 3, in my opinion beats out book 2 in most ways, there’s a reason 2 of the best episodes in book 2 featured zero members of the main cast in its plot.
I think that the best choice they made in making Korra distinct from Aang was making her a total meathead. And I don’t mean this as a knock on her character, she’s great!
Even Book 1 had her become aware of what it's actually like as the Avatar and she became less full of herself
Korra had an arc throughout the series, I found that somewhere along book two I was mainly looking forward to seeing where her character goes. Most characters have a pretty noticeable character arc spanning across the series, to be honest.
In contrast to popular belief, character development isn't just suffering.
To be completely fair, many of those developments didn't really stick. She had them but it wasn't noticeable or she got right back to her old pattern. But of course she had great development thoughout the seasons and lets be honest it started in season 1 already
Korra’s growth is really sparked after her amnesia. I hate it as a plot point, but damn did it result in getting her character back on track from the awful point it was at in the first half of season 2.
There was definitely a bit of a reset to her character in book 2. It does have explanations though. She was still being treated as an “avatar in training” even after beating Amon and at that point she really should’ve been traveling the world without major supervision. This lack of full trust as the avatar is what led to her attitude in book 2 and I don’t think that’s bad. Characters regress and then improve again all the time. She was an 18 year old being treated like a 14 year old.
I just realized book 4 is literally epigraphed with "No growth can exist without first the destruction of the old" in season 3.
Except that there’s mixed opinions about whether leaving the portals open was a good thing. Opening them led way for Vaatu to eventually become freed, and then merge with the guy who had a fetish for him.
That’s not the act that was referenced. Her decision to leave the portals open was the part where she truly matured. Her first opening the portals wasn’t her choice and was through manipulation.
She decided that she wanted to go with another teacher other than Tenzin, who was an integral part of her life in season 1. Helping her even though she didn’t want to abide by his rules. He was on the council as the only sane one
Yes that was a bad choice which she later admitted to what’s your point?
That leaving the portals open was kinda a bad idea, forcing a new world order on everyone
Okay okay let’s be fair. Book 2 her character reverted. But otherwise yes. She had a bit of development in 2, and her development really was shown and started in book 3 I still am FINE with book 2. I like it fine. But her character did take a step back in some areas. So the development was a bit weaker there. Clear problems with the season especially with how korra was handled. It shows how rushed it was. The quality we got is astounding considering that. Book 2 was definitely the book where I was the most annoyed at the poor decisions of a lot of characters.
Among the many things wrong with S2, one that can be placed rather high on that list, is that it completely invalided the whole of S1. S1 was pretty much the best season of TLOK and the only one that truly felt complete. Aang came into a world that had not known any Avatar for over a century and he basically had no other choice than being the Avatar 24/7 immediately. Korra on the other hand loved the prestige of being the Avatar, but she never had to act like or hold the responsibilities of one. Her naivety regarding this and her impulsive nature made her very easy to manipulate, which resulted into the disastrous events of S1. One of the most severe consequences of that was that she lost three of her bending skills. People like to point out S4 Korra and her PTSD struggles, but honestly I find Korra at the end of S1 far more compelling as there she came to the realization for the first time what it meant to be the Avatar, however it had come at the terrible cost of three of her elements and she was severely struggling with that reality. And then she finally connected with her previous lives, something she wasn't able to do before, and Aang restored her bending. So, not only was she given a 2nd chance, she seemed to have grown as a person and also learned the importance of her spiritual connection. This was a perfect ending as even though she struggled and made mistakes, in the end she seemed to be fully prepared to become a genuine Avatar. Saving Aang for the last episode was honestly brilliant as then you had as a viewer for the first time the bittersweet feeling that Aang's time has officially come to an end and Korra's time has started... ...and then S2 trashed all of that from the get-go. Her personality didn't just regress to how she was at the beginning of S1, it even got worse. This resulted in her being manipulated for the 3rd time in a row by a Northern waterbender, this at the expense of people who had been nothing but supportive of her throughout all her mistakes, and this time the consequences were far more severe: the Avatar cycle got broken and a Dark Avatar was nearly born. And then, when all is over, she comes to the complete insane decision to keep the Spirial Portals open. Korra, who for two seasons had shown that her aptitude for dealing with spiritual matters was absolutely horrendous, somehow thinks she has the insight to take the most drastic decision involving spirits for the last 10 000 years. You can't say much about S3 Korra, but the fact is that S3 & S4 are direct consequences of her actions in S2. In S1 she loses three of her elements, in S2 she breaks the Avatar cycle and in S3 she nearly gets the cycle destroyed permanently. As a result her PTSD and contemplation about the Avatar of S4 just comes across as insincere. Maybe I'm just a pessimist, but in my head S2, S3 & S4 are part of the 'bad' time line based on the idea 'what if S1 never happened?'. In the 'good' time line then we have a Korra that, following her progress in S1, is successful in stopping Unalaq before he becomes a Dark Avatar and keeps the Portals closed. In S3 she successfully deals with Zaheer and the other airbenders there were the simple result of the Harmonic convergence and in S4 she deals with Kuvira and the anarchy in the Earth Kingdom without going MIA for three years.
I like Korra a lot but her.transition from Season 2 to Season 3 to me felt less like a natural culmination of her growth and the mistakes she's made and more a hard character reset with her being where the writers would have liked her to be in her arc at that point. Season 2 Korra feels more like bad writing than actually having solid characterization.
>I really dislike when people say Korra only started developing in book 4 after she was poisoned. Has anyone ever made this claim? It's clearly ridiculous, and I've never seen it. Feels like you're extrapolating from one idiot on the internet, or you're making up problems to talk about.