I'd Like my Legend of Korra, minus the Korra please

[TheAsterite]

I have to disagree, well I can understand the issues that some people have with Korra but I think they overstate them because she is not the protagonist they want.

When people say she's too emotional, you all know she's a teenager that has been locked away most of her life right?

she's too headstrong and impulsive! ah do you remember Toph, Katara, Zuko, Mai, Jet, Azula, and all the other headstrong characters in the original show? Did we ever complain about there headstrong natures?

She's too Angsty...once again Teenager, locked away, every other character in the original show.

Her relationships are unhealthy. say it with me now: "Teenager Locked away"

In the end people try too hard to compare the original show to the new, Korra is not Aang, she was not raised by pacifist monks, she was never afraid of the power she was born with and she doesn't turn the other cheek when confronted.

Season 2 was likely the worst season of the series in general, but it was also under the harshest deadlines from the producers and the greatest demands of the fanbase so what did you expect would happen? It was still by no means a bad show and it expanded upon the lore of the Avatar in so many great ways. And the ending made sense as Korra is attempting to undo the imbalance created by Wann by separating the two worlds to begin with.

Season three has been great so far, and I hope it can keep it up.

Funny how moast of those characters you mentioned are forced to change due to circumstances. Please tell me how Korra has actually learned something or changed over 2 seasons. She's still the impulsive naive character she was at the beginning of season 1.

 

[mmmikey]

Kinda a quick aside from character issues is anyone else bothered by the magical emergence of airbending all of the sudden, and that new users are fairly proficient at using it? And one somehow manages to best every white lotus master he comes across despite just having received it and having no training whatsoever.

I was fairly annoyed a lot of stuff was retconned in the last season. While bending seemed somewhat haphazard this seems completely pulled out of thin air.

 

[Asita]

Did I say all people?

Clearly I didn't, but hey, it's fun to be passive aggressive, huh?

I apologize, Korra really is the perfect show all the fans claim it is.

Edit: Korra hasn't changed at all, and honestly she should have known that merging the spirit and real world would have consequences. They were separated for a reason, but nope, Korra knows everything.

No worries.

I get why some people don't like her, she's flawed, but that's what makes her interesting.

Aang was awesome, but damn if the writers didn't bullshit it so that he never had to go against his naive moral code.

Let me just go ahead and clarify that for me at least it's not the fact that she's flawed that irks me about her, but that the series has been unwilling to actually address those flaws in the interest of character growth. Season 3 might start changing this (I don't know, I've yet to catch up on Season 3), but she's been remarkably stagnant as a character.

Half the stated reason that she was to train with Tenzin was to foster her spiritual growth, but in true Korra style (literally, it was highlighted in the first episode) she only adapted her physical technique as much as she needed to in order to learn airbending (And even that is a questionable assertion as Tenzin noted early in Season 2) with the concept of spiritual and personal growth being left by the wayside[footnote]Worse still, the primary antagonists of the first two seasons were quickly introduced as her foils in this regard, being presented as having an intimate connection to the spirits...which was a bum lead in the first season and all but ignored in the second[/footnote]. Brash and impulsive? Ok, I can buy it...but I can't buy her making the same mistakes in season 2 that she did in season 1 without so much as a mention of how she's treading very familiar ground. Looks like Korra's starting to grasp the concepts of airbending and curtailing her brashness? One time only event apparently. Really, I think the most irritating part is that the show keeps teasing us with hints that she's growing, but never really commits to it.

 

[senordesol]

Aang needs to learn earth bending? Needs to actually learn to stand his ground like the technique requires. Aang needs to learn fire bending? Harms Katara the first time. Zuko can't teach him (who also has his own arc, if you were actually watching the show), he lost it himself. Aang wants to stop Ozai during the eclipse? Fails. Aang needs to find an earthbending teacher? Is seen in a vision, they resort to kidnapping Toph (even though she leaves of her own free will) from her parents for the greater good. Aang gets mortally wounded? Can't enter avatar state until the finale. Aand enters avatar state out of anger? Can't differentiate between friend or foe.

In case you missed it, Korra already spent her entire life mastering three of the elements to a degree, and the entire first season is her struggling to learn airbending or entering the Avatar state or even connecting with the spirit world. As for the teachers, Zuko and Aang run into an ancient order of dragon worshipers who teach them incredible firebending the very episode the problem shows up in and they give up on Toph and decide to find another teacher until she shows up on her own. Granted these were on an ancient stone and dirt covered platters respectively, but lets not pretend Aang had to work all that hard to get his teachers.

With Aang failing during Black Sun, Korra failed plenty of times in case you've forgotten. She gets ambushed by Amon, captured by Amon, gets defeated by Amon, and has her bending taken away for a short time in the first season. In the second, she unwittingly helps her uncle conquer the South and enter the spirit world, has all of her plans to end the occupation fail, gets swallowed up by a dark spirit and loses her memory, gets defeated by Unalaaq and loses Raava and her past lives. Aang got it fucking easy.

But please tell me how Korra is not a whiny character who doesn't actually learn anything.

What did Aang learn? That you shouldn't end a hundred-year long war because you don't want to hurt anyone? That whenever you have a problem spirits will show up to solve it for you? That you never have to compromise with your own beliefs for the good of the world?

There is a LOT of Deus ex Machina in both series, but I have to give it to Aang because he actually had to go through an Arc. He had to both contemplate and suffer for the decisions he made, in addition to learning how to deal with loss.

When Aang failed to temper himself in his first fire bending lesson, he hurt Katara -and while it all turned out okay, the guilt of doing that and the fear that he might do it again was something he had to overcome.

Conversely, Korra was naturally gifted with Water, Fire, and Earth practically from birth; however she never had to deal with the 'philosophy' of air bending. She was just suddenly able to do it.

Whenever Aang was faced with a threat, he generally tried to execute some sort of plan to deal with it. He made time for fun, yes, but he didn't spend several episodes wasting his time with 'bending ball' when a legitimate threat was looming on the horizon. While S1 tried to introduce the idea that Korra could learn the fundamentals of air bending from 'pro bending', this element is never actually used for that purpose.

While it was convenient that Aang was offered a solution to stop the fire lord without killing him, it was clear that employing that solution was far riskier and required far greater strength of character than the half-dozen opportunities to actually kill Ozai proffered in the fight. Korra was simply GIVEN the solutions to all of her problems without making one single critical decision on her own.

When Aang lost Appa he had to work through his anger, hurt, and self-delusion and finally come to terms with his loss and accept that some things are more important than getting his life-long companion back. When Korra lost her bending except for air bending, it might have been interesting if she had time to come to grips with this 'disability', but she's still wallowing in self-pity by the time she (through no personal effort) gets it back.

Throughout the series Aang learns the values of temperament, courage, sacrifice, forgiveness, and strength of will. The application of these lessons allowed him to complete his quest and realize his destiny as the Avatar.

Korra, on the other hand, doesn't seem to apply anything.

 

[happyninja42]

Did I say all people?

Clearly I didn't, but hey, it's fun to be passive aggressive, huh?

I apologize, Korra really is the perfect show all the fans claim it is.

Edit: Korra hasn't changed at all, and honestly she should have known that merging the spirit and real world would have consequences. They were separated for a reason, but nope, Korra knows everything.

No worries.

I get why some people don't like her, she's flawed, but that's what makes her interesting.

Aang was awesome, but damn if the writers didn't bullshit it so that he never had to go against his naive moral code.

As much as I agree with that bit of asspull with the Energybending, they did have a legitimate reason for it. Nickelodean has a rule against showing characters actually dying on screen, and I think also even heavily implying death by violence and stuff. That's why they mention...god what's his name? Jet! That's him, Jet, they leave what happened to him really vague. You can infer that he's mortally wounded, or you could infer that he was just permanently crippled or something. It's never made clear, they even point that out in the Ember Island Players episode.

I think they can justify "they died due to age cause that's just the natural cycle thing" but "Aang kills the Fire Lord" is a strict No No. So, they had to come up with some way to eliminate the Fire Lord without straight up death. And again, like with season 2 of Korra, I'll give them a bit of slack from the fact that the problems seem to stem from the administrative and business side of things. But yeah, the Energybending thing sort of irked me too.

As to Korra being flawed, I don't have a problem with a flawed character, far from it. Aang wasn't perfect, none of the characters were. My gripe is that she doesn't actually seem to learn from her flaws, even when they make she arc of the episodes frequently revolve around her getting over her baggage. And she just doesn't do a good job of it IMO.

 

[thejboy88]

I'll admit that I don't like Korra quite as much as some of the rest of the characters of that show, but I still like her.

 

[mmmikey]

Kinda a quick aside from character issues is anyone else bothered by the magical emergence of airbending all of the sudden, and that new users are fairly proficient at using it? And one somehow manages to best every white lotus master he comes across despite just having received it and having no training whatsoever.

Well only one of them has been shown to be proficient (unless you count shooting bursts of air proficient) and he's implied to be a master martial artist (one who seemingly could have taken the White Lotus without the bending) who studied air benders and their philosophy which makes it not that surprising that he's good at it. Airbending as a whole coming back can be blamed on the sudden rush of spirits, which would obviously cause some side effects.

Kai, the kid who is stealing seems adept at it as well. Granted he has had some training lessons. The guy on the bridge seemed extremely powerful/dangerous. They've never really shown airbending or bending in general is tied to emotional states (his being panic). I wouldn't rule it out but I always thought it sort of relied on the locomotion and mental state of the user. The airbenders only seem to work on being tranquil.

I guess I could lend that the new bad guy learned something from those texts, I would still think it would take more hands-on guidance to be that good. I just think the whole thing sort of throws out everything established in ATLA. It's a small quibble of mine, but adds into a lot of what I've disliked about LoK's creative decisions.

 

[ecoho]

Though I will disagree with the assertion that Mako didn't do anything bad in season 2, considering he betrayed Korra by telling the president about her plan, which prevented her from liberating the south with Iroh's fleet and pretty much ending the plot right then and there.

You realize what Korra was planning with Iroh in utilizing his fleet without the authorization of the President would amount to a coup, right? If anything, Korra should have been banished or imprisoned and Iroh court marshaled.

you do know the Avatar technically has the right to remove the president any time he or she wants by virtue of them being the avatar? Honestly any of the past avatars would have just ***** slapped the man told him to do his job or they'd find someone who would.

 

[Angelblaze]

I love how most of the comments in this thread prove that the writers of the series did good on what they canonically had to: made Korra Aang's opposite.

Aang travels around the world?
Korra mostly stays in one place for a whole season.
Aang quick to change?
Korra slow to change.
Aang's journey is a slow paced travel around the world?
Korra's hopping in the fast-lane with this.

No worries.

I get why some people don't like her, she's flawed, but that's what makes her interesting.

Aang was awesome, but damn if the writers didn't bullshit it so that he never had to go against his naive moral code.

Being a pacifist isn't naive, it's generally much harder to do. Aang had to actually work for his victories.

The problem people have isn't that she's flawed, it's that everything just gets handed to her on a silver platter. Needs to learn airbending to save her bff? Just punch the air and she'll magically get it. Gonna kill herself because she lost her bending powers? Don't worry, past Aang will come and give them back. Needs to defeat big bad guy? Korra magically poofs Rava back into existence.

Stuck frozen for decades- NAY, ONE HUNDRED YEARS? Conveniently live. And so does your flying anteatter+ox bear thing.
Need to save the world after completely shirking off your duties? Two little kids come and melt you.
Need to learn Earthbending? Here's a conveniently placed Earth bending badass little girl.

 

[lord canti]

Korra did not just pull air bending out of no where. When she finally managed to air bend she was in a situation she's never been in and that's being truly helpless to do anything. She was at her absolute lowest point, that's why she was able to air bend.

 

[lord canti]

Did I say all people?

Clearly I didn't, but hey, it's fun to be passive aggressive, huh?

I apologize, Korra really is the perfect show all the fans claim it is.

Edit: Korra hasn't changed at all, and honestly she should have known that merging the spirit and real world would have consequences. They were separated for a reason, but nope, Korra knows everything.

No worries.

I get why some people don't like her, she's flawed, but that's what makes her interesting.

Aang was awesome, but damn if the writers didn't bullshit it so that he never had to go against his naive moral code.

As much as I agree with that bit of asspull with the Energybending, they did have a legitimate reason for it. Nickelodean has a rule against showing characters actually dying on screen, and I think also even heavily implying death by violence and stuff. That's why they mention...god what's his name? Jet! That's him, Jet, they leave what happened to him really vague. You can infer that he's mortally wounded, or you could infer that he was just permanently crippled or something. It's never made clear, they even point that out in the Ember Island Players episode.

I think they can justify "they died due to age cause that's just the natural cycle thing" but "Aang kills the Fire Lord" is a strict No No. So, they had to come up with some way to eliminate the Fire Lord without straight up death. And again, like with season 2 of Korra, I'll give them a bit of slack from the fact that the problems seem to stem from the administrative and business side of things. But yeah, the Energybending thing sort of irked me too.

As to Korra being flawed, I don't have a problem with a flawed character, far from it. Aang wasn't perfect, none of the characters were. My gripe is that she doesn't actually seem to learn from her flaws, even when they make she arc of the episodes frequently revolve around her getting over her baggage. And she just doesn't do a good job of it IMO.

You forgetting the end of season 1 when tarlok blows himself up along with amon? Also you can blame nickelodeon for Korras development since they decided they wanted three more seasons after the writers wrote themselves in a corner.

 

[senordesol]

Korra did not just pull air bending out of no where. When she finally managed to air bend she was in a situation she's never been in and that's being truly helpless to do anything. She was at her absolute lowest point, that's why she was able to air bend.

You might have a point IF that's what it took for her to do air bending from that point until she learned it properly (like Aang's avatar state).

Yet, she had absolutely no difficulty air bending again after that. She just did it once, and now she can do it forever.

 

[lord canti]

Korra did not just pull air bending out of no where. When she finally managed to air bend she was in a situation she's never been in and that's being truly helpless to do anything. She was at her absolute lowest point, that's why she was able to air bend.

You might have a point IF that's what it took for her to do air bending from that point until she learned it properly (like Aang's avatar state).

Yet, she had absolutely no difficulty air bending again after that. She just did it once, and now she can do it forever.

She had already learned all the principals of air bending at that point. It was simply a mental block that was preventing her from being able to air bend. So once she finally managed to do it, it was easy for her to constantly use air bending.

 

[senordesol]

Korra did not just pull air bending out of no where. When she finally managed to air bend she was in a situation she's never been in and that's being truly helpless to do anything. She was at her absolute lowest point, that's why she was able to air bend.

You might have a point IF that's what it took for her to do air bending from that point until she learned it properly (like Aang's avatar state).

Yet, she had absolutely no difficulty air bending again after that. She just did it once, and now she can do it forever.

She had already learned all the principals of air bending at that point. It was simply a mental block that was preventing her from being able to air bend. So once she finally managed to do it, it was easy for her to constantly use air bending.

I understand the 'why', what irks me is the 'how'.

If we acknowledge that certain 'mental blocks' prevented her from air bending, then we must examine what those mental blocks must have been. See, in order to remove 'mental blocks' there needs to be a fundamental shift in your personality.

For example: Zuko's fire bending was fueled by rage. First it was rage at the Avatar, then rage with himself. When he finally came to peace with the avatar, and himself, he had to re-learn how to fire bend (as the 'lack of rage' was the 'mental block'). So I ask: What was Korra's mental block, and how did she get rid of it? If it was due to the fact that she was humbled or frightened, then that would suggest that she would need to be humble or afraid again in order to muster the 'mental energy' necessary to air bend again.

See, as you said, she was always going through the 'correct' motions before; but until she was in a proper mental state, she couldn't air bend. So why could she suddenly air bend forever afterwards when her mental state never really changed with any appreciable permanence?

 

[lord canti]

Korra did not just pull air bending out of no where. When she finally managed to air bend she was in a situation she's never been in and that's being truly helpless to do anything. She was at her absolute lowest point, that's why she was able to air bend.

You might have a point IF that's what it took for her to do air bending from that point until she learned it properly (like Aang's avatar state).

Yet, she had absolutely no difficulty air bending again after that. She just did it once, and now she can do it forever.

She had already learned all the principals of air bending at that point. It was simply a mental block that was preventing her from being able to air bend. So once she finally managed to do it, it was easy for her to constantly use air bending.

I understand the 'why', what irks me is the 'how'.

If we acknowledge that certain 'mental blocks' prevented her from air bending, then we must examine what those mental blocks must have been. See, in order to remove 'mental blocks' there needs to be a fundamental shift in your personality.

For example: Zuko's fire bending was fueled by rage. First it was rage at the Avatar, then rage with himself. When he finally came to peace with the avatar, and himself, he had to re-learn how to fire bend (as the 'lack of rage' was the 'mental block'). So I ask: What was Korra's mental block, and how did she get rid of it? If it was due to the fact that she was humbled or frightened, then that would suggest that she would need to be humble or afraid again in order to muster the 'mental energy' necessary to air bend again.

See, as you said, she was always going through the 'correct' motions before; but until she was in a proper mental state, she couldn't air bend. So why could she suddenly air bend forever afterwards when her mental state never really changed with any appreciable permanence?

They probably would have done a much better job at explaining this if they had 4 seasons right from the start or at least a full season. See I think the weakest link about Korra is that it doesn't have any where the amount of time that TLAB had to tell a story and develop it's characters. I definitely understand why people dislike Korra and I was on their side during the awful first half of season 2. Hopefully season 3 will continue on this really nice path they're on because the first 3 episodes made me feel like I was watching the old avatar again.

 

[senordesol]

They probably would have done a much better job at explaining this if they had 4 seasons right from the start or at least a full season. See I think the weakest link about Korra is that it doesn't have any where the amount of time that TLAB had to tell a story and develop it's characters. I definitely understand why people dislike Korra and I was on their side during the awful first half of season 2. Hopefully season 3 will continue on this really nice path they're on because the first 3 episodes made me feel like I was watching the old avatar again.

Sorry, not buying it. If someone can write a hero's journey to fill a 90m movie, you can sure as hell do it in 264ms (and that's excluding commercials).

Just because they didn't have the same amount of time as the original doesn't excuse the squandering of the time they *did* have. In fact, that would have been all the more reason to tell a tight, focused story with a carefully plotted arc of self-discovery.

Again, my problem with Korra is that she never changed from E1 to E14. Things happened *to* her, but she never had to make any decisions about her destiny.

When Amon was proven to be a sham, the whole idea of 'equalists' seemed to be thrown out the window, without any examination as to what was grieving the thousands of equalists in the first place.

When Amon was revealed to be a threat, Korra continued pro bending rather than do her job, and that never seems to be acknowledged as a gross act of negligence. At no point does Korra (or anyone close to Korra) say "You allowed this threat to build while you were off playing Pro Bending".

When Korra lost her bending, she magically was able to air bend from then on without learning anything...then was able to bend again AND reach the avatar state in the span of 10 minutes (again, without learning anything).

I struggle to think of any serious plot problem Korra was able to solve because she made a decision to solve it, and I can't be convinced that 264 minutes is not enough time to convey that.

 

[lord canti]

They probably would have done a much better job at explaining this if they had 4 seasons right from the start or at least a full season. See I think the weakest link about Korra is that it doesn't have any where the amount of time that TLAB had to tell a story and develop it's characters. I definitely understand why people dislike Korra and I was on their side during the awful first half of season 2. Hopefully season 3 will continue on this really nice path they're on because the first 3 episodes made me feel like I was watching the old avatar again.

Sorry, not buying it. If someone can write a hero's journey to fill a 90m movie, you can sure as hell do it in 264ms (and that's excluding commercials).

Just because they didn't have the same amount of time as the original doesn't excuse the squandering of the time they *did* have. In fact, that would have been all the more reason to tell a tight, focused story with a carefully plotted arc of self-discovery.

Again, my problem with Korra is that she never changed from E1 to E14. Things happened *to* her, but she never had to make any decisions about her destiny.

When Amon was proven to be a sham, the whole idea of 'equalists' seemed to be thrown out the window, without any examination as to what was grieving the thousands of equalists in the first place.

When Amon was revealed to be a threat, Korra continued pro bending rather than do her job, and that never seems to be acknowledged as a gross act of negligence. At no point does Korra (or anyone close to Korra) say "You allowed this threat to build while you were off playing Pro Bending".

When Korra lost her bending, she magically was able to air bend from then on without learning anything...then was able to bend again AND reach the avatar state in the span of 10 minutes (again, without learning anything).

I struggle to think of any serious plot problem Korra was able to solve because she made a decision to solve it, and I can't be convinced that 264 minutes is not enough time to convey that.

I can't really argue that she had barely any change at all through out one and a half seasons. However, it didn't become a problem for me until season 2. As you said she didn't learn anything from her experiences until half way through season 2 when she finally started acting like the avatar. I also agree that the last 10 minutes of the first season was bullshit. I don't know, she just doesn't bother me on the level she does some other people. Maybe it's because I've seen so many anime's where the charcters remian almost the same for over 100 episodes.