Poll: Korra is over, time for general retrospect and hindsight

[bartholen_v1legacy]

Now that the series is done, we're all stuffed with Christmas food and the gushing over the finale is slowly winding down, it's a good time to look back at the series in a broader sense and discuss it. What could have been? What should have been? What would you have done differently? Was the series doomed from day 1? Do you blame the creative team or Nickelodeon for its faults? Whatever comes to mind.

To me the series is between solid and okay. I think Korra is a prime example of how studio meddling can completely fuck up a show. After the obviously singular season 1 which had next to no bearing on later seasons we had season 2, an obviously rushed mess, which almost made me stop watching the show. Season 3 took the series up by a mile, and I was confident that with enough time and effort it could even eclipse ATLA. Sadly this was not to be, as the final season from about episode 6 onward can IMO be summed up in one word: rushed. The finale: rushed. Kuvira's turn to full-on Ozai: rushed. Her final turn in the finale: rushed. The family dynamics with the Beifongs: rushed. Bolin and Opal's relationship: so rushed it wasn't even mentioned in the finale. Varrick and Zhu Li's sudden romantic turn: rushed.

The series being over kind of makes me sad now, because it never reached its potential in full. Episodes like "Revelations" and "Korra Alone" gave glimpses of what a fully realized Korra series might have been, but thanks to Nickelodeon, it never got the treatment it deserved. After the finale I started thinking and there is a truly fantastic, epic story to be found in the bits Korra had. We just never got it.

 

[Saetha]

Note that I never saw past Book Two, so there is that.

I feel LoK fell between "Okay" and "Not that good." (I rounded up, BTW) Book one had flaws, serious flaws, but at least it was interesting, and I could forgive some of those issues for keeping my attention. Book Two was just bad, and while I watched the season to the end, I kept asking myself "Why am I still watching? Why do I care about any of these people?" Then the finale pulled that spirit kaiju/Jesus Jinora bullshit and I went "Oh, that's right, I don't."

Was it doomed from the start? Not necessarily, but it definitely had serious set-backs. Book One, the most interesting thing to me was Amon. He got his send-off (Which was admittedly a very cool send-off, but I still think the show should've tackled his issues instead of going "See! He was a hypocrite all along!" and offing the guy) but when he was gone and I had to focus on the main characters? ...I realized I didn't give a shit about any of them. Mako and Asami were cardboard cut-outs Bryke were miserably trying to pass off as characters. Bolin and Korra actually had personality, but Bolin had been side-lined pretty much since he'd been kicked out of the love triangle, and Korra's personality was sort of "meh" for me. With a weakness like that? That'd either have to A) veer off-track with their characters, and yeah they might veer onto a more interesting track, but the transition would be super awkward, B) Completely wipe away the characters they had and started with new ones, which would probably undermine the whole "Legend of Korra" thing, or C) keeping them as they are, and let them drag the entire series down.

That was seriously the biggest issue for me. I didn't care about the main characters, really - I didn't care to find out what happened to them. There was no Zuko or Toph keeping me tuned in week after week. The entire cast could've been viciously murdered and I would've went "Ah, well, to the Earth avatar then."

The idea that each series would be self-contained was a terrible idea, too. The over-arcing plot was one of the things that drew me to Airbender - where most TV shows are content to have a vague top goal and a lot of bullshit B-plots, Airbender had a clear, defined endgame that was always looming, Aang was always inching closer. I liked that, and Korra did away with it. The thing that tied her series together was supposed to be... well, her, and for someone who didn't really care for her, that wasn't enough. An over-arching plot may have given them a more solid framework to fill in for the episodes, as well as provide a more tied-together plot, and a reason to keep watching.

Were the flaws Bryke's fault? Partially. They did get screwed, you can't deny that, but I feel like some of those decisions (That trainwreck of a love story, the general staleness of the characters) weren't, couldn't be the result of executive meddling - there was a bad writer behind those decisions, or at least a writer who desperately needed someone to tell them when their ideas are bad. But how much exactly was Bryke's fault? We won't know until their next project comes along, and we get a more consistent image of their ability. Maybe Airbender was a bolt from the blue, maybe Korra was. Can't say.

Korra had it's moments of brillance, and it had potential, but what I saw didn't realize it. From what I've heard of recent events, potential still sits unrealized, (A giant mecha? Seriously? What, is Mothra attacking Republic City, too?) so count me out. When I first heard about Korra, I was ecstatic to be having more of what Airbender was. I didn't get it, not by a mile. I just want the Avatar verse to die a nice, quiet death now. Have everyone move on.

 

[Casual Shinji]

I never really followed the show, only ever having seen season 1, but it does seem like Korra and Asami presumably ending up together at the end shushed all of the criticism which had been drenching this show ever since it started. I'm not accusing anyone, but it is quite a coincidence that probably the biggest fan movement found its way into a show that was being heavily criticized for its lack of quality.

In general, I wasn't the biggest fan of AtLA either. It had some phenomenal animated action, as did Korra, but the show on a whole ultimately felt a bit too... TeenNick. Its clumsy attempts at humor were kind of cringeworthy, too.

 

[bartholen_v1legacy]

I just want the Avatar verse to die a nice, quiet death now. Have everyone move on.

I'll keep secretly whispering myself to sleep wishing for the M-rated version. Apply the potential uses of bending in full, and we'll have a series that's more graphic than Hellsing, Berserk and Blood-C combined. Yes, it's incredibly juvenile, but that doesn't stop me from thinking about it.

 

[Gizmo1990]

I was never the biggest fan of LoK but I have to admit that I found myself enjoying S4. It was in no way perfect but I think it was a massive improvment on the first 3 seasons. I enjoyed Kuvira alot more than the other main bad guys. I know alot of people liked Zaheer and I never had a problem with that but while there were things I enjoyed about S3 he was not one of them. I am of the opinnion that he was a moron, freedom out of chaos? give me a break, who was far too powerfull. That being said for an Avatar who had mastered 3 out of 4 elements AND the Avatar State Korra got her arse handed to her ALOT.

Taken as a whole I would say it was good but not great. S4 definatly improved things for me in a big way but the show never reached TLA quality for me.

 

[Pinkamena]

I liked it. Especially season 1 and 3 were memorable. Bit disappointed in 2 and 4, due to uninteresting villains. also the heavy use of bad 3D graphics in season 4 was off-putting. It's definitely a good show however, and it's hopefully setting the bar a little higher for future childrens show.

 

[Pinkamena]

I just want the Avatar verse to die a nice, quiet death now. Have everyone move on.

I'll keep secretly whispering myself to sleep wishing for the M-rated version. Apply the potential uses of bending in full, and we'll have a series that's more graphic than Hellsing, Berserk and Blood-C combined. Yes, it's incredibly juvenile, but that doesn't stop me from thinking about it.

I also feel that an Avatar show with a higher rating would be beneficial. A large focus is already on using bending for battles, but it's never fully utilized due to the low age rating. I'm not saying it should be a +18 gorefest, that would just be stupid, but the fights would have more gravitas if the benders got injured.

 

[laggyteabag]

I was a huge fan of Korra. Sometimes it really amazed me when I thought back and realised that this was a show on Nick.

Book 1 is a very good standalone series (although aside from the occasional reference to Amon in future seasons, it was never really mentioned again) , and I thought it did really well at reintroducing the world of Avatar. The antagonist, Amon, was a very memorable villain, and he made Book 1 a definite standout for me.

Book 2... I don't know. All I can really remember about it was the stellar Avatar Wan episodes, Unalaq being the waterbending version of The Emperor from Star Wars, and Desna and Eska. Otherwise, it wasn't too memorable, but what I do remember about watching it, I thought it was at least fun.

Book 3 is pretty much at least the same as Book 2. I can't really remember much about it, but aside from introducing Su Yin, I thought that it was a really weak series with equally weak antagonists. Also the Deus Ex Machina "I can fly because reasons!" was really silly.

Book 4 was about as fun as Book 1 in my book. Sure, there was less action, but at that point, I was so invested in all of the characters, I didn't really care. I felt that Kuvira was a really cool villain, and I was really interested in following her around. Also, that finale was really good, if not better, than the Book 3 finale of TLA.

Having just come off TLA, I can definitely say that I had more fun with Korra than I did with TLA. TLA isn't a bad show by any means, oh no, but I just enjoyed Korra more for whatever reason.

 

[soren7550]

Over the course of the four books, I'd say that it falls between solid and great. A lot of the problems that I and others have are more than likely due to Nick's jerking them about. The show had so much potential, and it did have a lot of good in it, but those sour spots really bring things down.

Bryke: "Hey, we'd like to make a sequel series to Avatar."
Nick: "Sure thing! Here, have a half season to do your thing."
Bryke: "That doesn't really give us a whole lot to do, but okay."
*Air is finished*
Nick: "PSYCH! Hehehe, you didn't think that we'd just give you half a season, did ya? Here, have another half season. But that's all, we swear. Have it done by Monday."
Bryke: "But we just- that's not enou- alright, we'll do what we can."
*Spirits is finished*
Nick: "PSSSSSYCH! Aw man, you should have seen the looks on your faces! You're good sports, so have two more half seasons, on the house."
Bryke: "Alright, now we got something more in line with what we wanted in the first place. Smooth sailing from here on out!"
*Change gets leaked*
Nick: "Okay, so the season's been leaked, so we're dumping the season out all at once without any promotion. Also, we're making the show online only, and we're cutting your budget by an episode."
Bryke: "Mother fu-"
*Change concludes*
Nick: "Alright, Balance comes out now."
Bryke: "But it still needs some work, an-"
Nick: "Don't care! And come on, we're gonna eventually put it on one of our offshoot networks, we're practically doing you guys a favor!"
Bryke: "Go fuck yourselves."

It's a wonder any good came from LoK at all.

 

[Avalanche91]

The series had very obvious highs and lows. I'm not sure if I'll ever rewatch the whole thing but I am glad I saw it. Allow me to give my own perspective.

Season 1 was alright, exploring the ideas of an Avatar story set in a more steampunk universe, with non-benders fighting for equal rights. It missed a lot of oppertunities but also presented a few very interesting ideas and scenarios. Pro-bending was hit or miss and I feel a lot of people imediately disliked Mako but the intrigue and the fightscenes were still pretty good. Though I felt it was a bit of a cop-out to have Amon and Tarlok be pro-bloodbenders, their ending was amazing for a kid's show.

Season 2 was really bumpy, with some of the lowest moments in the show. I was on the verge of giving up on the series entirely as nearly every character suddenly seemed dumbed down for plot reasons. Lin Bei Fong and Korra herself in particular were victim of this. The villain was so obviously the villain that I hoped it was gonna be a fake-out (surprise: it was dad or tenzin all along), the plot meandered around and the whole spirit thing kept changing its own rules. It wasn't all bad: it gave us Varrick, Desna and Avatar Wan. So that's something.

Season 3 was probably the best in the bunch. We had humane villains that imediately gave the sense that actually felt like a legit threat, a clear storyline and the characters of team neo-avatar finally coming into their own. Korra actually seemed to have found her place as the Avatar, protecting the new air nation, showing compassion and actually being pretty capable all around. Not only that but with the death of the earth queen, this was probably the ballsiest Avatar has ever gotten in regards to depictions of violence and death. The finale in particular was excellent.

Season 4 was a little shaky. On the one hand we have Korra's personal journey into regaining her confidence and finding a place in the world as the Avatar, while on the other hand we have metalbending hitler taking over the biggest continent on the planet. A lot of it felt rushed, like it could have really benefitted from two or three more episodes to flesh out the deal with Kuvira's grand scheme, Wu's transition to a capable leader, Korrasami, the giant Mech (probably made from Zao Fu's domes?), etc. It wasn't all bad. Most of Korra's personal journey was handled decently but a lot of it felt lacking. Still, because it was written to imediately follow up season 3 and the characters were well-established at this point, it is my second favorite season.

Overal, I rate it as a solid show to watch, not really reaching Last Airbender's level of excellence but still offering a very interesting experience. I wish they had been given more time to sort out season 2, more time to properly foreshadow Korrasami but most of Korra was pretty good. Honestly, a lot of the series faults are directly or indirectly Nickleodeon's fault as opposed to the showrunners so I am curious to see what they'll do next.

 

[Zhukov]

Season 1: Pretty good.
Season 2: Total Arse.
Season 3: Solid.
Season 4: Pretty damn good.

Never quite measured up to original, which is a shame, but there was plenty of good in there, enough to stand on its own merits. If I had watched it at age 13 or so I would have fucking loved it. (Although at age 13 I probably would have been too embarrassed to admit to enjoying a cartoon, but whatever.)

It suffered a bit from being split into four mostly separate story arcs rather than the one arc from the original. The characters took a while to come into their own but got there eventually.

 

[Scarim Coral]

The way I see it, Korra could of been better if one of these two thing had happened.

Nick had told the creator they wanted 4 seasons as a whole and not asking for three more season after season 1 was over (or did they asked them during production in season 1?).

The series should had stayed ended after season 1 no matter how much fan or Nick wanted more of it.

Overall however, I think it was alright. Sure it was no The Last Airbender that I was ok with that with the most part (if only they didn't tease us too much that they were going to make alot of reference to Aang and co).

 

[KazeAizen]

I think Korra is an excellent watch. While I think the original series is better I like Korra overall more than Avatar. With Korra I think it is because the characters are older so I connected with some of the issues they went through. Korra herself in particular I like more than Aang possibly because she is the kind of person I always wished I could be. Powerful, incredibly determined, very head strong, confident in most things she did. At least in the beginning with her transitioning to someone who is much wiser yet she still had her "Screw you I'm the Avatar" a bit in the end. I can't really describe it all that well.

I don't think I need to repeat what everyone else has said about the production and what happened with season 2. Though to be fair season 2 is probably the most ambitious they ever got between both shows. Just the repercussions and the scope of what was happening. Its a shame that that was the season that got bogged down in production shenanigans. Even if a show doesn't stick the landing if they have the willingness to try and be ambitious I have to give it points, and showing us the origin of the Avatar itself and changing the very nature of the Avatar world forever. Yeah I'd say that is pretty damn ambitious.

Season 4 was the best of the bunch to me. Yes they could've used that extra episode instead of the clip show that Nick forced on them but luckily they tried their damnedest to make it good and Varrick's bit is worth the whole thing. Kuvira is the best bad guy either show ever produced for me because, while I like Azula, Ozai, and all the rest Kuvira struck a chord in me. She is the only bad guy out of all of them I could actually see myself following. Her charisma, her intellect, her goals. Up until what happened with Batarr she would've had my loyalty through and through. Sure her insecurities were rushed at the end but it is very rare where I can say "I like that villain because they are cool AND I would willingly follow them." A show that can get me to think that about its villain is worth something. I think we can all agree though that even when Korra falls flat it is still better than most children's programming that is on these days. Marathoning all 7 seasons will be fun once Balance finally comes out.

 

[Imre Csete]

Not really that good.

Getting renewed for another 3 seasons while the first one was airing screwed the show real bad, it suffered a lot from bad pacing, 12-14 episodes weren't enough for them to do one story arc each season. The idea of consequences showing off in the next season was great, but they failed to deliver, underwhelming stuff all around. Season 1 got forgotten, while having the most interesting theme. Should have done an overarching plot for 3 seasons, like making Unalaq an actual Avatar instead of a crappy kaiju, and have them duking out for two more seasons after an The Empire Strikes Back grim ending of season 2, or something.

Plot aside, I didn't really care about the main gang, the side characters overshadowed them for me. Bolin was all right I guess, mainly because he got to hang out with Varrick a lot and his awesomeness rubbed off him. But the rest just couldn't compete with Tenzin's family and the Beifongs. Shame the Fire Nation descendants didn't get enough of that love.

 

[The Madman]

I thought it was great. The series obviously had its fair share of flaws but it also delivered some of the best moments in recent television memory alongside some memorable characters and absolutely beautiful artwork and cinematography.

A lot of people are making the obvious comparisons to The Last Airbender and saying Korra came up short or was worse in a number of ways, and in some ways it did. The lack of overarching plot really hurt Korra while in TLA it was one of the series greatest strengths, as was having nearly twice as many episodes to work with for each season. But even so in other ways I can't help but feel Korra was superior to TLA. The characters were as well realized if not better, the action was pulse pounding and thrilling as was the diverse cast of the show: What other cartoon has a pair of middle aged sisters as two of it's biggest badasses for example? And even if I do feel the seasons could have used another few episodes to reach their maximum potential, the density actually worked in the shows favour in ways as well. No filler, no fat, with some episodes being so tightly woven with action and narrative it was impossible to turn away for fear of missing something.

The episode Korra Alone for example comes to mind as being one of the single best episodes of anything, whether cartoon or live action, serious or comedy, that I've seen in quite some time.

So yeah, a great show that in my mind at least equals TLA in quality. There are things I would have preferred were done differently and other parts I disliked or prefer to forget, but then nothing is perfect and it definitely left me satisfied. It's a show I look forward to watching and rewatching numerous times into the future... even if I might be skipping some episodes while pausing and re-winding others time and time again.

 

[AliasBot]

Book 1: Solid.
Book 2: Didn't care enough to finish it, which is a pretty big deal for me - I always finish what I start.
Book 3: Great.
Book 4: Somewhere between solid and great - the villain plot was weak, but the character development plot was strong.

I still wish Legend of Korra had gotten the 20-21 episode seasons TLA got: given that it needed to develop and defeat a new villain every season, it needed those extra episodes more than the original series did. The biggest issue with books 3 and 4 especially were that there were too many things going on at once, the plot moved too fast, and the villains didn't have time to be established as both threats and characters. There also wasn't quite enough time to properly develop characters that weren't Korra, even within Team Avatar: Asami especially needed more focus.

LoK wasn't perfect by any stretch, but it was still very good once it had time to find its feet - the last two books closely measure up to the last two books of TLA. (I'd rank the books as: Fire, Change, Balance, Earth, Water, Air, Spirits.) Definitely something I would go back and watch again if I could find a place to watch it (or wait for the seasons to come out on DVD I guess).

 

[Drathnoxis]

I couldn't stand watching the show past season 2, so I can't comment on anything that comes later.

Book 1 had great some great potential - Amon was an awesome villain, and the bender/non-bender conflict was interesting - but they completely wasted it all. Everybody just stopped caring about the legitimate complaints of the non-benders once the equalists became terrorists, like what about all the non-violent non-benders that are still being screwed over. And Amon, oh how they screwed up Amon. What was he even trying to accomplish?? So he obviously didn't hate all benders due to how easily (and retardedly) he resorted to using his bending. It was so dumb he's all like "well, Korra just threw me into all this water, time for ULTRA AMON WATERBENDING!! Oh, oops I guess I should have made sure that there wasn't a whole crowd of people watching to see the super secret bending that I've been trying to hide. DOH! Guess I'll go kill myself now." Was he trying to gain power? If that was the case why did he give up so easily and let Tarloc blow them both up?

I'm going to quote a great analysis of the problems with the season 1 finale for an idea of how they should have handled Amon.

A potential way to have handled the last Amon conflict: you can still have him revealed as a bloodbender, but make it sympathetic. Have him refuse to use the bending outside of taking other people's abilities away. Prove that he can practice what he preaches. PROVE that he believes he is of a great power and of greater resolution than just his bending, which is everything that was challenging Korra's inner conflict then. PROVE it. Have it so that Korra can "out" him, and everyone was ready to turn against him--and then have him win everyone back by showing he was still the embodiment of the Equalist movement, and still their champion. Have him knowingly refuse to bend and be a martyr to his own cause, with Korra beating him back with her bending. Have it so Korra comes off as the bad guy, because really? She kind of was. Make it so he can prove the Avatar is really past its time, and doesn't have the people's interest at heart.

You can still have Amon win, end of the day, and have Korra fail and have her bending taken away. Have her reach her lowest point so that she can overcome it in Season 2.

Also, what would've been great? If they had a match where Korra confronts Amon to hand-to-hand combat with no bending, as a way for her to win the people to the AVATAR'S cause. Especially if it's after she was robbed of her bending. So that she can convince them the Avatar has been for the common people, NOT just benders. And she could use Airbending forms to do it, since airbending has been established even back in AtlA that it was all about evasive maneuvering and constant movement. Have it be a tug-of-war to win the people-because that would've been a spiritual battle, a fight over ideology, a battle about purpose, belief, and faith, and not just about who can beat down who better. It would've been a battle beyond the physical, which is what Korra needed. She could have unlocked her airbending in this way, if need be, because this is exactly the sort of thing that makes sense to unlock it. Those were the stakes that was set at the start of the show, this should've been what the finale should've centered on.

http://rebloggy.com/post/how-you-can-have-a-bunch-of-great-ideas-but-still-fuck-up-real-bad-a-korra-essa/25991175534

And don't try to tell me that they screwed up because they were only told they would have one season or that they only had 12 episodes to work with. If they were told to write a good self contained story in 1 season that's no excuse for why book 1 was such a mess, and if they can't write a good story to be told in 240 minutes (4 hours) then they have serious problems with their writers.

Season 2 was simply utter garbage with Korra acting completely deranged. So she's going to allow the judicial process handle her father's trial and then when it doesn't go her way she goes and threatens to kill a judge... yeah. She's like a spoiled brat whenever she doesn't get her way. All the characters who were mostly irrelevant and boring in the last book are now completely irrelevant, boring, and also stupid now. Not to mention that the new big bad's plan is even stupider and more incomprehensible than the last big bad. The only good part of the season was the legend of Wan, which apart from some pretty big retcons to the ATLA, was quite good. It's definitely not a good sign of a show when they completely abandon all the characters and plot from the show and it vastly improves the quality.

Also, the deus ex machina, there was so much of it. Korra just completely sucks all the time and is so reliably helped out of dire situations at the last moment. This happened so much that during one episode in the spirit world where she was about to be killed I was able to count down from 10 when a deus ex machina would come in and save her, and at the end of my count lo and behold the giant bird thing out of nowhere. Then the finale somehow manages to be even more retarded than the last one, and I don't even know how that was possible. Somehow Jinora has these god mode powers out of nowhere and Korra has the big glowing punch-up. Then she makes the retarded decision to connect the spirit world to the physical world and there are so many reasons that this is a bad idea.

I could go on for hours about why this show sucks, but this is already getting pretty long so I'm gonna wrap it up with one last point.

The bending is so boring in this show. In ATLA, all the characters used their environment in creative ways to do outstanding moves. Also all the bending styles actually were styles that were unique and based off of real martial art forms. However, in LoK pretty much everybody uses bending simply as a long range kick or punch in the same generic way. Here's a quick comparison with what I could find on youtube.

Spoiler: Legend of Korra

It's all just fire/water/rock ball, dodge/block, repeat. It's all so samey and generic and nobody plays to the specific strengths of the element they use. And this is supposedly the best fight scenes!

Spoiler: Avatar: The Last Airbender

On the other hand, here is one fight from ATLA, and not even one of the best. Look at the variety of their moves. Water whip, big ol' waterball, funnel of water to close the distance between them, using ice to root the feet to the ground, super thin ice disks, big platform of ice to get the high ground, and a hundred icicles to immobilize Katara.

There is more creativity in that one fight from ATLA that there was in the entirety of book 1 from LoK.

 

[MrCalavera_v1legacy]

I can't say it's solid, because one of my main problems with this show was how a mixed box it was. Good and sometimes brilliant ideas overlap with many bad parts. That said, i still enjoyed it overall, so picking "not really that good" seems kinda unfair.
Okay it is.

As for particular seasons:
Book of Air: Ehh, okay.
Book of Spirits: *Pffffft* (except Wan part)
Book of Change: Best of the bunch, it was a pinnacle of this show.
Book of Balance: Ehh, i guess i liked it about as much as first season.

Looks like for me season was worth as much as it's villain. Sorry Ron, i love you, but Zaheer takes the cake.

 

[Ikasury]

personally i thought Korra was awesome, this may be a total biased since its one of those rare series where the end actually surprises me (and proves i'm apparently all for Yuri in the right context, sigh~) but it did have its faults, but even putting those into context or blatantly ignoring the overall stories were just as good as Airbender and in my opinion some where better because to be honest, they were more real world and adult... things are grey and don't get really solved, its all about just figuring out how to deal with it and move on, i liked...

plus the Bei Fong clan... and how awesomely badass every single one of them are despite all the weirdness there... doing Old Lady Toph proud~

as everyone's doing a season by season thing:

Season 1: liked as it was nice to see a well done female protagonist, she's typed for both her age and upbringing as well as the 'humor' of the universe without being overbearing 'squeal squeal squeal' all over the place bringing it down, anything that referenced first series amplified instead of detracted, and yea while they were still a 'major deal' through the first season it can be forgiven as it was generally thought to be only an 'epilogue' sort of squeal... the final episode of Air proved that...

Season 2: eeeh... i liked the Wan bit in learning about the origin of the Avatar but certain bits of it seemed too 'convenient' to me and i never felt Unalok was a worthwhile dude... Vaatu though made me happy, very happy, as the ultra-evil-spirit thing and the creepy twins made up for a lot... character development wise it was nice to see 'flaws' in the characters developing and forcing them to grow or just being brought to light... this was really where the whole grey area/adult growth thing started so i liked it...

Season 3: eeeeh... it was okay, i liked it more then season 2 and some parts of it again felt rushed and could have done well drawn out more, but the 'crampt' feel actually may have helped in some instances as it made the end of season 3 feel like a MAJOR downer... i liked it, i really liked the end of it, it was a great example of 'kick them while their down' for the hero here forcing the overall intended development to come in Season 4... plus i was laughing the whole time as episode 1 in this season had Korra and Asami have that awkward as hell 'friend' talk (least on Korra's side) and basically dropped all shipping like a rock straight up, least from their point of view, so i thought that was hilarious as its not something you generally see... ever... in most series. So it was nice to have the out-of-place/not-necessary romance thrown, if not on the backburner, but out the damn window in lieu of the important issues of BUILDING AN ENTIRE NATION!! because politics is a serious business and it was generally good a again throwing just about every fear Korra had mildly from the previous two seasons, right into her face and making for a great/epic 'break the hero' moment at the end there... so good, better then i thought at least...

Season 4: LOVED IT! i really, really, REALLY wish they'd been able to drag this season out and flesh out on-screen more of... EVERYTHING! because this would have been a seriously badass chapter to extend into two if not three seasons in its own right... explaining Kuvira's rise to power, doing more with the Earth Empire, more on the developing Air Nation, More Kuvira/Bataar jr. action to flesh out that relationship more (even if i think the ONE scene of them hugging really did spell out a lot in how much she genuinely cared for the guy, having more would have made everything feel better) hell just more on Kuvira's EVERYTHING!! would have been an excellent step because what was seen, how little it was, made for a deeply interesting 'bad guy' because in her mind she's doing 'everything right' and the best villains are those that think they're only doing the right thing, which a lot of the villains in this series did (which was a plus for it) but she was the only one that genuinely sold it... she CONQUERED over half the world in less then 3 years, disguised by peaceful-mission or not, that's damn impressive... and while more on Korra developing her relationships, as an adult, with those around her would have been nice, i dunno, i'm actually glad with what they did for the end bit, subtlety in my opinion is an often ignored art, and in real life its not the HUGE things that get us, its the small things, so leaving Korra and Asami's further developing/evolving 'friendship' as just snippets i actually liked, as like the previous season it painted the big message of 'dealing with what's important NOW!! romance/personal affairs later/for when this is done!!' BECAUSE THAT'S WHAT ADULTS DO!! and to be honest we could always have more Toph and the Bei Fongs but that's just personal preference/nitpicking at that point... the development, while rushed, was still good in my opinion throughout this season, just wish we had more then a minute for each development... and the ending was phenomenal... say what you will, MECHA MAKES EVERYTHING BETTER!! and it wasn't wholly stupid... how Kuvira ran that thing, fought in it, AND the contingencies for it were spectacular... if you're going to go out, go out with as big a BANG as possible indeed!! sigh... definitely the season that if it had just twice as many eps would have been even better... even if it was awesome on its own...

and the ending was awesome and makes up for everything, at least in my opinion, artistically and development wise...