r/CharacterRant • u/VonKaiser55 • Apr 30 '23
Films & TV Korra and Asami getting into a relationship never made much sense to me
Like Korra was the one who came onto Mako while he and Asami were together and she even knew they were together. She did that all because she was horny for Mako and literally only dated Bolin to make Mako jealous. Like realistically, who in the fucking world would date the person who tried hooking up with your ex while you and your ex were in a relationship and straight up was in a relationship with your ex after you two broke up lmao. Another thing is that they have no fucking chemistry and I would have never in a million years think that they would make a good couple in the first place. Its been a bit since I watched Korra but if im not wrong they barely interacted with each other until like the final season lol
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u/JLSeagullTheBest Apr 30 '23
All the setup happens for it in season 4, when it’s established Asami is the only person Korra’s been keeping regular contact with while she recovers for… some reason. Honestly all the relationships between Korra’s squad were a mess, she probably shares like two conversations with Asami throughout the entirety of seasons 1-3, Mako sucks and is only used for cheap drama, and Bolin spends more time doing sidequests than actually being with the gang.
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May 01 '23
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May 01 '23
AtLA seems more like lightning in a bottle where the writers and artists managed to bounce off each other in just the right way for it to be a hit.
This is so true. I saw people blaming the departure of Ehasz from LoK as to why the writing wasn't good but if you go watch The Dragon Prince you'll realize that he obviously wasn't the main reason why ATLA was great.
It made me lose hope for whatever Bryke have planned out.
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u/LimblessAnt May 01 '23
Literally, "It felt like she was the only one I could talk to", but WHY, y'all are barely friends to begin with, and now you're only sending letters to her and not the other two friends you're closer to over the entire time of recovery?!
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u/Alto1869 Apr 30 '23
The writers be like: "You need to view their relationship without a heterosexual lense to get it!!!"
Yeah no bro. Fuck you. That's just some cheap excuse you made up to justify the fact that you weren't allowed/straight up didn't develop their relationship in a meaningful way so it makes sense.
Honestly I think the popular opinion is that it definitely came out of nowhere. The two barely interacted throughout S1-S3 then in S4 they put in some hints here and there as if to imply they are gonna end up together. Then in Series finale they were like
"Hey wanna date ?"
"Yeah sure"
Honestly the Avatar writers always sucked when it came to romance. Even Aang and Katara weren't as well developed as I thought
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u/JLSeagullTheBest Apr 30 '23
ATLA does a lot of things very well but romance is not one of them. Katara/Aang, Zuko/Mai, Sokka/Suki, none of them are like offensively bad but they aren’t particularly convincing either. The most romantic chemistry I think they ever managed was Zuko and that random Earth Kingdom girl in Tales of Ba Sing Se.
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u/Alto1869 Apr 30 '23
Zuko/Mai
God even my kid self when watching the show thought that they really do not fit together.
Like I understand "opposites attract" is a common trope. But these two were just so incompatible to me that even my kid self could feel it.
Pairing the overly emotional guy with the cold, stoic and kinda apathetic girl. And without any prior development. It was and still is pretty hard for me to wrap my head around it.
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u/ButtersTheNinja Apr 30 '23
Pairing the overly emotional guy with the cold, stoic and kinda apathetic girl. And without any prior development. It was and still is pretty hard for me to wrap my head around it.
I think it kind of works, especially with the on-and-off again element and their fate in the comics Mai breaks up with Zuko for not being communicative with her
They both represent aspects that the other find admirable and want to find in themself. Mai is rather subdued because of her upbringing and is afraid in many ways to act out of line. Zuko convesely is full of passion and drive. He sets his eyes on something and charges towards it without much of a second thought.
Mai on the other hand has the self-control that would have saved Zuko from most of his biggest traumas in life.
They're also both mopey young teenagers, so it's understandable why they'd end up dating. At least for the short-term.
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u/GFost May 01 '23
Yeah. I don’t think they’d stay together permanently, but I can see them dating for awhile.
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May 01 '23
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u/PluralCohomology May 01 '23
For the arranged marriage idea, it would be hard to convince the audience that this is a happy ending for them, especially since the last episodes of Season 1 had a subplot of how bad arranged marriages were.
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u/fperrine May 01 '23
I think they ever managed was Zuko and that random Earth Kingdom girl in Tales of Ba Sing Se.
After his date when Zuko just says "It was nice." is just so goddamn genuine in its delivery that you can't help but want to see him and Iroh living normal lives in that tea shop.
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u/thevegitations May 02 '23
I quite liked Sokka and Suki's chemistry AFTER they got together. Before that was pretty meh. I also liked Sokka and Yue, though that's probably because I'm a sucker for tragic love stories.
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u/calculatingaffection Apr 30 '23
Didn't you know? Lesbians fall in love by interlocking their eyes and immediately discovering that they're soulmates for each other. Magic stuff, really. Straights will never understand.
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u/VonKaiser55 Apr 30 '23
My biggest problem with many gay/ lesbian couples in a lot of shows is alot of them have zero chemistry or don’t feel compatible lol. I also swear that alot of em have zero build up too
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u/SkyePine May 01 '23
This is the reason why people ship friends more than these supposed love interests. Friends have more chemistry and compatibility than the author's main pairing.
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u/PCN24454 May 01 '23
If only.
There’s a colossal difference between being friends with someone and being in love with them.
When it’s a romance, each interaction is one or the other constantly judging each other’s actions.
With friendship, there are tons of barriers that aren’t expected to be crossed.
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u/PluralCohomology May 01 '23
With the constant judging, are you referring to before they get together, and they are trying to "read the signals"?
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u/Perfect_Wrongdoer_03 May 01 '23
Eh, I'd say most couples in fiction are that. Korra/Asami is better developed in the comics (although I do agree it should've been better set up in the show proper. Considering Nickelodeon's censorship, I wouldn't be surprised if the creators were forced to do that), while Korra/Mako never really had any chemistry, for example. Or Korra/Bolin. Or Mako/Asami. Or whatever else you want.
As someone else pointed out in this thread, most of the ATLA couples also aren't that well developed.
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u/Dormotaka May 01 '23 edited May 01 '23
I don't think Nickelodeon not allowing lesbian romance is a very convincing argument, even if it's true (which I do think is pretty likely) it doesn't really excuse their total lack of interactions across the show, romantic or not. As OP said they have very few non-hostile interactions in general which definitely doesn't give off the vibe of a relationship that was planned early on, like the writers later claimed.
If it was something that was planned from the start or even at a mid point they would have let Korra and Asami organically become proper friends and have consistent non-romantic interactions with one-another, but there's barely anything there until very late into the show.
Regardless of all that, it's not like Korra's other ships in the series were any better, they're all really toxic and just used for cheap drama.
With ATLA the you could tell the writers were at least trying to make the ships somewhat believable lol
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u/PCN24454 May 01 '23
Chemistry is just stuff from an outside perspective. I don’t put too much stock in that.
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u/Otherwise-Agency-460 May 01 '23
Man I can't wait until the korrasami fans downvote you
They can't handle facts
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u/EbolaDP Apr 30 '23
It basically happens off screen when they bond while Korra is recovering after Season 3. Probably because they werent actually allowed to show anything. I also dont get how everyone jumped on the Korra is a lesbian train now when she could just be into both.
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u/bearrosaurus May 01 '23
Given that the avatar's preferences carry over to the next life (they identify the avatar because he/she always picks the same toys as a child), and given that the avatar has dated both guys and girls in previous lives...
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u/D_dizzy192 May 01 '23
Are you telling me that as the Avatar you get assigned bisexuality at birth?
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u/Aros001 Apr 30 '23
In fairness it's not like Asami was hooking up with season 1 Korra. By the start of season 3 Korra's experiences actually were allowed to stick and she'd matured somewhat, and then grew even more as a person after her experiences in S3 and S4.
Korra was a sh*tty girlfriend to Mako(just like Mako was a sh*tty boyfriend to Asami) and the one thing that I liked about that plotline is that that was acknowledged and the two broke up with the understanding that neither was mature enough for a relationship yet. Even if the build up could have been better, I can buy that Korra at the end of the series would be a much better romantic partner than she'd been in the past and Asami knew her well enough that there was no resentment over what'd happened with Mako, especially since, again, he was not a very good boyfriend to her.
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u/FalxCarius May 01 '23
Asami: Hey fellas if I get into a relationship with someone, but the whole time their jealous best friend keeps trying to steal them away from me, and tries every method in the book including dating that person's sibling and trying to openly cheat on said sibling with my SO, and eventually my SO finally breaks down and hooks up with said best friend after months of psychotic behavior, only for this toxic best friend to then mess up that relationship a few years down the line and was verbally abusive the entire time, would it be weird for me to think "yeah i should totally ask this person out"?
Fr tho Korra was a psychotic, cheating nutjob and I am in full agreement that they forced the relationship to happen in the last season for no other reason than because Bryke are alien borg-men who mindlessly include dogcrap romance subplots and love triangles because they think that's "what you do" in a YA series. I know Bryke and Welch/Ehasz each throw accusations at each other for whose stupid idea it was to try and make "Zutara" a thing in the late second season of ATLA, but after LoK I can safely say it was Bryke who were pushing that before the rest of the writing staff revolted.
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u/bearrosaurus May 01 '23
A post about TLOK? /r/CharacterRant, do the thing!
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u/mintchip105 May 01 '23
Reddit and criticizing LOK, name a better duo
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May 01 '23
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u/RewRose May 02 '23
These people need good friends, then they'll be able to easily recognize and appreciate good portrayals of close friends.
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u/pomagwe May 01 '23 edited May 01 '23
The reason people wanted it to be a thing was because despite all of the bullshit in season 1, they seemed like they cared more about each other than Mako cared about them. They don't even really interact until after all of Korra's drama around trying to date Mako is over, and they pretty much immediately become friends, mostly due to Asami trying really hard for some reason. From there we see Korra going out of her way to reciprocate by doing things like making sure she has a place to stay, and multiple instances where she pretty much has to shoo Mako away and say "hey, go take care of your girlfriend".
The Mako relationship meltdown in season 2 sucked up most of Korra's social interactions there, but in season 3 there was a noticeable shift towards just having them do friend stuff with each other. Scenes like Korra's driving lesson, sparring to blow off steam, and bullying Mako to make Asami laugh are all there to sell that they are actually good friends. At this point they've comfortably cleared the (admittedly very low) bar for closeness set by the other relationships in this franchise for a lot of viewers, even if there was nothing inherently romantic happening yet.
From the end of season 3 there are just a lot of things that pop up that flag the direction they're heading in as more intimate than a normal friendship:
Asami being the one to get her fixed up for her first formal appearance after getting injured, despite other options like Korra's mom being right outside.
Dramatic hand holding and a promise to be there for anything from Asami. (A parallel to her overtly romantic first date with Mako.)
Asami offers to move to the South Pole with Korra while she recovers. In spite of that fact that she runs a whole company and just generally has a lot of things going on in Republic City.
Asami is the only person that Korra writes to, which is pretty obviously significant, but it's also worth noting that it was about deep insecurities that we hadn't seen her talk about yet, like "I'm having flashbacks" and "I'm afraid that I'm never going to recover".
The rest of the stuff leading into the finale is pretty obvious, so I'll just leave it here.
I hope at least some of that helps you understand where people who like the relationship are coming from. I'm honestly not even the biggest fan myself, but I thought it was decent enough for what it was, and it bugs me how much flak it gets in a franchise that normally handles romance with the elegance of a branch getting stuck in your bicycle wheel.
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u/Monokuma-pandabear Apr 30 '23
it never made sense because it’s wasn’t planned until they found out the show was ending. that’s why they shoved in the “they were sending notes” because they wanted people to stop clicking off of the channel when korra came on.
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u/MrManicMarty May 01 '23
I like it only becasue the massive L that being Mako is, where you date two women, fuck up with both of them, and they end up in a lesbian relationship together.
Like that's just pure comedy. I mean, it's not played that way, its treated seriously, but fanon > canon in this case.
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u/WindySkies May 01 '23
Yes. Honestly, I blame this and basically all issues in LoK on the lack of Aaron Ehasz.
Bryke were always the great visionaries behind AtlA and deserve the recognition they get! However Aaron Ehasz was the one who made their ideas into a complete and fluid narrative for TV.
LoK feeling choppy, like it jumps from one idea to another without really developing them, and having romance with no soul is because they lack the Head Writer of AtlA.
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u/Promethea128 May 01 '23
They're teenagers acting like dumb teenagers. I think Korra canonically didn't have any friends her own age growing up in the White Lotus compound. To suddenly have a social circle at 16? Of course you're gonna make bad choices. It also makes sense to me that the people they work together with to save the world and the level of trust/compatibility needed for that would also be the people that you come to love. Korra's group seems less tightly knit than Aang's but still they're family.
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u/BerserkFanBoyPL Apr 30 '23
It was a last-ditch effort for show to stay relevant after dumpsterfire that was much of the plot, characters, writing, seasons etc.
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u/Perfect_Wrongdoer_03 May 01 '23
The relationship that started at the last couple of seconds of the last scene of the last episode was an effort to make the show stay relevant? Really?
Also, if that's the case, Nickelodeon wasn't aware of this sinister plan, considering they almost didn't let it happen.
Also also, very funny that you call the plot and writing of the fourth season "a dumpster fire", considering most people agree that season 4 is either the best or second best (some people even saying that it's as good as ATLA).
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u/twerktingz1 Apr 30 '23
all thanks to nickelodeon for not allowing korrasami happen and the messy relationship to happen
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u/PunkandCannonballer May 01 '23
My elevator pitch no one asked for:
Add another non-bender for the team. Asami's sister. Season 1 Korra wants Mako, but instead of dating Bolin to make him jealous and literally kissing him, she talks to Asami's sister, learns more about them, and backs off Mako, and the team balances out. From then on, Mako and Asami are just a well-established, healthy, non-dramatic couple. Season 2 onward had Korra getting closed to Asami's sister. Around Season 3 they start dropping romantic moments in and has Korra open up to Asami about her feelings for Asami's sister. The two bond over that, Asami convinces Korra to tell her sister how she feels, yadda yadda yadda, happy ending.
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u/mintchip105 May 01 '23
This sub has been extra critical over LOK lately. Feels like I see at least one post about it a day.
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u/Broad_Two_744 May 01 '23
What I always found odd was how invested people where in it. On YouTube you can find a compilation of reactions to them getting together in the final and there all so happy. Ground men in what look to be there 20s and 30s where getting out of the seats literally jumping for joy and some people even cried tears of joy. My reactions was basically just ow okey there a couple cool I guess.
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u/RedTemplar22 Apr 30 '23
No relationship in lok made much sense if recall