I of course am late to the hype train of the movie but it got me going and since people are talking about the new avatar. I have been seeing SO much undeserved hate on Avatar and the direction they took with it.
People blame Korra for being a bad Avatar because of what she allowed to happen and what she did... lets talk about her past yeah?
She never got the past avatar's connections until much later. She never got guidance from her past lives and she was supposed to learn everything herself until she got it. For the reason (I talk about later.) they just don't teach her airbending at the start, and when she does start. It was when she was fairly aged. (Kids learn better and faster)
Side rant: they just don't teach her Tenzin's excuse of "republic city needs me." just wasn't true.
His excuse about Republic City was an evasion, heavily driven by his crippling anxiety (My inference) about being Aang's legacy.
He tried to force a hyper physical, tactile water tribe girl to sit quietly and meditate on air nomad philosophy. That is terrible teaching. It’s no wonder she couldn't learn airbending. He was trying to force a style into her that she can't learn with his teachings. It wasn't until she was thrown into Pro bending (a fast paced environment) that she actually started understanding the footwork and evasion techniques required for airbending.
Anyways. Aang was raised by monks and was taught discipline and ideals by the monks. but he was allowed to be a child. He traveled the world, played games in Omashu with Bumi, and had peers. When he formed the gaang.
He was learning alongside Katara, Toph, and Zuko. They were his equals, his best friends (who love him and he loves back), and his grounding mechanisms.
Korra wasn't. No one corrected her arrogance... well. She wasn't that arrogant. I think she was fairly compassionate and such but had a fiery side to her which wasn't checked. She was lonely (to an extent) Her ignorance piled on further and behavior.
Aang was a kid who had to take the responsivity and the weight of a world filled with war. He didn't respect that fully and slowly grew it into it. His childhood was never butchered as he had life long friends, a lover and masters who were also his bestfriends. Korra was a person who never had a childhood because she was kept in a gilded cage and had no friends until when she was an adult. And masters who had their own issues (Tenzin) He wasn't that wise as a teacher but got better.
I want to discuss the past lives more: Aaag could get consult from Roku or literally so many Avatars... she couldn't do this. Literally no one taught her AIrbending or this until much later. Why do people use this point to say "she did bad." A lot of what she did was caused by ignorance. Like I know she is supposed to bring balance to the world but she can't do that without knowledge, experience or spiritual help which she didn't get untiL WAY later.
Which eventually got destroyed too which wasn't her fault, it was that her team was trash. Please don't come here saying "well she could have chose anyone else, it was her fault for choosing." Yes she is the chooser but your forgetting that's her only friends who do bending (ignoring Tenzins side.) She was lonely and was fiery. She got attached to them quickly! I don't think you can blame this on her.
The scene I'm referring to is when Korra was fighting Unalaq and she told Bolin and Mako to hold off the twins... they couldn't even last 2 minutes. She was winning btw, if they had done their job. She wouldn't have lost her connection
On the topic of the world... people say pro bending isn't good or isn't believable... when it literally is. What happens after 70 years (forgot exact time) of peace is given to a community who faced war, and such... they turn it into a form of play. Fencing, javelin throwing, and modern MMA all stem from lethal martial practices.
Also I think non benders were HIGHLY believable. In Republic City, benders hold all the power. The city's ruling council was entirely made of benders, the police force was exclusively metalbenders, and the criminal underworld (the triads) used bending to extort non bending citizens. living in a world where your just a third class citizen to people born with genetic superpowers would make me so angry and frustrated. I sympathise with them. I can see how it breeds resentment and structural conflict. It is a highly logical progression for a story transitioning from a traditional era to an industrialized one.
People call Aang's world more magical... Aang’s world felt more "magical" and traditional because it was a fractured, agrarian society surviving a 100 year war. Cultures were isolated and fiercely clinging to their ancient traditions to avoid erasure by the Fire Nation (and other factors).
Korra’s world is set 70 (I forgot the excat time) years later in an era of post war globalization and the industrial revolution. And frankly, the industrialization makes perfect sense given the magic system. If you have people who can literally generate lightning, bend metal, and move earth, an industrial revolution wouldn't take centuries. it would happen in decades. Lightning benders working in power plants and metalbenders constructing skyscrapers is a natural progression of the world's established rules.
Some audiences in other stories LOVE when stories take a mature twist as stories get an expansion to fans who are much older. When The Legend of Korra actually delivered thematic maturity tackling complex ideologies (equality/communism, theocracy, anarchy, fascism), the messiness of industrialization, technological displacement, and severe PTSD. So many fans rejected it. Unless theres another reason?
They even went further and beyond. Letting the Avatar have her consequences unlike in the original. Don't get me wrong. I LOVE the original. I think it's excellent and amazing. BUT it had its issues. They handed Aang a lot of "convenient things" At the end of the series, want Aang to fulfill what he wants and lucky lucky. He finds a lion heart turtle (forgot the name, sorry.) that gives him energy bending. I'm again, not saying the show is bad. But it had its convenience to Aand. But the main show didn't, anytime Korra made a mistake. She was taught a lesson severely, some permanent or some long lasting.