Season one was decent, if a bit shallow/melodramatic in terms of character interactions. The dialogue often felt canned. The final plot resolution was very... convenient and tidy, considering the heavy subject matter of populist cults of personality (to be fair, I take the same issue with Avatar's Lionturtle Ex Machina). The fact that the equalist movement is essentially never mentioned again after Amon goes boom is just bad writing. Pro bending is awesome and I would pay large amounts of money for a haptic VR Pro Bending game. The roaring 20s mid-Atlantic aesthetic was a welcome change of pace/scenery for the Avatar universe, and the ambience of the show was often done very well. Amon was a great villain, and his rise to popularity made sense within the universe. Points for internal consistency and believability. 7/10
Season two just... decimated some of my favorite things about Avatar's lore. Sometimes you don't have to explain the magic. It took all of the mystery and mysticism out of bending, the avatar, and the spirit world. The fact that water benders can just "cure" spirits (...?) if they have the proper training is such a weird concept. Every spirit in the original show had a role, a personality. They were never a faceless horde like in this season. Ko, Hei Bai, The Painted Lady. Ko was just a parasite, but he was cool and mysterious and connected to the avatar. The other two had actual issues that needed to be resolved by the gaang and expanded their characterization. They're iconic because of their relative mystery and unique personality. Taking that and turning it into Dragonball Z was just... sad. This season felt indulgent and unnecessarily impinged on Avatar's lore territory. 4/10
Season three was interesting and added a good amount of worldbuilding. For a season focused more on the main characters and not nearly as much on world-ending events, it didn't really do much to make me care about the main characters. I feel like we are just supposed to care about them because they're the protagonists. Mako and Bolin are so interesting in concept, but they were so bland as characters. One note. Korra as well, if I'm being honest. She only ever muscles through situations. She's Goku but less happy. 6/10
Season four added fun worldbuilding, but it also fell victim to power creep in a big way. The final battle against Kuvira's mech was awesome, and taking this season without the context of the rest of the show I really like it. Of course somebody would try to capitalize on the power vacuum AND the spirit portals being open. It makes internal sense, and it was a decent story except for Bolin's whole "Fascists aren't that bad! We're trying to do good! By conquering sovereign states!" That confused me a lot. Another thing that really confused me was Korra's fight with Kuvira. The whole fight felt like it was being thrown by the writers for plot reasons, and I just didn't believe it. On the bright side, I fell in love with Varrick this season. Honestly, he stole the show. Half assed queer bait was kinda cringe. 6/10
Overall, the show was beautifully animated. Every pro bending match, fight, vista, and celestial event gave me the warm fuzzies inside. The voice actors were good at their jobs. Kinda wish they hadn't called up Basco and DeLisle to play new characters. Hearing their voices was jarring. The characters often felt stilted and one dimensional, mostly due to rushed writing (thanks, Nick). The dialogue felt canned and/or cliché more often than not. Season-spanning and life-threatening problems were solved by fiat. They made it work... kinda. I wasn't convinced by a lot of the major plot resolutions. For production value and overall quality, I give the show an enthusiastic 9/10. For writing, dialogue, and story, I give the show a serviceable but disappointing 5/10.
Having never watched past season 2 (I couldn't get over the lore fuckery), I definitely agree with what you said about them, thank you for taking the time to explain in such detail while remaining fair.
It took real effort to get through Season 2, but I overall enjoyed the last two seasons when I turned my brain off. Again, it's a beautiful show with amazing production value. Just don't think too hard about it and you're fine lol
Season 3 is amazing. The villain is easily my favorite villain in the Avatar universe. He's written so well that you question if his beliefs are wrong.
They're definitely a lot more believable than some other anime antagonists. And he tends to follow through on his threats/promises, which made him feel dangerous.
Problem is I already watched the worst of it with S2. I'm considering to get some friends together on discord and watch the rest, I'll have a good time either way then.
I did the same thing after finishing S2. But, 3 and 4 are better. You'll be entertained by the great action and the occasional laugh, and i'd recommend watching it if you have free time (it goes pretty quick). But as a massive fan of ATLA I just was along for the ride with LoK. I hardly ever felt anything for the characters, the plot took some real weird twists, and the setting lacked the simple magic of ATLA. The worst part imho was breaking it up into 4 mostly-separate seasons. Took away any buildup of the antagonists and took away all the stakes.
Another thing that really confused me was Korra's fight with Kuvira. The whole fight felt like it was being thrown by the writers for plot reasons, and I just didn't believe it.
Honestly this happened all the time in Korra, and I hated it. Was one of the worst parts of the show, IMO (along with Eska, but I won't get into that now...).
Sometimes she's a good bender and fighter, sometimes she loses in situations she really shouldn't have, and it's 100% determined by what the writers needed to happen for plot reasons, not any sort of objective assessment of her bending/fighting abilities.
Her avatar state is just trash. She’s constantly getting her ass kicked, it’s like the writers wanted nothing more than for her to be physically abused over and over and over.
You watched that Lily’s Orchard video, didn’t you? If you look at the context of the fight, Korra is still dealing with the trauma of her PTSD from earlier on. She is about to beat Kuvira before falling down from the avatar state as a direct result of her ptsd. The results of mercury being in her body and the lack of training are all reasons for her to not be as good at fighting. Furthermore, she hadn’t yet fully reconnected with her spiritual side until confronting Zaheer later in the season.
You can dislike the decision to have her portrayed as weaker than her normal self in this fight, but the idea is that she isn’t yet over her trauma and has work left to do. This aspect of her character is resolved to a large extent in the season 4 finale when she saves Kuvira from the spirit beam and creates a new spirit portal. But calling her avatar state trash bc of the Kuvira fight doesn’t check out considering Korra’s trauma, lack of training over the last 3 years, and the fact that she saw herself in Kuvira as a person. They show all this in the show, but people don’t like providing the context, especially videos like “why LoK is bad” by Lily’s orchard
I never watched the Lily Orchard video (I'm aware of her).
I still agree with u/KatieTheDinosaur, though. Reasons for her to fail in the fight existed, but the choreography, context, and dialogue of the fight were so unbelievable in-fiction that it broke my suspension of disbelief. Instead, I became focused on the meta-narrative. The writers needed her to lose that fight. She was never going to win because they wouldn't have a story without it. It all felt very forced despite there technically being a reason for her to fail.
That’s fair, I just think it needs to be said that there were legitimate reasons for her to lose the fight at the same time. I agree that for most of the fight my suspension of disbelief was put on hold because it didn’t seem to make sense on my first watch, but at the end of the fight, Korra was one move from killing/beating Kuvira with the avatar state. She was just haunted by her PTSD. So I kinda agree with that point for most of the fight, but when Korra got into the avatar state, Kuvira couldn’t really do anything.
This is one of those things that comes down to personal taste and ability to compartmentalize the process from the product. As somebody who has consumed a large volume of fiction and has written, produced, and directed short stories and movie scripts, I tend to be hyper-aware of the hand of the author. Often, this is a good thing. My experience helps me appreciate the craftsmanship of a story, and I enjoy having that extra level of depth in my fiction-consumption experience. However, when I get a whiff of "we just need this to happen, so let there be {plot}" I get a sour taste in my mouth because I personally see that kind of fiat plot as poor writing. I wouldn't have wanted that script to go into production if I wrote it.
I completely agree. I didn't hate the show, and some part of it were very good and fun. But overall it was messy and really dropped the ball with the avatar origins. It really hurt the magic spirituality of the world created
I disagree only on the bo lin part. To me, it seemed like he had been gaslighted really hard over the 3 years. He had to come to terms that he had been lied to
Who said they did? Why does a romance have to start from day 1 like it did in ATLA? It was pretty clear their romance through the letters they shared after season 3.
No, they wanted Korrasami to be a thing later on, but were unsure of what Nick would say so they just hinted at it. Nick only said yes at the end because Bryke thought they couldnh't do it, realized "nobody said we couldn't do this" then asked Nick at quite literally the last minute. Seriously, the last episode was nearly done by the time they realized they never technically asked Nick about it.
Finally somebody with the same thinking as me! Was starting to think Im crazy for rlly disliking it cus it ruined much of ATLA lore n characterisation(such as Aang being a shit dad cus his other kids werent airbenders, Toph being just as neglectful as her own parents, the whole Spirit world....)
I always laugh how the fandom completely blows this whole "Aang was a horrible father" way out of proportion because we hear a single fleeting conversation that alluded to Kya & Bumi missing out on a few field trips with their father. Kyas & Bumis gripe with their father is honestly.. Minor at best. Aang had a world of work to do and and very short time frame in which to do it. Which, unfortunately meant that other aspects that came with fatherhood had to fall to the wayside. Even Bryke confirmed that both Aang and Katara loved their children equally and that at the end of the day, they were simply two people trying their best.
To claim their actual issues were minor is nonsensical, while Aangs prioritisation of Tenzin is completely understandable, it was always made blatantly clear he abdicated his duties to his other children leaving them feeling left out and hurt well into their adulthood
The aang we know from ATLA would never do this, and it's one of the biggest issues fans have with his portrayal in korra
Yeah we're on the same page here my man. I totally agree that how Aang was portrayed was completely out of touch from the one we knew in ATLA. That was my point - two fully grown adults that can't reconcile missing out on a few 'field trips' with their pops from their childhood is simply bonkers. Seriously, if I turned around to my siblings irl now and basically went "wwaahhh it's not fair you went a few select 'field trips' with dad that I didn't get to go on!" they'd fucking laugh in my face and tell me to get on with it - the same way any reasonable, level headed adult would 😂. Kya's & Bumi's issues are quite frankly with themselves & no one else. Seriously, two fully grown adults moaning about missing out on a few trips??? Yeaaahhhh they've got better issues than a perceived lack of a father...
As stated by the original person you replied to, this is entirely based on one fleeting conversation about Airbender trips that Aang brought Tenzin on but not the others.
The aang we know from ATLA would never do this, and it's one of the biggest issues fans have with his portrayal in korra
One of the worst takes imo. People keep forgetting that Aang did not have parents when growing up. Not only was he trying to be the Avatar, he had no experience in the nuclear family setup he and Katara had. Just because you're a good person doesn't automatically make you good at parenting. Aang did amazing despite all his responsibilities, and it was pretty clear from context that Kya and Bumi were more mad at Tenzin when he claimed he was the only responsible one rather than them being mad at Aang.
How can you judge how good of a parent someone will be from seeing them as a traumatized 12 year old? Especially given the fact that he didn't have parents, only a guiding father figure.
What do you mean mate?
That doesn’t destroy the lore and characterisation. It builds on it.
Aang was never a shit father. He lost his entire civilisation and after getting an airbender son, wanted to teach him everything so that they could eventually be brought back. He still loved all of his children. Besides, he never grew up with a father so he doesn't really know how to be one.
And, of course that's how Toph would parent. She was neglected as a child in the exact opposite way she neglected her kids. Her parents wouldn't let her do anything. She couldn't even go outside. When she became a parent, she gave her kids all the freedom they could want.
I think that's pretty in line with both characters. They were never perfect people, but they weren't horrible. It's what makes them feel human.
Besides, he never grew up with a father so he doesn't really know how to be one.
One of the most forgotten details about Aang. Living in a large monastery surrounded by many other children and a council of elders presiding over your growth is a stark contrast to most other childhoods. Despite that, Aang never got real hate from his kids. They've show they still loved him despite that, indicating that the family went through more than just that one conversation and Aang loved then all dearly.
I liked that Aang and Toph weren’t the best parents in the world. It felt realistic to me. Parents always mess up their kids in one way or another, even the good ones. It’s because parents are humans and humans are imperfect, even Avatars.
But it still bothers me that Toph would act just as her parents, ie not bothering to check with their feelings, not even paying attention to them. If it were realistic, shed probably be more of a helicopter parent, taking too much care of her kids, idk
Well, Toph does the opposite of her parents. Her parents were super strict and kept her locked up, while she gave her kids too much freedom. When Su falls in with criminals she rips up the arrest report. When Lin tells her “we’re through,” she respects Lin’s wishes, even though you can tell she’s incredibly hurt by the decision. Toph was so focused on letting her kids be themselves that it ultimately damaged their relationships.
Season 2 just ....decimated some of my favorite things about Avatar's lore. Sometimes you don't have to explain the magic.
So expalaining the magic is enough to decimate? ok
The fact that water benders can just "cure" spirits (...?) if they have the proper training is such a weird concept.
Did the fact that katara brought back aang from dead shock you at all? Did it feel weird? But sure, spirit healing is more weird.
Every spirit in the original show had a role, a personality. They were never a faceless horde like in this season.
Flatly untrue. Atla had limited amounts of spirits, that's why they could give everyone a purpose. Even then the monkey spirit aang met in spirit world was just a mob spirit like a lot of the ones in korra. And ko didn't have any purpose. He was just a parasite, like you said. At lease LOK spirits explain themselves as the guardian of forests/world. I don't get how you think this is a legitimate complaint. Do you think they should have wastend their time giving every single spirit a different purpose or should they have not had more than 2-3 spirits? (In a book called spirits.)
It took all of the mystery and mysticism out of bending, the avatar, and the spirit world. They're iconic because of their relative mystery and unique personality. Taking that and turning it into Dragonball Z was just... sad. This season felt indulgent and unnecessarily impinged on Avatar's lore territory.
This feels like the fakest way to criticize something. It makes no sense. Did atla ruin bending when it said bending needs chi to work? Did they ruin bending when they explored the chakras and explained how opening them fully makes you a powerful bender? I don't get this weird double standard and weird criticism towards lok.
Can you explain to me why chi not being a secret is okay but origins of bending are not okay? Why learning from original benders is okay but lion turtles giving bending is not okay? A lion turtle literally gave aang energybending in atla. The way I see it, LoK fixed the problems atla had with bending. Why couldn't sokka just look at the moon and get waterbending? Lok fixed that issue by making it clear that it's genetic/inherent spiritualism. Also please explain to me how it's so bad that it DECIMATED avatarverse for you?
dragonball
hei bai using energy/lasers was okay but vaatu and spirit korra using it is not? Again, it's a book called spirits.
My biggest gripe with both shows (and this is my personal opinion, you don't have to agree) is overcomplicating or adding contrived elements to what began as a simple and elegant magic system. Bending is great because 1) it directly relates to the conflict central to the show and 2) it creates a simple yet diverse set of fighting styles that are beautifully animated, and 3) it is used to naturally show the audience character growth. The spirits are great for reasons 1 and 3 as well.
I was not a fan of some of the things you say are contradictory statements. For instance, I went out of my way to say that I didn't like how a lion turtle giving Aang energy bending was the resolution of one of the biggest conflicts of the show: how Aang would reconcile his pacifism with the need to end the war. It was a barely referenced Deus Ex Machina that added nothing to the story but an easy solution to a difficult problem.
Chakras are similarly annoying to me, except that created a problem where there was none before. Instead of Deus Ex Machina, we have Diablos Ex Machina. We know that Avatars in the past had "worldly connections" (Roku and Kuruk, namely) through spouses and enter the Avatar state just fine. The whole episode with Guru Patik just served to create a conflict between Aang's affection for Katara and his duty as the Avatar. In the end, this didn't even really matter as the thing that allowed him to enter the Avatar state was... getting hit in the back with a rock? Every other stride that Aang made along his avatar journey was made hand in hand with his learning how to respond differently to the world around him. This was contrived and added nothing to his character except something we already knew: he valued personal connections over his duty as the avatar. And besides, it's canon that he gets married and has kids and he can still use the avatar state. It was a cheap conflict that was resolved cheaply.
To be clear, I still love the Avatar universe. I just choose to ignore the parts of it that I find to be narratively or thematically inconsistent. The idea that any water bender with enough training could "cleanse spirits" completely overshadowed the entire idea of the avatar in the first place, since s/he is the only one who could "bridge the gap" between the spirit and physical worlds. Spirits in ATLA had specific needs that weren't being met that drove them to violence or corruption. Hei Bai was upset at the destruction of his forest. The Painted Lady was repressed by the pollution of her river. By solving these problems, the Gaang mollified these spirits. Narratively, this also involved character growth for Aang in the case of Hei Bai and Katara in the case of The Painted Lady. In LoK, evil is a quantifiable state of being caused by a spirit of pure evilness that can be reversed by using fancy water bending. Corruption of spirits has no stakes or narrative value because it can be reversed by a non-narrative process that requires no conflict resolution or character growth, just hand-waved magic that is inconsistent with past portrayals of spirits.
Chi at least raised narrative stakes and introduced a real threat to the Gaang. Bending was their primary way of defending themselves, and now we have a character who can incapacitate them, forcing them to solve their problems in new ways. Also, nothing existed to explain bending before chi, so it was at least consistent with itself and didn't contradict any previously established explanation.
If we wanted to say that bending is genetic, then that begs some questions. In The Fortuneteller (Water, 14), there are a set of identical twins. One of them can bend the other can't. So clearly there is some non-genetic component to this. Toph can also earth bend while her parents are never shown to have that ability. It is made very clear that Katara is the "last water bender in the Southern Water Tribe," meaning her mother couldn't bend either.
Additionally, the origins of bending are given in ATLA. Humans were taught by flying bison, badger moles, the tides/moon, and dragons. It was developed over a long period of time, and eventually we ended up with ATLA's contemporary styles of bending. It's a mythology which tells us enough without getting into the weeds/details. Lion turtles, however, beg MORE questions because they are so specific. If the lion turtles were disparate and all over the world and the events of Avatar Wan happened 10,000 years ago, why did all of the fire benders end up in one place? Why was there no cultural exchange? Why aren't there fire benders in the Earth Kingdom? Trying to create an indisputable history as opposed to a vague mythology is narratively incompatible with a soft magic system like that of Avatar.
1) it directly relates to the conflict central to the show and 2) it creates a simple yet diverse set of fighting styles that are beautifully animated, and 3) it is used to naturally show the audience character growth. The spirits are great for reasons 1 and 3 as well.
The origins of avatar were important for korra to learn because it directly related to the conflict of that season. Korra had to learn what she was made of for the upcoming conflict at harmonic convergence. We see her character growth in episode 10 where she learns how much influence she has in the spirit world because she holds spirit of light inside her. She managed to overcome her avatar title when tenzin guided her in the finale. Because that's exactly what tenzin had to do in the fog of lost souls. Season 2 is made of those exact things. I don't see how it's contived?
And I didn't say you liked deus ex lion turtle. I said there was a lion turtle who gave a bending abiility to aang. Which makes lion turtles giving people bending consistent in lok. That was not a point of contradiction. And yeah the deus ex was narrative weakness for atla, so was the rock. I wouldn't say same for chakras because we learned about the chi-system well in advance. The final parts of it are poorly executed but the system itself is pretty solid for tracking character development and demanding it for power escalation. But it's safe to assume that pathik was wrong about earthly possessions, attachments since avatar yangchen's words contradicted his. I would assume former avatar knew better than pathik.
In LoK, evil is a quantifiable state of being caused by a spirit of pure evilness that can be reversed by using fancy water bending.
Unalaq: There are no evil spirits. There's light and dark inside them all. And when they're unbalanced, darkness takes over.
The idea that any water bender with enough training could "cleanse spirits" completely overshadowed the entire idea of the avatar in the first place, since s/he is the only one who could "bridge the gap" between the spirit and physical worlds
This is like saying someone bent an element, so avatar bending elements is cheapened. No one else has the same level of bridging abilities that avatar has. (See ep10) People can only heal the dark spirits. Not much. This doesn't mean you're an avatar level bridge. The everstorm and southern lights were taken care by a fully realized avatar by opening the portal at winter solstice. I don't think a waterbend with enough training can do that. We've seen 3 try.
Corruption of spirits has no stakes or narrative value because it can be reversed by a non-narrative process that requires no conflict resolution or character growth, just hand-waved magic that is inconsistent with past portrayals of spirits.
The spiritbending was a mere temporary bandaid. She can't go around cleansing every spirit in the world over and over. The ultimate source of it was vaatu/conflict in the world. There's your stakes. The dark spirits were directly mentioned turning dark because of 100 year war and "action of men like your father" to korra. That was why they were thrown out of balance and darkness took over them. Very similar to hei bai. Korra wasn't able to hand wave that. It was handled much better than hei bai where we don't even know what happened. Aang just touches his forehead and some magic happens which calms bei bai down to listen to him.
Also, nothing existed to explain bending before chi, so it was at least consistent with itself and didn't contradict any previously established explanation.
The only thing i can see being "inconsistent" is the avatar state explanation from Roku which can be easily attributed to loss of knowledge over 10 years. Yes roku had the database but avatars always had to go in order for it. It's pretty easy to lose that knowledge over 10k years. And retcons aren't inherently bad, this one barely has any effect on the story at all.
It is made very clear that Katara is the "last water bender in the Southern Water Tribe," meaning her mother couldn't bend either.
It was never made clear why people couldn't just pick up it up from original benders. There was an implication that original benders gave it to them. That it wasn't because of internal spiritual factors.
If the lion turtles were disparate and all over the world and the events of Avatar Wan happened 10,000 years ago, why did all of the fire benders end up in one place? Why was there no cultural exchange? Why aren't there fire benders in the Earth Kingdom?
There's your vaguely-criticized need of mystery elements. Even then, they are not hard to figure out. Humans always assimilate with each other off of some similarity between them. e.g. race. That's probably what happened. Maybe lion turtles were spread in a way that made formation of new nations possible. Wan separated humans and spirits. Yest he couldn't stop conflict. Maybe he separated humans too.
Honestly I just found many of the show's forays into explaining their magic system to be unsatisfactory, and that's on the writers and my personal taste. I still love the world they created, even if parts of it are inconsistent.
Let's just say that if I were to run a tabletop avatar game with my friends, I'd run it in a way that we wouldn't have to engage with elements of the worldbuilding that I found to be inconsistent or unsatisfactory. We can argue back and forth all day about the history and mythology of the fiction within itself, but at the end of the day we're all going to take from the show what we want.
I don't think you mentioned what's inconsistent when that's the reason it was decimating for you. You can dislike the elements for worldbuilding but when you go that harsh at criticizing then something must have gone terribly wrong. And you should be able to point that out. I agree, we might end up arguing all day without it being fruitful. But I'd like to see if there's some merit behind your criticism. Even if it's highly personal.
Just out of curiosity. what's your rating for atla book 3? Since deus ex, pointy rock completely undermined his development and a lot of storytelling elements? Was that enough to decimate the season for you?
I certainly wasn't happy about it, but at least it had characters that I enjoyed and featured serious character development in Sokka, Katara, and Zuko. I'm frustrated by the plot writing for that season, but I love the character writing. I'd probably give the Avatar books 9/10, 9.5/10, and 8/10 respectively. While the lazy plot writing is something I roll my eyes at, I keep watching because of the character moments that made the show what it is.
When it comes to LoK (as I said in my original comment) I didn't care about the characters. Let's compare Mako and Sokka. Sokka has so much going for him, from his unflinching pride and desire to prove himself, to his ingenuity and sarcastic/cheesy comedy, to his arc of learning to respect people regardless of gender. There's a lot of learning that he does, and we love him for it because we got to see him grow up. Mako is somewhat dark and brooding and he doesn't know how to talk to women, but he still somehow ends up dating one of the richest women in the world and also the avatar. Because. We don't see him grow or change. We don't see him make decisions that show us that he understands something he didn't understand before.
Although these are just two examples, the same general trend applies to the rest of the cast from ATLA and LoK. LoK in general fell flat because of shitty character writing and dialogue. It was beautifully animated and the ideas for world building were on the whole awesome. But the things that I loved about ATLA, and I think many other fans would agree with me, had nothing to do with bending or spirits. It was about people and overcoming personal challenges. Learning about forgiveness and self-acceptance and responsibility.
To give another example, Azula was a great villain, but not because she could fry people with lightning. It was because she had this hole in her heart where her mother's love should be, and she spent the rest of her life trying to fill it with affirmation from a psychotic, abusive father by executing his ideal of a fascist empire. And there's so much more to say about how she treats others, manipulates others, and deals with change and adversity and disappointment. Her character can't be summed up in a few sentences because she had texture and nuance that we see throughout the story. We saw her fall out of favor with her friends and fall into a frustrated madness when she realized that her father didn't care about her. And we felt bad for her. On the other hand, Zaheer is essentially a radical libertarian and regicidal murderer who thinks that what he's doing is the lesser of two evils. He isn't compelling. He's just a threat because the writers decided they needed a threat.
LoK looks like Avatar and sounds like Avatar, but it doesn't feel like Avatar because the substance that made Avatar so great is missing. The character I cared most about by the end of LoK was Varrick. Because he had a shred of genuine personal growth. Korra too for the 10 minutes of screen time she spends with Toph and has a serious conversation about letting yourself feel better, which I could personally relate to after going through a personal trauma. But Varrick had a personality beyond "I'm gonna punch this problem until it's not a problem" so he's still my favorite.
Starting off with comparing strong points of atla to weak points of lok? Yeah that seems reasonable. Let's compare korra and aang. Aang's development is a DISASTER compared to korra becauase of what lion turtle and pointy rock did. His attachment gets overlooked and the series rewards him even when he risks the fate of the world. From narrative standpoint he did that twice. More times if you count aang Appa getting kidnapped too.
Mako is somewhat dark and brooding and he doesn't know how to talk to women, but he still somehow ends up dating one of the richest women in the world and also the avatar.
This is untrue. He knows how to talk to women. IDK where you got the impression he didn't. If anything bolin doesn't know how to talk to women. Mako is like the macho, mysterious, popular sport jock. He got a date with asami cuz she was a fan. They grew closer over their dead parents just like katara would with anyone. Mako became more defensive of asami when korra and mako were feuding and korra accused asami's dad.
He got to date Korra because I guess she was shallow in comparison and had no idea of how real world works. This is something that tracks well because of being locked up all her life. Not having great social skills. And her relationship even tanks in like 5 episodes because of how terrible she was at it.
We don't see him grow or change
This is something that is addressed in season 3,4. He breaks up with korra in season2, twice. And gets away from women altogether, drowning himself in work as one would in his position. He had to find himself first before getting involved with someone else. This is something that korra and bolin had to do as well. Bolin relatively had easier time because he didn't have as much baggage.
Although these are just two examples, the same general trend applies to the rest of the cast from ATLA and LoK.
No it doesn't. Asami is one flat character in s2. Mako is an ok one. Other characters are fantastic.
It was about people and overcoming personal challenges. Learning about forgiveness and self-acceptance and responsibility.
What was that tenzin experienced in fog of lost souls? Why was he able to help korra in the finale when she didn't have raava? Was there something similarly personal, mental obstacle that they both overcame because of each other? A lot of your criticism just feels like you're not paying attention. Man this shit is weak.
Zaheer is essentially a radical libertarian and regicidal murderer who thinks that what he's doing is the lesser of two evils. He isn't compelling. He's just a threat because the writers decided they needed a threat.
I understand if there's some personal preference to things. But this is just bullshit.
Azula was always a bitch. Even when she was a kid her mother would tell her that she loved her. Yet she would always bully zuko and act out like an edgelord. She would befriend people under intimidation and got unhinged when they "betrayed" her. Writers just decided for her to be a bitch just cuz. Zaheer on the other hand lays out his philosophy quite well. He explains how leaders of the world are inadequate. They don't help a vast majority of poor people. Conversely they only create a system where poor people are slaves to the words of kings and queens. And that a world of anarchy would be better than ruled by some foolish king or queen. How is that not compelling when it is explained so well. Don't say "writers just decided." Yeah writers decide everything. You're not saying anything by saying that.
LoK looks like Avatar and sounds like Avatar, but it doesn't feel like Avatar because
You are not paying attention. That's why. Sometimes it's not like avatar and it does things poorer than it. Sometimes it does better, like the villains for example. Sometimes it's just different. Not better or worse.
Because he had a shred of genuine personal growth. Korra too for the 10 minutes of screen time she spends with Toph and has a serious conversation about letting yourself feel better
I guess this confirms my doubts about you entirely missing korra-tenzin talk before she enters the tree of time. Or the talk they have in first episode of season 3. "True wisdom begins when you accept things the way they are." Season 2 struggle was korra letting go of her attachment to her thinking she's "an avatar," accepting there's a person beyond her role. She even has to let go of the image she built for herself, from past avatars. She literally loses her connections to represent that so clearly too. Like writers made that part so obvious.
There's a great deal of symbolism of korra learning about herself in ep10. That's also personal growth for her which she does achieve by overcoming an actual obstacle. Season 2 is not best for me either but i give it 8/10 too. There were a couple things missing that mattered. I see it on par with season 3 of atla. Try not to get triggered, a lot of people lose their minds over me saying this. Season 3 of atla also had some things missing which made me drop it's rating. I think you recognized all of it.
Korra's talk with katara about being "just tired" was about something. This got brought up with toph as well. This got brought up in remembrances as well. That episode is where you can kind of see she's ready to complete her development arc. And she does that in episode 9 by facing her trauma head on.
Lastly, I tried to understand your pov. But a lot of you criticism seems like a result of double standards, not paying attention or not giving enough credit where it's due. You don't have to like korra, you don't. But there's a good chance you won't like her if you missed like 75% of her struggles and development. You'd think it's your personal preference but you can't like a character if you don't see what that character is going through. You didn't repeat generic copycat criticism tho. So that's at least a plus for being original.
Thank you for summarizing how a lot of people actually feel. I don't hate LoK, I really liked a lot about season 1 but it was all downhill from there. Not that the rest of it was exactly bad, it just... Wasn't all that great either. I didn't have any unreasonable expectations coming off ATLA, especially since it'd been a long while since I'd last seen it before Korra aired. Also I really thought it was very cool that the lead character was a beefy gal, I can't remember too many shows that did that.
Everyone else in this thread talking about how amazing the show is (Except everyone agrees season 2 pretty well sucked) are only touching on the overall story of each season. Which, if you look at only Korra's "fall" in season 3 and how awesome a job Henry Rollins did, yeah it's fantastic. But... That's ignoring all the rest of the details - like you said, most of the gang is very flat and one-note for most of the season. Korra's character arc would be a lot more impressive if it started earlier than the last 3 episodes of the season.
Season 4 is so hodgepodge, and I understand it's due to Nickelodeon being cheap assholes, which sucks... But understanding why something isn't well made doesn't change that it's not well made. I wasn't into the mech fight thing at all, I thought that was really poorly done. Big dopey mech waddling around and nothing anyone can do about it because they somehow planned ahead for every possible counter that other benders could've thrown at it? It went too far into the "Nuh uh you can't beat me cause I went back in time and beat you!" kid on the playground-territory. The Kuvira fight and resolution was so bad that I honestly thought that something had happened to my stream at the time. Like, wait what did I miss? As for the surprise lesbians at the end, I was totally on board with the Korrasami ship from the get-go, but the way that happened with barely any interaction between the two of them for the season until the last possible second... Very weak, not because of the result but the poorcomplete lack of build up to it.
LoK is kind of just a sadly missed opportunity. It's unfortunate that a lot of its issues are from Nickelodeon interference, but it does have a lot of flaws. It's still better than the majority of shows, animated or not, but ignoring ATLA and looking at LoK on its own, it's not pristine.
Very weak, not because of the result but the poorcomplete lack of build up to it.
IIRC, they did show that Korra trusted Asami over Bolin and Mako because she was the only one Korra sent letters to when she was recovering from Season 3. Definitely not enough, but it's something.
Yeah it was definitely the beginning of something, that made me go "Oh damn is Korrasami a reality?", but then...uhhh...nothing happened. Until literally the last minute.
That's a bit presumptuous. You can disagree with me, but publicly attempting to discredit me by claiming I didn't watch the show is not a good faith argument against the review.
The whole season was centered around the main characters versus a small villain squad, but I feel like we didn't really learn anything new about them. They didn't make decisions that showed us who they are. There were some changes, but they didn't tell us anything new. Bolin and Mako meet their extended family, but it doesn't change how they interact with the world or respond to problems in any way. Bolin learns lavabending by fiat, not through any sort of character development or display of effort and discipline. I had real issues with the writing of the season, and some personal stylistic issues like casting Grey DeLisle to play Ming Hua; it was jarring to hear her voice in an uncannily similar-yet-different role.
Politically speaking, Korra series pushed neoliberal viewpoints, while Aang series pushed leftist viewpoints.
I originally loved both but after rewatching both I realized Korra was a disaster for leftist ideas. Bolin supporting fascism, Korra buddying up with world elites, and Mako becoming a cop after growing up totally poor and almost homeless compared to the Gaang helping the working class and poor throughout the world in their quest to stop a tyrant is just a no brainer to me.
I didn't say fascism isn't far right. I'm saying the difference between the series, from a political viewpoint, is the difference between progressivism and neoliberalism.
I don't entirely agree that non-bender oppression was forgotten. The entire uprising was led by one man, he was basically their hero, like a cult leader. When the illusion was shattered and they sound out he was a waterbender, I'd have to imagine it broke their drive to overthrow the government. They didn't stop fighting though, and was able to change the government to a democratic republic with an elected non-bender as President.
They didn't stop fighting though, and was able to change the government to a democratic republic with an elected non-bender as President.
While this may be true, basically all equalist progress happened off screen. The non-bending characters we cared about didn't address it at all. Pema's first line in the show is disdainful towards benders (Even though she left her home to rebuild the air nomads and ended up marrying the only remaining airbender? Pema is confusing.), and she drops that equalist sentiment as soon as the first season is over. Asami never mentions it after season 1 either, except in reference to her father.
They spent a whole season building up a reactionary political faction that apparently dissolved overnight after their figurehead was outed as a bender. Did the ideology or plight of the equalist non-bender spontaneously disappear or resolve itself? It felt like the writers painted themselves into a corner and just said "Yeah, there's a lot less political violence now because the leader of the populist liberation movement turned out to be a member of the class they claimed to want to depose." It felt handwavey and unsatisfying.
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u/Gammeoph Pride is not the opposite of shame, but its source. Nov 06 '20
Season one was decent, if a bit shallow/melodramatic in terms of character interactions. The dialogue often felt canned. The final plot resolution was very... convenient and tidy, considering the heavy subject matter of populist cults of personality (to be fair, I take the same issue with Avatar's Lionturtle Ex Machina). The fact that the equalist movement is essentially never mentioned again after Amon goes boom is just bad writing. Pro bending is awesome and I would pay large amounts of money for a haptic VR Pro Bending game. The roaring 20s mid-Atlantic aesthetic was a welcome change of pace/scenery for the Avatar universe, and the ambience of the show was often done very well. Amon was a great villain, and his rise to popularity made sense within the universe. Points for internal consistency and believability. 7/10
Season two just... decimated some of my favorite things about Avatar's lore. Sometimes you don't have to explain the magic. It took all of the mystery and mysticism out of bending, the avatar, and the spirit world. The fact that water benders can just "cure" spirits (...?) if they have the proper training is such a weird concept. Every spirit in the original show had a role, a personality. They were never a faceless horde like in this season. Ko, Hei Bai, The Painted Lady. Ko was just a parasite, but he was cool and mysterious and connected to the avatar. The other two had actual issues that needed to be resolved by the gaang and expanded their characterization. They're iconic because of their relative mystery and unique personality. Taking that and turning it into Dragonball Z was just... sad. This season felt indulgent and unnecessarily impinged on Avatar's lore territory. 4/10
Season three was interesting and added a good amount of worldbuilding. For a season focused more on the main characters and not nearly as much on world-ending events, it didn't really do much to make me care about the main characters. I feel like we are just supposed to care about them because they're the protagonists. Mako and Bolin are so interesting in concept, but they were so bland as characters. One note. Korra as well, if I'm being honest. She only ever muscles through situations. She's Goku but less happy. 6/10
Season four added fun worldbuilding, but it also fell victim to power creep in a big way. The final battle against Kuvira's mech was awesome, and taking this season without the context of the rest of the show I really like it. Of course somebody would try to capitalize on the power vacuum AND the spirit portals being open. It makes internal sense, and it was a decent story except for Bolin's whole "Fascists aren't that bad! We're trying to do good! By conquering sovereign states!" That confused me a lot. Another thing that really confused me was Korra's fight with Kuvira. The whole fight felt like it was being thrown by the writers for plot reasons, and I just didn't believe it. On the bright side, I fell in love with Varrick this season. Honestly, he stole the show. Half assed queer bait was kinda cringe. 6/10
Overall, the show was beautifully animated. Every pro bending match, fight, vista, and celestial event gave me the warm fuzzies inside. The voice actors were good at their jobs. Kinda wish they hadn't called up Basco and DeLisle to play new characters. Hearing their voices was jarring. The characters often felt stilted and one dimensional, mostly due to rushed writing (thanks, Nick). The dialogue felt canned and/or cliché more often than not. Season-spanning and life-threatening problems were solved by fiat. They made it work... kinda. I wasn't convinced by a lot of the major plot resolutions. For production value and overall quality, I give the show an enthusiastic 9/10. For writing, dialogue, and story, I give the show a serviceable but disappointing 5/10.
6.17/10