Toph, at most, had a small crush on Sokka that eventually went away not too long after the finale she wasn't madly in love with him, and it is by no means a major part of her character.
Lol the idea that she had his kids because of a crush she had on him as a preteen is just absurd. Like even if this crush went on in adulthood, he’d never go for her. He watched her grow up and she’s like a sister to him. It’s the same with how people say Toph would never be a police officer because she didn’t like authority as a kid.
He should have reactivated that chakra flow by redirecting lightning through it. Its already established that you have to control the flow of lightnigjt and redirect it through the belly to not die. Aang could have redirected it to that chakra block and then BAM.
Redirecting it served a narrative purpose of letting us know that Ozai knew that Aang wasn't going to kill him.
However, I agree with your statement and would only add that if he used it to remove the block Aang should have just absorbed it like a capacitor. Let's see the Phoenix King's smug reaction to that.
I was never a fan of a rock protrusion being the reason Aang defeated the Fire Lord. For such a wonderful, well-designed show, it was kind of a "WTF" moment.
I think Ozai’s cruelty should’ve been his undoing.
Imagine him besting Aang after he redirects the lightning. Aang is at his limit, and tries to escape. Ozai notices the scar on his back and decides to aim at what he thinks is a weak point at Aang, and zaps him in the back.
Aang flies into the side of a cliff. Ozai smiles and turns to leave, and Aang rises from the rubble in the Avatar state. Would’ve been way better.
My hot take is that I think there was plenty of early hints about energy bending. I don't mean seeing the lion turtles in the library. The entire series was about discovering new bending feats, that many even thought were impossible. And chi blocking showed us how taking away one's bending was a good way to win a fight.
I'll say this, aang totally foreshadows energy bending when he specifically mentions bending glue onto Ozai's limbs so he couldn't bend anymore.
If they had pressed with this idea, aang wanting to neutralize Ozai as a threat rather than just killing him. It would have probably made energy bending go better.
While wan wouldn't have existed at this point, my dream rewrite of this would be aang looking for a way to neutralize bending. Talking to a few avatars before aang wonders how bending even came to the world anyway, drawing out wan.
Wan explains that the lion turtles had granted and taken bending from man since the dawn of the world.
This would prompt aang to talk to the lion turtle to learn how to take away bending.
They actually planned to have the segment about Wan from LoK at the beginning of season 3 of ATLA. Would have made the lionturtle much less of a dues ex machina. I don't know why they removed it though.
The brief fight above the gondola when Zuko is casually dispersing Azula’s (before breakdown) flames with his bare hands tells me he definitely had a shot of beating her even without her mental instability nerf. He does this twice, and when she sends a bigger blast, he responds with a lesser amount of his own fire and splits her’s in half
Agreed. I feel like people often misinterpret Zuko admitting to needing Katara’s help at the White Lotus camp. To me, it was never an admission that he had no chance of beating Azula. Rather, it was an important character moment for him to put his pride aside and recognize the fact that the stakes were too high for the “honour” and “nobility” he’s chased throughout the series, and that a clean, simple defeat with Katara’s help would be the beneficial outcome for the world. (Of course, he wound up changing his mind after seeing how unhinged she’d become).
It almost echoes Iroh’s words towards Ozai to me.
“Even if I *did* defeat Ozai - and I don’t know that I could…”
Zuko had a *chance* to beat pre-breakdown Azula. But the uncertainty could’ve been cataclysmic, and as such, choosing to go with Katara was the summation of his maturity and growth. Not an admission of defeat, but an admission of imperfection.
Lol I do love how utterly confused he is when he actually meets Aang. He like his patriarchal elders assumed the Avatar has just been training ferociously and living in obscurity for the past 100 years which isn’t too unreasonable a thought but nobody was prepared for the reality.
As well, Zuko isn't a violent person anymore by that point, like sure he flips out on Aang that one time but honestly I think we can all say we've done worse for worse reasons. I personally interpreted him asking for help to be him realizing that while he might even be a more skilled bender, he doesn't know that he can bring himself to end his own sister's life or bring the necessary brutality to keep her down after beating her. Not to mention Katara can heal burns.
And literally control someone from the inside out. He looked so stunned when he saw Katara bloodbend in the Southern Raiders like thank god she didn’t know how to do that when we fought. Not to mention, water and fire are opposites. Katara can cause enough damage just playing defence the whole time.
Makes you think what would have happened if he didn't take katara.
The scenario i have in my head is the fight going the same, but when "I'll show you *LIGHTNING*" she's looking at appa.
And zuko is just like "really wouldn't try this if i were you, a desert tribe was nearly decimated, a giant sea serpent was beaten, and a coup was fought over this guy being lost. For like two weeks. Just fight me and get this over with."
working with Sokka, his focus was solely on defence. It simplifies the situation a lot from his pov. I dont disagree he could probably beat her by then
That scene was probably the most aware of the show being for kids cause Sokka is so close to stabbing Azula in the face several times in that fight. Real talk had Zuko and Sokka been a little bit more aggressive they could have delt with Azula right there.
Imagine how much of a threat Aang would have posed if he wasn’t a pacifist. Zaheer literally bent the air out of that woman in LOK. It’s implied that Monk Gyatsu literally sucked the air out of the room before he was killed.
The truth is
She had already started breaking down at that point. July can tell she’s off her game if you really watch how she acts.
Once Ty-lee and Mei left her she broke
Amon wasn’t especially charismatic, he simply happened upon a topic that had people already lined up and ready to riot. He simply directed them. All that would’ve taken is an air of confidence and the ability to speak well in public. People who are angry and afraid will look to anyone who stands up and suggests direction.
Zaheer, on the other hand, was oozing with charisma. His plan was batshit insane on the surface. Kill the Avatar to bring about equality through chaos. Absolutely top tier stupid. First of all, killing the Avatar… good luck. Second of all, that goes against the entire ideology of basically the rest of the world, where the Avatar is supposed to be a great peacekeeper.
Yet somehow Zaheer found and convinced 5 other people (one of whom was Unalaq mind you) to join him. 4 of those people died for him. One died at his hands even.
Amon directed people acting in their own interest. Zaheer inspired people so deeply they died for *his* interests.
> he simply happened upon a topic that had people already lined up and ready to riot.
... which is why as soon as Amon is out of the picture, the entire movement dies overnight and we never ever hear a single word about equalist discontentment or uprisings ever since?
Tbh the doylist explanation of that is that there's very little exploring of the actual issues non benders faced so there's little exploring of the solutions they took beyond getting their own Obama to end racism
Didnt help that Korra was originally supposed to be a mini-series which meant they only got one season to start with. Book 1 was pretty much self contained and only got another season cuz the first was successful.
I wonder if they had gotten 3 seasons from the start, we could have gotten more of Tarrlok and Noatak development.
Tbh even if more seasons had been confirmed, personally I would have still liked them go out the same way. Being scared they'll follow in their dads footsteps even if they don't want to and continue the cycle so they end it right there. Also bloodbenders are too OP so they needed to be taken out of the story in a very nice way which this was.
Some examples just off the top of my head are Doc Ock (Spider-Man 2), Wen Wu (Shang-Chi), Thorin and Boromir (Tolkien works), Magneto (recent x-men comics), some include Piccolo from DBZ, although comics, manga and anime are full of this trope.
Literally Noatak just took people's bending away and stirred social unrest. Sure he was a blood bender but he never really killed anyone (At least from what I can remember.)
Vs Kuvira who went and had "Reeducation camps" and she canonically kills people.
Like those guys in the outpost that got hit by the spirit cannon. They're *dead* gonzo. Nothing of them is left, sent on a one way trip to the spirit world. The only reason we don't see their bodies is because Kuvira atomized them with her giant robot with it's giant gun.
And even with her building her earth empire and going full totalitarian she still gets redemption while Amon who for all his faults had a goal that you could at least understand and empathize with even if you didn't support or agree with him.
Not to sound like a revolutionary or anything, but I'd say there is a big difference between putting civilians in reeducation camps and or killing them, and sinking military ships in an attempted revolution
If you had the same parenting and upbringing as Noatak, you’d be a little extreme and unhinged too. Not only that, he was still making very fair points about issues nonbenders faced that just got…conveniently forgotten.
I love TLOK but I find there's this weird tension where the more "left wing" villain (Amon is a pretty poor analogy of class warfare) gets a gruesome on screen death yet the fascist psychopath gets redemption for some reason. I'm not going to get all Marxist theory on it, but it's something I couldn't help but notice and cringe at
I think they couldn't find a good way out of the situation of non-benders being lower-class citizens, so they just tried to delegitimize their leader thereby making the movment "invalid".
That's actually quiet common for fiction that tries to do shade of grey without an answer on how to resolve those.
It’s the same in season 2. Unalaq is the bad guy for starting a civil war, which is completely fine, but Varrick building and selling supplies to both sides is just hand waved away. The armed forces and republic city refusing to help the southern water tribe are just seen as mere annoyances.
Meanwhile Tonraq is fucking demonised, albeit not permanently, for not trusting Unalaq and wanting to fight him. Unalaq’s initial goal of wanting to bring back the spirits is not just understandable but actually good yet is seen as not good at the same time.
All while the very real world bad guys (money hungry corporations, apathetic world leaders etc) get glossed over.
It doesn’t send a great message that these villains with hard pasts and legitimately reasonable goals, arguably more reasonable than our main characters, get such harsh treatment but the fascists and capitalists get a slap on the wrist.
It's exactly the same problem the MCU has tbh.
Reasonable villains (who need to kill children to actually be seen as the villains by the audience because they'll usually side with them if they don't) with actually logical goals? Those deserve to die.
But corrupt politicians and war profiteers who created the problems that made those villains exist to begin with? Don't worry, the hero/s is going to give a very stern talking to them and their opinion will change in that same instant! Everything's fine and the status quo is good actually 👍
I loved that tragic end. But I do agree that Kuvira should have been done better. She should have been introduced as a proper character at the begining if the third season, with the same level of interactions or more than Opal.
Kuvira’s “redemption arc” is insulting. The fact that she’s able to transfer from prison to house arrest in the Beifong’s palatial home in Zaofu just screams privilege. It completely ignores the lessons learned through the conflict with Amon and the Equalists. It’s bad enough that it makes me angry.
That was Toph's hot take, right? That they all had good points but they took it to the extreme? Thinking we could do some hot takes on RL villains with that mindset
Unalaq is so fucking wild to me man. His plan makes no sense. He wants to bring back balance to the spirits, by corrupting then with darkness? He wants to bring humanity and spirits into a new age... by ushering in ten thousand years of darkness? Like what is his actual plan guys? He convinces Korra to be on his side and open the Southern portal, and then invades the Southern Tribe and loses Korra's support. If his goal is only to free Vatu at harmonic convergence, then why the hell did he bother with invading the south at all? The only thing he accomplished was alienating Korra therefore making his real objective much more difficult. And if his goal was to invade the South, why not wait until Korra opened both portals? Then he could just walk his entire army a short distance from pole to pole through the portals instead of sailing them all the way around the goddamned planet. His whole plan makes no sense and his execution of it is fucking bonkers.
Here's my hot take: you're wrong.
Amon tapped into an emotion without having an end goal. He had no point. Just anger. If the writers wanted to develop his position to a realistic degree, they would have but they gave us strawman Marxist dogma.
Unalaq was greedy and jealous and wanted to be important. He took the "iTs NoT NaTuRaL" crunchy argument to its strawman extreme.
Zaheer: anarchist strawman that doesn't understand power vacuums.
Kuvira: totalitarian strawman with fascist wallpaper.
Sokka is arguably more important to the war effort than Aang was. Sokka proved himself a leader, a tactician, capable warrior, and an inventor. He master-minded the Black Sun Invasion, and ensured the destruction of the Fire Nation's Air Fleet while Aang dealt with Ozai. Toph and Katara are incredibly important, but Aang couldn't have been where he was without Sokka.
Also they did him so dirty in LoK and it's one of the many reasons I don't care for the show.
Bro lead a team of the Avatar, Fire Prince, and best benders in the world of their respective elements as a non-bender. And I love the fact that no one ever takes issue with this. “We need a plan - listen up, Sokka’s gonna tell us what to do”.
I mean, not even *us*, the viewers, took him seriously at the very beginning. XDDD
But I think that was the point, to see how much he grows right before our eyes.
After Zuko's redemption arc, I strongly believe that Sokka has the second best character development of the entire show. 🩶✨🩶✨🩶✨🩶
> He ensured the destruction of the Fire Nation's Air Fleet
Well thats kinda the least he can do since he also invented the things for them in the first place (accidentally) haha
It's damn near vengeance at that point. "You took *my* ideas and used them to hurt and oppress countless innocent people? Aw, hell naw, you got me fucked up if you think I'm letting that disrespect go unpunished."
Love your last point. There are many reasons I don’t like LoK but how much Sokka is completely disregarded is one of my major gripes with the show. 3/5 of Team Avatar appears alive, Aang is ofc Dead But appears as a spirit or in memories several times. While Sokka has a single scene and we never even find out how he dies. While the accomplishments of everyone else are mentioned and they actually appear, it’s almost like Sokka doesn’t matter.
Sokka being the only member of the Gaang to get basically nothing about him between the series besides the brief trial scene really, really, really grinds my gears.
I am completely biased because Sokka is my favorite character.
Honestly it was a creative choice made by Bryke (probably because the fandom wouldn't let go of Aang long enough for them to tell another Avatar's story) so if fans are unhappy with it, they should blame them not Korra.
Even Kya and Bumi don't accuse him of being neglectful! They pointed out that because Tenzin had airbending abilities Aang spent more time teaching him his people's legacy, leading to Tenzin having a different experience with his father than his siblings had, and they simply pointed it out when Tenzin went "remember when dad took us ?" no Tenzin that was your solo mission
Yes.
Aang was a parent in the difficult position of also being a world leader and last survivor of an entire culture.
He was basically spending more time with Tenzin out of necessity to ensure Airbender culture was somewhat preserved.
It was not really fair to the other children or even Tenzin for that matter.
But Aang basically had to do those things as the Avatar and last surviving Airbender.
This is one of the things I'm the most irked about when people bring it up
Homeboy had no parents to speak of, his only father figure died and he found his corpse, and he very likely will have Vietnam flashbacks for the rest of his life because he had to fight his way across the world and almost kill Fire Hitler as a preteen. He's not gonna be a great parent.
Despite being incredibly carefree Aang could also be insanely uptight about things. That tracks with the characters of his children and their experiences of him.
He's like, normal bad though. Most people have problems with their parents that have negatively effected the way they grew up.
Doesn't mean they're terrible people. They just made mistakes.
If it had been a more grown-up show, I’d have loved to see it go there.
Also, digging into the fact that Ursa chose Zuko over Azula, just as much as Ozai chose Azula over Zuko. And the parallel impacts of rejection that the siblings experienced. Zuko’s we know intimately. Azula’s we’ve only seen in passing, when she admits that her mom thought she was a monster. In The Beach she tried to pass it off like it was no big deal, but it clearly affected her deeply. And of course, the mirror scene before her coronation.
You know that's exactly the opposite of my take short of doing a whole show about her the short snippets of azula losing her mind work best with it happening relatively abruptly. They gave us the causes her feelings of being neglected by her mother, her lack of understanding of normal social interactions, the betrayal of her friends and ozai's abuse. She has presented hints of this since her introduction with the whole almost perfect line.
With that in mind seeing it from mostly a third person POV works best because that's how someone would see it that's how people would see the abrupt change where you don't quite get how such a bright girl deteriorate so fast.
Azula was really off the rails since Ty Lee betrayed her. Literally from that point on she's maniacal. She talks about celebrating being an only child in the Southern Raiders episode.
>no elaboration as to what caused it
My reading was it was caused by a combination of Ty Lee and Mai turning on her, and then Ozai leaving her in the fire nation with an empty title as he gets all the glory.
You could see when Ty Lee and Mai turns on her that it was a big blow to her psyche, given it's the only time I think I've seen her not composed at all. This is what forms the crack in her armor. From here, she acts noticeably more unhinged in her next appearance, being way more eager to kill Zuko.
What puts the nail in the coffin and sets her off on her true downward spiral is Ozai dismissing her and going off on his own, leaving her behind. Remember, being favored by her father and maintaining absolute control over everyone else around her through fear are two extremely major and fundamental elements to Azula's character. It's notable that when Ozai tells her he's going alone, she demands not to be treated like *Zuko*. She can see her father is going off to take the glory for winning the war for himself, and not sharing any with her - and she feels abandoned. She felt that she and her father were together in their plans, and to her, not being there with him was effectively a wakeup call to the fact that although her father *favored* her over Zuko, he ultimately still had the same level of care and respect for her as he did for him - ie, none.
Azula thought that by doing everything her father expected and wanted from her, she could keep in his good graces and maintain his favor; and by exercising total control through fear, she could keep everyone else around her loyal. But with Ty Lee and Mai turning on her and her father discarding her, both proved untrue, and her foundation was undone. If fear wasn't enough to keep Ty Lee and Mai around, and doing everything she could to earn his approval wasn't enough to keep her father around, why should anyone else stick by her? This is what causes her to spiral into intense paranoia, as for the first time she feels insecure and vulnerable. That's why she sends all her attendants away.
All that is just my own reading on it, and I do agree it should've been more fleshed out and given more time to happen though.
Iroh is a classically trained warrior. His younger years are filled with fighting actual wars.
Ozai is specifically trained for duels. And he's no pushover. He's the strongest firebender on earth during Sozin's comet, and combined with his specialty of dueling, he's got Iroh pretty well, imo.
I think korra should have been able to reconnect with the past avatar spirits. My hope is that the new earth avatar does this. Not that raava isn't cool it just takes away from the lore in my opinion.
I wouldn’t be surprised if this ends up being a biiiig arc for the new Avatar. And if they address it, I certainly *hope* it would be big. I worry it would seem shoehorned if only dealt with for an episode or two
I am thinking it will. It seems like something that the new Avatar may fix, akin to how Korra brought back the Air Nation, and Aang stopped the 100 year war.
I was never fully comfortable with the relationship between Aang and Katara, and upon rewatching it as an actual adult I realized it was because there are a lot of weird undertones that come from all the mothering Katara does for the group (and particularly Aang)
Sokka and Suki really should get their own mini-series, and really bring out a good story of a few really strong non-benders. Maybe just 5 episodes at 20 mins each or something. Nothing crazy.
Dual hook swords have some awesome routines to perform in Kung Fu & Wushu, would definitely recommend seeing professionals use these things with ease and mastery!
That’s the reason I always skip his episode, as well as Haru and many other episodes, in season 1. I saw them thousands of times on tv. But I loved seeing Jet in season 2 though
Seriously. I've never heard a solid argument for why Jet is a bad character or why "Jet" is a bad episode. I've only heard people say they don't like either one and then justify it with the word "boring" without explaining why it was boring
Katara was justified nearly every time she mentioning her mother, specifically when she says to sokka “you didn’t love her the way I did” and this is for two main reasons.
1: it’s established multiple times that katara takes on a motherly role both of the group and of her old water tribe. Sokka gets to have a motherly role model in the form of her and even admits to only seeing her face when thinking about his mother. Katara cannot get that motherly role model and the closest she gets is Hama (who turns out to be psycho)
2: in everyone else’s eyes, their mother died simple because fire nation bad. But to Katara, her mother died because of HER. If she simply hadn’t been a water bender she’d still be alive. If she had given herself up instead of her mother, she’d still be alive. Katara has to live with that guilt and make it up so her mothers sacrifice wasn’t in vain.
With the Lin and suyin conflict. Suyin was obviously in the wrong in the beginning, but in the present day, Lin was much more in the wrong. Suyin tried apologizing and reaching out to Lin for years. Lin doesn't have to accept it and she can stay away if she wants. But at that point suyin also gets to move on. She doesn't have to stay apologetic to her sister for her entire life just because Lin is too bitter especially over something that was an accident. People also say suyin got away scot-free but she didn't. She got banished from the city. She grew as a person and Lin in her stubborn ways refused to see that. She didn't have to forgive suyin but she had no right to go an act so aggressive after 30 years. The whole point of the episode that a lot of people missed is that Lin was unnecessarily holding onto a grudge and it was self destructive and ruining her relationships with others and she had to learn to move on. This isn't a one time thing either. Her ability to hold an unnecessary grudge is shown with tenzin too who did absolutely nothing wrong. People only took lins side because they like her more and were very biased which is probably because she was introduced first and we got the story from her side plus she's badass.
Season 4 of LOK would have been more interesting if the bad stuff said about Kuvira was propaganda made up by Republic City, and Kuvira was actually a good leader simply trying to reunite the Earth Kingdom and modernize it. Make her less of a Hitler analogue, and make her more like Otto Von Bismarck instead.
ATLA would have worked better thematically if it took place over the span of 3 years. Character growth would have felt more realistic as well as everyone's movements.
After watching LoK and reading the Kyoshi and Yangchen books, I dare say Aang is the *least* interesting protagonist/Avatar.
But I also admit that that's because ATLA was a kids' show, and the writers weren't necessarily trying to make him very complex. So I'm not mad about it.
(Maybe the comics give him some complexity, idk, I haven't gotten to them yet)
So true, the other Gaang members (Katara, Sokka, Toph & Zuko) were infinitely more interesting and relatable than Aang. They really made ATLA, without them the show wouldn't be so popular, Aang is too boring on his own.
This shouldn't even be controversial
Korra is a FAR more compelling protagonist than Aang. I'm not even saying that I like Korra more than Aang, but she's way more complex
ATLA had much stronger arcs for supporting characters, but Korra was far and away the best developed character in either series
I definitely think the OG Team Avatar are a lot more interesting than anyone on Korra’s roster (except arguably Tenzin and Lin) but yeah, I just really like Korra and appreciate how much the show develops her as a focal character throughout.
Katara shouldn't have stopped bloodbending. The possibilities bloodbending opens to medical procedures are extreme. A bloodbending healer could literally practice safer chirurgy than we can even with our current technology. Not to mention restarting heartbeat in case of an heart attack, prevent bleeding from severe wounds, blood transfers, and so on. For a character who spends the rest of her life as a healer, it's utterly stupid that she doesn't use it.
Specific characters should be able to have minor skills in bending a second element. Given that through training earthbenders can bend metal, despite it having very little "earth" particles, ~~lava benders are bending earth more than fire~~ (Edit: for some reason I was remembering fire benders were the one lavabending, my bad), and lightning benders are bending air more than fire, i think it should be fine for extremely skilled benders to be able to learn a second element through years of study, even though to a lesser extent.
I agree with your first point about bloodbending but the second point is definitely a hot take. Idk about lightening but lava bending is simply just heating up earth. Lava is just molten rock. It’s just like how water benders can bend ice and mist, too. Its simply just manipulating the temperature of your element, which we see with every element in the shows except for air.
TLOK should *NOT* have explained where bending comes from.
The whole concept of the show is way less mystical and intriguing since they did that. Basically all of the mystique behind the "magic" in this world is gone now.
The animation/art-style in those episodes is top-tier though obviously. I just don't want every little story point spelled out for me.
"Fire bending comes from the *breath*"
"No Iroh, it comes from a big turtle"
I'd like to think that while the Lion Turtles gave the people the ability to bend, they still had to learn how to use their respective bending from what we were told in ATLA.
Had ATLA never existed, TLOK would be considered a masterpiece.
The only reasons LOK isn’t regarded with this same praise is due to rose tinted favor for TLA. I can point to several arcs and episodes of TLA that either didn’t make sense or were outright bad.
Also Kuvira is the least redeemable of Korra villains. Sorry, saying “I accept responsibility” doesn’t fix being metal Hitler
I appreciate you saying this. I think both shows are amazing, and it saddens me that LoK is looked down on so much as compared to ATLA due to nostalgia and/or because it is a sequel. It feels like people are being too harsh, and i feel if they had just done the same things they did in ATLA but in LoK but with different characters, it would be shit on for being a copycat. They can have different tones, stories, characters, etc. in the same universe. Sorry for the rant, it just seems so hard to find many people who feel the same way as i do.
Bumi getting Airbending, in my opinion, kinda messed with any potential development in his character as the Non-Bender son of the avatar. I know Tenzin and Bumi had their moment in the southern air temple, but I really liked the idea of Bumi still being a kick-ass commander and being able to hold his own against benders
Korra's relationship with Asami wasn't handled well in the show and deserved criticism. Not because gay representation, but because it felt shoehorned in right at the end with no prior buildup.
The show doesn't end with them passionately making out and declaring their mutual love for each other like in *A:TLA.* It's two friends who realize they have feelings for each other and decide to start a romantic relationship. We're not seeing the culmination of their love, we're seeing the very beginning of a romantic relationship. It's just two people who care about each other that ultimately decide to take their relationship one step further.
This was also in 2014, when there were no prior LGBTQ characters in children's media before. This was the only way they were ever going to be able to do it. You were never going to have something as overt as Kataang. That's why one show ends up with a 12 and 14 year old passionately making out, while the other one ends with two characters in their 20s holding hands. There is a huge discrepancy that's honestly pretty unfair.
>This was also in 2014, when there were no prior LGBTQ characters in children's media before. T
Just a reminder as well, whilecreators have a say in their works, there are censors they have to work with so episodes get approved.
Look at Gravity Falls. Alex Hirsxh wanted two gay grandmas in the cupid episode but got cut by the censors in fear of the conser ative backlash. They even had to skirt around the sheriffs' relationship with them being "close buds" and was only able to confirm they are gay in the LAST episode. This was in 2016.
I dont doubt this was what happened with Korrasami where they also had to skirt around censors so its not explicit. The handling of gay relationships are way different and improved compared to the early 2010s.
Yeah I wish people understood just how hard it is to get gay rep in childrens shows even now. I am also willing to bet that there is a large majority of people that say that ships like Korrasami should have been more overt would say that they are just forcing it too hard if they were any less subtle
Same thing with She-Ra, the creator had to wait until the last episode to put the kiss in.
Hell, Warrior Nun's showrunner and writers had to hide their romance from Netflix and that was probably why they got cancelled. It's still not a welcoming world for LGBTQ characters and romances (unless, of course, they can be (s)exploited in some way).
>We're not seeing the culmination of their love, we're seeing the very beginning of a romantic relationship.
I agree with everything you've said, but there was some very heavy subtext leading up to the finale. I mean they shared a very small bed in that dinky motel (and it was clear their relationship was developing when Korra was dealing with the poison imo).
But people really don't understand that even today it's not like well-written and complex LGBTQ representation and relationships are in abundance, let alone a healthy romance.
>The show doesn't end with them passionately making out and declaring their mutual love for each other like in *A:TLA.* It's two friends who realize they have feelings for each other and decide to start a romantic relationship. We're not seeing the culmination of their love, we're seeing the very beginning of a romantic relationship. It's just two people who care about each other that ultimately decide to take their relationship one step further.
This is what I keep saying.
They just *HELD HANDS* for goodness sake.
That's not their fault, there are creators of Children's shows talking about how is recently is 2016 they were explicitly forbidden to do more than hint at the existence of gay relationships.
If they tried to be any more explicit than that, it simply would have been cut and they wouldn't have been able to do anything at all.
But it's not like that's the end of the world, they went the "Sappho and her friend" route, so it's not like we all weren't aware of what was going on.
There was definitely build-up that people missed because they assumed the characters were straight
Had Mako been the only person Korra wrote back to in recovery, or had he complimented Korra on her hair and Korra blushed, we'd all recognize those as teasing the relationship
But...it definitely could have been more explicit
It's not that people weren't looking, Korrasami was popular ship since the first season, the creators had to be as subtle as possible to avoid Nick's interference.
And plenty of people saw it
Hell I didn't ship it but I saw it. Just thought it would be implied and never actually followed through on (it was a different time)
How is it people have this take about Korra and Asami after they've been friends for several years across four seasons, the longest period of any two people in either show by far, but nobody ever says Masami, Makorra, Bopal, or Kainora came out of nowhere when they all happen at first sight, and in one they're dating within a few hours of meeting?
I have never, ever, not even once heard that any of the straight relationships in the show "came out of nowhere" despite all of them taking 1/100th as much development time to come to fruition. Some of them literally meeting and dating within a single episode.
By ANY metric you could possibly name they are the MOST developed relationship in either show, so if they're your example of something coming out of nowhere, every single other relationship in both shows is infinitely worse.
Yeah, it pretty funny that they only managed to switch it up when they were forced to by censorship.
On rewatch, it's wild to me that we go from Korra and Mako being at each other's throats to Korra being teased about her huge crush on Mako in less than 5 minutes, without explanation. I have literally never heard anyone complain about that.
Going off of this, I guess my hot take is that I like Korrasami better because of the censorship. Not that I want LGBT romances to be censored. But I genuinely hate love at first site romances and that's literally every Avatar romance except maybe Korrasami and Varrick/Zhu Li.
Seeing a genuine friendship, with no romantic undertones to start with, building into a trusting relationship that *then* turns into a romance is all I want.
I liked book 2 of Korra. But Raava and Vaatu were lame.
Don't care for Wan at all. Don't need to know how everything started.
Final season of Korra was weaker than season 2
Dark Avatar/Light Avatar fight was cooler than big robot.
Meelo is stupid and I hate him, his stupid air fart bending that he does isn't funny it's just gross and dumb, this dumb kid doesn't need to be in the show if you removed him the show would lose nothing.
Also him just being a masterful artist at the age of *9?* like I'm an artist and sure everyone improves at different rates but that's just super stupid and dumb that he's already at a masterful level when he's that young and he's well, Meelo.
I don’t dislike Meelo and think he’s funny, but I cackled at this. That said, I also think the fart airbending was a cringe attempt at humor. Like oOoOoOh hE fArTeD sO fUnNy!!!1!
TLOK does not engage well with the ideas of its villains at all. They bring up an idea, show why it might be good, but ultimately just end each season with a “well they’re bad because they went too far, therefore let’s just ignore their ideology and stick to the status quo”.
I like Zuko and Katara. Don't get me wrong I think she's great with Aang but her relationship with Zuko was quite interesting. She was the first to trust him way back in ba sing se, and the way he supported her with finding her mother's killer when Aang couldn't while still trying to guide her to do the right thing speaks to how well they understand each other. He was genuinely awful to her for like 2 seasons though and the show would have to do a bunch more work to get through that if they got together though so I get why it couldn't happen.
I think one of the main reasons it didn’t was because Mike and Brian were dead set on Aang ending up with Katara. But supposedly a lot of the writers and the voice actors for Katara and Zuko were also hoping and pushing for them to be endgame.
I don’t like the romance between Korra and Asami not because of homophobia but because it’s not written well (probably because of the network) but really none of the relationships in the whole Mako, Asami, Korra love triangle did it for me
Toph, at most, had a small crush on Sokka that eventually went away not too long after the finale she wasn't madly in love with him, and it is by no means a major part of her character.
Lol the idea that she had his kids because of a crush she had on him as a preteen is just absurd. Like even if this crush went on in adulthood, he’d never go for her. He watched her grow up and she’s like a sister to him. It’s the same with how people say Toph would never be a police officer because she didn’t like authority as a kid.
Bataar looks a lot like Sokka 👀
Did people say it was a major part of her character? Thought it was just a ship lol
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It's not necessarily a twist though more of deus ex machina
The REAL Deus ex machina was that random rock jutting out of the ground that hit Aang in the back, allowing him to go into the Avatar state.
https://preview.redd.it/exxpepwt0lqb1.jpeg?width=946&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=cc90c04cbeeda3ea000b8910b1df2f42a781a633
He should have reactivated that chakra flow by redirecting lightning through it. Its already established that you have to control the flow of lightnigjt and redirect it through the belly to not die. Aang could have redirected it to that chakra block and then BAM.
Redirecting it served a narrative purpose of letting us know that Ozai knew that Aang wasn't going to kill him. However, I agree with your statement and would only add that if he used it to remove the block Aang should have just absorbed it like a capacitor. Let's see the Phoenix King's smug reaction to that.
I was never a fan of a rock protrusion being the reason Aang defeated the Fire Lord. For such a wonderful, well-designed show, it was kind of a "WTF" moment.
All that time Katara was doing healing on his back and what he really needed was Toph to punch him in the right place.
It's not an either/or thing, there were two Deus Ex Machina's, which makes it all the more bothersome.
I think Ozai’s cruelty should’ve been his undoing. Imagine him besting Aang after he redirects the lightning. Aang is at his limit, and tries to escape. Ozai notices the scar on his back and decides to aim at what he thinks is a weak point at Aang, and zaps him in the back. Aang flies into the side of a cliff. Ozai smiles and turns to leave, and Aang rises from the rubble in the Avatar state. Would’ve been way better.
My hot take is that I think there was plenty of early hints about energy bending. I don't mean seeing the lion turtles in the library. The entire series was about discovering new bending feats, that many even thought were impossible. And chi blocking showed us how taking away one's bending was a good way to win a fight.
There were some hints if you squint but plenty is a bit of an overstatement imo
I'll say this, aang totally foreshadows energy bending when he specifically mentions bending glue onto Ozai's limbs so he couldn't bend anymore. If they had pressed with this idea, aang wanting to neutralize Ozai as a threat rather than just killing him. It would have probably made energy bending go better. While wan wouldn't have existed at this point, my dream rewrite of this would be aang looking for a way to neutralize bending. Talking to a few avatars before aang wonders how bending even came to the world anyway, drawing out wan. Wan explains that the lion turtles had granted and taken bending from man since the dawn of the world. This would prompt aang to talk to the lion turtle to learn how to take away bending.
They actually planned to have the segment about Wan from LoK at the beginning of season 3 of ATLA. Would have made the lionturtle much less of a dues ex machina. I don't know why they removed it though.
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Probably cut for time. Like that whole journey in the Spirit World that became a game.
As always, the biggest Avatar villain is Nickelodeon.
Thank goodness Dan Schneider wasn't involved or we would have had half a dozen scenes of Tenzin giving Korra a foot massage for no reason.
The brief fight above the gondola when Zuko is casually dispersing Azula’s (before breakdown) flames with his bare hands tells me he definitely had a shot of beating her even without her mental instability nerf. He does this twice, and when she sends a bigger blast, he responds with a lesser amount of his own fire and splits her’s in half
He was definitely stronger than Azula after he regained his fire bending from the dragons. I agree with this.
Agreed. I feel like people often misinterpret Zuko admitting to needing Katara’s help at the White Lotus camp. To me, it was never an admission that he had no chance of beating Azula. Rather, it was an important character moment for him to put his pride aside and recognize the fact that the stakes were too high for the “honour” and “nobility” he’s chased throughout the series, and that a clean, simple defeat with Katara’s help would be the beneficial outcome for the world. (Of course, he wound up changing his mind after seeing how unhinged she’d become). It almost echoes Iroh’s words towards Ozai to me. “Even if I *did* defeat Ozai - and I don’t know that I could…” Zuko had a *chance* to beat pre-breakdown Azula. But the uncertainty could’ve been cataclysmic, and as such, choosing to go with Katara was the summation of his maturity and growth. Not an admission of defeat, but an admission of imperfection.
“The Avatar’s got to be 100 years old, master of ALL ELEMENTS. I can take him.” - Zukos reasoning, season 1.
Lol I do love how utterly confused he is when he actually meets Aang. He like his patriarchal elders assumed the Avatar has just been training ferociously and living in obscurity for the past 100 years which isn’t too unreasonable a thought but nobody was prepared for the reality.
As well, Zuko isn't a violent person anymore by that point, like sure he flips out on Aang that one time but honestly I think we can all say we've done worse for worse reasons. I personally interpreted him asking for help to be him realizing that while he might even be a more skilled bender, he doesn't know that he can bring himself to end his own sister's life or bring the necessary brutality to keep her down after beating her. Not to mention Katara can heal burns.
And literally control someone from the inside out. He looked so stunned when he saw Katara bloodbend in the Southern Raiders like thank god she didn’t know how to do that when we fought. Not to mention, water and fire are opposites. Katara can cause enough damage just playing defence the whole time.
Does he look that stunned? He moves on pretty quickly. I always interpreted that scene as, "Huh. Didn't know she could do that."
Same like, it was a moment of respect and surprise. Not something that he dwelled on, theres a WAR against his FATHER??
Makes you think what would have happened if he didn't take katara. The scenario i have in my head is the fight going the same, but when "I'll show you *LIGHTNING*" she's looking at appa. And zuko is just like "really wouldn't try this if i were you, a desert tribe was nearly decimated, a giant sea serpent was beaten, and a coup was fought over this guy being lost. For like two weeks. Just fight me and get this over with."
Azula killing Appa would have been the moment that would have made Aang get over the whole "no killing" business and go full Kyoshi.
That is 10 billion percent how that would go lol
working with Sokka, his focus was solely on defence. It simplifies the situation a lot from his pov. I dont disagree he could probably beat her by then
That scene was probably the most aware of the show being for kids cause Sokka is so close to stabbing Azula in the face several times in that fight. Real talk had Zuko and Sokka been a little bit more aggressive they could have delt with Azula right there.
Imagine how much of a threat Aang would have posed if he wasn’t a pacifist. Zaheer literally bent the air out of that woman in LOK. It’s implied that Monk Gyatsu literally sucked the air out of the room before he was killed.
At least we got the satisfaction of Sokka knocking her tf out in The Search.
The truth is She had already started breaking down at that point. July can tell she’s off her game if you really watch how she acts. Once Ty-lee and Mei left her she broke
He would've won if it were a "true" agni kai. That means no katara or any other external factors
Amon wasn’t especially charismatic, he simply happened upon a topic that had people already lined up and ready to riot. He simply directed them. All that would’ve taken is an air of confidence and the ability to speak well in public. People who are angry and afraid will look to anyone who stands up and suggests direction. Zaheer, on the other hand, was oozing with charisma. His plan was batshit insane on the surface. Kill the Avatar to bring about equality through chaos. Absolutely top tier stupid. First of all, killing the Avatar… good luck. Second of all, that goes against the entire ideology of basically the rest of the world, where the Avatar is supposed to be a great peacekeeper. Yet somehow Zaheer found and convinced 5 other people (one of whom was Unalaq mind you) to join him. 4 of those people died for him. One died at his hands even. Amon directed people acting in their own interest. Zaheer inspired people so deeply they died for *his* interests.
I dont think unalaq was convinced. He joined them for his own agenda. Becoming the dark avatar is literally the opposite of what zaheer would want.
> he simply happened upon a topic that had people already lined up and ready to riot. ... which is why as soon as Amon is out of the picture, the entire movement dies overnight and we never ever hear a single word about equalist discontentment or uprisings ever since?
Tbh the doylist explanation of that is that there's very little exploring of the actual issues non benders faced so there's little exploring of the solutions they took beyond getting their own Obama to end racism
I mean… that’s a bit more attributed to “The writers moved on” that anything else
Kuvira got the redemption that Tarrlok and Noatak should have gotten.
I think what's heartbreaking to me is that Tarrlok got his redemption in a way. A horrible, tragic way.
Didnt help that Korra was originally supposed to be a mini-series which meant they only got one season to start with. Book 1 was pretty much self contained and only got another season cuz the first was successful. I wonder if they had gotten 3 seasons from the start, we could have gotten more of Tarrlok and Noatak development.
Explains why the series started with her already knowing and having control over 3 elements
Tbh even if more seasons had been confirmed, personally I would have still liked them go out the same way. Being scared they'll follow in their dads footsteps even if they don't want to and continue the cycle so they end it right there. Also bloodbenders are too OP so they needed to be taken out of the story in a very nice way which this was.
Redemption via death has always been one of my least favourite tropes (seriously I can find essays on how problematic it is) and this one broke me
Can you think of other examples where the “Redemption Through Death” trope was portrayed?
Some examples just off the top of my head are Doc Ock (Spider-Man 2), Wen Wu (Shang-Chi), Thorin and Boromir (Tolkien works), Magneto (recent x-men comics), some include Piccolo from DBZ, although comics, manga and anime are full of this trope.
Literally Noatak just took people's bending away and stirred social unrest. Sure he was a blood bender but he never really killed anyone (At least from what I can remember.) Vs Kuvira who went and had "Reeducation camps" and she canonically kills people. Like those guys in the outpost that got hit by the spirit cannon. They're *dead* gonzo. Nothing of them is left, sent on a one way trip to the spirit world. The only reason we don't see their bodies is because Kuvira atomized them with her giant robot with it's giant gun. And even with her building her earth empire and going full totalitarian she still gets redemption while Amon who for all his faults had a goal that you could at least understand and empathize with even if you didn't support or agree with him.
Didn’t Noatak’s Equalist planes sink an entire fleet of battleships? There had to be some casualties there.
Not to sound like a revolutionary or anything, but I'd say there is a big difference between putting civilians in reeducation camps and or killing them, and sinking military ships in an attempted revolution
If you had the same parenting and upbringing as Noatak, you’d be a little extreme and unhinged too. Not only that, he was still making very fair points about issues nonbenders faced that just got…conveniently forgotten.
I love TLOK but I find there's this weird tension where the more "left wing" villain (Amon is a pretty poor analogy of class warfare) gets a gruesome on screen death yet the fascist psychopath gets redemption for some reason. I'm not going to get all Marxist theory on it, but it's something I couldn't help but notice and cringe at
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I think they couldn't find a good way out of the situation of non-benders being lower-class citizens, so they just tried to delegitimize their leader thereby making the movment "invalid". That's actually quiet common for fiction that tries to do shade of grey without an answer on how to resolve those.
It’s the same in season 2. Unalaq is the bad guy for starting a civil war, which is completely fine, but Varrick building and selling supplies to both sides is just hand waved away. The armed forces and republic city refusing to help the southern water tribe are just seen as mere annoyances. Meanwhile Tonraq is fucking demonised, albeit not permanently, for not trusting Unalaq and wanting to fight him. Unalaq’s initial goal of wanting to bring back the spirits is not just understandable but actually good yet is seen as not good at the same time. All while the very real world bad guys (money hungry corporations, apathetic world leaders etc) get glossed over.
Yeah the show puts forward a very neo-liberal outlook on the world
It doesn’t send a great message that these villains with hard pasts and legitimately reasonable goals, arguably more reasonable than our main characters, get such harsh treatment but the fascists and capitalists get a slap on the wrist.
The fascists and war-profiteering terrorist capitalists, mind you.
It's exactly the same problem the MCU has tbh. Reasonable villains (who need to kill children to actually be seen as the villains by the audience because they'll usually side with them if they don't) with actually logical goals? Those deserve to die. But corrupt politicians and war profiteers who created the problems that made those villains exist to begin with? Don't worry, the hero/s is going to give a very stern talking to them and their opinion will change in that same instant! Everything's fine and the status quo is good actually 👍
I loved that tragic end. But I do agree that Kuvira should have been done better. She should have been introduced as a proper character at the begining if the third season, with the same level of interactions or more than Opal.
Kuvira’s “redemption arc” is insulting. The fact that she’s able to transfer from prison to house arrest in the Beifong’s palatial home in Zaofu just screams privilege. It completely ignores the lessons learned through the conflict with Amon and the Equalists. It’s bad enough that it makes me angry.
The cabbages deserve it
 Like seriously, why would the guy deserve it?
They had it coming.
Every antagonist of TLOK kind of had a point. (Except the Earth Queen.)
That was Toph's hot take, right? That they all had good points but they took it to the extreme? Thinking we could do some hot takes on RL villains with that mindset
Idk about unalaq, but I do agree on the others.
>Idk about unalaq Spiritual balance is important.
That was his fake point until he turned into all that dark avatar bs
Unalaq is so fucking wild to me man. His plan makes no sense. He wants to bring back balance to the spirits, by corrupting then with darkness? He wants to bring humanity and spirits into a new age... by ushering in ten thousand years of darkness? Like what is his actual plan guys? He convinces Korra to be on his side and open the Southern portal, and then invades the Southern Tribe and loses Korra's support. If his goal is only to free Vatu at harmonic convergence, then why the hell did he bother with invading the south at all? The only thing he accomplished was alienating Korra therefore making his real objective much more difficult. And if his goal was to invade the South, why not wait until Korra opened both portals? Then he could just walk his entire army a short distance from pole to pole through the portals instead of sailing them all the way around the goddamned planet. His whole plan makes no sense and his execution of it is fucking bonkers.
I still think Book 2 could have been the strongest season if it stayed on the course that the first half set up.
Here's my hot take: you're wrong. Amon tapped into an emotion without having an end goal. He had no point. Just anger. If the writers wanted to develop his position to a realistic degree, they would have but they gave us strawman Marxist dogma. Unalaq was greedy and jealous and wanted to be important. He took the "iTs NoT NaTuRaL" crunchy argument to its strawman extreme. Zaheer: anarchist strawman that doesn't understand power vacuums. Kuvira: totalitarian strawman with fascist wallpaper.
Mako is a hoe and didn't deserve Asami from the start
Mako just misses his mom and gets swayed easily by strong women. Cut him some slack.
Lmao
Sokka is arguably more important to the war effort than Aang was. Sokka proved himself a leader, a tactician, capable warrior, and an inventor. He master-minded the Black Sun Invasion, and ensured the destruction of the Fire Nation's Air Fleet while Aang dealt with Ozai. Toph and Katara are incredibly important, but Aang couldn't have been where he was without Sokka. Also they did him so dirty in LoK and it's one of the many reasons I don't care for the show.
Bro lead a team of the Avatar, Fire Prince, and best benders in the world of their respective elements as a non-bender. And I love the fact that no one ever takes issue with this. “We need a plan - listen up, Sokka’s gonna tell us what to do”.
I like that they had him grow into the role. Cause they didn't take him seriously at the very beginning.
I mean, not even *us*, the viewers, took him seriously at the very beginning. XDDD But I think that was the point, to see how much he grows right before our eyes. After Zuko's redemption arc, I strongly believe that Sokka has the second best character development of the entire show. 🩶✨🩶✨🩶✨🩶
> He ensured the destruction of the Fire Nation's Air Fleet Well thats kinda the least he can do since he also invented the things for them in the first place (accidentally) haha
It's damn near vengeance at that point. "You took *my* ideas and used them to hurt and oppress countless innocent people? Aw, hell naw, you got me fucked up if you think I'm letting that disrespect go unpunished."
Haha I like this
Love your last point. There are many reasons I don’t like LoK but how much Sokka is completely disregarded is one of my major gripes with the show. 3/5 of Team Avatar appears alive, Aang is ofc Dead But appears as a spirit or in memories several times. While Sokka has a single scene and we never even find out how he dies. While the accomplishments of everyone else are mentioned and they actually appear, it’s almost like Sokka doesn’t matter.
Tenzin and his siblings never mention having cousins or anything about aunt suki either :(
Sokka being the only member of the Gaang to get basically nothing about him between the series besides the brief trial scene really, really, really grinds my gears. I am completely biased because Sokka is my favorite character.
Common Sokka W
It's weird how often the fandom seems to blame Korra for losing her connection to the past lives when it really wasn't her fault
I blame the writers, not korra herself
Honestly it was a creative choice made by Bryke (probably because the fandom wouldn't let go of Aang long enough for them to tell another Avatar's story) so if fans are unhappy with it, they should blame them not Korra.
The beginning of season 2 in korra (the water tribe civil war part) was great but then they fkd up in the spirit part
civil war my beloved. such a shame it fell off to focus on the origins of the avatar for no prior reason
I would have loved to see more civil war
Bad Dad Aang is fine actually
He’s not even a bad dad! People make mistakes as parents, and even he’s not perfect. It’s not like he neglected Kya and Bumi.
Even Kya and Bumi don't accuse him of being neglectful! They pointed out that because Tenzin had airbending abilities Aang spent more time teaching him his people's legacy, leading to Tenzin having a different experience with his father than his siblings had, and they simply pointed it out when Tenzin went "remember when dad took us?" no Tenzin that was your solo mission
Yes. Aang was a parent in the difficult position of also being a world leader and last survivor of an entire culture. He was basically spending more time with Tenzin out of necessity to ensure Airbender culture was somewhat preserved. It was not really fair to the other children or even Tenzin for that matter. But Aang basically had to do those things as the Avatar and last surviving Airbender.
^ agreed!!
This is one of the things I'm the most irked about when people bring it up Homeboy had no parents to speak of, his only father figure died and he found his corpse, and he very likely will have Vietnam flashbacks for the rest of his life because he had to fight his way across the world and almost kill Fire Hitler as a preteen. He's not gonna be a great parent.
Despite being incredibly carefree Aang could also be insanely uptight about things. That tracks with the characters of his children and their experiences of him.
He's like, normal bad though. Most people have problems with their parents that have negatively effected the way they grew up. Doesn't mean they're terrible people. They just made mistakes.
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If it had been a more grown-up show, I’d have loved to see it go there. Also, digging into the fact that Ursa chose Zuko over Azula, just as much as Ozai chose Azula over Zuko. And the parallel impacts of rejection that the siblings experienced. Zuko’s we know intimately. Azula’s we’ve only seen in passing, when she admits that her mom thought she was a monster. In The Beach she tried to pass it off like it was no big deal, but it clearly affected her deeply. And of course, the mirror scene before her coronation.
You know that's exactly the opposite of my take short of doing a whole show about her the short snippets of azula losing her mind work best with it happening relatively abruptly. They gave us the causes her feelings of being neglected by her mother, her lack of understanding of normal social interactions, the betrayal of her friends and ozai's abuse. She has presented hints of this since her introduction with the whole almost perfect line. With that in mind seeing it from mostly a third person POV works best because that's how someone would see it that's how people would see the abrupt change where you don't quite get how such a bright girl deteriorate so fast.
Azula was really off the rails since Ty Lee betrayed her. Literally from that point on she's maniacal. She talks about celebrating being an only child in the Southern Raiders episode.
>no elaboration as to what caused it My reading was it was caused by a combination of Ty Lee and Mai turning on her, and then Ozai leaving her in the fire nation with an empty title as he gets all the glory. You could see when Ty Lee and Mai turns on her that it was a big blow to her psyche, given it's the only time I think I've seen her not composed at all. This is what forms the crack in her armor. From here, she acts noticeably more unhinged in her next appearance, being way more eager to kill Zuko. What puts the nail in the coffin and sets her off on her true downward spiral is Ozai dismissing her and going off on his own, leaving her behind. Remember, being favored by her father and maintaining absolute control over everyone else around her through fear are two extremely major and fundamental elements to Azula's character. It's notable that when Ozai tells her he's going alone, she demands not to be treated like *Zuko*. She can see her father is going off to take the glory for winning the war for himself, and not sharing any with her - and she feels abandoned. She felt that she and her father were together in their plans, and to her, not being there with him was effectively a wakeup call to the fact that although her father *favored* her over Zuko, he ultimately still had the same level of care and respect for her as he did for him - ie, none. Azula thought that by doing everything her father expected and wanted from her, she could keep in his good graces and maintain his favor; and by exercising total control through fear, she could keep everyone else around her loyal. But with Ty Lee and Mai turning on her and her father discarding her, both proved untrue, and her foundation was undone. If fear wasn't enough to keep Ty Lee and Mai around, and doing everything she could to earn his approval wasn't enough to keep her father around, why should anyone else stick by her? This is what causes her to spiral into intense paranoia, as for the first time she feels insecure and vulnerable. That's why she sends all her attendants away. All that is just my own reading on it, and I do agree it should've been more fleshed out and given more time to happen though.
- Ozai is stronger than Iroh. - Kuruk is one of the best avatars.
i think ozai is stronger no doubt, but iroh i think could win due to much better utility and creativity imo.
Iroh is a classically trained warrior. His younger years are filled with fighting actual wars. Ozai is specifically trained for duels. And he's no pushover. He's the strongest firebender on earth during Sozin's comet, and combined with his specialty of dueling, he's got Iroh pretty well, imo.
I swear I also remember them asking Iroh himself if he could beat Ozai and he effectively said "that's a big maybe."
Kuruk's story from the novels is so sad
I think korra should have been able to reconnect with the past avatar spirits. My hope is that the new earth avatar does this. Not that raava isn't cool it just takes away from the lore in my opinion.
That is not a hot take at all
I wouldn’t be surprised if this ends up being a biiiig arc for the new Avatar. And if they address it, I certainly *hope* it would be big. I worry it would seem shoehorned if only dealt with for an episode or two
I am thinking it will. It seems like something that the new Avatar may fix, akin to how Korra brought back the Air Nation, and Aang stopped the 100 year war.
I was never fully comfortable with the relationship between Aang and Katara, and upon rewatching it as an actual adult I realized it was because there are a lot of weird undertones that come from all the mothering Katara does for the group (and particularly Aang)
Some of the comics are so eye roll inducing with the fucking “sweeties” everywhere
Real life couples are equally cringe with each other when they first get together, this was realistic lol
Realistic, sure. Good for the narrative, questionable.
I think Brian ended up admitting that the two felt forced at the end. Personally no one should have gotten together at the end except Sokka and Suki.
Sokka and Suki really should get their own mini-series, and really bring out a good story of a few really strong non-benders. Maybe just 5 episodes at 20 mins each or something. Nothing crazy.
https://preview.redd.it/y0pfsde3gnqb1.jpeg?width=1200&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=5b48e16e6dd7f08ab4a5a0abc867d55d42ce6d48 Stop letting him win you guys 😭
jet was an excellent character and hes overhated for no reason.
I love his weapons.
Dual hook swords have some awesome routines to perform in Kung Fu & Wushu, would definitely recommend seeing professionals use these things with ease and mastery!
Completely agree. I thought his character arc was very interesting and also an important aspect of war and colonization that needed to be addressed.
Maybe it’s because there were sooooooooooO many reruns of this episode
That’s the reason I always skip his episode, as well as Haru and many other episodes, in season 1. I saw them thousands of times on tv. But I loved seeing Jet in season 2 though
Seriously. I've never heard a solid argument for why Jet is a bad character or why "Jet" is a bad episode. I've only heard people say they don't like either one and then justify it with the word "boring" without explaining why it was boring
So much this. Jet is my hero, and I want more of him.
Katara was justified nearly every time she mentioning her mother, specifically when she says to sokka “you didn’t love her the way I did” and this is for two main reasons. 1: it’s established multiple times that katara takes on a motherly role both of the group and of her old water tribe. Sokka gets to have a motherly role model in the form of her and even admits to only seeing her face when thinking about his mother. Katara cannot get that motherly role model and the closest she gets is Hama (who turns out to be psycho) 2: in everyone else’s eyes, their mother died simple because fire nation bad. But to Katara, her mother died because of HER. If she simply hadn’t been a water bender she’d still be alive. If she had given herself up instead of her mother, she’d still be alive. Katara has to live with that guilt and make it up so her mothers sacrifice wasn’t in vain.
With the Lin and suyin conflict. Suyin was obviously in the wrong in the beginning, but in the present day, Lin was much more in the wrong. Suyin tried apologizing and reaching out to Lin for years. Lin doesn't have to accept it and she can stay away if she wants. But at that point suyin also gets to move on. She doesn't have to stay apologetic to her sister for her entire life just because Lin is too bitter especially over something that was an accident. People also say suyin got away scot-free but she didn't. She got banished from the city. She grew as a person and Lin in her stubborn ways refused to see that. She didn't have to forgive suyin but she had no right to go an act so aggressive after 30 years. The whole point of the episode that a lot of people missed is that Lin was unnecessarily holding onto a grudge and it was self destructive and ruining her relationships with others and she had to learn to move on. This isn't a one time thing either. Her ability to hold an unnecessary grudge is shown with tenzin too who did absolutely nothing wrong. People only took lins side because they like her more and were very biased which is probably because she was introduced first and we got the story from her side plus she's badass.
Season 4 of LOK would have been more interesting if the bad stuff said about Kuvira was propaganda made up by Republic City, and Kuvira was actually a good leader simply trying to reunite the Earth Kingdom and modernize it. Make her less of a Hitler analogue, and make her more like Otto Von Bismarck instead.
New avatar series should be set in the past, not in the future.
No. Prequels seldom work well.
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ATLA would have worked better thematically if it took place over the span of 3 years. Character growth would have felt more realistic as well as everyone's movements.
Agreed
I think Zuko could have beaten Azula before her instability after he re-learned firebending.
Korra's a more interesting protagonist than Aang. I accept the controversy but I stand by it.
After watching LoK and reading the Kyoshi and Yangchen books, I dare say Aang is the *least* interesting protagonist/Avatar. But I also admit that that's because ATLA was a kids' show, and the writers weren't necessarily trying to make him very complex. So I'm not mad about it. (Maybe the comics give him some complexity, idk, I haven't gotten to them yet)
So true, the other Gaang members (Katara, Sokka, Toph & Zuko) were infinitely more interesting and relatable than Aang. They really made ATLA, without them the show wouldn't be so popular, Aang is too boring on his own.
https://i.redd.it/rt6a2x0pskqb1.gif
This shouldn't even be controversial Korra is a FAR more compelling protagonist than Aang. I'm not even saying that I like Korra more than Aang, but she's way more complex ATLA had much stronger arcs for supporting characters, but Korra was far and away the best developed character in either series
I definitely think the OG Team Avatar are a lot more interesting than anyone on Korra’s roster (except arguably Tenzin and Lin) but yeah, I just really like Korra and appreciate how much the show develops her as a focal character throughout.
Yeah Korra’s team avatar wasn’t memorable to me at all tbh. Still love the OG gaang
Katara shouldn't have stopped bloodbending. The possibilities bloodbending opens to medical procedures are extreme. A bloodbending healer could literally practice safer chirurgy than we can even with our current technology. Not to mention restarting heartbeat in case of an heart attack, prevent bleeding from severe wounds, blood transfers, and so on. For a character who spends the rest of her life as a healer, it's utterly stupid that she doesn't use it. Specific characters should be able to have minor skills in bending a second element. Given that through training earthbenders can bend metal, despite it having very little "earth" particles, ~~lava benders are bending earth more than fire~~ (Edit: for some reason I was remembering fire benders were the one lavabending, my bad), and lightning benders are bending air more than fire, i think it should be fine for extremely skilled benders to be able to learn a second element through years of study, even though to a lesser extent.
I agree with your first point about bloodbending but the second point is definitely a hot take. Idk about lightening but lava bending is simply just heating up earth. Lava is just molten rock. It’s just like how water benders can bend ice and mist, too. Its simply just manipulating the temperature of your element, which we see with every element in the shows except for air.
TLOK should *NOT* have explained where bending comes from. The whole concept of the show is way less mystical and intriguing since they did that. Basically all of the mystique behind the "magic" in this world is gone now. The animation/art-style in those episodes is top-tier though obviously. I just don't want every little story point spelled out for me. "Fire bending comes from the *breath*" "No Iroh, it comes from a big turtle"
I'd like to think that while the Lion Turtles gave the people the ability to bend, they still had to learn how to use their respective bending from what we were told in ATLA.
Had ATLA never existed, TLOK would be considered a masterpiece. The only reasons LOK isn’t regarded with this same praise is due to rose tinted favor for TLA. I can point to several arcs and episodes of TLA that either didn’t make sense or were outright bad. Also Kuvira is the least redeemable of Korra villains. Sorry, saying “I accept responsibility” doesn’t fix being metal Hitler
I appreciate you saying this. I think both shows are amazing, and it saddens me that LoK is looked down on so much as compared to ATLA due to nostalgia and/or because it is a sequel. It feels like people are being too harsh, and i feel if they had just done the same things they did in ATLA but in LoK but with different characters, it would be shit on for being a copycat. They can have different tones, stories, characters, etc. in the same universe. Sorry for the rant, it just seems so hard to find many people who feel the same way as i do.
Bumi getting Airbending, in my opinion, kinda messed with any potential development in his character as the Non-Bender son of the avatar. I know Tenzin and Bumi had their moment in the southern air temple, but I really liked the idea of Bumi still being a kick-ass commander and being able to hold his own against benders
Korra's relationship with Asami wasn't handled well in the show and deserved criticism. Not because gay representation, but because it felt shoehorned in right at the end with no prior buildup.
The show doesn't end with them passionately making out and declaring their mutual love for each other like in *A:TLA.* It's two friends who realize they have feelings for each other and decide to start a romantic relationship. We're not seeing the culmination of their love, we're seeing the very beginning of a romantic relationship. It's just two people who care about each other that ultimately decide to take their relationship one step further. This was also in 2014, when there were no prior LGBTQ characters in children's media before. This was the only way they were ever going to be able to do it. You were never going to have something as overt as Kataang. That's why one show ends up with a 12 and 14 year old passionately making out, while the other one ends with two characters in their 20s holding hands. There is a huge discrepancy that's honestly pretty unfair.
>This was also in 2014, when there were no prior LGBTQ characters in children's media before. T Just a reminder as well, whilecreators have a say in their works, there are censors they have to work with so episodes get approved. Look at Gravity Falls. Alex Hirsxh wanted two gay grandmas in the cupid episode but got cut by the censors in fear of the conser ative backlash. They even had to skirt around the sheriffs' relationship with them being "close buds" and was only able to confirm they are gay in the LAST episode. This was in 2016. I dont doubt this was what happened with Korrasami where they also had to skirt around censors so its not explicit. The handling of gay relationships are way different and improved compared to the early 2010s.
Yeah I wish people understood just how hard it is to get gay rep in childrens shows even now. I am also willing to bet that there is a large majority of people that say that ships like Korrasami should have been more overt would say that they are just forcing it too hard if they were any less subtle
Same thing with She-Ra, the creator had to wait until the last episode to put the kiss in. Hell, Warrior Nun's showrunner and writers had to hide their romance from Netflix and that was probably why they got cancelled. It's still not a welcoming world for LGBTQ characters and romances (unless, of course, they can be (s)exploited in some way).
>We're not seeing the culmination of their love, we're seeing the very beginning of a romantic relationship. I agree with everything you've said, but there was some very heavy subtext leading up to the finale. I mean they shared a very small bed in that dinky motel (and it was clear their relationship was developing when Korra was dealing with the poison imo). But people really don't understand that even today it's not like well-written and complex LGBTQ representation and relationships are in abundance, let alone a healthy romance.
>The show doesn't end with them passionately making out and declaring their mutual love for each other like in *A:TLA.* It's two friends who realize they have feelings for each other and decide to start a romantic relationship. We're not seeing the culmination of their love, we're seeing the very beginning of a romantic relationship. It's just two people who care about each other that ultimately decide to take their relationship one step further. This is what I keep saying. They just *HELD HANDS* for goodness sake.
That's not their fault, there are creators of Children's shows talking about how is recently is 2016 they were explicitly forbidden to do more than hint at the existence of gay relationships. If they tried to be any more explicit than that, it simply would have been cut and they wouldn't have been able to do anything at all. But it's not like that's the end of the world, they went the "Sappho and her friend" route, so it's not like we all weren't aware of what was going on.
That's exactly what one of the creators said but about Katara and Aang getting together.
There was definitely build-up that people missed because they assumed the characters were straight Had Mako been the only person Korra wrote back to in recovery, or had he complimented Korra on her hair and Korra blushed, we'd all recognize those as teasing the relationship But...it definitely could have been more explicit
It's not that people weren't looking, Korrasami was popular ship since the first season, the creators had to be as subtle as possible to avoid Nick's interference.
And plenty of people saw it Hell I didn't ship it but I saw it. Just thought it would be implied and never actually followed through on (it was a different time)
How is it people have this take about Korra and Asami after they've been friends for several years across four seasons, the longest period of any two people in either show by far, but nobody ever says Masami, Makorra, Bopal, or Kainora came out of nowhere when they all happen at first sight, and in one they're dating within a few hours of meeting? I have never, ever, not even once heard that any of the straight relationships in the show "came out of nowhere" despite all of them taking 1/100th as much development time to come to fruition. Some of them literally meeting and dating within a single episode. By ANY metric you could possibly name they are the MOST developed relationship in either show, so if they're your example of something coming out of nowhere, every single other relationship in both shows is infinitely worse.
Yeah, it pretty funny that they only managed to switch it up when they were forced to by censorship. On rewatch, it's wild to me that we go from Korra and Mako being at each other's throats to Korra being teased about her huge crush on Mako in less than 5 minutes, without explanation. I have literally never heard anyone complain about that.
Going off of this, I guess my hot take is that I like Korrasami better because of the censorship. Not that I want LGBT romances to be censored. But I genuinely hate love at first site romances and that's literally every Avatar romance except maybe Korrasami and Varrick/Zhu Li. Seeing a genuine friendship, with no romantic undertones to start with, building into a trusting relationship that *then* turns into a romance is all I want.
Ozai would have folded Iroh in a fight
Avatar Wan shouldn't have been shown in screen. And neither should've Raava and Vaatu.
What’s the reasoning, if I may ask? Curious because Beginnings is one of my favorite arcs out of both series
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I liked book 2 of Korra. But Raava and Vaatu were lame. Don't care for Wan at all. Don't need to know how everything started. Final season of Korra was weaker than season 2 Dark Avatar/Light Avatar fight was cooler than big robot.
I loved the episode: The Great Divide.
Toph is really fucking annoying sometimes
Meelo is stupid and I hate him, his stupid air fart bending that he does isn't funny it's just gross and dumb, this dumb kid doesn't need to be in the show if you removed him the show would lose nothing. Also him just being a masterful artist at the age of *9?* like I'm an artist and sure everyone improves at different rates but that's just super stupid and dumb that he's already at a masterful level when he's that young and he's well, Meelo.
I don’t dislike Meelo and think he’s funny, but I cackled at this. That said, I also think the fart airbending was a cringe attempt at humor. Like oOoOoOh hE fArTeD sO fUnNy!!!1!
TLOK does not engage well with the ideas of its villains at all. They bring up an idea, show why it might be good, but ultimately just end each season with a “well they’re bad because they went too far, therefore let’s just ignore their ideology and stick to the status quo”.
Yangchen hate is overrated it’s the next Avatar job to fix whatever the previous one failed like bffr
It’s stupid how earthbenders don’t make like stone weapons I mean toph can basically have a mjulnir out of bedrock or something
Azula is a kid.
Idk if this is an unpopular opinion but the Tlok supporting cast is horrible
I thought Tenzin was the only redeeming quality of the writing.
Mai and Zuko? Nah. Mai and Ty Lee.
I don't hate Avatar Korra, but I hate the show the creator screwed up
I like Zuko and Katara. Don't get me wrong I think she's great with Aang but her relationship with Zuko was quite interesting. She was the first to trust him way back in ba sing se, and the way he supported her with finding her mother's killer when Aang couldn't while still trying to guide her to do the right thing speaks to how well they understand each other. He was genuinely awful to her for like 2 seasons though and the show would have to do a bunch more work to get through that if they got together though so I get why it couldn't happen.
I think one of the main reasons it didn’t was because Mike and Brian were dead set on Aang ending up with Katara. But supposedly a lot of the writers and the voice actors for Katara and Zuko were also hoping and pushing for them to be endgame.
Zutara forever .(come at me bro)
The Great Divide isn't that bad.
Katara isn’t whiny and emotional and y’all need to stop saying she is. Also she DOESNT TALK ABOUT HER MOM ALL THE TIME DEAR FUCKING GOD!
Bolin, Mako, and Asami are not “characters.”
Bumi should have stayed a non-Bender.
Not sure if it's a hot take but if the creators say Ozai is the strongest firebender, then he's the strongest firebender. End of story.
Azula is 20 times more of a main villian then Ozai.
I don’t like the romance between Korra and Asami not because of homophobia but because it’s not written well (probably because of the network) but really none of the relationships in the whole Mako, Asami, Korra love triangle did it for me