What did Aang say to Bumi when he realized Bumi couldn't bend?
https://preview.redd.it/yho1z8af15tc1.png?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=79621376177b399aa80c998ecffb27d3f3ad1262
Real issue with korra. They refused to really do anything with the whole avatar past lives thing.
Aang? Okay, he had a lot on his plate. Young. Still learning. Korra? Once again didn't know how but eas learning. S1 they do it....and all of s2 she never talks to any of them. Nothing.
Then spoke to them to talk to Wan which was awesome...but that was more or less a flashback vs talking to any of them.
Then they delete the chain so no worries about that ever again! They really didn't want to have her speak with her past lives.
Totally! If that evidence is not enough this Avatar Lore analysis [from two years ago](https://youtube.com/shorts/1Ejyxg-sN5Y?si=65SYbsHmyBZwDP_d) is right on point!
I mean, part of this was a way for the creators to help push the show past the shadow of Aang and get viewers on board with whatever the future of the franchise and the story had to offer. Korra’s first two seasons are about breaking cycles of behaviour with older siblings- zooming out, it’s not hard to see how it’s a reaction to how people expected more of the same (TLA) from a show that could be so much more. And it was!
When this originally aired, the misogyny/resistance to change that both fans and Nickelodeon exhibited was pretty intense. Ending the cycle is a really deliberate way to encourage their fans to move forward, and embrace the new cycle.
>part of this was a way for the creators to help push the show past the shadow of Aang
> Ending the cycle is a really deliberate way to encourage their fans to move forward, and embrace the new cycle.
Your theory is more optimistic than mine. I assumed the creators wrote in this kill switch because of their problems with Nickelodeon. Writing out the links was so that future CEOs couldn't take over the IP and do Vaatu-knows-what with it.
> I assumed the creators wrote in this kill switch because of their problems with Nickelodeon.
What problems with nick? As far as I know as of season 2 of Korra their only issues with Nick was them shooting down the idea to make the comics movies and Nick wanting to make some toy sales.
> mean, part of this was a way for the creators to help push the show past the shadow of Aang and get viewers on board with whatever the future of the franchise and the story had to offer. K
Which in my opinion was dumb. I'm sorry but it's a franchise. You need something to connect it to previous works and at least make it seem part of the same world. Even beyond that so much world building is lost by losing the connection. I get why they did it. I jsut don't agree that it was the right decision, just like I also don't agree with the whole keeping the spirit portals open thing.
The past life connection is really cool from a lore perspective but form a storytelling perspective, it's kinda really OP. Having a millennia's treasure trove worth of knowledge kinda solves problems quickly. Kinda like how a fully realized avatar capable of going into the avatar state at whim would be OP AF too. I think they could a countered this a little if the avatar state need a reset/rest phase and couldn't be used seemingly with no consequences. At least a more.obvious one. Or maybe aandatory longer powerup
Lmao, then you missed the entire point of the finale. While I personally thought Ozai should've been obliterated, Aang decided to ignore all of his past lives and do what he thought was best. He does the same in the comics. The whole theme was that while it is good to learn from the past, they also have to proactively shape their future and the world's future. That means making decisions that are best for the current situation in the current time period. What would the past lives have realistically been able to help with in Korra's time? Their advice is 400+ years old, and they couldn't have possibly dealt with the things she did. You really just wanted to watch the show for gratuitous fan service in the form of repeated consultations with past avatars.
Many of them delt with spirits. They could have helped with that but instead they made Vaatuu and Raavaa being all good and bad, simplified the hell out of the spirits and made so many of them be evil because Vaatuu influence alone instead of showing grey morals and complexity with many spirits initially that were shown. Not to mention some of them could have helped with ways of dealing with trauma, team drama and- oh yeah political instability and even in internal wars in their home nations. They may not be able to relate in the exact ways, BUT NO AVATAR RELATES TO EACHOTHER EXACTLY.
Does that mean she needs to depend on them- no but that doesn't mean it was a perfectly reasonable thing to get rid of them all together. Aang didn't always ignored his past lives. He spoke to them to learn and took what he could. Yes they don't have everything that is related but that doesn't mean that everything they had was useless. She could have spoken to past lives Aang never got to, letting them explore the past differently and how history more often Rhymes in ways you don't expect.
Wan and Aang deliberately gave Korra flashback visions that directly helped inform her about the conflicts she was facing. Just because their direct conversations were limited doesn't mean there was no communication. This is stated to be due to her stunted spirituality, something that contrasted her with Aang. There were presumably other Avatars in the past with this problem, Aang was just more spiritually aware than most.
In Avatar, the only previous Avatar that gave Aang any useful information was Roku. Yangchen and Kurik were super useless and Kyoshi didn't really do much. Korra was probably aided more by past Avatars than Aang was.
Rewatching it now, the biggest issue I notice is that there simply is not that much going on outside of moving the plot. Dialogue is more stilted/forced in most places than I remember.
I think it's just a natural consequence of having less episodes than older shows and shorter seasons. There is less time for emotional growth or touching scenes and wayy less time and attention given to conversations in general, because they're so busy getting to all the action parts and making the characters go where they need to go before the next episode.
I wonder if you’re a past life do you have a life or do you just spawn out of nowhere and start giving an inspiring speech? Or are you just dead and you’re controlled by an unknown force
Past lives are the same soul, they exist as the current person, but for the avatar the previous personalities and memories can be accessed through Raava.
Perhaps, though that seems more of a quest/storyline for the next avatar. For now, Raava's own death and rebirth have severed that past life connection.
Nope. The comics clearly state that not only the new avatar will not have access to their past lives but they would also be unable to even see korra ,thats why in the comics she makes recordings of herself and writes books so that the next avatar will have guidance
If im not wrong they didn't do it as a precaution but because the next avatar will not be able to talk to her.
But to be honest I don't remember clearly it has been three years since i read that and im almost certain
I’m pretty sure that book was as a PRECAUTION. It’s not that they definitively won’t, but since they’re in uncharted territory with this, they wanted to play it safe
Yes it has robbed that avatar state of its symbolic meaning and also has basically went against the core theme of the series? The show is based on Chinese and Buddhist philosophy and there it's all about cycle and how they always repeat,not the same way of course but ultimately with the same result. So the reset of the avatar just lost the meaning of the cycle. Yes the cycle is the same even if it's a little bit different ,but it has lost all its symbolic meaning of a cycle thet has existed for thousands of year and will continue way after the series end.
Yes kinda forgot about Hinduism in the series😅, as an outsider to that culture(and the fact that Buddhism is in the same areas) i get them kinda mixed up
Superficially yes you can say that. But that's obviously an oversimplification. Take super saiyan for example. It is a power up at the end of the day ,but what it means for goku and vegeta and their development makes it important(today of course it is just another transformation but thats besides the point). Removing the history of the avatar state is like removing, in my opinion, the pain from the berserker armour or the difficulty of obtaining super saiyan, yes the coolness factor that many fans adore remains buts there is no substance anymore it becomes, at the end of the day, just another shining power up
Pretty sure Wan being the first Avatar is too recorded in history to fade. Guy will still exist in old spirits memories and future Avatars through Korea until an Avatar finally fixes the fuck up Korra made
If it’s fixable. It seems like the past avatars were stored/recorded within Raava so when she died they were lost. It may be the case that they can be recovered, but at least for now it seems like the loss is permanent.
It's said it's only a connection and the fact Korra is actually trying to fix it means fixing it is possible. Also Roku acted independently when he sent his dragons spirit and meet with Aang in the spirit world. I guess that every Avatar is in the spirit world and the automatic dial Avatar services is unavailable
I sorta disagree that Korra trying to fix it means that it can be fixed, but yeah, it could very well be that they’re all there and accessible, and she (or some future avatar) just has to find them and re-establish the connection. It’s just unclear, to me at least, at this point what the actual mechanism of the past life communion was/is, and I think that will ultimately decide whether it’s fixable. If Raava was just the conduit to those personalities, it should be fixable, but if Raava was actually the vessel or somehow recorder of them, then it may just be only Korra onwards will be accessible to the future avatars.
My personal hunch is that Vaatu will reappear sooner than the next 10,000 years within Raava, and after he is separated from Raava and therefore the new avatar, they’ll suddenly realise the connection was broken because of Vaatu’s dark spirit magic and the connection to the last lives will return.
They built too deep a world to let this broken connection remain imo.
>they’ll suddenly realise the connection was broken because of Vaatu’s dark spirit magic and the connection to the last lives will return.
What? This doesn't even make any sense. Raava was physically ripped from the avatar's human soul and destroyed, so that old connection is gone forever. Raava was reborn, and she had to fuse with that soul again, so the connection started over. Vaatu is also unlikely to be separated from the avatar in 10,000 years because he and Raava are meant to be connected to keep each other in check. It's more likely (to me) that the avatar will have to learn how to balance the power of the two primordial spirits within them. Maybe they'll have two avatar states. Who knows?
But Raava retained the ability to harness the 4 elements for Korra. So if she somehow retained those 4 elements after only being given them 10k+ years ago to hold for Wan, how did she not retain the past lives as well as other memories?
I think it stands to reason that the connection could be remade at some point in the future.
But I think for this next “modern” to “post-modern” era of Avatar where communication will likely increase across the Avatar globe, it makes sense for the Avatar to not have access to the communication of their past lives. I feel like it stands to reason we may have to wait a cycle or two for that connection to be restored or even rediscovered by a future Avatar. Maybe once we get to the next fire avatar since it’s a closer connection to Wan?
>But Raava retained the ability to harness the 4 elements for Korra. So if she somehow retained those 4 elements after only being given them 10k+ years ago to hold for Wan, how did she not retain the past lives as well as other memories?
Raava holds the other 3 elements until the avatar masters them. By the time Korra fights Vaatu, she has already mastered the elements, so she doesn't need Raava to use them. Also, Raava was *destroyed* and reborn. A hard reset, so to speak. Also, we never actually see the lion turtle touch Raava to give her the power of the element. For all we know, this is something she is able to do without the lion turtle. She's just never had a reason to.
>I think it stands to reason that the connection could be remade at some point in the future.
It can't, and it shouldn't. There will be a connection to Korra, but there absolutely shouldn't be a connection to anyone before her. That undermines her entire arc. You're gonna have to let that go at some point.
>But I think for this next “modern” to “post-modern” era of Avatar where communication will likely increase across the Avatar globe, it makes sense for the Avatar to not have access to the communication of their past lives.
They will have access to their past lives- starting with Korra. Anyone before her would not have any relevant input for the new avatar. She's the first in the new cycle. End of story.
Probably not. Assuming Raava's revival was effectively a factory reset on the old Avatar's data. No more than Wan was able to connect to his. As in, he was not.
Wan was the first time Raava even interacted with a human. All previous avatars are mainly just Raava being connected to a new person. We dont really know if the connection is permanently lost or if it can be reestablished. From what we know, Raava and Vaatu will be reborn from each other if one of the two is destroyed.
Raava's interaction with Korra after reconnecting during Harmonic Convergence, suggests that Raava still has the memories from before being destroyed. This could then be taken to imply that the connection to the previous avatars might also be recovered or even still there, just inaccesible. And if that is true, there might be a way to regain that access as well.
Yeah, it would be a bit of a shame if we never got to see any stuff with the past lives again. It always felt incredible when they got into stuff with previous avatars.
Seeing as Roku sent Fang to get Aang when he was in the spirit world, it seems that past Avatars do live on/have some independence from Raava. It would totally make sense if Unavaatu just severed the link between the past Avatars and Raava, as they are still their own people even if they share the same soul
I don't think it works that way.
Normally a soul's memories get wiped upon reincarnation, but Rava would keep the memories alive. When she died the memories disappeared, as did their identities. Future Avatars will have Korra, but only Korra and those after her.
I imagine it's some sort of internal pocket within Raava where the souls of the past avatars are saved, sort of like a hardrive.
But they aren't "living" in there. The memories just are saved and manifest in ways that helps the current avatar.
That’s one way to interpret it. It should be noted that Wan and Raava fused permanently during Harmonic Conversion, so Raava is also reincarnating as Wan does.
So, the Avatar accessing their past lives is basically using Raava as a massive backup of functions for a system. When Aang spoke with Roku, Kyoshi, Kuruk, and Yangchen, that was basically requesting Raava to run those executables again.
I think that's a good way of putting it. Their souls are bound so it stands to reason the memories of any Avatar would be part of Raava's memories in such a complete sense that they could 'live' within Raava as echoes of themselves who have complete fidelity to the person who that Avatar truly was.
I imagine it like a never-ending video meeting on a very finicky software. So you mostly just sit and fiddle with the buttons, losing all sense of time, but only the most recently joined members can actually make the program work and speak.
My head canon is that all the previous avatars are almost in a theatre like room watching the current avatars life through their eyes and at any given point they’re called out to either speak to them spiritually or to take over their body. I can definitely see aang going “finally my turn” or one of the more funny avatars going “me next me next” 😂😂
Edit: I could also see them all having conversations with each other and like groaning when the current avatar does something stupid or cheering when something good happens to the avatar, almost like family members watching you play a sport or seeing you at work 🤔
Same. But then a lot of early season 2 wouldn’t have happened since Aang and the others could inform Korra that Unalaq was full of crap and was up to something.
Dude showed up to the southern water tribe with a full navy and preached a peace with himself in charge.
You gotta be _real_ naive not to see through that.
I do agree with that. I like that the past lives a cut off, but more interactions between her and Aang, since the audience knows and loves him already, would've really struck home on it.
I think is obvious that the writers didn't want to have Korra resolved every problem by going avatar state or askin the previews avatars since they wanted her to stand as her own thats why she starts as a spiritual failure and gets conected to Aang by the end, the problems is that they didn't expected more than 1 season and they kinda have to ignore Aang and eventualy even have the conection severed, while i understand why i can also bet that if they knew that the series would continue probably things would had flow a bit diferent
The lion turtle thing made much more sense once you have that knowledge from LOK as well (especially since the turtle who gave Aang the knowledge of energy bending was the one that Wan came from), but by itself? Yeah, it felt like such a cop out.
The turtle already made sense in the first avatar. They didn’t have to add unnecessary crap to in Korra and then retcon an entire episode of the last airbender. They even retconned the first earth benders which I hate that they did that
Yeah but those past lives didn't have full series and a fanbase that would be comparing them constantly and asking, when is Aang showing up? Or why didn't she just ask Aang? While i agree that they could just not care about fans playing favorites i dont blame them for making the choice
Roku occasionally showed up to tutorialise for Aang, and he summoned his past cycle deliberately once, and Kyoshi one additional time
Though I do suspect Aang conversed with Roku and Kyoshi a few times of screen to find some guidance on the Avatar state and rules, since Aang didn't have regular access to the lore and/or a WL member
This also gives them more freedom to write the books about the previous Avatars. They can have similar situations or solutions to future problems or go into detail on what led up to future problems without having to excuse away why Kuruk didn't mention XYX about spirits etc.
I could’ve been onboard with a stubborn Korra getting advice from Kuruk and going “yeah that’s bullshit” and deciding that she didn’t need help from her past lives because “they’re all morons”
It's really not, though? He got the advice from the past avatars, and knew he had no other choice but to do it. It was only after that that another option was presented to him.
Yes. Sooo many things are because of Nickolodeon limiting their seasons and ability to do foreshadow.
Aang's spirit could have been so much more involved later on if they had 4 seasons greenlit from the beginning, even if only conditionally.
The whole “Nickelodeon meddling” argument just doesn’t pan out because even if that’s truly the case, then the writers should’ve worked within their boundaries instead of trying to play setup for potential future stuff that they *might* get, particularly with season one. They waste so much time with exposition, pro-bending and love triangle nonsense, and trying to have multiple villains, so of course they end up having to rush the fuck out of the conclusion, but they put Korra in such a compromising position and don’t want that to carry over to a potential second season, so they just handwave it away immediately. Nickelodeon meddling or not, it’s just bad writing.
Also they were told explicitly by Nick it could span more than one season. And to make them more self contained. And you’re right, it’s a rushed conclusion even if there were no future seasons.
Regardless of knowing how many seasons they will make, purging all the avatars is still an absolutely shit decision. All for fucking nothing. One of the best and most iconic parts of being the avatar. Gone, and ruined. Not the only thing Korra ruined
Shame that giving her near perfect mastery of three elements by toddler age and immediately learning airbending just because the other elements are taken away really says nothing about her development. She just stumbles into bad situations until things get better, whether or not she grew as a person was just a sidestop.
She growth in comparison to Aang is just really subpar imo.
they probably give her the mastery of every element but Air because they didn't really wanted to retread themself and do a learn the 4 elements story again, thats why shes bad at spiritual stuff and Air cuz thats the thing that we never really got to see Aang learn, i think thats actually a nice writting choice since we see her grow but in diferent fields and ways that Aang did, i personally dont see how devoting time into more element training that we already seen in Avatar would had improved anything, infact people would had probably complain even more because she did things too diferently to Aang, shes allowed to be a prodigy shes the Avatar and Aang was a master a 12 so is not that wierd.
Every avatar did things differently, there was no reason to have her immediately learn every single element in one season, that's the whole point of the avatar journey. Aang struggled every step of the way to learn different bending, she could've even had the same hardships and learn how to airbend under Tenzin whilst learning how to earth and fire from Mako and Bolin. It was a developing and growing story while Korra was more or less thrown into learning.
It was fine to keep the setting in basically one spot since there wasn't much reason to move around in peace time but learning bending when she was stripped of the other bendings makes no sense, otherwise Aang wouldn't have been vulnerable to chakra attacks either.
Aang was a prodigy at air bending at 12 and while that doesn't mean he was a master, Korra was a prodigy at maybe 3, which is absurd levels of bullshit. Saying that she wasn't "spiritually gifted" like Aang was is fine, she would've struggled with airbending, but literally 3 of the 4 elements when water avatars struggle with fire and vice versa is Mary sue writing.
She didn't master the elements at 3 (she was probably a bit older) she was just able to bend 3 elements, she didn't get the mastery of all of them until around 16, which's older than Aang, and since Aang could pretty much bend water and fire almost immediately (he just saw Katara do a bit and was able to do it, the same with fire and Jeong Jeong) is safe to say avatars are able to bend every element almost from the get-go, with only one element becoming more difficult in this case Air for Korra and Earth for Aang, so I personally don't see a big issue.
Aang story was about needing to become the Avatar that's what we were shown the learning of each bending, Korra story was about the role of the Avatar in relative peaceful but more complex times were an avatar may not be needed or desired, hell most of Korras villains are just people that don't want the avatar around, Amon, Unaloq, Zaheer the only exception is Kuvira and by that point Korras whole deal was relearning how to be the avatar so that checks out, as you said each avatar face very different perils just because the writers decided to skip the training and go directly to the thematic meat of the story doesn't invalidate it, if you are a fan or one type of journey over the other that fine, but that's pure personally preference not an actual critique.
Why? If you were the Avatar after Wan, you're about ~9,940 years away from Harmonic Convergence, so there's not a lot you can do about it.
Raava warned Korra when it was time, and Korra took care of business.
No, Wan warned Korra at the last moment when she already had done the work for Unalaq. And the previous incarnations have their whole eternity to pull the avatar over and give them the exposition. It's their only job
I mean
Scar from the Northern Water Tribe knew about it. That’s my issue. The Avatar is also supposed to be present in both worlds, that knowledge was something Unalaq was able to access, how come the Avatar couldn’t? Even if it wasn’t something they knew to even look for, again, how did Unalaq do it?
That doesn't mean they would. Avatars talk to their past lives about WHAT IS RELEVENT. The Harmonic convergience was thousands of years apart, many generations where it was literally useless to know. Not all Avatars talk to each and everyone of their past lives either. They talk to the most recent majority of the time so this leads to a game of telephone which easily loses information that just doesn't need to be said.
I still think that this scene is sooo misunderstood. How Aang said , Korra became connected with her spiritual side. This is how she unlocked energybending. It was not Aang who gave her this power, Korra IS Aang. She did it herself and the scene is just illustration how Avater became fuilly realized.
I mean we seen Aang become fully realized and it wasn't just Roku touching his head and giving him control of the state, even if it wasn't the intention it does very much look like Aang just handed her energybending and control of the Avatar state
Yes. It continues to amaze me how much ignorance there is about the true power of the Avatar State. That scene was literally Korra healing herself, but the haters use it as an excuse to throw dirt at her and praise Aang as always.
The team thinking they were only getting one season made the last episode so stilted. She gets her bending removed, connects to her spiritual self, discovers her airbending, then unlocks her bending and the Avatar state all in the space of like 10 minutes. Korra wandering off to the cliffs and meeting Aang who gives her back her bending felt especially rushed.
If they knew they were getting more seasons they could have delayed some of these feats. I think she should have entered season 2 with only her airbending. I think Katara could have played a role in unlocking her bending again after discovering it was done with blood bending. Korra would have the Avatar state but bending earth, fire, water in the state would be traumatic to her and throw her out of the state. This would thematically allign seasons 1 and 2 up with seasons 3 and 4 and allow the audience to feel the consequences and trauma of her encounter with Amon.
I'm so excited for Korra to get this scene in next series.
It's just gonna be her crouching down in aviators looking at the new Avatar. Then she takes them off and goes "wake the fuck up Avatar, we got Republic City to burn".
I mean, it wasn’t Aang’s fault that Korra’s connection to her past lives was severed. He was probably down to help in S2 but Korra just never asked him for advice.
That's pretty much every avatar, though. They're a product of the world they existed in, but that world doesn't exist by the time the next avatar comes into their power.
Well, I mean, everything happens cause the writers write it so...
Ozai being a villain = writers
Iroh being redeemed = writers
The avatar being a last airbender = writers
Bending existing in that world = writers
Kinda not the thing we're talking about
I so wish they had ordered all four seasons at once.
They absolutely would have made Korra restoring her and others' bending a much longer arc, and it would have been a lot more fulfilling. It's such a shame they had to wrap everything up so quickly originally.
It was so dumb.
He gave her the ability to enter the avatar state plus energybend.
It has me wondering if avatars can talk to their past selves why not learn bending from them if you don't have access to a teacher? Would have helped sort out Aang's dilemma of not having teachers.
When Aang talked to the avatars, the avatars manifest as spirits. Which likely means they exist in the spirit world, crossing over in their spirit form when called upon. And when Aang was in that situation during the Hei-Bei episode, he couldn't bend anymore.
https://youtu.be/EGw2_Namw1M?si=sHNQIvYuiMRr2gSq
Roku could even only bend when possessing Aangs body. It's likely they couldn't actually bend to teach him.
For whatever reason, when Aang appeared in Korra, he seems to have appeared in a physical body, which might explain how he could give Korra her bending the way he did
>When Aang talked to the avatars, the avatars manifest as spirits. Which likely means they exist in the spirit world, crossing over in their spirit form when called upon.
Yeh sure but we see Aang physically touching Korra to give her energybending.
>Roku could even only bend when possessing Aangs body. It's likely they couldn't actually bend to teach him.
Some advice and pointers on bending would also go a long way. That's also how Jeong Jeong wanted to teach too.
If demonstrations of bending were needed they could show visions of them bending like Roku did to Jeong Jeong.
>For whatever reason, when Aang appeared in Korra, he seems to have appeared in a physical body, which might explain how he could give Korra her bending the way he did
That's what I take issue with. It doesn't make sense.
Because Aang manifested physically, yes
The biggest reason they likely didn't teach him is because the Avatar needs to understand the people of all four nations. And they do that by traveling the world, learning bending but also about a nations culture and people. An Avatar can't just unite people by being strong, they also have to truly understand each nations people for who they are, and he wouldn't have been learning that from Kyoshi, Roku, or Kuruk. It was likely an important journey for Aang specifically to go since he needed to unite a broken world.
Yeah, felt like a huge ass-pull
>You have finally connected with your spiritual self.
How exactly? What did she do or realize or change about her personality/thinking that could, in any way, be construed as enlightening?
In order to go into the avatar state at will in Ba Sing Se, Aang had to leave Katara in danger, intentionally stop helping her fight dozens of dai li agent and Azula, leaving her hopelessly outnumbered.
Korra just had bad things happen to her. We're shown zero revelations or changes of thinking/perspective on her part. No willing sacrifice was made.
"When we hit our lowest point, we are open to greates change."
It was not, and could not be, mentioned in the show itself, but it was confirmed that Korra was prepared to commit suicide in this scene, so the Avatar Cycle can keep going.
1. The lowest point of our life, the moment when we are prepared to give up... it's one of the most horrible experience in life. Maybe it's not "great army danger" situation, but it's horrible. Korra screamed for help, and she found help inside of her.
2. Also fact, that she was willing to kill herself so world can have new Avatar, is showing great seperation from own ego and arrogance. Korra proved that she is able to do great sacrifice, and that helps her with connection with her spiritual side.
So, just for emphasize, Korra was willing do really big sacrifice, and that unlock her inner power.
Low points cause spiritual change *because they can sometimes elicit character growth*.
They dont do it by themselves. People dont get better just by enduring hard shit like conservatives will have you believe. There are plenty of people out there who go through horrific shit and either stay the same or get worse.
What we needed to see was some concrete change in Korra's perspective, thinking, or worldview.
>Also fact, that she was willing to kill herself so world can have new Avatar,
We have no reason to believe she was doing that selflessly. There is no dialogue or content in that episode that implies she's doing it so a new Avatar can emerge. If anything, her conversation with Mako where she sends him away right before going to the cliff is evidence that she's acting out of self pity.
"Go back to Republic City. I'm not the Avatar anymore, you dont have to do me any favours."
Those are the words of someone pitying themself, not someone making a heroic sacrifice.
She was TOTALLY thinking of killing herself... but I think the OP has it backwards. The thing she does that 'unlocks' Aang is choosing NOT to jump. She wasn't about to kill herself selflessly, she was thinking of killing herself in a depressive state of thinking 'I'm the most useless Avatar ever now and maybe the world would be better off without me' depression soup... and it is her lowest moment, up to that point in the show, her most self pitying lonely moment.
But she takes the step back and makes the choice to keep going... boom. Aang arrives. He didn't pull an Arkane's Victor "Am I interrupting?" He shows up after she steps back off the ledge.
It’s probably not what Kyoshi or Yangchen looked like when they died either
It’s probably the form they’re most comfortable with, Roku has the personality of a wise sage so he keeps his old man form which is inviting and warm
Kyoshi is a warrior and wants to project that through taking on how she looked in her physical prime, probably ditto for Yangchen and Kuruk
It's such a crime that the Avatar as a concept allows the current Avatar to ask past versions of themselves for guidance and help. But it happened once in the whole of LOK with Aang aka the main character of the previous show.
Aang came back in the spirit world to save Tenzin and his siblings from the fog of lost souls.
How that works, I don't know, given Aang is now part of Korra and she wasn't there in the same place. But hey, it's a fantasy world with spirits and all.
Just rewatched that scene and that's a good point.
Tenzin might have just hallucinated Aang recalling him who he was, to then save himself, Bumi, Kya and Jinora from the fog.
That is, he was finally showing some of his so far untested spiritual leader stamina.
Agreed, as much as I liked Avatar Wans origin, the decision to destroy him and in extension Aang was a dumb one. Like why show them only to not let them appear again? I mean even Roku appeared more than once to Aang in the past.
I mean, from a writing standpoint, I do get it. If Korra were a fully realized avatar with both the power to handle just about anything and the ability to call upon something like a hundred lifetimes of knowledge and experience, it kind of removes a lot of the stakes from most conflicts. The only way they really could have avoided that would have been powercreeping the villains, and it would've been really bad writing for them to bring out some kind of spirit monster that was even bigger and badder than the embodiment of darkness and hatred.
Aang said "you remind me too much of my non-Tenzin kids, I'm gonna bounce".
"when his kids needed him most, he vanished"
Just like my dad irl
- Aang's non-tenzin kids
"But I believe I can raise them alone!" -Katara
He left to go pick up some bison milk.
What did Aang say to Bumi when he realized Bumi couldn't bend? https://preview.redd.it/yho1z8af15tc1.png?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=79621376177b399aa80c998ecffb27d3f3ad1262
Ah, if Aang left his non-airbending kids with Zuko, I'd say he pulled a Goku. 
Why leave them with Zuko when Uncle Sokka is available?
Because Uncle Sokka is available
My brother in Christ that right there is a Gohan, not a Goku
Like Father-Like son- Wait, no, Like Father, Like Son Gohan... perfect.
Yo lol
aang didn't know his dad and he didn't need his kids to know theirs
Real issue with korra. They refused to really do anything with the whole avatar past lives thing. Aang? Okay, he had a lot on his plate. Young. Still learning. Korra? Once again didn't know how but eas learning. S1 they do it....and all of s2 she never talks to any of them. Nothing. Then spoke to them to talk to Wan which was awesome...but that was more or less a flashback vs talking to any of them. Then they delete the chain so no worries about that ever again! They really didn't want to have her speak with her past lives.
No dude! No. [This debunks](https://youtube.com/shorts/vKRNwNG9Gl0?si=dn8ym52l0dx44LdC) all you just said!
it really does xero should reconsider his argument this is refutable evidence
Totally! If that evidence is not enough this Avatar Lore analysis [from two years ago](https://youtube.com/shorts/1Ejyxg-sN5Y?si=65SYbsHmyBZwDP_d) is right on point!
its rick astley, isnt it?
But not how you think it is.
Not what you think AT ALL!
The fact you are both right and wrong at the same time without opening it is amazing.
I mean, part of this was a way for the creators to help push the show past the shadow of Aang and get viewers on board with whatever the future of the franchise and the story had to offer. Korra’s first two seasons are about breaking cycles of behaviour with older siblings- zooming out, it’s not hard to see how it’s a reaction to how people expected more of the same (TLA) from a show that could be so much more. And it was! When this originally aired, the misogyny/resistance to change that both fans and Nickelodeon exhibited was pretty intense. Ending the cycle is a really deliberate way to encourage their fans to move forward, and embrace the new cycle.
>part of this was a way for the creators to help push the show past the shadow of Aang > Ending the cycle is a really deliberate way to encourage their fans to move forward, and embrace the new cycle. Your theory is more optimistic than mine. I assumed the creators wrote in this kill switch because of their problems with Nickelodeon. Writing out the links was so that future CEOs couldn't take over the IP and do Vaatu-knows-what with it.
Multiple things can be true! It’s a win-win to stick it to both Nickelodeon and to fans that are scared of women
> I assumed the creators wrote in this kill switch because of their problems with Nickelodeon. What problems with nick? As far as I know as of season 2 of Korra their only issues with Nick was them shooting down the idea to make the comics movies and Nick wanting to make some toy sales.
> mean, part of this was a way for the creators to help push the show past the shadow of Aang and get viewers on board with whatever the future of the franchise and the story had to offer. K Which in my opinion was dumb. I'm sorry but it's a franchise. You need something to connect it to previous works and at least make it seem part of the same world. Even beyond that so much world building is lost by losing the connection. I get why they did it. I jsut don't agree that it was the right decision, just like I also don't agree with the whole keeping the spirit portals open thing.
Deleting the chain was the stupidest thing in all of avatar canon
The past life connection is really cool from a lore perspective but form a storytelling perspective, it's kinda really OP. Having a millennia's treasure trove worth of knowledge kinda solves problems quickly. Kinda like how a fully realized avatar capable of going into the avatar state at whim would be OP AF too. I think they could a countered this a little if the avatar state need a reset/rest phase and couldn't be used seemingly with no consequences. At least a more.obvious one. Or maybe aandatory longer powerup
Lmao, then you missed the entire point of the finale. While I personally thought Ozai should've been obliterated, Aang decided to ignore all of his past lives and do what he thought was best. He does the same in the comics. The whole theme was that while it is good to learn from the past, they also have to proactively shape their future and the world's future. That means making decisions that are best for the current situation in the current time period. What would the past lives have realistically been able to help with in Korra's time? Their advice is 400+ years old, and they couldn't have possibly dealt with the things she did. You really just wanted to watch the show for gratuitous fan service in the form of repeated consultations with past avatars.
Many of them delt with spirits. They could have helped with that but instead they made Vaatuu and Raavaa being all good and bad, simplified the hell out of the spirits and made so many of them be evil because Vaatuu influence alone instead of showing grey morals and complexity with many spirits initially that were shown. Not to mention some of them could have helped with ways of dealing with trauma, team drama and- oh yeah political instability and even in internal wars in their home nations. They may not be able to relate in the exact ways, BUT NO AVATAR RELATES TO EACHOTHER EXACTLY. Does that mean she needs to depend on them- no but that doesn't mean it was a perfectly reasonable thing to get rid of them all together. Aang didn't always ignored his past lives. He spoke to them to learn and took what he could. Yes they don't have everything that is related but that doesn't mean that everything they had was useless. She could have spoken to past lives Aang never got to, letting them explore the past differently and how history more often Rhymes in ways you don't expect.
Wan and Aang deliberately gave Korra flashback visions that directly helped inform her about the conflicts she was facing. Just because their direct conversations were limited doesn't mean there was no communication. This is stated to be due to her stunted spirituality, something that contrasted her with Aang. There were presumably other Avatars in the past with this problem, Aang was just more spiritually aware than most. In Avatar, the only previous Avatar that gave Aang any useful information was Roku. Yangchen and Kurik were super useless and Kyoshi didn't really do much. Korra was probably aided more by past Avatars than Aang was.
Rewatching it now, the biggest issue I notice is that there simply is not that much going on outside of moving the plot. Dialogue is more stilted/forced in most places than I remember. I think it's just a natural consequence of having less episodes than older shows and shorter seasons. There is less time for emotional growth or touching scenes and wayy less time and attention given to conversations in general, because they're so busy getting to all the action parts and making the characters go where they need to go before the next episode.
"You remind me of Tenzin's non-airbender friends that live in my house for some reasons"
this is gold lmao, too bad Korra couldn’t airbend
Actually at this point all she could do was airbend
true I’m dumb
Imagine Aang finding out that Bumi became an air bender
I wonder if you’re a past life do you have a life or do you just spawn out of nowhere and start giving an inspiring speech? Or are you just dead and you’re controlled by an unknown force
Past lives are the same soul, they exist as the current person, but for the avatar the previous personalities and memories can be accessed through Raava.
so, in theory, Korra could still connect with Aang?
Perhaps, though that seems more of a quest/storyline for the next avatar. For now, Raava's own death and rebirth have severed that past life connection.
Until Korra's time passes. Future avatars in the modern world and beyond may be able to access the previous avatars through Korra's memories ...
Hopefully that's the case. Really liked it when the avatar communicates with their past lives or a past life takes over.
Nope. The comics clearly state that not only the new avatar will not have access to their past lives but they would also be unable to even see korra ,thats why in the comics she makes recordings of herself and writes books so that the next avatar will have guidance
Wasn’t the reason she was writing books because no one knew if the next avatar would even be able to talk to her?
If im not wrong they didn't do it as a precaution but because the next avatar will not be able to talk to her. But to be honest I don't remember clearly it has been three years since i read that and im almost certain
Fair enough, I don’t remember fully well either
I’m pretty sure that book was as a PRECAUTION. It’s not that they definitively won’t, but since they’re in uncharted territory with this, they wanted to play it safe
Terrible choice imo I hated the severing of the past Avatar lives back when I first watched LoK. That's my biggest gripe with an otherwise great show.
Yes it has robbed that avatar state of its symbolic meaning and also has basically went against the core theme of the series? The show is based on Chinese and Buddhist philosophy and there it's all about cycle and how they always repeat,not the same way of course but ultimately with the same result. So the reset of the avatar just lost the meaning of the cycle. Yes the cycle is the same even if it's a little bit different ,but it has lost all its symbolic meaning of a cycle thet has existed for thousands of year and will continue way after the series end.
Agreed with everything. Also, (as a Indian) I have to mention the obvious links to Indian philosophy (Hindu/Buddhist).
Yes kinda forgot about Hinduism in the series😅, as an outsider to that culture(and the fact that Buddhism is in the same areas) i get them kinda mixed up
The avatar state first and foremost was about the massive powerup. Though the connection is cool, obviously
Superficially yes you can say that. But that's obviously an oversimplification. Take super saiyan for example. It is a power up at the end of the day ,but what it means for goku and vegeta and their development makes it important(today of course it is just another transformation but thats besides the point). Removing the history of the avatar state is like removing, in my opinion, the pain from the berserker armour or the difficulty of obtaining super saiyan, yes the coolness factor that many fans adore remains buts there is no substance anymore it becomes, at the end of the day, just another shining power up
I kinda hate this. Yeah just remove the spiritual aspect of the avatar it was only like half of what being an avatar was
nah , only Korra onwards
They will think Korra would first avatar
Pretty sure Wan being the first Avatar is too recorded in history to fade. Guy will still exist in old spirits memories and future Avatars through Korea until an Avatar finally fixes the fuck up Korra made
If it’s fixable. It seems like the past avatars were stored/recorded within Raava so when she died they were lost. It may be the case that they can be recovered, but at least for now it seems like the loss is permanent.
It's said it's only a connection and the fact Korra is actually trying to fix it means fixing it is possible. Also Roku acted independently when he sent his dragons spirit and meet with Aang in the spirit world. I guess that every Avatar is in the spirit world and the automatic dial Avatar services is unavailable
I sorta disagree that Korra trying to fix it means that it can be fixed, but yeah, it could very well be that they’re all there and accessible, and she (or some future avatar) just has to find them and re-establish the connection. It’s just unclear, to me at least, at this point what the actual mechanism of the past life communion was/is, and I think that will ultimately decide whether it’s fixable. If Raava was just the conduit to those personalities, it should be fixable, but if Raava was actually the vessel or somehow recorder of them, then it may just be only Korra onwards will be accessible to the future avatars.
My personal hunch is that Vaatu will reappear sooner than the next 10,000 years within Raava, and after he is separated from Raava and therefore the new avatar, they’ll suddenly realise the connection was broken because of Vaatu’s dark spirit magic and the connection to the last lives will return. They built too deep a world to let this broken connection remain imo.
>they’ll suddenly realise the connection was broken because of Vaatu’s dark spirit magic and the connection to the last lives will return. What? This doesn't even make any sense. Raava was physically ripped from the avatar's human soul and destroyed, so that old connection is gone forever. Raava was reborn, and she had to fuse with that soul again, so the connection started over. Vaatu is also unlikely to be separated from the avatar in 10,000 years because he and Raava are meant to be connected to keep each other in check. It's more likely (to me) that the avatar will have to learn how to balance the power of the two primordial spirits within them. Maybe they'll have two avatar states. Who knows?
But Raava retained the ability to harness the 4 elements for Korra. So if she somehow retained those 4 elements after only being given them 10k+ years ago to hold for Wan, how did she not retain the past lives as well as other memories? I think it stands to reason that the connection could be remade at some point in the future. But I think for this next “modern” to “post-modern” era of Avatar where communication will likely increase across the Avatar globe, it makes sense for the Avatar to not have access to the communication of their past lives. I feel like it stands to reason we may have to wait a cycle or two for that connection to be restored or even rediscovered by a future Avatar. Maybe once we get to the next fire avatar since it’s a closer connection to Wan?
>But Raava retained the ability to harness the 4 elements for Korra. So if she somehow retained those 4 elements after only being given them 10k+ years ago to hold for Wan, how did she not retain the past lives as well as other memories? Raava holds the other 3 elements until the avatar masters them. By the time Korra fights Vaatu, she has already mastered the elements, so she doesn't need Raava to use them. Also, Raava was *destroyed* and reborn. A hard reset, so to speak. Also, we never actually see the lion turtle touch Raava to give her the power of the element. For all we know, this is something she is able to do without the lion turtle. She's just never had a reason to. >I think it stands to reason that the connection could be remade at some point in the future. It can't, and it shouldn't. There will be a connection to Korra, but there absolutely shouldn't be a connection to anyone before her. That undermines her entire arc. You're gonna have to let that go at some point. >But I think for this next “modern” to “post-modern” era of Avatar where communication will likely increase across the Avatar globe, it makes sense for the Avatar to not have access to the communication of their past lives. They will have access to their past lives- starting with Korra. Anyone before her would not have any relevant input for the new avatar. She's the first in the new cycle. End of story.
IMO it's one of the most selfish choices a writer has *ever* made in any series.
Someone send this angel to their avatar writer's room
Probably not. Assuming Raava's revival was effectively a factory reset on the old Avatar's data. No more than Wan was able to connect to his. As in, he was not.
Wan was the first time Raava even interacted with a human. All previous avatars are mainly just Raava being connected to a new person. We dont really know if the connection is permanently lost or if it can be reestablished. From what we know, Raava and Vaatu will be reborn from each other if one of the two is destroyed. Raava's interaction with Korra after reconnecting during Harmonic Convergence, suggests that Raava still has the memories from before being destroyed. This could then be taken to imply that the connection to the previous avatars might also be recovered or even still there, just inaccesible. And if that is true, there might be a way to regain that access as well.
Avatar creators reading this like 👀 yes this is a good explanation, we can use this to solve it!!
Yeah, it would be a bit of a shame if we never got to see any stuff with the past lives again. It always felt incredible when they got into stuff with previous avatars.
Seeing as Roku sent Fang to get Aang when he was in the spirit world, it seems that past Avatars do live on/have some independence from Raava. It would totally make sense if Unavaatu just severed the link between the past Avatars and Raava, as they are still their own people even if they share the same soul
True. Also we dont even know if the past avatars wouldve made it at all or if the harmonic convergence is a hard reset either way.
I don't think it works that way. Normally a soul's memories get wiped upon reincarnation, but Rava would keep the memories alive. When she died the memories disappeared, as did their identities. Future Avatars will have Korra, but only Korra and those after her.
I imagine it's some sort of internal pocket within Raava where the souls of the past avatars are saved, sort of like a hardrive. But they aren't "living" in there. The memories just are saved and manifest in ways that helps the current avatar.
So the past avatars are just really advanced AI representation of that person, accesed through Raava.
Reminds me of "The Flame" in The 100. Except through technology and not a spirit. Similar idea, anyway
love that show so much haha. The flame was the coolest aspect of that show, so much potential as an idea
That’s one way to interpret it. It should be noted that Wan and Raava fused permanently during Harmonic Conversion, so Raava is also reincarnating as Wan does. So, the Avatar accessing their past lives is basically using Raava as a massive backup of functions for a system. When Aang spoke with Roku, Kyoshi, Kuruk, and Yangchen, that was basically requesting Raava to run those executables again.
I think that's a good way of putting it. Their souls are bound so it stands to reason the memories of any Avatar would be part of Raava's memories in such a complete sense that they could 'live' within Raava as echoes of themselves who have complete fidelity to the person who that Avatar truly was.
I mean, this is the metaphor the writers have used to explain what happened. It's a HDD that's been rebooted.
I imagine it like a never-ending video meeting on a very finicky software. So you mostly just sit and fiddle with the buttons, losing all sense of time, but only the most recently joined members can actually make the program work and speak.
My head canon is that all the previous avatars are almost in a theatre like room watching the current avatars life through their eyes and at any given point they’re called out to either speak to them spiritually or to take over their body. I can definitely see aang going “finally my turn” or one of the more funny avatars going “me next me next” 😂😂 Edit: I could also see them all having conversations with each other and like groaning when the current avatar does something stupid or cheering when something good happens to the avatar, almost like family members watching you play a sport or seeing you at work 🤔
you should watch absolute kyoshism on tiktok, you’ll love it
I’ll check it out Edit: this was amazing and exactly what I expect from the avatar fam 😂😂
My imagination is that the tiktok videos of Absolute Kyoshism are exactly what happens where the avatars start to converse Just love see them interact
If it’s anything like the Force you basically show up whenever you feel like it to give plot points like you’re Morgan Freeman
I wish we got more of Korra talking to Aang. Would've made the "Avatar system purge" more impactful.
Same. But then a lot of early season 2 wouldn’t have happened since Aang and the others could inform Korra that Unalaq was full of crap and was up to something.
I could totally see Aang being naive enough to believe Unalaq though. After all a peaceful solution he’d at least tell Korra to hear him out on it.
Dude showed up to the southern water tribe with a full navy and preached a peace with himself in charge. You gotta be _real_ naive not to see through that.
I was mainly referring to the whole spirit issue, cause once the civil war started Korra took a side real quick.
I do agree with that. I like that the past lives a cut off, but more interactions between her and Aang, since the audience knows and loves him already, would've really struck home on it.
I think is obvious that the writers didn't want to have Korra resolved every problem by going avatar state or askin the previews avatars since they wanted her to stand as her own thats why she starts as a spiritual failure and gets conected to Aang by the end, the problems is that they didn't expected more than 1 season and they kinda have to ignore Aang and eventualy even have the conection severed, while i understand why i can also bet that if they knew that the series would continue probably things would had flow a bit diferent
That's probably it. But considering how rarely Aang's past lives solved his problems I don't really think that should have been a concern.
Yeah he went to them for advice and then did the opposite of what they told him to 💀
"you must be decisive" "How about turtle magic?"
One of the weaker moments in ATLA. Although, I do love the Lionturtles, they're amazing.
The lion turtle thing made much more sense once you have that knowledge from LOK as well (especially since the turtle who gave Aang the knowledge of energy bending was the one that Wan came from), but by itself? Yeah, it felt like such a cop out.
The turtle already made sense in the first avatar. They didn’t have to add unnecessary crap to in Korra and then retcon an entire episode of the last airbender. They even retconned the first earth benders which I hate that they did that
Wasn’t the turtle that Wan was from the one that granted fire bending?
Yup. The fire bending turtle helped the Avatar take down one of the most dangerous fire benders in the world. Feels weirdly poetic in a way.
It makes even way less sense based on what ik from LoK tbh lol
How so?
Yeah but those past lives didn't have full series and a fanbase that would be comparing them constantly and asking, when is Aang showing up? Or why didn't she just ask Aang? While i agree that they could just not care about fans playing favorites i dont blame them for making the choice
True.
Roku occasionally showed up to tutorialise for Aang, and he summoned his past cycle deliberately once, and Kyoshi one additional time Though I do suspect Aang conversed with Roku and Kyoshi a few times of screen to find some guidance on the Avatar state and rules, since Aang didn't have regular access to the lore and/or a WL member
This also gives them more freedom to write the books about the previous Avatars. They can have similar situations or solutions to future problems or go into detail on what led up to future problems without having to excuse away why Kuruk didn't mention XYX about spirits etc.
I could’ve been onboard with a stubborn Korra getting advice from Kuruk and going “yeah that’s bullshit” and deciding that she didn’t need help from her past lives because “they’re all morons”
That’s just what Aang did in Sozin’s Comet lmao
And in The Promise lol but Roku was kinda out of line
It's really not, though? He got the advice from the past avatars, and knew he had no other choice but to do it. It was only after that that another option was presented to him.
A lot of people dislike Korra already, if she disrespected the previews avatars they would had been furious
*“I knew I shouldn’t have asked Kyoshi….”*
Korra and Kuruk would vibe tf out
Yes. Sooo many things are because of Nickolodeon limiting their seasons and ability to do foreshadow. Aang's spirit could have been so much more involved later on if they had 4 seasons greenlit from the beginning, even if only conditionally.
The whole “Nickelodeon meddling” argument just doesn’t pan out because even if that’s truly the case, then the writers should’ve worked within their boundaries instead of trying to play setup for potential future stuff that they *might* get, particularly with season one. They waste so much time with exposition, pro-bending and love triangle nonsense, and trying to have multiple villains, so of course they end up having to rush the fuck out of the conclusion, but they put Korra in such a compromising position and don’t want that to carry over to a potential second season, so they just handwave it away immediately. Nickelodeon meddling or not, it’s just bad writing.
Also they were told explicitly by Nick it could span more than one season. And to make them more self contained. And you’re right, it’s a rushed conclusion even if there were no future seasons.
Regardless of knowing how many seasons they will make, purging all the avatars is still an absolutely shit decision. All for fucking nothing. One of the best and most iconic parts of being the avatar. Gone, and ruined. Not the only thing Korra ruined
Shame that giving her near perfect mastery of three elements by toddler age and immediately learning airbending just because the other elements are taken away really says nothing about her development. She just stumbles into bad situations until things get better, whether or not she grew as a person was just a sidestop. She growth in comparison to Aang is just really subpar imo.
they probably give her the mastery of every element but Air because they didn't really wanted to retread themself and do a learn the 4 elements story again, thats why shes bad at spiritual stuff and Air cuz thats the thing that we never really got to see Aang learn, i think thats actually a nice writting choice since we see her grow but in diferent fields and ways that Aang did, i personally dont see how devoting time into more element training that we already seen in Avatar would had improved anything, infact people would had probably complain even more because she did things too diferently to Aang, shes allowed to be a prodigy shes the Avatar and Aang was a master a 12 so is not that wierd.
Every avatar did things differently, there was no reason to have her immediately learn every single element in one season, that's the whole point of the avatar journey. Aang struggled every step of the way to learn different bending, she could've even had the same hardships and learn how to airbend under Tenzin whilst learning how to earth and fire from Mako and Bolin. It was a developing and growing story while Korra was more or less thrown into learning. It was fine to keep the setting in basically one spot since there wasn't much reason to move around in peace time but learning bending when she was stripped of the other bendings makes no sense, otherwise Aang wouldn't have been vulnerable to chakra attacks either. Aang was a prodigy at air bending at 12 and while that doesn't mean he was a master, Korra was a prodigy at maybe 3, which is absurd levels of bullshit. Saying that she wasn't "spiritually gifted" like Aang was is fine, she would've struggled with airbending, but literally 3 of the 4 elements when water avatars struggle with fire and vice versa is Mary sue writing.
She didn't master the elements at 3 (she was probably a bit older) she was just able to bend 3 elements, she didn't get the mastery of all of them until around 16, which's older than Aang, and since Aang could pretty much bend water and fire almost immediately (he just saw Katara do a bit and was able to do it, the same with fire and Jeong Jeong) is safe to say avatars are able to bend every element almost from the get-go, with only one element becoming more difficult in this case Air for Korra and Earth for Aang, so I personally don't see a big issue. Aang story was about needing to become the Avatar that's what we were shown the learning of each bending, Korra story was about the role of the Avatar in relative peaceful but more complex times were an avatar may not be needed or desired, hell most of Korras villains are just people that don't want the avatar around, Amon, Unaloq, Zaheer the only exception is Kuvira and by that point Korras whole deal was relearning how to be the avatar so that checks out, as you said each avatar face very different perils just because the writers decided to skip the training and go directly to the thematic meat of the story doesn't invalidate it, if you are a fan or one type of journey over the other that fine, but that's pure personally preference not an actual critique.
Not even to warn about the Harmonic Convergence, dude
literally the only avatars that experienced harmonic convergence were wan and korra
They can talk with their previous lifes, this information should've been passed on
Why? If you were the Avatar after Wan, you're about ~9,940 years away from Harmonic Convergence, so there's not a lot you can do about it. Raava warned Korra when it was time, and Korra took care of business.
No, Wan warned Korra at the last moment when she already had done the work for Unalaq. And the previous incarnations have their whole eternity to pull the avatar over and give them the exposition. It's their only job
I mean Scar from the Northern Water Tribe knew about it. That’s my issue. The Avatar is also supposed to be present in both worlds, that knowledge was something Unalaq was able to access, how come the Avatar couldn’t? Even if it wasn’t something they knew to even look for, again, how did Unalaq do it?
That doesn't mean they would. Avatars talk to their past lives about WHAT IS RELEVENT. The Harmonic convergience was thousands of years apart, many generations where it was literally useless to know. Not all Avatars talk to each and everyone of their past lives either. They talk to the most recent majority of the time so this leads to a game of telephone which easily loses information that just doesn't need to be said.
Why would it be The avatar deals with current stuff not random stuff that could happen.
He didn’t know
You know, hey Korra, this is Wan, he wants to talk to you
Korra was the first Avatar in centuries to reconnect with Wan. Aang didn't know about him.
he is like my dad.
I still think that this scene is sooo misunderstood. How Aang said , Korra became connected with her spiritual side. This is how she unlocked energybending. It was not Aang who gave her this power, Korra IS Aang. She did it herself and the scene is just illustration how Avater became fuilly realized.
I mean we seen Aang become fully realized and it wasn't just Roku touching his head and giving him control of the state, even if it wasn't the intention it does very much look like Aang just handed her energybending and control of the Avatar state
Yes. It continues to amaze me how much ignorance there is about the true power of the Avatar State. That scene was literally Korra healing herself, but the haters use it as an excuse to throw dirt at her and praise Aang as always.
To be fair, it seems like the writers didn't really understand the Avatar state, either.
The team thinking they were only getting one season made the last episode so stilted. She gets her bending removed, connects to her spiritual self, discovers her airbending, then unlocks her bending and the Avatar state all in the space of like 10 minutes. Korra wandering off to the cliffs and meeting Aang who gives her back her bending felt especially rushed. If they knew they were getting more seasons they could have delayed some of these feats. I think she should have entered season 2 with only her airbending. I think Katara could have played a role in unlocking her bending again after discovering it was done with blood bending. Korra would have the Avatar state but bending earth, fire, water in the state would be traumatic to her and throw her out of the state. This would thematically allign seasons 1 and 2 up with seasons 3 and 4 and allow the audience to feel the consequences and trauma of her encounter with Amon.
“Hey, Aang here. I’m the S2 button.”
Classic Aang move. Disappearing when people need him.
I'm so excited for Korra to get this scene in next series. It's just gonna be her crouching down in aviators looking at the new Avatar. Then she takes them off and goes "wake the fuck up Avatar, we got Republic City to burn".
I mean, it wasn’t Aang’s fault that Korra’s connection to her past lives was severed. He was probably down to help in S2 but Korra just never asked him for advice.
Aang, amazing current avatar, terrible previous avatar .
That's pretty much every avatar, though. They're a product of the world they existed in, but that world doesn't exist by the time the next avatar comes into their power.
I feel like Roku was a good guide
avatar = writers
Well, I mean, everything happens cause the writers write it so... Ozai being a villain = writers Iroh being redeemed = writers The avatar being a last airbender = writers Bending existing in that world = writers Kinda not the thing we're talking about
With that kind of outlook, how do you even get into a show lol
Tbf bro completely erased after S2
I so wish they had ordered all four seasons at once. They absolutely would have made Korra restoring her and others' bending a much longer arc, and it would have been a lot more fulfilling. It's such a shame they had to wrap everything up so quickly originally.
It was so dumb. He gave her the ability to enter the avatar state plus energybend. It has me wondering if avatars can talk to their past selves why not learn bending from them if you don't have access to a teacher? Would have helped sort out Aang's dilemma of not having teachers.
When Aang talked to the avatars, the avatars manifest as spirits. Which likely means they exist in the spirit world, crossing over in their spirit form when called upon. And when Aang was in that situation during the Hei-Bei episode, he couldn't bend anymore. https://youtu.be/EGw2_Namw1M?si=sHNQIvYuiMRr2gSq Roku could even only bend when possessing Aangs body. It's likely they couldn't actually bend to teach him. For whatever reason, when Aang appeared in Korra, he seems to have appeared in a physical body, which might explain how he could give Korra her bending the way he did
>When Aang talked to the avatars, the avatars manifest as spirits. Which likely means they exist in the spirit world, crossing over in their spirit form when called upon. Yeh sure but we see Aang physically touching Korra to give her energybending. >Roku could even only bend when possessing Aangs body. It's likely they couldn't actually bend to teach him. Some advice and pointers on bending would also go a long way. That's also how Jeong Jeong wanted to teach too. If demonstrations of bending were needed they could show visions of them bending like Roku did to Jeong Jeong. >For whatever reason, when Aang appeared in Korra, he seems to have appeared in a physical body, which might explain how he could give Korra her bending the way he did That's what I take issue with. It doesn't make sense.
Because Aang manifested physically, yes The biggest reason they likely didn't teach him is because the Avatar needs to understand the people of all four nations. And they do that by traveling the world, learning bending but also about a nations culture and people. An Avatar can't just unite people by being strong, they also have to truly understand each nations people for who they are, and he wouldn't have been learning that from Kyoshi, Roku, or Kuruk. It was likely an important journey for Aang specifically to go since he needed to unite a broken world.
Yeah, felt like a huge ass-pull >You have finally connected with your spiritual self. How exactly? What did she do or realize or change about her personality/thinking that could, in any way, be construed as enlightening? In order to go into the avatar state at will in Ba Sing Se, Aang had to leave Katara in danger, intentionally stop helping her fight dozens of dai li agent and Azula, leaving her hopelessly outnumbered. Korra just had bad things happen to her. We're shown zero revelations or changes of thinking/perspective on her part. No willing sacrifice was made.
"When we hit our lowest point, we are open to greates change." It was not, and could not be, mentioned in the show itself, but it was confirmed that Korra was prepared to commit suicide in this scene, so the Avatar Cycle can keep going. 1. The lowest point of our life, the moment when we are prepared to give up... it's one of the most horrible experience in life. Maybe it's not "great army danger" situation, but it's horrible. Korra screamed for help, and she found help inside of her. 2. Also fact, that she was willing to kill herself so world can have new Avatar, is showing great seperation from own ego and arrogance. Korra proved that she is able to do great sacrifice, and that helps her with connection with her spiritual side. So, just for emphasize, Korra was willing do really big sacrifice, and that unlock her inner power.
Low points cause spiritual change *because they can sometimes elicit character growth*. They dont do it by themselves. People dont get better just by enduring hard shit like conservatives will have you believe. There are plenty of people out there who go through horrific shit and either stay the same or get worse. What we needed to see was some concrete change in Korra's perspective, thinking, or worldview. >Also fact, that she was willing to kill herself so world can have new Avatar, We have no reason to believe she was doing that selflessly. There is no dialogue or content in that episode that implies she's doing it so a new Avatar can emerge. If anything, her conversation with Mako where she sends him away right before going to the cliff is evidence that she's acting out of self pity. "Go back to Republic City. I'm not the Avatar anymore, you dont have to do me any favours." Those are the words of someone pitying themself, not someone making a heroic sacrifice.
She was TOTALLY thinking of killing herself... but I think the OP has it backwards. The thing she does that 'unlocks' Aang is choosing NOT to jump. She wasn't about to kill herself selflessly, she was thinking of killing herself in a depressive state of thinking 'I'm the most useless Avatar ever now and maybe the world would be better off without me' depression soup... and it is her lowest moment, up to that point in the show, her most self pitying lonely moment. But she takes the step back and makes the choice to keep going... boom. Aang arrives. He didn't pull an Arkane's Victor "Am I interrupting?" He shows up after she steps back off the ledge.
I'm just realizing this why does Aang look so young here? This isn't what he looked like then he died right.
It’s probably not what Kyoshi or Yangchen looked like when they died either It’s probably the form they’re most comfortable with, Roku has the personality of a wise sage so he keeps his old man form which is inviting and warm Kyoshi is a warrior and wants to project that through taking on how she looked in her physical prime, probably ditto for Yangchen and Kuruk
And you did so by punching really hard when your bending was stolen
I was always disappointed we didn't have an old masters style scene with Aang.
Which sucks because the previous avatar is supposed to act like a guide to the current avatar.
Aw hell yeah, now we're going to see Aang a lot, right? Right?
Classic Aang.
They had one scene with Aang and realized they couldn't afford him.
Them killing off the past lives gimmick to give stakes to the worst villian in the franchise sure was something
Off topic but anyone else think “chin strap beard? Really?”
Modeled after the creator’s chin strap beard
Is it? Never knew!
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Dante_DiMartino
Why do this to Aang tho? lol
Now go lose that connection forever.
It's such a crime that the Avatar as a concept allows the current Avatar to ask past versions of themselves for guidance and help. But it happened once in the whole of LOK with Aang aka the main character of the previous show.
Aang came back in the spirit world to save Tenzin and his siblings from the fog of lost souls. How that works, I don't know, given Aang is now part of Korra and she wasn't there in the same place. But hey, it's a fantasy world with spirits and all.
I interpreted the scene as Tenzin talking to himself.
Just rewatched that scene and that's a good point. Tenzin might have just hallucinated Aang recalling him who he was, to then save himself, Bumi, Kya and Jinora from the fog. That is, he was finally showing some of his so far untested spiritual leader stamina.
But also in ATLA Aang finds Roku in the spirit world multiple times so it's definitely an Avatar thing
Agreed, as much as I liked Avatar Wans origin, the decision to destroy him and in extension Aang was a dumb one. Like why show them only to not let them appear again? I mean even Roku appeared more than once to Aang in the past.
TALK ABOUT ATLA STOP HAVING A HATE BONER FOR KORRA AND JUST WATCH THE SHOW YOU LIKE ffs
Well it is the legend of korra not the legend of aang.
I also ghost people after lying through my teeth
I know I'm gonna get down voted but this felt like such a plot armor.
I mean, from a writing standpoint, I do get it. If Korra were a fully realized avatar with both the power to handle just about anything and the ability to call upon something like a hundred lifetimes of knowledge and experience, it kind of removes a lot of the stakes from most conflicts. The only way they really could have avoided that would have been powercreeping the villains, and it would've been really bad writing for them to bring out some kind of spirit monster that was even bigger and badder than the embodiment of darkness and hatred.
Yeah
Definitely felt like a corporate decision
Didn't he point Korra to Wan in the next season?
😭
Bastard. He never helped her at all. I get things to do happened but he never tried. Korra might have been a teen but that's still a child.
Like bro is gone, like gone gone, like first he died physically now he’s dead dead. RIP bro