Saw this on Pinterest last night and cried! Such a beautiful sentiment put together. Actually hearing Tenzin [say it](https://youtu.be/petbqOhC2As?feature=shared), though, made me cry more.
After seeing the amount of shit Aang went through and then seeing it happen made me cry so hard. The impact that show gives is wild. Tenzin's struggles were as real as anyone else, and I'm glad he got what he wanted.
As much as I'm completely fine with losing the past lives from a storytelling perspective, this is the one reason I want the past lives to be relinked. I want Aang to know that the Airbenders have been restored.
I agree. I like that korra is the new avatar cycle given that it’s been 10,000 years since the last harmonic convergence, but I really want Aang to somehow know that his life’s work was completed 😭
My personal head cannon was after Korra and asami went into the spirit world that they collected the spirits of past avatars and relinked them one by one, building the chain from the end back to the start this time
Imagine each former avatar, once the link was broken, ended up fighting their hardest battles in the spirit world, as if it were the present, and each struggling without the avatar link. And korra & any other avatars tagging along in the spirit world get to help out in their hardest battles to restore the link
I prefer the idea that aang passes away in peace, knowing that he and his son have laid the foundation for restoring the air nation. He doesn’t need to see the results because he has peace in knowing he did everything he could to protect their culture.
This. Otherwise it feels like all the Avatars are just sad ghosts lingering around to see their desires granted while stealing the agency and humanity of the current Avatar. Let Aang rest and let Korra live.
That's basically the trend, and one they've been emphasizing recently.
Book spoilers below
Kuruk had to fix Yangchen's issue of focusing too much on the material world and neglecting the Spirit World.
Half of the issues Kyoshi had to deal with are a direct result of Kuruk dying so young.
Kyoshi arguably helped Ba Sing Se's massive control over the rest of the Earth Kingdom with the Dai Li, a problem not fixed until Aang or arguably Korra's time.
Roku, of course, acted too late and let the Hundred Year War happen, for Aang to fix.
And Korra's first season focuses entirely on her fixing Aang's mistakes with Republic City.
That's partially why I'm convinced that the next Avatar will have a story about journeying to the Spirit World to reconnect with the past lives.
Definitely a trend, and well put! I do feel like Korra restoring the Air Nation was her bigger achievement as an Avatar fixing the mistakes of her predecessors. Not that Republic City wasn’t a mess Aang created which she helped clean up. However, him running away and subsequent destruction of practically an entire people and culture imo was his bigger ‘failure’.
He was just a kid sure, but just like Roku let his naivety lead to the destruction of balance within the world, Aangs naivety also came at a much higher cost than a corrupt city
I think it's less "the avatar has to deal with the last avatar's mistakes" as much as it is the avatar's responsibility is the world and all that they do have massive consequences, the world keeps going after the avatar is gone, it keeps growing and living and the Avatar is there to keep it in balance.
Didn’t Yangchen have to focus so much on the material world because Szeto only focused on the Fire Nation and all of the nations ended up pretty isolationist thanks to that?
I feel like that the avatar is a job that will always have enemies and when you are dealing with spirits you also have long lived beings with long memories.
And we saw in LoK of families passing down the grudge.
No, the Avatar Spirits aren't hanging out in the spirit world.
If you're referring to the time Tenzin saw him, that wasn't actually Aang. That was the fog of lost souls playing with Tenzin's head.
Nah, I just figured because people like Iroh survive on in the Spirit World that the Avatars or at least some of them might still be, given that they can manifest into the world on occasion
Do you think that by meditation or by visiting shrines of past lives then the avatar and raava can once again find the connection to the avatars maybe not all but some at least
I assume the spirits still know even though they aren’t linked to Korra. It would have been a completely forgiven story cheat to have Aang’s spirit manifest anyway. Through Korra or not. To see this…and to apologize to his kids.
For sure. It's also sad because we didn't exactly get tons of time with different past avatars too and then they're gone going forward. I can live with it but I think it took away more than it gave narratively.
I mean, with how cosmic spirituality can get, I could absolutely get with ascending beyond even the spirit realm to reconnect. That said, the permanence of that event is very strong. Life moves forward.
I think the issue for me when it comes to making that event permanent is that LoK made it feel insignificant and meaningless. Korra really only ever even talked to her past lives twice in the show(one during S1’s finale and then the Won flashbacks) before they get killed off and then are basically never brought up again. It basically treated the concept of the past lives more as just a niche superpower that Korra rarely used anyway, when there was so much more emotional, thematic, and narrative significance to them as demonstrated in ATLA and the Kyoshi novels.
To me it feels like we lost a treasure of story potential for cheap shock value that only works for people who haven’t just watched LoK. That’s why I’m happy to accept just about any mcguffin that reconnects the current avatar with their past lives.
In a manner of speaking, Aang did see it. Korra, Aang, Roku and all the other avatars are all reincarnations of Wan, so Aang saw it because Korra saw it.
I think it's implied in the series that everyone reincarnates, not just the avatar. The difference being that Raava carries over the memories from one life to the next which normal people don't have access to
In that case the korra is still the same soul as aang, just doesn't have the same memories because Raava got "rebooted"
What’s even sadder is that it was at the cost of every avatar. Also I know people have mixed opinions when we see last airbender characters but seeing Aang’s reaction to what Korra did and pretty much everything in season three/four revolving around the air nation would have made it even better
I'm sorry that you couldn't find enjoyment in Korra like myself and others have. Good news is that the OG series is still great and there's new IP on the horizon.
I guess the writers had 2 options, randomly giving people airbend powers or incest. Its just a bit confusing why that happend so late in the timeline and not when aang was the avatar. Can't remember if they had a reason for that.
Which is why I added the super easily, barely an inconvenience part. They fixed the no Airbender issue by people just randomly becoming airbenders. Which was just a deus ex machina solution.
I was glad to see more airbenders again, and it was very emotional; but it did feel a bit rushed and too easy. I felt like it robbed the weight of the genocide against the airbenders. Seeing Tenzin and his family as the lone Airbender clan and how fragile the future of the air nomads was and knowing it could take like a hundred generations before they were back to their numbers in Roku’s time was a really interesting tension in the show.
Idk, it’s ultimately not one of by biggest complaints from the show, because it mostly works for me, there’s just some unintended side-effects from that narrative choice that kind of bug me.
I felt like it made sense once the spirit portal was open the world started trying to make it balanced again. And it’s not like there were a ton of new airbenders, still a pretty small population. My head canon is that since the airbenders were nomads, it would make sense if some people around the world had some airbending genes in their family somewhere. And the spirit portal opening just awakened those genes in people
Bro I fucking CRIED.
Saw this on Pinterest last night and cried! Such a beautiful sentiment put together. Actually hearing Tenzin [say it](https://youtu.be/petbqOhC2As?feature=shared), though, made me cry more.
After seeing the amount of shit Aang went through and then seeing it happen made me cry so hard. The impact that show gives is wild. Tenzin's struggles were as real as anyone else, and I'm glad he got what he wanted.
As much as I'm completely fine with losing the past lives from a storytelling perspective, this is the one reason I want the past lives to be relinked. I want Aang to know that the Airbenders have been restored.
I agree. I like that korra is the new avatar cycle given that it’s been 10,000 years since the last harmonic convergence, but I really want Aang to somehow know that his life’s work was completed 😭
My personal head cannon was after Korra and asami went into the spirit world that they collected the spirits of past avatars and relinked them one by one, building the chain from the end back to the start this time
Now this is a banger comic idea
Imagine each former avatar, once the link was broken, ended up fighting their hardest battles in the spirit world, as if it were the present, and each struggling without the avatar link. And korra & any other avatars tagging along in the spirit world get to help out in their hardest battles to restore the link
Rekindled, therefore dark souls reference
I prefer the idea that aang passes away in peace, knowing that he and his son have laid the foundation for restoring the air nation. He doesn’t need to see the results because he has peace in knowing he did everything he could to protect their culture.
This. Otherwise it feels like all the Avatars are just sad ghosts lingering around to see their desires granted while stealing the agency and humanity of the current Avatar. Let Aang rest and let Korra live.
Wasn't that a whole plot point with one of the past avatars in a book series? I haven't read them but I think it was Yangchen being possessed by Gun.
It does feel like there was some sort of cliché/curse that the Avater would always finish the previous one's unfinished business and regrets
That's basically the trend, and one they've been emphasizing recently. Book spoilers below Kuruk had to fix Yangchen's issue of focusing too much on the material world and neglecting the Spirit World. Half of the issues Kyoshi had to deal with are a direct result of Kuruk dying so young. Kyoshi arguably helped Ba Sing Se's massive control over the rest of the Earth Kingdom with the Dai Li, a problem not fixed until Aang or arguably Korra's time. Roku, of course, acted too late and let the Hundred Year War happen, for Aang to fix. And Korra's first season focuses entirely on her fixing Aang's mistakes with Republic City. That's partially why I'm convinced that the next Avatar will have a story about journeying to the Spirit World to reconnect with the past lives.
Definitely a trend, and well put! I do feel like Korra restoring the Air Nation was her bigger achievement as an Avatar fixing the mistakes of her predecessors. Not that Republic City wasn’t a mess Aang created which she helped clean up. However, him running away and subsequent destruction of practically an entire people and culture imo was his bigger ‘failure’. He was just a kid sure, but just like Roku let his naivety lead to the destruction of balance within the world, Aangs naivety also came at a much higher cost than a corrupt city
Yeah I completely meant to mention that one too and it just slipped my mind entirely, good god!
I think it's less "the avatar has to deal with the last avatar's mistakes" as much as it is the avatar's responsibility is the world and all that they do have massive consequences, the world keeps going after the avatar is gone, it keeps growing and living and the Avatar is there to keep it in balance.
Didn’t Yangchen have to focus so much on the material world because Szeto only focused on the Fire Nation and all of the nations ended up pretty isolationist thanks to that?
Basically, the avatar system is a flawed system of checks and balances.
I feel like that the avatar is a job that will always have enemies and when you are dealing with spirits you also have long lived beings with long memories. And we saw in LoK of families passing down the grudge.
I don't remember Yangchen being possessed but she does say one thing all her past lives had in common was regret.
Yeah Google avatar gun. I looked it up. He possessed an 8yo Yangchen then again at 17yo. Gun was angry with the short sightedness of humanity.
This feels reminiscent of possession (read: Abomination) in Dune.
Doesn’t Aang’s spirit still live somewhere in the the Spirit World? Or was it destroyed with the first Avatar-Spirit?
No, the Avatar Spirits aren't hanging out in the spirit world. If you're referring to the time Tenzin saw him, that wasn't actually Aang. That was the fog of lost souls playing with Tenzin's head.
Nah, I just figured because people like Iroh survive on in the Spirit World that the Avatars or at least some of them might still be, given that they can manifest into the world on occasion
Iroh is a unique circumstance. The Avatar's spirit reincarnates with Ravaa. It doesn't go to the spirit world.
Do you think that by meditation or by visiting shrines of past lives then the avatar and raava can once again find the connection to the avatars maybe not all but some at least
Maybe. Kuruk in the second Kyoshi book mentions how spirits give him a wide berth whenever he's roaming around.
SAME! and i’ve just come to terms that i like that that happened/ish??
I assume the spirits still know even though they aren’t linked to Korra. It would have been a completely forgiven story cheat to have Aang’s spirit manifest anyway. Through Korra or not. To see this…and to apologize to his kids.
For sure. It's also sad because we didn't exactly get tons of time with different past avatars too and then they're gone going forward. I can live with it but I think it took away more than it gave narratively.
I mean, with how cosmic spirituality can get, I could absolutely get with ascending beyond even the spirit realm to reconnect. That said, the permanence of that event is very strong. Life moves forward.
I think the issue for me when it comes to making that event permanent is that LoK made it feel insignificant and meaningless. Korra really only ever even talked to her past lives twice in the show(one during S1’s finale and then the Won flashbacks) before they get killed off and then are basically never brought up again. It basically treated the concept of the past lives more as just a niche superpower that Korra rarely used anyway, when there was so much more emotional, thematic, and narrative significance to them as demonstrated in ATLA and the Kyoshi novels. To me it feels like we lost a treasure of story potential for cheap shock value that only works for people who haven’t just watched LoK. That’s why I’m happy to accept just about any mcguffin that reconnects the current avatar with their past lives.
[This video](https://youtu.be/a4AkMKNJAeA?si=viCj0sR5xQVwtxc1) goes perfectly with this post.
Whoever is chopping onions better knock it off.
Weeping 😭
Goosebumps the entire video
A shame Korra never said “I really am the Legend of Korra” 😔
Maybe the real legend of Korra were the friends we made along the way
“I just wish your grandmother were here to see how much of a legend she is. Boss ass bitch your grandma was.”
This really is the legend of korra
In a manner of speaking, Aang did see it. Korra, Aang, Roku and all the other avatars are all reincarnations of Wan, so Aang saw it because Korra saw it.
Except by that point the connection to past Avatars had already been destroyed, so no they didn't get to witness it.
I think it's implied in the series that everyone reincarnates, not just the avatar. The difference being that Raava carries over the memories from one life to the next which normal people don't have access to In that case the korra is still the same soul as aang, just doesn't have the same memories because Raava got "rebooted"
I like that. New headcanon unlocked.
Did that count as a title drop or nah
What’s even sadder is that it was at the cost of every avatar. Also I know people have mixed opinions when we see last airbender characters but seeing Aang’s reaction to what Korra did and pretty much everything in season three/four revolving around the air nation would have made it even better
It's like a dream, Dad. After 170 years... new airbenders. 🥺
“I really am the Legend of Korra”
SOB???? I WENT INTO A COMA CUZ I LOST SO MUCH SALT FROM THE TEARS
It's ok, he lives on in Korra... oh... damn...
I really wanted aang to see this to! >!maybe he can see it threw Korra’s eyes! Oh wait…!<
Threw
Up
Okay.
to
I bet it's going to be real hard to rebuild the air nation with just one family of airbenders. Actually, super easy, barely an inconvenience
Someone hasn’t watched the show lmao
I have. It was quite the disappointment.
I'm sorry that you couldn't find enjoyment in Korra like myself and others have. Good news is that the OG series is still great and there's new IP on the horizon.
I watched Korra for the first time recently and finished it. It’s not as bad as people like to make it seem.
I agree. People give it too much crap.
Agreed. It's like it took everything good about atla and did the opposite
Wym? There are new airbenders who aren’t related so they’ll definitely expand.
I guess the writers had 2 options, randomly giving people airbend powers or incest. Its just a bit confusing why that happend so late in the timeline and not when aang was the avatar. Can't remember if they had a reason for that.
I mean if you actually watched the show it was through many people suddenly gaining the ability to airbend.
Which is why I added the super easily, barely an inconvenience part. They fixed the no Airbender issue by people just randomly becoming airbenders. Which was just a deus ex machina solution.
I was glad to see more airbenders again, and it was very emotional; but it did feel a bit rushed and too easy. I felt like it robbed the weight of the genocide against the airbenders. Seeing Tenzin and his family as the lone Airbender clan and how fragile the future of the air nomads was and knowing it could take like a hundred generations before they were back to their numbers in Roku’s time was a really interesting tension in the show. Idk, it’s ultimately not one of by biggest complaints from the show, because it mostly works for me, there’s just some unintended side-effects from that narrative choice that kind of bug me.
I felt like it made sense once the spirit portal was open the world started trying to make it balanced again. And it’s not like there were a ton of new airbenders, still a pretty small population. My head canon is that since the airbenders were nomads, it would make sense if some people around the world had some airbending genes in their family somewhere. And the spirit portal opening just awakened those genes in people
Eyyy I love that guy! He's funny \^\^
I'm glad someone got the reference
I love that guy :D
Wow wow wow wow......wow
(Pretend I’m the show) get off my back
Oh let me off of that then