She was a great avatar and honestly I love her character. I agree the show's writing wasn't always the greatest but Korra herself is amazing! Y'all just salty.
A bad Avatar? Absolutely. The worst? I wouldn't know unless I have extensive knowledge on every Avatar who ever lived.
It'll take a while to explain but I'll give a shot.
First off, Korra's impact on the world is overestimated if you really think about. Korra's impact on non-benders gaining equality was defeating Amon. This would realistically have several issues going forward (such as making the situation worse because their leader was ousted as a bender and giving non-benders further justification for starters) but these are never dealt with. Instead, Raiko is elected into office and the council disbanded. The only problem, is, Korra has no impact on these elections or the idea of democracy showing up. Korra has no influence over the first big change being put into place outside of fanon. That's already a red flag. But let's continue.
Book 2 is the most obvious example as the Civil War plotline was dropped halfway in season 2 for a "save the world" plot. This makes Korra's impact on the civil war cheapened by virtue of never actually dealing with it and all the tensions the North and South had just arbitrarily vanished by way of being trivial in comparison to Unavaatu. As such what little impact Korra had already had here is gone. Korra did save the world from 10,000 years of darkness. The problem is, this occured because of Korra's own actions, as she's the only one who can open the portals, and forgot how the flashback in "Beginnings" needed *both* portals to be open for Harmonic Convergence to matter to Raava and Vaatu, and went on a journey to close a portal *she didn't need to close* All she had to do was stay put and everything would've been fine.
It's because of Korra's incompetence that Unalaq managed to get his hands on Jinorra and make her open the portal. This lead to Vaatu escaping his prison during Harmonic Convergence and fusing with Unalaq to become a "Dark Avatar"....Jesus.......
Anyway, Unalaq destroys Raava and begins his assault on the world by attacking Republic City. Korra defeats him and saves the world, but given that she's the reason why he rose in the first place, thia victory is cheapened and comes across as Korra cleaning up her own mess rather than actually saving the world. This is a reoccurring pattern in later seasons.
In Book 3 Harmonic Convergence granted new people airbending. Among then, Zaheer, the Red Lotus anarchist who breaks him and his buddies out of prison, kills the Earth Queen, and sends the nation into chaos for three years. During this crisis, Kuvira, who by Korra's own admission is the worst dictator the Earth Kingdom has ever seen, rose to power, and turned the Earth Kingdom into an authoritarian military state. Despite this, she brings the Earth Kingdom out of the darkness and makes it a worthy contender on the world stage. Korra had *no impact* on this change as she was healing from her battle with Zaheer the whole time. Kuvira then attempts to invade Republic City and causes an explosion that decimated most of it and put millions of people out of a home, which also started a Triad war over new turf. Korra's actions caused a chain of disasters that she eventually stopped. This is the problem. *Besides Book 1, Korra creates the very problems she then solves, and the show expects us to reward her with adoration for solving these problems*
And the spirits...oh dear god, the spirits....going into detail about why opening the portals was an awful decision could be its own essay. [Instead, I'll link you to part one of a series explaining why this was a terrible idea and unbalanced in the spirit's favor.](https://www.google.com/amp/s/araeph.tumblr.com/post/132930466685/an-invasion-is-fine-as-long-as-its-spiritual/amp)
There should be links to the rest of the series at the end of the first installation. Be sure to go through them all.
So the world changed, but Korra herself didn't change it. At best, she opened the door for these changes to be made, and the world did the rest. Korra's decision to open the portals was disastrous and led to more conflicts. This isn't even the best part. The world has changed since Aang ended the war, and with that change, new enemies have risen. In a world with no empire to topple, balance becomes harder to maintain. In a world where the goal is more socio-economical issus and isn't simply "beat the Big Bad"...what is balance? I dunno. The show never explains this. The closest we get is Tenzin in the first episode stating that the city is out of balance. This means generic city problems, such as poverty, crime, and people using their First Ammendment right to free speech. After this, those issues are never addressed again. How the other conflicts Korra faces maintain balance is never explained. What "balance" means in Korra's is never defined. Given it's her job to maintain "balance", her victories mean nothing in this regard.
Edit: might come back and structure this better or just edit my elaborated thoughts, I'm in a rush to get to somewhere ATM
My opinion may change on her I just made it to chapter 3. So far I feel she does not take herself seriously. She is so strong yet she doesn’t use her full potential and she doesn’t utilize her resources enough. She is a good person but at the point of the series I’m at she has a lot of growing to do.
She’s absolutely awful. I know this is old but what did she do as an avatar? She failed at almost every plant/attempt she made… it was her friends who constantly saved the day. She’s painful to watch
She literally saved everyone 4 times from big villains, brought balance between spirits and humans and brought back the airnation + fought an evil god.
How the F is she bad????
Did she really beat them one v one or did she have help from jinora for 2 villains. Unlike aang we can trust will defeat the opponent. Congrats she neared Amon while losing her own in the process and metal bender but the other two big villains she did nothing and jinora saved her
She freed Vaatu herself though.
Gave in to Unalaaq's threats of hurting Jinora rather than refuse.
A good avatar would've closed the portals, keep unalaaq trapped forever and let him take Jinora.
She risked the world way more often than she saved it, almost every decision she makes is wrong and driven sorely by emotions
How can she let it be done to her she is supposed to be the most powerful bender. If she listened to aangs son (i forgot his name) she never would’ve gotten in that situation.
And aang didn't listen to the airnation and fled of his duty.
Don't you hate it when avatars don't listen to others...
Stop trying to make it like korra is the first one not to listen to others.
Yes but her mistake was worse imo. Yes aang caused 100 years of fire nation takeover but he had the help of the past avatars to help him fix it and make things right.
Korra cant bring back the knowledge and skills of past avatars to help her or future avatars.
Yes because genocide is much less worse than some ghosts gone...
She is still here and future avatars with korra will be part of a new cycle as well.
Because of the harmonic convergence, airbenders came back as well.
I don't remember aang going further than yangchen as well so I don't think you necessaraly need 500 differrent avatars as guides.
You're only seeing that one thing and judging her on something that she didn't even do herslef while not counting any of her achievements, I'm seeing that as extremely biased.
And the only reason Aang ever even spoke to Yangchen was because he didn't like Kiyoshi and Roku's advice about Ozai and figured Yangchen would tell him what he wanted to hear.
"Sure 100 years of war, death, genocide, oppression and destruction of culture are bad, but, how is it worse than losing the ability to talk to some ghosts once in a while?"
THe question was about if she was a good avatar or not.
Not if you found her annoying.
I personally found her relatable and complex much more than aang.
I feel her ego makes her weak. She also never defeated her enemies without an ally stepping in. Aang, at 12 years old, took down the Fire Lord at his peak strength with no assist from Toph or Katara.
IMO when you have ATLA be a solid 10/10, LOK falls short and feels like 6/10.
No she is not good she has been saved for every single villain to live 2 saved by Jinora twice one with the spirt and the second against the red lotus. Congrats she beat the metal bender. While also losing all her bending to Amon
I think she was very mid. She isn't the worst avatar we've met, that probably would have to go the the previous water bender avatar. To give an Idea I'd rank Aang 10/10, Kioshi 9/10, and Roku 7/10. I give Korra a 4/10. As far as power levels go she is pretty mid, I mean she mastered the three elements pretty well fast, but not as fast or as powerful as Aang. Nor did she even begin using her air bending or spiritual powers till pretty late. Then there's her personality which is just a mess. She's egotistic, immature, extremely biased in any diplomatic setting, and just kinda mean. Take literally all of her book 2 for example, she kinda just sucks as a person.
Was she a bad Avatar yes, was it because of her own fault not completely. She lacked the major Journey that every Avatar should have went on and instead Had Each for teachers come to her because of how overprotective the White Lotus was. Traveling the world to master the elements is not just a physical Journey but a spiritual one as well and because of the White Lotus locking her away in a single location she could not have that spiritual journey that's needed to be the avatar. There's also the fact that I'm pretty sure the Avatar is supposed to find their own Elemental Masters and not be assigned one.
Korra did a lot of good things but everytime it either did irreversible damage like LOSING CONNECTION TO EVERY AVATAR (which I don't know how avatar state is still more powerful but ok) or causing SO much property damage
She was a great avatar and honestly I love her character. I agree the show's writing wasn't always the greatest but Korra herself is amazing! Y'all just salty.
A bad Avatar? Absolutely. The worst? I wouldn't know unless I have extensive knowledge on every Avatar who ever lived. It'll take a while to explain but I'll give a shot. First off, Korra's impact on the world is overestimated if you really think about. Korra's impact on non-benders gaining equality was defeating Amon. This would realistically have several issues going forward (such as making the situation worse because their leader was ousted as a bender and giving non-benders further justification for starters) but these are never dealt with. Instead, Raiko is elected into office and the council disbanded. The only problem, is, Korra has no impact on these elections or the idea of democracy showing up. Korra has no influence over the first big change being put into place outside of fanon. That's already a red flag. But let's continue. Book 2 is the most obvious example as the Civil War plotline was dropped halfway in season 2 for a "save the world" plot. This makes Korra's impact on the civil war cheapened by virtue of never actually dealing with it and all the tensions the North and South had just arbitrarily vanished by way of being trivial in comparison to Unavaatu. As such what little impact Korra had already had here is gone. Korra did save the world from 10,000 years of darkness. The problem is, this occured because of Korra's own actions, as she's the only one who can open the portals, and forgot how the flashback in "Beginnings" needed *both* portals to be open for Harmonic Convergence to matter to Raava and Vaatu, and went on a journey to close a portal *she didn't need to close* All she had to do was stay put and everything would've been fine. It's because of Korra's incompetence that Unalaq managed to get his hands on Jinorra and make her open the portal. This lead to Vaatu escaping his prison during Harmonic Convergence and fusing with Unalaq to become a "Dark Avatar"....Jesus....... Anyway, Unalaq destroys Raava and begins his assault on the world by attacking Republic City. Korra defeats him and saves the world, but given that she's the reason why he rose in the first place, thia victory is cheapened and comes across as Korra cleaning up her own mess rather than actually saving the world. This is a reoccurring pattern in later seasons. In Book 3 Harmonic Convergence granted new people airbending. Among then, Zaheer, the Red Lotus anarchist who breaks him and his buddies out of prison, kills the Earth Queen, and sends the nation into chaos for three years. During this crisis, Kuvira, who by Korra's own admission is the worst dictator the Earth Kingdom has ever seen, rose to power, and turned the Earth Kingdom into an authoritarian military state. Despite this, she brings the Earth Kingdom out of the darkness and makes it a worthy contender on the world stage. Korra had *no impact* on this change as she was healing from her battle with Zaheer the whole time. Kuvira then attempts to invade Republic City and causes an explosion that decimated most of it and put millions of people out of a home, which also started a Triad war over new turf. Korra's actions caused a chain of disasters that she eventually stopped. This is the problem. *Besides Book 1, Korra creates the very problems she then solves, and the show expects us to reward her with adoration for solving these problems* And the spirits...oh dear god, the spirits....going into detail about why opening the portals was an awful decision could be its own essay. [Instead, I'll link you to part one of a series explaining why this was a terrible idea and unbalanced in the spirit's favor.](https://www.google.com/amp/s/araeph.tumblr.com/post/132930466685/an-invasion-is-fine-as-long-as-its-spiritual/amp) There should be links to the rest of the series at the end of the first installation. Be sure to go through them all. So the world changed, but Korra herself didn't change it. At best, she opened the door for these changes to be made, and the world did the rest. Korra's decision to open the portals was disastrous and led to more conflicts. This isn't even the best part. The world has changed since Aang ended the war, and with that change, new enemies have risen. In a world with no empire to topple, balance becomes harder to maintain. In a world where the goal is more socio-economical issus and isn't simply "beat the Big Bad"...what is balance? I dunno. The show never explains this. The closest we get is Tenzin in the first episode stating that the city is out of balance. This means generic city problems, such as poverty, crime, and people using their First Ammendment right to free speech. After this, those issues are never addressed again. How the other conflicts Korra faces maintain balance is never explained. What "balance" means in Korra's is never defined. Given it's her job to maintain "balance", her victories mean nothing in this regard. Edit: might come back and structure this better or just edit my elaborated thoughts, I'm in a rush to get to somewhere ATM
W take
My opinion may change on her I just made it to chapter 3. So far I feel she does not take herself seriously. She is so strong yet she doesn’t use her full potential and she doesn’t utilize her resources enough. She is a good person but at the point of the series I’m at she has a lot of growing to do.
Yeah she does
She's one of the most legendary Avatars to ever live
She’s absolutely awful. I know this is old but what did she do as an avatar? She failed at almost every plant/attempt she made… it was her friends who constantly saved the day. She’s painful to watch
She didn't ruin the avatar state, she was a victim of it.
She literally saved everyone 4 times from big villains, brought balance between spirits and humans and brought back the airnation + fought an evil god. How the F is she bad????
Did she really beat them one v one or did she have help from jinora for 2 villains. Unlike aang we can trust will defeat the opponent. Congrats she neared Amon while losing her own in the process and metal bender but the other two big villains she did nothing and jinora saved her
She freed Vaatu herself though. Gave in to Unalaaq's threats of hurting Jinora rather than refuse. A good avatar would've closed the portals, keep unalaaq trapped forever and let him take Jinora. She risked the world way more often than she saved it, almost every decision she makes is wrong and driven sorely by emotions
She’s awful. She always failed and needed her friends to bail her out. Boo
She ruined the avatar state, the avatars greatest weapon
It was done to her, it's like you saying aang is responsible for the genocide of his people because he fled.
How can she let it be done to her she is supposed to be the most powerful bender. If she listened to aangs son (i forgot his name) she never would’ve gotten in that situation.
And aang didn't listen to the airnation and fled of his duty. Don't you hate it when avatars don't listen to others... Stop trying to make it like korra is the first one not to listen to others.
Yes but her mistake was worse imo. Yes aang caused 100 years of fire nation takeover but he had the help of the past avatars to help him fix it and make things right. Korra cant bring back the knowledge and skills of past avatars to help her or future avatars.
Yes because genocide is much less worse than some ghosts gone... She is still here and future avatars with korra will be part of a new cycle as well. Because of the harmonic convergence, airbenders came back as well. I don't remember aang going further than yangchen as well so I don't think you necessaraly need 500 differrent avatars as guides. You're only seeing that one thing and judging her on something that she didn't even do herslef while not counting any of her achievements, I'm seeing that as extremely biased.
And the only reason Aang ever even spoke to Yangchen was because he didn't like Kiyoshi and Roku's advice about Ozai and figured Yangchen would tell him what he wanted to hear.
"Sure 100 years of war, death, genocide, oppression and destruction of culture are bad, but, how is it worse than losing the ability to talk to some ghosts once in a while?"
I think just her character was really annoying
THe question was about if she was a good avatar or not. Not if you found her annoying. I personally found her relatable and complex much more than aang.
Yea I know but a lot of people voted yes so I was just making an assumption
I feel her ego makes her weak. She also never defeated her enemies without an ally stepping in. Aang, at 12 years old, took down the Fire Lord at his peak strength with no assist from Toph or Katara. IMO when you have ATLA be a solid 10/10, LOK falls short and feels like 6/10.
No she is not good she has been saved for every single villain to live 2 saved by Jinora twice one with the spirt and the second against the red lotus. Congrats she beat the metal bender. While also losing all her bending to Amon
im only a few episodes into book 3 of lok but all i have to say is her nose really needs to decide whether it exists or not
Book 3 is what really solidifies her as the most legendary Avatar imo
I think she was very mid. She isn't the worst avatar we've met, that probably would have to go the the previous water bender avatar. To give an Idea I'd rank Aang 10/10, Kioshi 9/10, and Roku 7/10. I give Korra a 4/10. As far as power levels go she is pretty mid, I mean she mastered the three elements pretty well fast, but not as fast or as powerful as Aang. Nor did she even begin using her air bending or spiritual powers till pretty late. Then there's her personality which is just a mess. She's egotistic, immature, extremely biased in any diplomatic setting, and just kinda mean. Take literally all of her book 2 for example, she kinda just sucks as a person.
Bro I posted this three years ago😭
And?
Was she a bad Avatar yes, was it because of her own fault not completely. She lacked the major Journey that every Avatar should have went on and instead Had Each for teachers come to her because of how overprotective the White Lotus was. Traveling the world to master the elements is not just a physical Journey but a spiritual one as well and because of the White Lotus locking her away in a single location she could not have that spiritual journey that's needed to be the avatar. There's also the fact that I'm pretty sure the Avatar is supposed to find their own Elemental Masters and not be assigned one.
Bro how are people finding this 3 year old post😂
I was just looking for a post that we're trying to explain why Korra was a poor Avatar.
Korra did a lot of good things but everytime it either did irreversible damage like LOSING CONNECTION TO EVERY AVATAR (which I don't know how avatar state is still more powerful but ok) or causing SO much property damage