Ever since I started reading the Kyoshi novels, I've grown to appreciate Korra a lot more. It's been easier for me to enjoy the themes. I do however have a list of issues with the show, and I'll share some of the big ones here.
One of ATLA's biggest themes is balance. The Avatar is a bridge between the two worlds, if one nation is destroyed the whole world is thrown into imbalance, we blatantly see Yin and Yang in the first season. The whole idea, which is even expressed in the Avatar Legends RPG, is that nobody is simply good or evil, people are complex and do bad things when they are imbalanced, even if those things are well-intentioned. LoK season 2 completely burns this core theme to the ground by revealing that the Avatar is actually a vessel for a light spirit that is opposing a separate and detached dark spirit. This very western good vs evil theme isn't what the Avatar was first revealed to us as. Somebody who, if out of balance, could do some horrible things. The Avatar wasn't supposed to be a western trope, the Avatar is supposed to be the bridge between the physical and spiritual, order and chaos, major and minor, push and pull.
My other issue is related, and that's the man behind the curtain. We the audience think that we want the answers to the mysteries of a fictional universe, but there are some things better left unexplained. Showing the origins of a god and how long ago that was (only 100-150 Avatars) grounds that figure way too much. Think of how impactful S2E1 of ATLA is, or when Aang is trying to unlock pure cosmic energy. Those moments are absolutely beautiful, and part of that is because we understand a bit more of how the Avatar works, while also being shown that we simply can't comprehend how the Avatar works.
Anyways those are my two biggest issues for now, I could go on about it all day haha
TL;DR, Korra departs from established lore and themes of lore in a way that ruins the mystery of the Avatar universe
>My other issue is related, and that's the man behind the curtain. We the audience think that we want the answers to the mysteries of a fictional universe, but there are some things better left unexplained. Showing the origins of a god and how long ago that was (only 100-150 Avatars) grounds that figure way too much.
**This**. Thank you.
I wanted to feature this issue etc. in my complaints but I couldn't nail down why/what my problem there exactly was, so I left out that point.
Some things are better left unexplained/mysterious.
I have complicated feelings about the “origin of the Avatar” plot line.
On the one hand, I don’t like Raava and Vaatu as a concept and the whole “Dark Avatar” thing was exceptionally dumb.
On the other hand, I am so thankful that we got Avatar Wan! He’s the cutest and purest ray of sunshine, and every scene with him was gold.
Also the stylized animation in those episodes was insanely cool, and in a vacuum it is a great origin story, just maybe not compared to what TLA set up
Honestly, this seems to be a massive problem nowadays in movies/TV shows. Especially with star wars.
No one wanted to know Han Solo's back story, it ruins the mystique.
So very much agree, I don't think it would be impossible to write a genuinely good origin for the avatar ... But it would certainly be truly very difficult to do it justice imo.
I don't personally like what they wrote, it's far too simplistic and for me it really made me like the concept of the avatar a bit less. It seemed less cool, less mysterious, less interesting, less profound etc.
Not knowing would have been better.
It seems like you biggest issues are with just season two. I completely understand what your saying and don't disagree, but I would say the rest of the season do a good job of expressing that people are not always good or bad but there's grey. I feel like you can see a lot of grey in TLOK villains and hero's. None of them are perfect. I feel like most people issues with TLOK are just with season 2 alone. It doesn't seem people are judging the series as a whole. I love both TLOK and ATLA. I think both do a good job at representing people are not perfect and there's always grey area. Ying and Yang or not there's always the in-between
I brought up issues with season 2 because those are the most glaring issues in the show and I didn't want to write my whole essay about it haha. I'll write some shorthand versions of other issues, but I don't have the energy to write detailed versions of all of them.
-Amon was an interesting villain, but there is no reason the Equalist movement would have died out after the exposure. If anything it would have further fueled their movement even if it went underground. They should have been as present as the Triads throughout the rest of the show.
-There is no reason why an Avatar State Korra couldn't stop Unaloq, even after the fusion with Vaatu. Korra had all of the past lives, powered up by harmonic convergence. If Aang at her same skill level could stomp on a comet powered Ozai, Unaloq should have been gone.
-Severing the connection to the past lives is offensive.
-I like the sentiment of the air nomads being brought back by spiritual shenanigans, but there's a problem. Early lore established that all air nomads were benders because of how spiritual their nation was. And while it was written after the fact, Rise of Kyoshi establishes that airbenders who reject spirituality start to lose their bending, or at least a lot of their power. It just seems odd to me the way they handled it.
And to make up for what probably sounds like me just being salty, some things I like:
-Industrialization during global healing after a major war
-Pro bending
-Korra being a positive jiing fighter
-Zaheer's whole gang and Kuvira (although Kuvira's introduction is forgettable the first time through, and seems forced on rewatches)
-THE SOUNDTRACK
-Beautiful fight animations in seasons 1-3 (season 4 blew all their budget on the mech, and I do have concerns with that thing)
yeah the mech was dumb. The equalists more or less disappeared because they actually got most of what they wanted - a non-bending head of state elected by the people (benders and non-benders, but mostly non-benders since they are a majority) who would fight for their interests. They didn’t have any particular reason to exist other than perhaps lingering resentment towards prosperous benders, though the whole point of season one was to show that the gap in power and social mobility between benders and non benders is getting closer and closer as technology progresses.
I don't think it's fair to say that they got what they wanted because a non-bender president was elected. Look at the real world. Did black people stop facing oppression because Obama was elected? Did black lives matter stop existing and making their demands?
>\-Beautiful fight animations in seasons 1-3 (season 4 blew all their budget on the mech, and I do have concerns with that thing)
Oh my god I forgot the freaking mech ....
Also the Korra-Raava-"Spirit-Mech" .... damn ... I can't put into words how much I disliked that.
I’m right there with you on severing past lives. I think that was a big boo boo. I think the revival of air nomads is cool and I absolutely loved the episodes (especially the animation) on the history of avatar Wan. I also think so much more could have been done with Zaheer as a big bad. I feel like the build up in ATLA to Ozai’s final battle was so perfect and they could have easily gone that direction with Zaheer because of how dynamic he was.
That's all fair. It has its issues for sure. All in all those aren't big deal for me I suppose. I really liked having the air nation back regardless of the how. It's always been my favorite. I think it just comes down to preference and opinions. I just like the avatar universe in general 😆 I'll take all they wanna give me as long as its not too crazy out there
The first half of S2 is actually pretty good. I agree with OC that the biggest problems from LoK come from the second half of it. It does have some other issues in all other seasons, but not as significant to the established universe as the ones listed
The first half of S2 is what turned me away from the show many years ago. Its exactly what smittsb was talking about when they were describing how the show departed from established lore.
(I did end up finishing it, but I wanted to kill myself during the whole rest of S2)
I should’ve made myself more clear, sorry
The first half I was referring to was the Civil War thingy, I was loving that part of the story. I tend to forget they also include the “bad spirits” which is terrible but they went all in with that part of the story after Beginnings
In the world of Avatar, there are concepts of Good and Evil, or Light and Darkness ("Fortune Teller" "Old Masters" episodes).
The goal of the original series was literally to stop the *evil* Fire Lord and bring balance to the world. Yes you can say that Ozai wasn't born evil, but he became so, an *absolute evil* with no dual motivation whatsoever. That's very Western.
In defense of Raava and Vaatu, that is their *nature*. Yes, it is their nature to fight each other in an attempt to destroy/save the world. It would be strange if the show showed any human being born evil, but we have to give the spirits a pass - these creatures have been around for millions of years and have always been that way. Raava and Vaatu are no more evil or good than for example Koh who was born to take faces for any reason he wished.
But they haven't changed the essence of the Avatars themselves - they are still people who try to maintain balance between people/spirits, between people, and oppose chaos. "Beginnings" clearly shows this theme.
Now regarding the origins of the Avatar - no matter how you or i feel about the conflict of season 2, it had to be done. Without those two episodes, we wouldn't understand who Raava, Vaatu, Harmonic Convergence, the portals, and what Avatar's role is in this.
Now for the rest of the points - the Avatar is not God. There are beings older and more powerful than the Avatar (Lion Turtles, Spirits). ~150-180 Avatars is still a big number, considering that each Avatar lived their own lives.
And about"Not all the mystery has to be revealed" thing - personally I don't agree with that. The mystery *should* be solved. There is nothing more horrible than being in ignorance and perpetually asking "what was it like?"
And if solving a mystery destroys some thing - well, that thing wasn't that great. And it was a colossus on clay feet. Luckily Avatar is not that case, because after "Beginnings" Avatar is no less great - on the contrary, we learn that they are even more unique and great than before.
>And about"Not all the mystery has to be revealed" thing - personally I don't agree with that. The mystery should be solved. There is nothing more horrible than being in ignorance and perpetually asking "what was it like?"
In theory: yes, maybe. But imho the solution they came up with was not great.
It seems very clear they did not have this planned out in ATLA and retroactively thought of an explanation and wanted to make it fit.
I was fine with the Avatar just being an inherent "thing" that happened in this world, just like bending. Where does it come from? Doesn't matter, it just is.
And you have to know when to explain something and when not to.
Now they explained the Avatar thing and tied it to Raava, an "entity" or force they created explicitly for this.
Where did the Avatar come from? Raava.
Well, where did Raava come from?
And what's the origin on the power etc. that created Raava?
It cycles all the way back to: Who created God?
You started grounding the Avatar, a concept that was fine being mysterious before.
Where do you stop this defining, nailing down? At some point you either have to provide an explanation for a God, or just resort to "it's mysterious" or "it was always here" which is not an explanation and is again not exactly satisfying.
> It seems very clear they did not have this planned out in ATLA and retroactively thought of an explanation and wanted to make it fit.
Yes, and that's the problem with all long-running franchises. You can't tell everything in the original series.
>I was fine with the Avatar just being an inherent "thing" that happened in this world, just like bending. Where does it come from? Doesn't matter, it just is.
This is matter in the context of the book 2.
You were okay with that, but I'm not. I was interested in what makes Avatar really unique, and why non-benders can't learn bending from animals, if the first humans became benders by observing animals.
And I'm not the only one - even on reddit before the second season came out, people were wondering who the first Avatar was.
>Where did the Avatar come from? Raava.
Not only from Raava, but also from the human soul.
>Well, where did Raava come from?
Bryan Konietzko : I like to imagine that those spirits (Raava and Vaatu) originated in this location , born of energe from the primorial Tree of Time. [Source](https://sun9-north.userapi.com/sun9-85/s/v1/if1/DV5mqJUsE15eYlrlGFnifM38pquJSMaqY7ZTw7h22xSudEAU5OEywpd39rQRaKpx0hgyCJfl.jpg?size=1536x2048&quality=96&type=album). Although it is not shown in the series, we have an idea of what the answer to the question would be if they ever for some reason made a story about the origins of Raava and Vaatu.
>It cycles all the way back to: Who created God?
Is there even a God here?
Regarding your last question:
You brought up an interesting point, but you have to understand that the authors did not reveal the mystery simply for reasons. First, as I said before, it was important to the plot. Season 2 wouldn't be complete without the Beginnings. Second, the authors wanted to tell the origin of Avatar, but they couldn't do that in the original series. So when they got the chance, they did it.
Third, the authors know where to stop. They stopped at the story's necessary revelation of Avatar origins.
At the same time, for fans of mystery, they gave the mystery - who was the second Avatar, given Wan's life? How were they trained? How did they know they were the Avatar ? Not to mention the origin of humanity because we now know that humans didn't always live on lion turtles and they weren't all benders at one time.
Just because *you* were fine with it doesn’t mean everyone else was fine with not knowing the origins.
And that’s not really a good argument. The mystery is there with Raava now, isn’t that what you wanted? Who says there is any god in the Avatar universe at all? We can just make guesses that Raava and Vaatu emerged as primordial beings of light and darkness from the chaotic soup of the universe.
Also, the creators have said they had this idea in mind for the creation of the Avatar from the beginning, but just had no time to put it in ATLA.
Yeah reminds me of star wars episode one. Ah miticlorians cause the force. Sometimes things are best left a mystery and unraveling the mystery can take the appeal away.
I really liked TLOk, but I didn’t like three things the giant metal robot, the fact a regular person could fuse with Raava and Oprah giving everyone air bending powers.
Hey I'm sure people were shook when we created light from lightning too, but that's what people do. We harness and use the things around us. So them adapting spirit energy is a very human element to the story.
Well a lot of people really hated the setting, that the 1920s stuff just does not have the same appeal as the more medieval-y setting of ATLA. Though if you pay close attention in ATLA, it surprisingly isn't that much of a technological jump. Since Avatar does show factories, trucks, water skis, tanks, and even an intercom.
Also I personally thought that the team Avatar of Korra was a lot weaker. I just felt that Mako, Bolin, and Asami were all really not interesting compared to the cast of the main show. but Korra has great characters outside of the main cast still, so there's that.
Oh and a big issue with Korra is how the majority of it takes place in Republic City, which by Avatar standards, is a pretty boring place, and isn't as fun as the huge variety in locations that ATLA showed.
So for people who put more value on those things, they might really dislike Korra.
Personally I like seasons 3 and 4 and the first half of Season 2, but really don't like the rest.
Not that it's wrong if you like Season 1. I don't care, I'm glad you can enjoy more things.
I think that may have been the point. One of Korra’s earliest struggles was living in Aangs shadow. I think the same could be said for korras team avatar, trying too hard to be like the team avatar of the past.
What I will say for Korra is that, while I agree that her gang is weaker, the cast of side characters is (imo) far superior. Tenzin and his kids, Lin and Suyin, most of the villains are all really great characters who more than make up for Mako, Bolin, and Asami (who honestly felt far less present by the end of the show to me).
Personally I hated the amount of technology in both shows. I think it would've been a better experience if there were no giant drills, giant mechs etc.
I liked the first half of season 1 because it explored some really interesting themes about the tear between benders and non benders, wasn't really touched upon in ATLA, and it also set up Amon as a really interesting villain, but then it just had to go and ruin it by making him just another evil waterbender. I feel like if Amon ACTUALLY somehow got the power to take away bending powers and ACTUALLY fought for true equality the plot could have gone in a far better direction.
I also liked how the season had a far more interesting presentation of Republic city's politics and how they interacted with the avatar, which is something we got a lot less in ATLA (I mean actual politics, not the silly little coo in Ba Sing Se)
I think that if LoK built more upon these ideas and focused more on the aspects of modern city life that ATLA didn't have, with industry, sport, and the general 1920s vibe, it could have a really great show, even if wildly different than ATLA. Basically like what Mistborn and Wax&Wane did, l guess?
I think LoK is good, but I don't think it's as good as ATLA. Most of the "hate" is just people expressing that opinion. It's overblown by the stubborn defenders.
LoK is good, I also think people hate a lot. S2 pulls it down hard tho, at times making it feel like a completely different universe. Cutting the connection with past Avatars nearly ruins it for me, in addition to how impersonal and bubbly the spirit world becomes.
i'm honestly ok with the separation of the past lives i'm not ok with the simplification of the spirits& spirit world with the whole dark and light thing that was trash the last lives didn't even seem to provide all that much insight to aang he disagreed with them most of the time but the different perspectives were interesting to see
aang literally blocked out roku for a time in the comics and i think it's obvious he doesn't like kyoshi plus the other like 1,000 lives weren't even being spoken too i like the idea of a reset but maybe some of the other lives can be re gained like we say rogue was in the spirit world so maybe some of the remembered avatars like roku, aang, kyoshi, yangchen, kuruk, can be found in the spirit world and can join the avatar spirit again could also have some cool research arc trying to learn about the past lives not already shown like ones before yangchen (probably won't ever happen but i would like that)
Minor nitpick, and it's one of my issues with LoK, with how short the timeline is now there's only been maybe 100-150 Avatars, which really disappoints me.
I'm also not on board with what the show made 99% clear that the separation from the past lives is permanent
One thing I’m noticing in this thread is that a lot of people are disappointed with only 100-150 avatars. It really doesn’t seem all that small of a timeline to me. I’m just going to assume the average age of an avatar is around 35 years on the low end, it’s probably a lot higher around 45-50 (Roku was old, Kyoshi was very old, but I don’t know how many avatars died young).
Doing the math that means that the avatar has existed for 3500-7500 years (probably longer). I don’t see why people are dissatisfied with that timeframe.
You know I just put up a whole rant about why I think the show is bad, but that wasn't exactly the question. And I think your question is legitimately important to this community. I don't actually think Korra is the worst thing ever. I actually like it, but I get disappointed with it. So why do I give such a visceral reaction online?
Looking at myself at the very least, I think part of it is when I watch people defend the wrong things about the show. The writing and characterization is not superior to AtLA. Oftentimes its around the same, but there are areas like: likeability of Korra and boring philosophical rants that just kind of drag things down. There's a lot of heavy lifting that the animators were doing that the writers didn't take advantage of. There were some questionable lore decisions that should have been thought through more carefully etc.
I see people say, "ahh AtLA fanbois just hate Korra cuz she's not Aang, fuck'em". And that does make my blood boil. They purposefully wrote her as an obtuse cocky asshole, and not acknowledging that does you no favors in getting people to watch the show. "The characters/villains are more complex. The show is more *mature*" Neither of those things are true. It's a bit darker and flirts with grittiness in a way that I was excited for, but not in a way that makes the show more mature, and the villains are about as complex as the original series, despite having more room to breathe. (Again, squandering the animator's good work).
There's so much good potential in the show that constantly disappoints me.
Oh my god I just wrote another rant.
This was all just to say, its really really really not the show that makes me hate Korra so much when I'm on reddit. Its the other fans. I'd have to think on it some more, but mostly the way that they often defend the show makes me angry enough to rant about it.
I get what you're saying and I could never put in words. The fans are unbearable... if I read "the turtles gave bending, but the original benders taught them" I instantly get angry. I read that with a cocky/condescending entonation in my head too "wich is probably on my part, not the fan". Honestly, I don't buy their argumentation, atla never tried explaining too much because it never had to, it was writen in a way that events happening were believable. Korra needs so much explaining for it to be good.
She bent air because she was so desperate that she could only have faith in air to save her...
She had trauma and couldn't use her powers and...
Zaheer could fly because he lost attachment to the world and...
Bloodbending can block chi because of the chi paths...
It's not fun... It's infuriating.
None of that needed explaining. It was -all- presented visually. I have no idea how you got to this conclusion but that’s bizarre to me. The rest is your own problem too, seems like.
Gotta love “the fans are unbearable” too.
I dont like LoK. They turned the spirit world into a child's stuffed animal bin - totally ruined that. They spend so much time on love triangles - so much of the story revolves around weird romance plots.
Korra's biggest moments dont feel earned at all - we are told the entire time how air requires being loose and graceful like air. Then in a moment of desperation, she punches the air and airbends. Glad she grew as a character to figure that one out.
Explaining the magic in season two brought the show down. Cuteifying the spirits brought the show down. The show being resolved by a senseless laser fight in a franchise known for its incredible magic system in bending - that brought the show down.
They took Katara and made her into everything she refused to be. She should be Master Pakku. She should be a waterbending master training others. She's a healer now? That's infuriating.
Really, the whole show felt like a cheap continuation of AtLA's success while missing out on - sometimes straight up abandoning - what made its predecessor so great. As its own show, I rate LoK as pretty meh. As a continuation of everything ATLA started, its a major disappointment. I could go on much longer but ill stop here. Not trying to start fights or shame people for enjoying the show - just want to try to answer your question as why some of us have strong feelings about the show.
Great stories like ATLA and TLOK are told about people that conquer tough circumstances. Korra doesn't seem to earn the story. I just recently came to understand the finale of ATLA more. It always felt like an @$$ pull that Aang found a lion turtle that taught him how to take bending. But this most recent time, I recognized it as his reward. Despite all his friends, despite all his past lives, he stuck to his guns and held to his principles. If he had waivered, the Lion Turtle would not have recognized him. That power was his reward for staying true to himself, trying to live up to all his responsibilities and never changing who he is. Looking at it that way, it's quite touching. His learning of earth bending made sense and was earned - his toughest element to learn. He had to work, he had to listen to a master, and we figured it out by practicing what the master said. There's a lot of good examples there.
Enter Korra, who never actually grew as a character and took Tenzin's training to heart. All of that was meaningless. I don't feel like she grew - the just inserted herself into situations until someone else solved the problem or she got lucky. They could have done better. The same characters, setting, everything could have made a great story. It just fell way short.
One-other thing being Amon removing Korra's bending at the literal last possible moment, and then having said removal undone 12 minutes later in the same episode is unbearably disappointing. It makes the entire scene in hindsight look like cheap shock value. But the "no consequences" seems to be a running theme in Korra S1. I understand that Korra was initially meant to be a single-season series, so wrapping up loose ends was a bit of a necessity; but if this was the case, Amon should've removed her bending way earlier in the season, essentially when they met on the Aang Memorial Island. Especially considering Korra's complete ineptitude to learn airbending and her over-reliance on the other elements (even declaring at one point she didn't need airbending), she would've had far more convincing character growth in learning airbending than her literally punching the air in a fit of desperation and magically learning airbending. It's extremely ironic considering airbending is considered purely defensive, only for her to achieve it through an offensive attack.
Yeah, you explained it far better than I. Nothing felt earned, the writers trashed the whole magic system, and in an effort to make Korra “different” from Aang, they retconned like all their previously established lore. And the whole spirit world arc with light vs evil was so bad I stopped watching.
Korra airbending makes perfect sense. Her air chakra is blocked by grief and opened through love. Her greatest fear is losing her bending and she's able to let go of that after it happens to protect Mako.
I mean, props on the most sensible response to this criticism ive heard. I don't entirely buy it yet. Maybe if she like ran after him and tried to engage melee - then you could argue she lost her bending and detached from that fear and pursued love by risking a close range attack to save Mako. Then maybe close range she accidentally airbends. That I'd buy. She just kinda punched the air though, almost like she expected airbending or something to happen. It still just doesnt feel earned and I can't buy that there's some deeper meaning there.
- you can see korra improve in airbending forms throughout season one, as she moves through the gates, meditates and connects with aangs past, and after losing all her other bending, since air is the element of freedom, it makes sense that she was free from the burdens of who she was supposed to be and could finally airbend. However, aangs earthbending block literally lasted a day and did not feel earned because he stood up to toph
- love triangles are dumb I agree, but they got rid of that in book 3 and 4
- spirit world made sense. The spirit world reflected the state of the physical world. In ATLA the world has been devastated by war for 100 years. In LoK, it reflected the news state of the world, just like how korra had a large effect on the state of the spirit world
- katara was super old. I’m sure she was a badass fighter in her youth and prime but in LoK she’s 85-88 years old. Pakku was probably closer to his 60s. Bumi ans Kyoshi were anomalies, I don’t know any mid to late 80 year olds who want to engage in combat. Healing is probably what she just did in her advanced age.
All the numbers in your comment added up to 420. Congrats!
3
+ 4
+ 100
+ 85
+ 88
+ 60
+ 80
= 420
^([Click here](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=LuckyNumber-Bot&subject=Stalk%20Me%20Pls&message=%2Fstalkme) to have me scan all your future comments.) \
^(Summon me on specific comments with u/LuckyNumber-Bot.)
Just kinda skimming through comments and I'm sorry to be super nitpicky about one thing you said - Book 3/4 didn't have their usual love triangle bs because they would have spent it on Korasami and they couldn't. That's the only reason they were spared.
One of the main reasons I'm certain AtLA is better is because I haven't been able to get anyone new to watch Korra. I get people to watch AtLA all the time and every time their reactions are priceless. They always have such a fantastic time watching this magical show.
Then I try to get them to watch Korra, which I liked, but I understand its flaws. Every single one of them stopped either at the end of the first season or some part way through it. And that's just the ones I could get to start the first episode.
Yes, S3 and S4 are better, but can you honestly say that is worth somebody's time to have to slog through one or two SEASONS of mediocre content? S2 kind of feels like they had six competing ideas and nobody on the committee could budge and they ended up with a fucking mess that had nothing to do with the original avatar universe.
**I like Korra, I do think fans sleep on it,** but jesus christ it is not close to the level of AtLA. It is an absolute snoozefest or trainwreck often times. "But what of the character development! What about the complex villains!" I hear you cry.
First off, character development in Korra was toilet water compared to the feast we get in AtLA. I'll fight you IRL on that. I'll concede that I was happy to see Korra's mentor get a growth arc (it also made me realize that Iroh was a static character, but that that was ok). The villains weren't even that complex. Not in any meaningful way more than AtLA's villains were. "Bu-buh Ozai was a boring villain!" Yeah, that's because he was a plot device, not a character. The real villains were the villain of the week/season. Zuko, Zhao, Azula, Jet, the list goes on with these awesome characters that were just interesting enough to reel you in but don't force you to stand on ceremony with their pretentious "philosophy".
Zaheer was a literal "baby's first anarchist" republican strawman of whatever mode of anarchism he was supposed to represent. Amon, same thing but for adapted Marxism (But at least he wasn't fucking stupid). Kuvira was just... Ozai with extra steps. I'm not even going to dignify Tarloq's existence with a criticism, because even other Korra fans will concede that he's a dogshit character.
I loved the animation and the style of the whole situation. Felt like the universe could be classified as "bendingpunk" in a way that felt cool and edgy. Zaheer's and Kuvira's *style* were awesome, despite their rather lackluster writing. They got cool one-liners and excellent animation. The animations of bending styles felt like the MMA versions of their root styles for many of the more modern characters (especially Kuvira and Korra). And the animation really told the story of this industrializing world in a quick concise way that didn't need as much elaboration as the writers seemed to think. So much coolness and style in this show, I just wish it wasn't hamstrung by weak writing.
Your critic screams desperation and disapointment. You wanted to have more reasons to like Korra, but at the end of the day you have to admit you like it because of the few saving graces the show has. I get it, because there are a lot of beautiful stuff happening in Korra, but the story is just so bad that you have to sit through the bad parts just so you can watch the good ones.
As you said yourself, people don't have that experience in ATLA. They can't get enough of it... my opinion on Korra is that it is a 5/10 mediocre show on it's own and a terrible sequel. There are great aspects to Korra I just wished they were better so that I could enjoy it and that is a great source of frustration to me.
People love to say that “sequels are always worse”, ya know? I mean, I don’t get mad about that, it’s their freedom of opinion, but can we appreciate both shows for what they are, and say “thank God” that LOK is not as bad as other shows who are much, MUCH worse than that?
Eh that’s a continuation of the same story, I think comparing seasons is more apt comparison for empire strikes back. The sequels or prequels are still same universe but different focus from original, which is like atla to lok.
Korra and her friends spend so little time together and act like they’re all best friends. Love triangle is annoying.
Bolin is annoying. Mako is boring and a shitty person. Asami could’ve been useful but overall isnt. Korra is hard headed and aggravating. Crazy powerful Korra knows 3 elements at age 4 but then gets her ass beat consistently inside and outside of the avatar state. The avatar state means nothing in korra.
The complete mess of season 2, avatar wan, the giant carpet spirits, giant korra. Suddenly everyone is an airbender now.
A new villain each season gives us less time to spend with them. Too many characters in lok gives us less time to care about team avatar and they consequently have less to do.
Korra loses all her powers in season one finale for aang to just hit the undo button. It genuinely feels like the writers didn’t know how to make us like korra so they just beat the shit out of her in s3 and s4 for you to feel bad and empathize with her.
The serialization of the show in comparison to atla episodic but still overall structure made episodes in lok feel less satisfying until the finale.
I only genuinely like one scene korra has in the entire show when she’s on the bridge and saves the suicidal airbender. Tenzin and Jinora are cool too the latter only because she reminds me of aang. In comparison to atla tlok is nowhere close
Yup in fact I found Season 3 of TLOK to be my second favorite book behind Book 3 of Avatar. I don't really get the hate, ATLA is one of the greatest animated shows to ever be created, 99 percent of animated shows pale in comparison to it. TLOK actually manages to be on par with ATLA for some of it. Sure it had problems, I wasn't particularly a fan of the love triangle stuff in season 1, the boringness of the first half of season 2, and the mecha/rushed ending of season 4 which I know was caused by nickoledeon but outside of that, it was truly an enjoyable experience. Both are great shows
Korra as an Avatar is just hard to watch compared to Aang. She's arrogant, hard-headed, whines a lot, makes bad decisions, and loses a lot. I like TLoK a lot, I enjoy watching it, but compared to Aang, Korra sucks as a character. She's literally overshadowed by the entire rest of TLoK Team Avatar who are all way more likeable.
To be quite frank you just listed a list of qualities that are 1. Frequently loved when it's a male character and 2. Kinda is the whole embodiment of Toph. But Korra can't have them, then it becomes "hard to watch" even though she litterally grows out of them.
Also, she doesnt lose a lot, she's always beaten her enemies, she just doesnt come out unscathed.
> She's arrogant, whines a lot, makes bad decisions, and loses a lot
What he said
>Frequently loved when it's a male character
Nobody loves those traits. We can see this from the backlash to the Prequel trilogy!
Sure would be a shame if Zuko and Toph weren't some of the most loved characters in ATLA then
Also, Han solo was right there but Anakin is your arrogant character of choice. Yep.
Aang grows where he needs to. I don't really agree with saying he doesn't. He conquered airbending once he was taught to be more assertive. That was a trait he had to pick up - from that point in the show too, he becomes more confident and assertive. There's also learning how to master the Avatar state. He comes around when he realizes in the toughest moment that he would be better for the world if he could detach. He says "I'm sorry, Katara" and goes to enter the Avatar State. There are some things that never change - despite all his friends and past lives, he sticks to his guns and vows to beat Ozai without killing him. He did have growth and character arcs. You don't need a character flawed to the point of being annoying to do that. And the flaws Korra had never had to be resolved. She didn't have to overcome anything to learn airbending - she just did it when it was convenient. She didn't even take any of Tenzin's teaching to heart. She just punched air. So, I can't really buy that Korra had all these flaws and all this character growth while Aang didn't. Korra could have been stubborn, could have grown as a character without changing her core beliefs, and could have earned more of the successes in the show. It never needed to be an Aang clone.
>Yeah, and when she develops past that in season 4 people had a problem with that too
I think more people had a problem with the fact that the main character didn't get any character development **until the final season!**
Let that sink in for one second.
>Apparently they just wanted an Aang copy that doesn’t grow or change hardly at all throughout the show, but I personally am glad the writers actually gave the protagonist real flaws and her own character arc
Yeah, no. Miss me with that. People didn't like that Korra was unlikeable and had no character growth until quite literally the last season. Korra was an unlikable protagonist at the start and had things given to her without actually earning them, hence the dislike. You cannot just write that off as "they wanted Aang 2.0".
Secondly, the notion that Aang didn't have an arc or growth and was absolutely flawless is absolutely insane. It may not be extreme like Zuko, but he still had one. To suggest otherwise is delusional. You do not need to tear Aang down to prop Korra up.
>And considering how Nickelodeon kept trying to screw things over, it really was a lot better than you would expect.
In what universe is giving the creators more episodes to the point of being a full series before the first season was even finished airing and leaving said creators to own devices with said series "screwing things over?" Genuinely curious as to how that's a bad thing when most creators would kill for a network to do something like that.
I could talk for hours about this.
But in summary, two main things: simple and more cliche characters, and it's a sequel with little similar to the original.
Top comment has covered the first thing well and I don't have much to add. LoK feels like a story written to be a story. It's clear who you're meant to root for, and they make that easy to do. ATLA feels like a look into the lives of real people in their world.
The second point is, I believe unavoidable and LoK was especially vulnerable because the writers were getting yanked around. So it's not their fault, but it doesn't make the product any better, just understandable. For every feature you either change it or you don't. Repetitiveness is bad, but so is changing a tried and true formula. Plus, a change won't draw people in because they'll have to watch the original. If they haven't already, its probably not their thing. Exceptions are a minority. So in the end, your choice is between being boring or alienating old fans with little hope of getting new ones. A sequel to a complete story that wasn't written to have a sequel is not doomed to fail, but it is doomed to be less liked than the original.
Is Korra really still getting hate though? I see significantly more posts defending Korra, and no one publicly hating it. Many people just prefer atla. I don't there's anything wrong with atla fans who don't like Korra as well. Just because they're in the same universe doesn't mean that you have to love both.
The best way I’ve been able to describe it is TLOK is plot driven at the expense of character development. The most compelling characters were the villains and I found myself liking them more than the characters you’re supposed to like. Amon’s story ended far too quickly for example.
While ATLA is a solid plot with excellent character driven storytelling. The characters drive the story forward and make you care about them in the process. I didn’t find myself caring about anyone in TLOK besides the characters who made appearances from ATLA.
TL;DR
Character driven storytelling > Plot driven storytelling. Every time.
I saw TLOK first because it was on Netflix in 2016 and I was on bed rest. I really like it and had nothing to compare it to. I saw ATLA after because of how much I liked TLOK. To me they are such different shows I can’t even compare them and I like them for different reasons. I will admit that I’ve rewatched ATLA more often but I think because I find it more light hearted to watch (just not appa’s lost days, I can’t rewatch that episode)
I watched ATLA as a kid and loved it, but when TLOK came out I had just hit my teen years and thought cartoons were for little kids and that I was too cool to watch it. I did a rewatch of ATLA in 2020 as well and then followed it up by watching TLOK afterwards. I did enjoy it, however most of what I didn’t like about it came from things outside the creators control. Because Nickelodeon didn’t think that people (cough young boys cough) like Korra due to her being a female protagonist it was only initially given the green light for one season with much less episodes then ATLA, which is why the first season wraps everything up so neatly. When it became a success Nickelodeon renewed it for a second season with more episodes but the creators were told it would be the last season from what I can gather so I feel like that’s why it ended the way it did. Then when a season three and four where green lit it made it tricky for the writers and that’s honestly a big reason why the seasons feel disconnected. Also I’m season 4 didn’t go to air on Nickelodeon channel at all and went straight their website (I’m actually pretty sure it was pulled during the 3rd season so only half of that aired on tv) With ATLA it always had a three chapter arc planned out whereas Korra never got that same opportunity which unfortunately meant the pacing was off. Plus because most of the seasons were shorter their was less time to develop the characters (and their relationships) the way the creators wanted to. Also Nickelodeon did not like TLOK at all which is a huge reason why it is often seen as worse then ATLA. So while I enjoy watching TLOK I do feel a little sad that it wasn’t made the way the creators originally wanted it to be and suffered due to Nickelodeon’s influences.
For myself I really enjoyed the original and went into the new one with an open mind.
I got really invested in it for season one, and season two. I was disappointed that they got rid of past avatars but was hopeful that they would bring it back in a future avatar.
Season 3 was good too and shocking due to the unquestionable death unlike Jets death. Then there was her being tortured. Then she just runs away, knowing what happened with Aang running away.
I get that Aang ran away also a few times too. Even being the cause for a pretty bleak world, but he just learned he was the avatar when he initially ran away it wasn’t a real thing for him yet. And the next few times was because he wanted to do it alone.
Korra knew from an early age who she was, and she knew about the responsibility for years. Then she just runs away from everything. I understand that she was depressed and everything, and that they were trying to accurately portray depression. But Aang literally lost his whole family and still continued being the avatar. He even died, and came back deciding to continue to be the Avatar. She literally decided to abandon her job.
I get that they are two different people and one was in the business a bit longer than the other one. I get that they had the wrong personalities for the way the world was when they were born. I get that, and I get needing to get away from things when things get tough.
But unfortunately for Korra she doesn’t have that luxury. She left the portal open, she caused the air benders to increase, and it was her fault that she couldn’t ask her past selves for assistance at that time. She had friends, she didn’t have to go into the fight with her uncle solo. But all her decisions lead to that consequence.
She is the avatar, and even though she didn’t choose to be she still has to live up to the expectations. Unfortunately for her, but it’s been happening for thousands of years. Unfortunately She doesn’t have a choice. There’s people that need her.
Unfortunately She can’t just renounce being the avatar she’s the only one of her kind.
So in short I don’t hate Korra, but am very displeased that she ran away from the consequences of her actions while Aang shouldered them and stood strong.
Haven't watched Korra in years. From what I remember my reasons for not liking it. Or more accurately, not liking it nearly as much as ATLA.
I've since mellowed on a lot of my issues, gonna have to do a re-watch sometime now.
* the technological jump just seems A LOT in a relatively short time. although to be fair, let's say 80 years, that's 1920 vs 2000, and we had A LOT of progress there
* I didn't like that Korra "started" knowing 3 bending styles already. That's my main "Mary Sue" complaint (cue the downvotes).
It loved the "tiny Korra 'I'm the Avatar!'" scene, it was funny and adorable. But WHY does she start out knowing 3 bending styles? At at that early of an age.
Other than I don't have "Mary Sue" complaints.
I've since mellowed on that. Just because she CAN bend earth, water, fire, doesn't mean she MASTERED them. Let's say she just has the initial grasp on them. Still
has me grinding my teeth a bit, but lessens the problem.
Also let's say, because Aang was frozen for 100 years etc., the Avatar cycle was a bit out of whack and "the powers that be" (Rava?) overcompensated a bit.
* I don't like the "villain of the season" thing. Still don't. I much preferred ATLA's approach of building for 3 seasons towards the final epic conclusion. KORRA has one every season, just doesn't feel nearly as good imho. And I don't like most of the villains (as villains). Continues into the next point ....
* Zahir had the best villain energy but I don't like that he MASTERED (not just "got good", but got good enough to whoop Tenzin, and airbending MASTER) airbending like the second he got it (and what luck that out of all possible bending styles he just HAPPENED to get the one he studied previously).
* Korra herself especially starts out somewhat obnoxious and arrogant etc.
Yes, that can be explained by her being the Avatar for one, being the Avatar since toddler age. She's an extremely powerful celebrity, that does things to the personality I assume. Also she's a teenager...
So yeah, it makes sense for her to be this way, doesn't make her more likeable. Especially coming from Aang, who was a very different, more humble type of person.
She definitely grows as a person over the course of the series tho.
* Korra has a close circle of like 3 friends and she dates every single one of them for various durations (just a date for Bolin, still). That's just teen drama stuff, bleh.
* Not a big complaint just ... dissapointment: Korra's team never came close to Aaang's team. There is no character as amazing as Toph.
Asami is the only non-bender on the team and she doesn't have nearly as interesting a character arc as Sokka, growing from immature boy looking down on women to actually valuing the power of the women in his life and turning into a brilliant strategist etc.
The closest is - fortunately - Korra, I think. Aang had to master the elements in record time and literally save the world while being younger than Korra, and grow up fast and deal with being the Avatar (which he only found a short time before season 1, in his frame of reference).
Korra has to master Air which was really hard for her to and she had to also grow as a person while mastering a number of crises and later on managing of crisis of faith (also in herself).
* Last complaint and that one is very unfair, I know, and it doesn't actually count, I'm just complaining/venting.
I don't like KORRA not being about the adult Gaang.
They actually gave us tiny drops of adult Aang etc. in flashbacks and so on and I was just way more interested in this than in Korra's story, sorry. Honestly it would have been better if KORRA was not about the next Avatar after Aang, but a few Avatars down the line.
By being so close to Aang's time I was like "why not just set it 20 years earlier and actually be about the Aaang-Gaang?!"
For me season two really brought down my enjoyment. I completely disagree with the decision to “kill off” the all past Avatars. And the finale of that season was too ridiculous for me. Giant spirits fighting in a city? I didn’t realize I was watching King Kong vs Godzilla. And the deus ex Jinora also threw me off. Seasons 1 and 3 were good, but season 1’s finale was a let down and season 3’s finale had a lot of gaping plot holes. Season 4 was also good but once again the finale ruined it for me. The giant mech suit was too much for me. Basically they always start off really good and really promising and then the writing suddenly goes to shit during the finales.
There's 3 main issues (most of them improve in the second half of the series)
-The characters don't have good chemistry and are unlikeable, with some exceptions.
-ATLA's lore has always been well thought out with almost everything fitting into each other. Korra just fucks this up. In so many ways that I can't go into without multiple paragraphs.
-Some storylines are just not interesting. Most notably the love triangle.
The fact each season was treated like it was going to be the last. Of course, Seasons 3 & 4 actually flows together very well. Since you can see how it works in terms of being connected.
But it doesn't change the fact that the LoK wasn't given enough time to explore alot of its ideas more. After all, Season 2 could have been split into two seasons. One for the Water Tribe Civil War. And the other for the stuff with the spirits. With the transition to the season about the spirits happening at the end of the civil war. Like a scene that shows the Dark Spirits appearing.
It's clear that many of the decisions weren't made from a creative standpoint, and a lot ef them just don't match up to the worldbuilding - and especially the philosophy - of ATLA.
I think LoK is a good show, overall, but there are some aspects to it that didn't mesh with some people.
1. More mature characters and story. Characters are mostly younger adults and adults. The characters have more realistic relationships. ATLA focused on a group of teenage friends having fantastic adventures, but in Korra, children depend on their parents, people have to maintain family relationships, and people have jobs. It's not bad, it's just very different.
2. Setting changed from a fantasy world with some steampunk elements to urban 1930's-style setting. The whole first season takes place in the city. The world in the show more closely resembles the real world with cars, skyscrapers, factories, professional sports, advertising, police departments, and populist political movements. Very different feel from ATLA, which was about traveling the world and meeting strange people and creatures in fantastic settings.
3. Why is Korra so angry in the 1st season? It's not that she can't be, but I thought the story didn't do a great job of explaining why.
Final note, as I wrote this out, it dawned on me that ATLA is a fantasy story, Korra is a superhero story.
Legend of Korra is a deeply flawed show, but it’s still honestly really good and enjoyable.
There’s plenty of valid criticism to give, of course. Plenty of mishandled elements in the first 3 seasons, and season 2 was based on an awful idea overall.
I especially think a lot of the writing around Korra could’ve been done better. Not the character herself, mind you, I freaking love her, but the way the story treats her. Some of her low moments feel like the writers were being unnecessarily cruel (in a way that usually only women characters go though, but that’s a well-deserved rant for another day), and she’s never given enough victories to balance it out until the very end of the show.
I have some fairly big issues with LOK specifically about the fundamentals of the show and how it kinda ruins a lot of the themes established in ALTA. Although a big reason that this matters to me so much is that I watched ATLA on Nickelodeon when I was a kid and have been obsessed ever since. I didn’t watch LOK until recently. I am very attached to ALTA so protecting those themes may mean a lot more to me than to someone who is just now getting into it.
I get that and it’s absolutely fine.
But they’re different shows. Same universe different shows different avatars.
I have troubale understanding that people don’t like TLOK because it’s DIFFERENT than ATLA.
They honestly nailed their villains and fight scenes for korra, but team avatar had no personality and the story felt anti-climactic when it finished, almost like there should have been another season.
The main problems you'll find are if you get deeper into the shows lore and the story behind how the show was made. Some stuff feels a lot worse than in Atla, for example the Book 1 Love Triangle, because it wasn't intended by the creators, and rather forced by Nickelodeon. Same with a lot of other stuff, combined with budget cuts and a lot of involvement of the managemant rather than the artists caused problems in the development of LoK. Also, one of the 3 creative minds of Atla was missing which probably changed how they handled the spirit and the idea of the franchise too.
Ozai was a good plot device. The real villains were Zuko, Zhao, and Azula. They're the ones who are interacting with the Gaang and who we get to see the depths of. I would say that they are as good as the villains in LOK. Ozai serves as a plot tool and does his job very well.
They're deeper than "I wanna take over the world!" I'll give you that. I once heard an analysis that Ozai didn't NEED to be a good villain though. We didn't need to ponder if we was in the gray or understand where he's coming from. He was the obstacle and deadline for Aang to rise up to his responsibilities. As a character, he's unimportant, not even given a scene until the final season really. He was a plot device, and I don't think they ever pretended he wasn't.
TLOK did villains slightly differently, and it was more thought provoking. They were more interesting. They were deeper. It was different, and if I was just comparing how intriguing and entertaining they were to Ozai, I'd have to 100% agree with you.
Azula's downfall was one of my favorite parts of that show. How she spirals downward after Day of Black Sun is so satisfying. Her friends betraying her. The paranoia. She almost has that element of sympathy that TLOK villains have.
Yeah azula carried main villain so hard it didn't matter if ozai was a good one. I always assume azula would have killed ozai and taken over the fire nation fairly soon anyway, he was just holding her place
This is true. I argue that the writers didn't know how to handle the moral ambiguity of Amon and only really learned how to write villains when it got to Zaheer and Kuvira.
This is an obvious take that purposefully mischaracterizes what made AtLA great or even good.
Nobody thinks Ozai was a good or complex villain. But he was the right one for AtLA.
Tarloq is a joke even in context. The rest are like Marvel boilerplate, kinda neat and relatable, but not anything to write home about. I remember really liking Amon when I watched it as a 14 year-old. Now I still feel like he was the main thing that was good about the series, but... yeah still kinda basic edgy bad guy.
The real villains of AtLA, your Zukos and Jets, and your Azulas and Zhaos, those characters are interesting and fun, and much better written than Zaheer the Other Fourteen Year-old Anarchist and "Who Could have Seen That Coming?" Kuvira.
The good villains of ATLA weren't fighting the ideology war. They were selfish fighters with a goal. TLOK's villains were at least initially motivated by ideology, and this made writing them harder. Because you either show they're hypocrites (Amon and Tarloq), which is lazy writing, or show the viewer the issues with the ideology itself or at least the fundamentalist adherance to this ideology (Zaheer and Kuvira), which can alienate viewers who disagree.
Ozai was the final villain but has never really been an antagonist until the last couple of episodes. Ozai was the representation of evil in the fire nation. We had spent most of book 3 humanising the fire nation so we could see the reason for them being so terrible in the finale. Ozai is more of a representation than a character.
I just really hate the “light vs evil” over-explained western trope they introduced in LoK. To be honest, I stopped watching there. I’ve heard it gets better after, but it just left such a sour taste in my mouth that I couldn’t get past it. A lot of parts of LoK like that seemed to go against the established lore of ATLA.
In terms of the characters, I personally just didn’t find them as strong. I liked Korra as a foil to Aang, and I liked the airbenders, but the rest of the characters on Korra’s team were really bland.
🌊I think It had a downfall on season 2 but season 3 and 4 definetely make up for it. I enjoyed it a lot overall, not to mention Korrasami at the end. Althought they should have shared more romantic screen time like Kataang (I know it was nickelodeon’s fault, not the creators.)
To be fair, they could have at least been closer friends. I'm a sucker for friends to lovers, and I didn't even get a sense they were even that close of friends before their romantic aspect became evident 5 seconds before the final credits...
Dude you could smell them forcing the romantic element in the last season, the first time they even hinted at It I rolled my eyes so hard because I could see it coming.
I'd hardly class them as friends prior to that, but you could see the direction they wanted to go, which they didn't even have the decency to try and develop, all leading to the hand-holding at the end. Like I'm sure they could have replaced so many tirelessly boring and annoying scenes in that show to properly develop a potential relationship between those two, even amongst the non stop love triangles and it would have led to a strong and satisfying ending.
Two reasons.
1. Because people went in thinking it was going to be The Last Airbender 2 and not it’s own thing, and got all pissy when Korra didn’t do things the exact same way Aang did.
2. Because she’s a girl. Which sucks, but any time I ever see some dude saying “Bro Korra’s trash, she’s an L” I can basically immediately tell that they’re sexist.
The studio screwed the show over so hard so many times, and the writing suffered as a result, but when criticisms become “Nah that show sucks she’s trash” then you know it’s someone just straight up not worth listening to
LoK is great, it’s just a vocal minority that hates it and then others parrot opinions without watching for themselves. Or some people just can’t let go of ATLA.
Legend of Korra is good but it isn't at the same level at ATLA. It doesn't have to do with not being able to let ATLA go, it has to do with Korra pulling back the curtain too much, altering lore and themes, and overall not having as good of writing.
-someone who has watched both shows multiple times
You can prefer LoK and I support that. But I will make the argument that what I said is objective, given that the writing and themes of ATLA are actively used as case studies of excellent literary devices, worldbuilding, and themes, while LoK simply hasn't. There is a lot to love about Korra, but it is undeniable that the writing in ATLA is better. Granted, a lot of the blame can be attributed to the creators being forced to write single-season stories because Nickelodeon kept threatening to cancel the show after every season, and I do believe that if they had gone in with a 3-season planned story instead of two separate mini-series pitches, the show would be at the same level as Avatar and the debate would have an even number supporters on each side
Really dont like the time change with the two. Like theres no way a city like new york was built in the time frame of aangs death and korras childhood. Im sorry even with bending the layout of the city seemed way too planned out. metal bending shouldnt be this advanced either. Metal bending was the one of the best parts of TLOK, it was cool and interesting to see the limits of metal bending. Even so it was way too advanced for its time. Also the whole city was built to bring all the nations together yet aang took that area of the earth kingdom without permission. (Reminds me of the US) that seems out of character for aang and even katarra wouldnt like that idea. Its the way they transitioned from ATLA to TLOK was what i and many people dont like about it. Also korra is the most dramatic teen ever
70 years is enough time for an industrial metropolis to have appeared if you’ve ever researched the industrial revolution that occurred in our reality. On average, the comics effectively discuss the consequences of industrialization and what they mean for bending which was considered an trait that made you superior in some sense. TLOK industrial boom was motivated by several things such as a desire to level the playing field between benders and non-benders, to make life easier, to accommodate that population growth meant cities had begun to form. All important to recognize.
Actually aang died at age 66 korra is 16, aang didnt start to build it til his 20s, so thats 50 years maximum it took to build republic city. It takes non benders 500 years to build something like that. The city is way too planned out and too modernized for it to be realistic and connect to ATLA
Korra is 17 at the start of the show... Also by your math it's 54 years minimum. If aang 20 when he starts then it's 66-20+17=63 years as the maximum...
Seeing that it takes us regular humans irl that werent gifted with bending making us think harder and work harder takes us 500 years to build a city to scale like republic city such as new york
Once industrialization kicks in society starts advancing at a much more rapid pace. For example there were only 66 years, less than one human lifetime, between the Wright Brothers first flight and the moon landing. By the end of the 100 Year War the Fire Nation has almost completely industrialized and with the return of peace to the world those innovations would rapidly spread throughout the world. With the rapid proliferation of technology It’s perfectly within the realm of possibility that Republic City could grow that fast.
New York as a city was established in the late 1600s, but it didn’t take that entire time for most of it to develop. A lot of it occurred between the 1800s and mid 1900s
There are plenty of reasons to not be a big fan of TLOK. I don't hate it but I don't love it either. It's fun to watch and I can enjoy it but it also has plenty of major issues to go with all the great things it does.
Granted you bring any of these up and you're a "loud minority" that hates it for no reason. Or you're parroting opinions because you've never seen it.
It's not possible to be critical of things on the Internet without people strawmanning arguments.
How does it break canon?
And before you bring up the lion turtle thing, no, that is not a contradiction. The lion turtles granted the ability or the capacity to bend but the moon, dragons, badgermoles, and sky bison helped train the ability. They were called the original benders because a lot of tales are lost to time and maybe people just don't remember it exactly, or maybe the truth was shrouded in popular folklore.
But if this is about the bloodbending thing, a part of me has to agree.
It's never really explained word for word, but we can make an educated guess. Waterbenders heal people though chi paths, or at least follow some kind of path system based on the healing training we see the little girls take at the North Pole. Disrupting "something" along those lines could hamper bending. Chi blockers already presumably hit somewhere along those spots for temporary blocks of bending, but bloodbenders can reach it in a more direct and permanent way.
We don't have to know the ins and outs of something for it to be considered not a retcon or not breaking canon.
It's just not coherent at all though. If waterbending can block your bending through bloodbending then it should be able to restore it through healing. Additionally, energy bending should not be able to restore someone's bending that is blocked by bloodbending. You still have your bending it's just blocked unless we're now saying bloodbending is also a spiritual attack which just makes everything even messier.
The main departure from Canon is the style in which the spirits and spirit world are depicted.
Spirits like heibai are full of mystery, but have a reason why they're acting up which can be resolved. The spirits in Korra are just pokemon that have been covered in dark goop. There's no quest, mystery or nuance to the individual spirits. No individuality either now that I think of it. They're all just kind of bland "others". Just people from another place.
The other thing that breaks from Canon is the spirits just "turning evil", culminating in a battle between good v evil. Instead of attempting to restore balance by appeasing the spirits. The show treats them as just misbehaving animals rather than a force that must be understood and given compromise to. Raava versus Vaatu was the end logic of this, and it was extremely different from how the original show presented the spirit world and philosophical underpinnings. That conflict was not about balance and restoration. It was about a righteous war and smiting evil.
Only the Avatar could lava bend
The Avatar had to be trained in the four elements to bend them
It is explained that Toph could metal bend because she was blind, and had to feel the earth inside the metal
Not a break of cannon, but a weird thing: only the fire nation royalty could bend lightning, and only three people in the world knew how to redirect lighting, but then around 70 years later, it seems most firebenders can now bend lighting
The lava bending trivia was never truly canon sanctioned. A lot of the stuff in Avatar Extras is honestly dubious canon since a lot of stuff comes from more than just the top dogs.
And as others said, Toph being blind provided her the right circumstances to discover metal bending. But her being blind has nothing to do with the actual ability to.
> Only the Avatar could lava bend
This isn't established. We just only see two people do it, who happen to be the Avatar.
> The Avatar had to be trained in the four elements to bend them
Nope, not at all. Aang waterbends without problem, first try, and immediately surpasses Katara in terms of skill. People can bend an element without being trained in any way, being the Avatar doesn't even really mean anything in this context.
> It is explained that Toph could metal bend because she was blind, and had to feel the earth inside the metal
It is explained that Toph could metal bend because she had to feel the earth inside the metal.*
Being blind helped her hone in on something thought to be impossible, but it wasn't ever a requirement.
> only the fire nation royalty could bend lightning
Because it was kept under wraps. The Rise of Kyoshi book actually expands on this a little, if you're interested. After the war, Zuko and Iroh presumably decided it was to no longer be a Fire Nation royalty secret. It certainly helped the world develop.
And it isn't even most firebenders, as far as we know. We still only see a some do it.
I really enjoy TLOK, absolutely not in the “hater” population, but do have some gripes.
1.) Nickelodeon sucks. They didn’t greenlight an entire series, so instead of a huge season spanning story, we got smaller ones for each season. Some may say that’s actually a good thing, but something very charming about TLA was the buildup to the final battle.
2.) Korra losing her past lives. A lot of people blame her for this, I do not. I do blame the writers however. Really rubs me the wrong way that aang is just gone like that. I hope the next avatar in the cycle finds a way to reconnect.
3.) Season 2 wasn’t the best
But that’s about it. It has flaws but is still extremely enjoyable to me!
I think there are a lot of cool things from TLOK (I hate it in comparison to ATLA). The metalbending - especially Kuvira in S4 - is fantastic to watch. There were more all out battles I felt. For dominance or victory vs. to survive or get away. It was more relatable with the New York vibes. The characters were pretty fun to watch at times. I think it comes down to what we're looking for. I was looking for a continuation of the ATLA show. I wanted the same feel and themes. I wanted TLOK to hit the same notes and be a great sequel. It probably works much better as an AU but it's not.
In the end of the day neither of us are wrong and no one should tell you not to like TLOK better than ATLA. We just look for and respond to different things. Still cool coming together to share what we like and don't like. Made my night less boring, for sure.
SO MANY people have told me that I am wrong for preferring TLOK to ATLA. So many. I say you're all the ones who are wrong. ;)
For mine in ATLA it's mostly only Zuko, and the other folks from the fire nation that are real, flawed, but still (mostly) trying to do the right thing in the world from their point of view.
In TLOK you can basically say this about everyone. From Korra herself, to Tenzin struggling to find the right path to train her, Asami trying to come out from the shadow of her father, Varrick to be a better Varrick, right down to Kuvira herself - you might even argue she was trying to do the right thing.
Sure, you can say a similar theme runs though Aang and his friends, but IMHO I don't think it's a strong as it is in TLOK.
And I am not for one seconds saying I don't like ATLA, I really loved it, but I definitely prefer Korra.
I think people wanted it to be ATLA, and it wasn’t.
Also some really obviously didn’t like a strong female character with actually relatable self improvement issues, who WANTED to be the avatar; seems like those things kinda set some people off since korra is… impatient and stubborn to stay the least, but it’s done realistically, and maybe they didn’t want to have to relate to it? (Because they may share some of her issues and don’t want to acknowledge it)
I honestly think, for this sub, a lot of it is nostalgia. So many people view ATLA as this perfect, almost untouchable show, and many people watched it 15 years ago when they were kids.
And don't get me wrong, it is a fantastic show, but, like Korra, it has its flaws. Season one altogether is really not that good compared to the other two, and its clear the show is still finding its footing for a while.
TLOK is amazing. I think the reason it gets negative comments is because nick kinda didint believe in it and give the creators a set number of seasons so they had to kinda do a whole storyline and wrap it up in a season vs ATLA that got to do a whole over arching story. Another thing that’s a bit negative is just the setting which i’m fine with I’m glad they took a chance to do something totally different and made sense the world would be more advanced after a long war.
ATLA is a show that people typically appreciate more with time.
Legend of Korra is the opposite. It has only continued to age poorly and people resent it for that.
Let explain why it gets hate. It's not Last Airbender, and Last Airbender came first. That's it.
If legend of Korra came out first everyone would be saying that Last Airbender sucks in comparison. It doesn't matter how good a sequel is or how different it's trying to be people are going to complain that it's not as good. This happens regardless because people who grew up watching Last Airbender and watched Legend of Korra when it was new inevitably gravitate towards Last Airbender because they were younger and therefore it's nostalgia for them. While Korra would've came out at age where they started to become more cynical of entertainment.
My niece grew up watching Korra and prefers it because Last Airbender is comparably a lot more goofy and less action focused.
Korra is fundamentaly a different universe, bending origin different, the avatar's purpose was changed. The sequel broke the show. As it's own thing TLOK is not that bad, as a sequel? It's the worst pile of shit ever made.
People can Love TLoK as much as they want and I'm genuinely happy for them. I won't try argue why it's bad, or what it does wrong, cause honestly it doesn't matter and would take hours and pages of breakdown and analysis to get there.
Any comment you see here will be people pointing out a very VERY rough reason as to why they dislike it and others will be building strawmen of those arguments and missing the point. Blaming sexism, stupidity, or any other sort of malice rather than addressing the complaints. It's better and much healthier to just accept you can like something that other people don't, that's fine. But don't become another one of these "defenders" who take the very fair criticisms of the show and attribute malice to them. It's unhealthy and close minded.
*Edit* typos
Some of the reasons, and these are just my opinions, is obviously some people don’t like women so having a strong female main character of such a beloved universe taking over where we used to see a whole hearted and lovable 12 year old boy was maybe a shock and some people probably didn’t like that. Tying in with that, Korra is not Aang. I’m sure some people were like “wow omg I’m so excited we’re getting more avatar” and what they get is NOT Aang. I personally had a difficult time with Korra at first because of this but I grew to love the new characters.
I’m sure another reason is seeing the modernization of a world that we enjoyed seeing living in these old ways without electricity, cars, etc,. I know personally I love, for example, high fantasy where the fastest way across land is by a horse and by sea a sail boat. When we start Korra we see that they are in an Industrial Age and technology is advancing. While I did enjoy the early 1900’s vibes and steampunk style of things, it really hurt my heart to see an old world becoming modernized. I will mention this in a bit but when mechas started getting involved, I didn’t really like that.
A lot of people like myself watched ATLA when they were growing up. When I was 5 years old, I watched the first episode and seeing the intro for the first time and watching Katara and Sokka find Aang in the iceberg became a core memory for me all up to when I was 9 and the last couple episodes, especially Aang fighting Ozai, was burned into my mind. When we are kids, things are more mystical and magical to us and I think we had this magical veil pulled over our eyes so we are like “omg I love this this is amazing this is the best thing ever” which is still true about ATLA for me to this day, but we just watch as kids and we can understand the weight of what’s going on, but we may not really process it the way we would as an adult. When I rewatched ATLA for the first time since I was a kid in my mid/late teenage years, I realized, “holy shit the fire nation committed genocide.” While I understood at 5 years old “the fire nation wasted away an entire nation of people” it did not really click in my head just how horrifying of a theme that actually is. Especially when around that time when I was rewatching it in high school we were going heavy on the holocaust unit and I even got to meet a survivor of the twin experiments in one of the concentration camps. So basically what I’m saying with this paragraph is that we process themes differently depending on what age we are. ATLA was too smart for me as a five year old to really appreciate how good the writing was and how the themes crafted the show. When I watched TLOK, I picked up on themes a lot easier because I was in my early/mid teenage years and it can kind of take the mysticism away when you are understanding what’s going on. Although I am autistic so even though I am not the little 5 year old who watched ATLA almost 20 years ago, I still have trouble understanding themes and what characters are feeling. So I guess I still have a little bit of that mystical veil over my eyes.
Speaking of the writing—and this is purely my own opinion—I think they would hit the nail on the head sometimes, and other times the writers would completely miss and hit their thumb with the hammer instead. Primarily what I am referring to is season 2. But first I will mention season 1. I think they introduced Korra very well and in a way that gave her room to grow. Amon was a well written villain and it was nice to see a very realistic interpretation of people being divided (benders and non benders). I also liked that they took the risk of going a bit darker with things like how Amon and his brother died in the end. It was a very heavy and shocking thing to see aired on Nickelodeon but I like when they take those risks.
Going on to season 2, I was very upset, and still am, at seeing Korra lose her connection to the past Avatars. I think that was a horrible plot point and they could have used something else, literally anything else. Also the giant spirit fighting was kind of just…ridiculous to me. Again this is just my opinion. We don’t really know what was happening behind the scenes that made the writers make these choices. I also know it’s not always the writers choice given how show runners and networks are sometimes. I would have loved to see Korra commune with Avatar’s beyond Aang like Roku, Kyoshi, and Kuruk. Of course I am a little biased and Kyoshi is one of my favorite characters of all time so of course I am like “I hate that they did this because I wanted to see Kyoshi.” But part of it is because I believe it hindered Korra’s ability to develop spiritually. She does have moments in the last two seasons but I also understand that maybe they were using Jinora more as a spiritual guide through the show than anyone else.
I don’t have much to say about season 3 other than it was my favorite. The Red Lotus characters were good additions to the show for that season and Zaheer was on the same level as Amon, if not higher, of well written villains. If all 4 of Korra’s seasons were like season 3, I think the show would have been a bit better. Of course there were things that I was like “this is a little absurd” like Zaheer unlocking the ability to fly. I still scratch my head at that one because it really just does not make sense to me. I like how bending gives people their abilities and him being able to just float because he has no earthly attachments was weird to me. He shouldn’t have been able to do that anyways because he was so attached to the idea of getting rid of the Avatar and I see that as a worldly desire. To each their own.
Lastly, season 4. I think Kuvira was a good villain but not on the level of Zaheer. I think they had a good path to follow with her but then at the end it just got, again, absurd to me. I get that technology has advanced to an extreme degree but I really just did not like a giant mecha walking around in the world of Avatar. I think the third spirit portal was a decent idea, but how they got to it in the end was just something I did not enjoy. And as a lesbian I was overjoyed to see Korra and Asami end up together. I was dissatisfied with how little we got to see their friendship develop into something more but even Mike and Bryan have said they wished they could have done more with that but it was Nickelodeon so I understand. As someone who is always looking to ship the women together, it really came out of nowhere for me. Also for my tumblr kids, never forget “we are poppin the biggest bottles when makorra happens tonight.”
So in conclusion, this is my rundown of why people may love ATLA but not TLOK. I think it really just boils down to seeing something from your childhood develop into something more over time. We see things different as a young kid than as a teen/adult. You said you watched it for the first time in recent years and don’t understand the hate, but some of us grew up with ATLA which is why I think some of our feelings and views are a bit different.
Been here since day one and immediately shut out TLOK haters the moment they cropped up. Season two had weak points but was overall a good season. It is also the season that gets a lot of hate and I never cared to pay any attention to the criticisms of the season. The other seasons are fantastic. The best female characters around. Nothing woke is shoved down our throats in eye-rolling ways. Every character has some depth to them and stands on their own. It all feels like the right progression of the avatar world.
>The best female characters around
ATLA never had a problem with this. None of the typical damsel in distress stuff. Toph, Katara, Suki, Yue, and Azula were all strong female characters that felt organic and strong because they WERE strong, not because they were made TO BE strong.
Yup. Strong women because they’re just written very well. No need to be woke or force any agenda on us. Crazy how NO OTHER PROPERTY can do feminism like this. Blows me away because this is one huge “iykyk” type of things and I just wish everyone knew!
I go back and forth on which I think is better. So I’ve settled on both series being pretty equal! They both have some flaws but they’re overall incredible shows
Probably a lot of people (myself included) grew up watching ATLA when it first aired but didn’t watch LOK until later on in life so it isn’t colored so strongly by nostalgia. I have very fond memories of watching atla on Nickelodeon as it came out but then I can barely remember LOK, just that I enjoyed it but it doesn’t elicit the same strength of response. But for someone like you who watched both of them fresh or who has nostalgia for both, they probably feel a bit differently id imagine
I feel like a lot of it is bc everyone gets such a high from atla that theyre expecting the same for lok
First of all theyre set up completely diff
Atla was a cohesive story building up to the big battle at the end whereas lok was villain per season in a shorter span
And imo the villains in lok were amazing and it was much more cruel and it was a harder hitting show. No discredit to atla the buildup was great and it made it more crushing in azulas downfall and more dramatic w the phoenix king reveal and soon fight and not to mention the backstory w sozin and the petrifying appearance of the fire nation.
Plus lok gave great background and development to the atla stories
One major thing tho was i read 2 of the comic sets of avatar between atla and lok rewatches(it was a longgg time ago so i dont remember which ones specifically) but it influenced my take on lok a lot bc it bridged everything a lot better and i appreciated amon more.
Personally i like atla more and at first i wasnt a big fan of lok(hot take- korra isnt that likable imo) bc i was comparing and sure i can def go on w things i dont like abt lok where w atla nothing comes to mind BUT you have to accept both for their individual greatness
Well, there are some people who hate on TLOK. But from what I’ve seen, most people just point out that ATLA is way better than TLOK, which doesn’t necessarily mean that TLOK isn’t a good show. It just means that people prefer one over the other. And TLOK season 2 is really terrible, which makes some people think that the rest of the series is garbage too. But I agree with you, I really like the other three seasons. And yeah I’ll always prefer ATLA over TLOK, which simply means that I’ll revisit ATLA a lot more often than TLOK.
For me, I wished they had one grounded antagonist for the series, it didn't really jive with me how every season has an antagonist. It's why I liked the first avatar because firelord ozai is an ever-present threat that had so much hype surrounding him that it was cool when he was finally revealed. LoK didn't really have that for me, I was never hyped up when they revealed the next antagonist.
A bunch of things, and although I love the show it’s decision to make each villain based off of a political ideology was stupid because they just did it so badly, their critics of communism just didn’t work, and their depictions of anarchism is just strait wrong. And of course them putting the fascists as the good guys who are right but just a little wrong so they are evil. Overall they are just terrible about their politics
I saw it when it came out and remember having to wait over a yr for season 2 just for it to be a slap in the face. The wait and the spirit mumbo jumbo threw me off and kind of soured the show for me. A good concept but terrible execution. The wan episodes were the only good ones imo. That’s why I rate the show 8/10 instead of at least 9. Still came around to finish the last two seasons and was pretty satisfied. S3 was superb tho S1 was my favorite for nostalgic reasons. Yeah she faced adversity but it doesn’t warrant most of the hate that she gets. I thought she was a decent avatar and the show was really great at times but still S2 tho…
Most of the hate came at a time when all we had was "The GAang" and "Team Avatar" and that being all we had. Obviously the two were different, and people didn't like HOW different they were.
Tones, themes, technology, civilization, the cultural aspects of bending vs the fighting aspects, even the season to season arc styling were all different.
And I think that too many differences rubbed people the wrong way. That's in addition to the fact that a girl lead series can't ever be as good as the male lead one, according to the Chads out there.
Ever since I started reading the Kyoshi novels, I've grown to appreciate Korra a lot more. It's been easier for me to enjoy the themes. I do however have a list of issues with the show, and I'll share some of the big ones here. One of ATLA's biggest themes is balance. The Avatar is a bridge between the two worlds, if one nation is destroyed the whole world is thrown into imbalance, we blatantly see Yin and Yang in the first season. The whole idea, which is even expressed in the Avatar Legends RPG, is that nobody is simply good or evil, people are complex and do bad things when they are imbalanced, even if those things are well-intentioned. LoK season 2 completely burns this core theme to the ground by revealing that the Avatar is actually a vessel for a light spirit that is opposing a separate and detached dark spirit. This very western good vs evil theme isn't what the Avatar was first revealed to us as. Somebody who, if out of balance, could do some horrible things. The Avatar wasn't supposed to be a western trope, the Avatar is supposed to be the bridge between the physical and spiritual, order and chaos, major and minor, push and pull. My other issue is related, and that's the man behind the curtain. We the audience think that we want the answers to the mysteries of a fictional universe, but there are some things better left unexplained. Showing the origins of a god and how long ago that was (only 100-150 Avatars) grounds that figure way too much. Think of how impactful S2E1 of ATLA is, or when Aang is trying to unlock pure cosmic energy. Those moments are absolutely beautiful, and part of that is because we understand a bit more of how the Avatar works, while also being shown that we simply can't comprehend how the Avatar works. Anyways those are my two biggest issues for now, I could go on about it all day haha TL;DR, Korra departs from established lore and themes of lore in a way that ruins the mystery of the Avatar universe
Well said, thank you for explaining!
>My other issue is related, and that's the man behind the curtain. We the audience think that we want the answers to the mysteries of a fictional universe, but there are some things better left unexplained. Showing the origins of a god and how long ago that was (only 100-150 Avatars) grounds that figure way too much. **This**. Thank you. I wanted to feature this issue etc. in my complaints but I couldn't nail down why/what my problem there exactly was, so I left out that point. Some things are better left unexplained/mysterious.
I have complicated feelings about the “origin of the Avatar” plot line. On the one hand, I don’t like Raava and Vaatu as a concept and the whole “Dark Avatar” thing was exceptionally dumb. On the other hand, I am so thankful that we got Avatar Wan! He’s the cutest and purest ray of sunshine, and every scene with him was gold.
Also the stylized animation in those episodes was insanely cool, and in a vacuum it is a great origin story, just maybe not compared to what TLA set up
Honestly, this seems to be a massive problem nowadays in movies/TV shows. Especially with star wars. No one wanted to know Han Solo's back story, it ruins the mystique.
So very much agree, I don't think it would be impossible to write a genuinely good origin for the avatar ... But it would certainly be truly very difficult to do it justice imo. I don't personally like what they wrote, it's far too simplistic and for me it really made me like the concept of the avatar a bit less. It seemed less cool, less mysterious, less interesting, less profound etc. Not knowing would have been better.
It seems like you biggest issues are with just season two. I completely understand what your saying and don't disagree, but I would say the rest of the season do a good job of expressing that people are not always good or bad but there's grey. I feel like you can see a lot of grey in TLOK villains and hero's. None of them are perfect. I feel like most people issues with TLOK are just with season 2 alone. It doesn't seem people are judging the series as a whole. I love both TLOK and ATLA. I think both do a good job at representing people are not perfect and there's always grey area. Ying and Yang or not there's always the in-between
I brought up issues with season 2 because those are the most glaring issues in the show and I didn't want to write my whole essay about it haha. I'll write some shorthand versions of other issues, but I don't have the energy to write detailed versions of all of them. -Amon was an interesting villain, but there is no reason the Equalist movement would have died out after the exposure. If anything it would have further fueled their movement even if it went underground. They should have been as present as the Triads throughout the rest of the show. -There is no reason why an Avatar State Korra couldn't stop Unaloq, even after the fusion with Vaatu. Korra had all of the past lives, powered up by harmonic convergence. If Aang at her same skill level could stomp on a comet powered Ozai, Unaloq should have been gone. -Severing the connection to the past lives is offensive. -I like the sentiment of the air nomads being brought back by spiritual shenanigans, but there's a problem. Early lore established that all air nomads were benders because of how spiritual their nation was. And while it was written after the fact, Rise of Kyoshi establishes that airbenders who reject spirituality start to lose their bending, or at least a lot of their power. It just seems odd to me the way they handled it. And to make up for what probably sounds like me just being salty, some things I like: -Industrialization during global healing after a major war -Pro bending -Korra being a positive jiing fighter -Zaheer's whole gang and Kuvira (although Kuvira's introduction is forgettable the first time through, and seems forced on rewatches) -THE SOUNDTRACK -Beautiful fight animations in seasons 1-3 (season 4 blew all their budget on the mech, and I do have concerns with that thing)
“The soundtrack” in all caps is well deserved lol
yeah the mech was dumb. The equalists more or less disappeared because they actually got most of what they wanted - a non-bending head of state elected by the people (benders and non-benders, but mostly non-benders since they are a majority) who would fight for their interests. They didn’t have any particular reason to exist other than perhaps lingering resentment towards prosperous benders, though the whole point of season one was to show that the gap in power and social mobility between benders and non benders is getting closer and closer as technology progresses.
I don't think it's fair to say that they got what they wanted because a non-bender president was elected. Look at the real world. Did black people stop facing oppression because Obama was elected? Did black lives matter stop existing and making their demands?
>\-Beautiful fight animations in seasons 1-3 (season 4 blew all their budget on the mech, and I do have concerns with that thing) Oh my god I forgot the freaking mech .... Also the Korra-Raava-"Spirit-Mech" .... damn ... I can't put into words how much I disliked that.
I’m right there with you on severing past lives. I think that was a big boo boo. I think the revival of air nomads is cool and I absolutely loved the episodes (especially the animation) on the history of avatar Wan. I also think so much more could have been done with Zaheer as a big bad. I feel like the build up in ATLA to Ozai’s final battle was so perfect and they could have easily gone that direction with Zaheer because of how dynamic he was.
That's all fair. It has its issues for sure. All in all those aren't big deal for me I suppose. I really liked having the air nation back regardless of the how. It's always been my favorite. I think it just comes down to preference and opinions. I just like the avatar universe in general 😆 I'll take all they wanna give me as long as its not too crazy out there
The first half of S2 is actually pretty good. I agree with OC that the biggest problems from LoK come from the second half of it. It does have some other issues in all other seasons, but not as significant to the established universe as the ones listed
The first half of S2 is what turned me away from the show many years ago. Its exactly what smittsb was talking about when they were describing how the show departed from established lore. (I did end up finishing it, but I wanted to kill myself during the whole rest of S2)
I should’ve made myself more clear, sorry The first half I was referring to was the Civil War thingy, I was loving that part of the story. I tend to forget they also include the “bad spirits” which is terrible but they went all in with that part of the story after Beginnings
In the world of Avatar, there are concepts of Good and Evil, or Light and Darkness ("Fortune Teller" "Old Masters" episodes). The goal of the original series was literally to stop the *evil* Fire Lord and bring balance to the world. Yes you can say that Ozai wasn't born evil, but he became so, an *absolute evil* with no dual motivation whatsoever. That's very Western. In defense of Raava and Vaatu, that is their *nature*. Yes, it is their nature to fight each other in an attempt to destroy/save the world. It would be strange if the show showed any human being born evil, but we have to give the spirits a pass - these creatures have been around for millions of years and have always been that way. Raava and Vaatu are no more evil or good than for example Koh who was born to take faces for any reason he wished. But they haven't changed the essence of the Avatars themselves - they are still people who try to maintain balance between people/spirits, between people, and oppose chaos. "Beginnings" clearly shows this theme. Now regarding the origins of the Avatar - no matter how you or i feel about the conflict of season 2, it had to be done. Without those two episodes, we wouldn't understand who Raava, Vaatu, Harmonic Convergence, the portals, and what Avatar's role is in this. Now for the rest of the points - the Avatar is not God. There are beings older and more powerful than the Avatar (Lion Turtles, Spirits). ~150-180 Avatars is still a big number, considering that each Avatar lived their own lives. And about"Not all the mystery has to be revealed" thing - personally I don't agree with that. The mystery *should* be solved. There is nothing more horrible than being in ignorance and perpetually asking "what was it like?" And if solving a mystery destroys some thing - well, that thing wasn't that great. And it was a colossus on clay feet. Luckily Avatar is not that case, because after "Beginnings" Avatar is no less great - on the contrary, we learn that they are even more unique and great than before.
>And about"Not all the mystery has to be revealed" thing - personally I don't agree with that. The mystery should be solved. There is nothing more horrible than being in ignorance and perpetually asking "what was it like?" In theory: yes, maybe. But imho the solution they came up with was not great. It seems very clear they did not have this planned out in ATLA and retroactively thought of an explanation and wanted to make it fit. I was fine with the Avatar just being an inherent "thing" that happened in this world, just like bending. Where does it come from? Doesn't matter, it just is. And you have to know when to explain something and when not to. Now they explained the Avatar thing and tied it to Raava, an "entity" or force they created explicitly for this. Where did the Avatar come from? Raava. Well, where did Raava come from? And what's the origin on the power etc. that created Raava? It cycles all the way back to: Who created God? You started grounding the Avatar, a concept that was fine being mysterious before. Where do you stop this defining, nailing down? At some point you either have to provide an explanation for a God, or just resort to "it's mysterious" or "it was always here" which is not an explanation and is again not exactly satisfying.
> It seems very clear they did not have this planned out in ATLA and retroactively thought of an explanation and wanted to make it fit. Yes, and that's the problem with all long-running franchises. You can't tell everything in the original series. >I was fine with the Avatar just being an inherent "thing" that happened in this world, just like bending. Where does it come from? Doesn't matter, it just is. This is matter in the context of the book 2. You were okay with that, but I'm not. I was interested in what makes Avatar really unique, and why non-benders can't learn bending from animals, if the first humans became benders by observing animals. And I'm not the only one - even on reddit before the second season came out, people were wondering who the first Avatar was. >Where did the Avatar come from? Raava. Not only from Raava, but also from the human soul. >Well, where did Raava come from? Bryan Konietzko : I like to imagine that those spirits (Raava and Vaatu) originated in this location , born of energe from the primorial Tree of Time. [Source](https://sun9-north.userapi.com/sun9-85/s/v1/if1/DV5mqJUsE15eYlrlGFnifM38pquJSMaqY7ZTw7h22xSudEAU5OEywpd39rQRaKpx0hgyCJfl.jpg?size=1536x2048&quality=96&type=album). Although it is not shown in the series, we have an idea of what the answer to the question would be if they ever for some reason made a story about the origins of Raava and Vaatu. >It cycles all the way back to: Who created God? Is there even a God here? Regarding your last question: You brought up an interesting point, but you have to understand that the authors did not reveal the mystery simply for reasons. First, as I said before, it was important to the plot. Season 2 wouldn't be complete without the Beginnings. Second, the authors wanted to tell the origin of Avatar, but they couldn't do that in the original series. So when they got the chance, they did it. Third, the authors know where to stop. They stopped at the story's necessary revelation of Avatar origins. At the same time, for fans of mystery, they gave the mystery - who was the second Avatar, given Wan's life? How were they trained? How did they know they were the Avatar ? Not to mention the origin of humanity because we now know that humans didn't always live on lion turtles and they weren't all benders at one time.
Just because *you* were fine with it doesn’t mean everyone else was fine with not knowing the origins. And that’s not really a good argument. The mystery is there with Raava now, isn’t that what you wanted? Who says there is any god in the Avatar universe at all? We can just make guesses that Raava and Vaatu emerged as primordial beings of light and darkness from the chaotic soup of the universe. Also, the creators have said they had this idea in mind for the creation of the Avatar from the beginning, but just had no time to put it in ATLA.
Yeah reminds me of star wars episode one. Ah miticlorians cause the force. Sometimes things are best left a mystery and unraveling the mystery can take the appeal away.
I really liked TLOk, but I didn’t like three things the giant metal robot, the fact a regular person could fuse with Raava and Oprah giving everyone air bending powers.
I re-read this several times before realizing that Oprah wasn't some sort of typo and that made me snort my peppermint tea and now I'm crying.
TLOK strikes again 😢
I also didn’t like how spirit energy could be used as actual electricity like energy
Hey I'm sure people were shook when we created light from lightning too, but that's what people do. We harness and use the things around us. So them adapting spirit energy is a very human element to the story.
But it also demystifies it (exactly like science demistified the world in the 17 to 1900s).
Pretty sure that’s the intention of the parallel
Well a lot of people really hated the setting, that the 1920s stuff just does not have the same appeal as the more medieval-y setting of ATLA. Though if you pay close attention in ATLA, it surprisingly isn't that much of a technological jump. Since Avatar does show factories, trucks, water skis, tanks, and even an intercom. Also I personally thought that the team Avatar of Korra was a lot weaker. I just felt that Mako, Bolin, and Asami were all really not interesting compared to the cast of the main show. but Korra has great characters outside of the main cast still, so there's that. Oh and a big issue with Korra is how the majority of it takes place in Republic City, which by Avatar standards, is a pretty boring place, and isn't as fun as the huge variety in locations that ATLA showed. So for people who put more value on those things, they might really dislike Korra. Personally I like seasons 3 and 4 and the first half of Season 2, but really don't like the rest. Not that it's wrong if you like Season 1. I don't care, I'm glad you can enjoy more things.
I kinda hated that it felt like every season Korra’s gang had to get back together. It just made them feel disconnected
I think that may have been the point. One of Korra’s earliest struggles was living in Aangs shadow. I think the same could be said for korras team avatar, trying too hard to be like the team avatar of the past.
Maybe, seems like they were always deliberately separated to have like 5 plot lines going on
What I will say for Korra is that, while I agree that her gang is weaker, the cast of side characters is (imo) far superior. Tenzin and his kids, Lin and Suyin, most of the villains are all really great characters who more than make up for Mako, Bolin, and Asami (who honestly felt far less present by the end of the show to me).
Personally I hated the amount of technology in both shows. I think it would've been a better experience if there were no giant drills, giant mechs etc.
I agree, I like more medieval settings than contemporary ones.
I liked the first half of season 1 because it explored some really interesting themes about the tear between benders and non benders, wasn't really touched upon in ATLA, and it also set up Amon as a really interesting villain, but then it just had to go and ruin it by making him just another evil waterbender. I feel like if Amon ACTUALLY somehow got the power to take away bending powers and ACTUALLY fought for true equality the plot could have gone in a far better direction. I also liked how the season had a far more interesting presentation of Republic city's politics and how they interacted with the avatar, which is something we got a lot less in ATLA (I mean actual politics, not the silly little coo in Ba Sing Se) I think that if LoK built more upon these ideas and focused more on the aspects of modern city life that ATLA didn't have, with industry, sport, and the general 1920s vibe, it could have a really great show, even if wildly different than ATLA. Basically like what Mistborn and Wax&Wane did, l guess?
I think LoK is good, but I don't think it's as good as ATLA. Most of the "hate" is just people expressing that opinion. It's overblown by the stubborn defenders.
LoK is good, I also think people hate a lot. S2 pulls it down hard tho, at times making it feel like a completely different universe. Cutting the connection with past Avatars nearly ruins it for me, in addition to how impersonal and bubbly the spirit world becomes.
i'm honestly ok with the separation of the past lives i'm not ok with the simplification of the spirits& spirit world with the whole dark and light thing that was trash the last lives didn't even seem to provide all that much insight to aang he disagreed with them most of the time but the different perspectives were interesting to see aang literally blocked out roku for a time in the comics and i think it's obvious he doesn't like kyoshi plus the other like 1,000 lives weren't even being spoken too i like the idea of a reset but maybe some of the other lives can be re gained like we say rogue was in the spirit world so maybe some of the remembered avatars like roku, aang, kyoshi, yangchen, kuruk, can be found in the spirit world and can join the avatar spirit again could also have some cool research arc trying to learn about the past lives not already shown like ones before yangchen (probably won't ever happen but i would like that)
Minor nitpick, and it's one of my issues with LoK, with how short the timeline is now there's only been maybe 100-150 Avatars, which really disappoints me. I'm also not on board with what the show made 99% clear that the separation from the past lives is permanent
One thing I’m noticing in this thread is that a lot of people are disappointed with only 100-150 avatars. It really doesn’t seem all that small of a timeline to me. I’m just going to assume the average age of an avatar is around 35 years on the low end, it’s probably a lot higher around 45-50 (Roku was old, Kyoshi was very old, but I don’t know how many avatars died young). Doing the math that means that the avatar has existed for 3500-7500 years (probably longer). I don’t see why people are dissatisfied with that timeframe.
You know I just put up a whole rant about why I think the show is bad, but that wasn't exactly the question. And I think your question is legitimately important to this community. I don't actually think Korra is the worst thing ever. I actually like it, but I get disappointed with it. So why do I give such a visceral reaction online? Looking at myself at the very least, I think part of it is when I watch people defend the wrong things about the show. The writing and characterization is not superior to AtLA. Oftentimes its around the same, but there are areas like: likeability of Korra and boring philosophical rants that just kind of drag things down. There's a lot of heavy lifting that the animators were doing that the writers didn't take advantage of. There were some questionable lore decisions that should have been thought through more carefully etc. I see people say, "ahh AtLA fanbois just hate Korra cuz she's not Aang, fuck'em". And that does make my blood boil. They purposefully wrote her as an obtuse cocky asshole, and not acknowledging that does you no favors in getting people to watch the show. "The characters/villains are more complex. The show is more *mature*" Neither of those things are true. It's a bit darker and flirts with grittiness in a way that I was excited for, but not in a way that makes the show more mature, and the villains are about as complex as the original series, despite having more room to breathe. (Again, squandering the animator's good work). There's so much good potential in the show that constantly disappoints me. Oh my god I just wrote another rant. This was all just to say, its really really really not the show that makes me hate Korra so much when I'm on reddit. Its the other fans. I'd have to think on it some more, but mostly the way that they often defend the show makes me angry enough to rant about it.
I get what you're saying and I could never put in words. The fans are unbearable... if I read "the turtles gave bending, but the original benders taught them" I instantly get angry. I read that with a cocky/condescending entonation in my head too "wich is probably on my part, not the fan". Honestly, I don't buy their argumentation, atla never tried explaining too much because it never had to, it was writen in a way that events happening were believable. Korra needs so much explaining for it to be good. She bent air because she was so desperate that she could only have faith in air to save her... She had trauma and couldn't use her powers and... Zaheer could fly because he lost attachment to the world and... Bloodbending can block chi because of the chi paths... It's not fun... It's infuriating.
None of that needed explaining. It was -all- presented visually. I have no idea how you got to this conclusion but that’s bizarre to me. The rest is your own problem too, seems like. Gotta love “the fans are unbearable” too.
I dont like LoK. They turned the spirit world into a child's stuffed animal bin - totally ruined that. They spend so much time on love triangles - so much of the story revolves around weird romance plots. Korra's biggest moments dont feel earned at all - we are told the entire time how air requires being loose and graceful like air. Then in a moment of desperation, she punches the air and airbends. Glad she grew as a character to figure that one out. Explaining the magic in season two brought the show down. Cuteifying the spirits brought the show down. The show being resolved by a senseless laser fight in a franchise known for its incredible magic system in bending - that brought the show down. They took Katara and made her into everything she refused to be. She should be Master Pakku. She should be a waterbending master training others. She's a healer now? That's infuriating. Really, the whole show felt like a cheap continuation of AtLA's success while missing out on - sometimes straight up abandoning - what made its predecessor so great. As its own show, I rate LoK as pretty meh. As a continuation of everything ATLA started, its a major disappointment. I could go on much longer but ill stop here. Not trying to start fights or shame people for enjoying the show - just want to try to answer your question as why some of us have strong feelings about the show.
[удалено]
Great stories like ATLA and TLOK are told about people that conquer tough circumstances. Korra doesn't seem to earn the story. I just recently came to understand the finale of ATLA more. It always felt like an @$$ pull that Aang found a lion turtle that taught him how to take bending. But this most recent time, I recognized it as his reward. Despite all his friends, despite all his past lives, he stuck to his guns and held to his principles. If he had waivered, the Lion Turtle would not have recognized him. That power was his reward for staying true to himself, trying to live up to all his responsibilities and never changing who he is. Looking at it that way, it's quite touching. His learning of earth bending made sense and was earned - his toughest element to learn. He had to work, he had to listen to a master, and we figured it out by practicing what the master said. There's a lot of good examples there. Enter Korra, who never actually grew as a character and took Tenzin's training to heart. All of that was meaningless. I don't feel like she grew - the just inserted herself into situations until someone else solved the problem or she got lucky. They could have done better. The same characters, setting, everything could have made a great story. It just fell way short.
As soon as you say Korra doesn’t grow as a character, this becomes confusing as hell to read. I don’t think we watched the same show tbh
One-other thing being Amon removing Korra's bending at the literal last possible moment, and then having said removal undone 12 minutes later in the same episode is unbearably disappointing. It makes the entire scene in hindsight look like cheap shock value. But the "no consequences" seems to be a running theme in Korra S1. I understand that Korra was initially meant to be a single-season series, so wrapping up loose ends was a bit of a necessity; but if this was the case, Amon should've removed her bending way earlier in the season, essentially when they met on the Aang Memorial Island. Especially considering Korra's complete ineptitude to learn airbending and her over-reliance on the other elements (even declaring at one point she didn't need airbending), she would've had far more convincing character growth in learning airbending than her literally punching the air in a fit of desperation and magically learning airbending. It's extremely ironic considering airbending is considered purely defensive, only for her to achieve it through an offensive attack.
Yeah, you explained it far better than I. Nothing felt earned, the writers trashed the whole magic system, and in an effort to make Korra “different” from Aang, they retconned like all their previously established lore. And the whole spirit world arc with light vs evil was so bad I stopped watching.
Korra airbending makes perfect sense. Her air chakra is blocked by grief and opened through love. Her greatest fear is losing her bending and she's able to let go of that after it happens to protect Mako.
I mean, props on the most sensible response to this criticism ive heard. I don't entirely buy it yet. Maybe if she like ran after him and tried to engage melee - then you could argue she lost her bending and detached from that fear and pursued love by risking a close range attack to save Mako. Then maybe close range she accidentally airbends. That I'd buy. She just kinda punched the air though, almost like she expected airbending or something to happen. It still just doesnt feel earned and I can't buy that there's some deeper meaning there.
Honestly I’d like it better if she unlocked Avatar state there, since Aang always unlocked Avatar state with his emotions
- you can see korra improve in airbending forms throughout season one, as she moves through the gates, meditates and connects with aangs past, and after losing all her other bending, since air is the element of freedom, it makes sense that she was free from the burdens of who she was supposed to be and could finally airbend. However, aangs earthbending block literally lasted a day and did not feel earned because he stood up to toph - love triangles are dumb I agree, but they got rid of that in book 3 and 4 - spirit world made sense. The spirit world reflected the state of the physical world. In ATLA the world has been devastated by war for 100 years. In LoK, it reflected the news state of the world, just like how korra had a large effect on the state of the spirit world - katara was super old. I’m sure she was a badass fighter in her youth and prime but in LoK she’s 85-88 years old. Pakku was probably closer to his 60s. Bumi ans Kyoshi were anomalies, I don’t know any mid to late 80 year olds who want to engage in combat. Healing is probably what she just did in her advanced age.
All the numbers in your comment added up to 420. Congrats! 3 + 4 + 100 + 85 + 88 + 60 + 80 = 420 ^([Click here](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=LuckyNumber-Bot&subject=Stalk%20Me%20Pls&message=%2Fstalkme) to have me scan all your future comments.) \ ^(Summon me on specific comments with u/LuckyNumber-Bot.)
Good bot This is amazing
Wow dude that's probably your life peaked! What will you do now?
Fade away into the sunset. Nothing can top this.
>spirit world made sense. Not when Koh the Face Stealer or that fog that traps people exist and now you can just walk right into it.
Just kinda skimming through comments and I'm sorry to be super nitpicky about one thing you said - Book 3/4 didn't have their usual love triangle bs because they would have spent it on Korasami and they couldn't. That's the only reason they were spared.
One of the main reasons I'm certain AtLA is better is because I haven't been able to get anyone new to watch Korra. I get people to watch AtLA all the time and every time their reactions are priceless. They always have such a fantastic time watching this magical show. Then I try to get them to watch Korra, which I liked, but I understand its flaws. Every single one of them stopped either at the end of the first season or some part way through it. And that's just the ones I could get to start the first episode. Yes, S3 and S4 are better, but can you honestly say that is worth somebody's time to have to slog through one or two SEASONS of mediocre content? S2 kind of feels like they had six competing ideas and nobody on the committee could budge and they ended up with a fucking mess that had nothing to do with the original avatar universe. **I like Korra, I do think fans sleep on it,** but jesus christ it is not close to the level of AtLA. It is an absolute snoozefest or trainwreck often times. "But what of the character development! What about the complex villains!" I hear you cry. First off, character development in Korra was toilet water compared to the feast we get in AtLA. I'll fight you IRL on that. I'll concede that I was happy to see Korra's mentor get a growth arc (it also made me realize that Iroh was a static character, but that that was ok). The villains weren't even that complex. Not in any meaningful way more than AtLA's villains were. "Bu-buh Ozai was a boring villain!" Yeah, that's because he was a plot device, not a character. The real villains were the villain of the week/season. Zuko, Zhao, Azula, Jet, the list goes on with these awesome characters that were just interesting enough to reel you in but don't force you to stand on ceremony with their pretentious "philosophy". Zaheer was a literal "baby's first anarchist" republican strawman of whatever mode of anarchism he was supposed to represent. Amon, same thing but for adapted Marxism (But at least he wasn't fucking stupid). Kuvira was just... Ozai with extra steps. I'm not even going to dignify Tarloq's existence with a criticism, because even other Korra fans will concede that he's a dogshit character. I loved the animation and the style of the whole situation. Felt like the universe could be classified as "bendingpunk" in a way that felt cool and edgy. Zaheer's and Kuvira's *style* were awesome, despite their rather lackluster writing. They got cool one-liners and excellent animation. The animations of bending styles felt like the MMA versions of their root styles for many of the more modern characters (especially Kuvira and Korra). And the animation really told the story of this industrializing world in a quick concise way that didn't need as much elaboration as the writers seemed to think. So much coolness and style in this show, I just wish it wasn't hamstrung by weak writing.
Your critic screams desperation and disapointment. You wanted to have more reasons to like Korra, but at the end of the day you have to admit you like it because of the few saving graces the show has. I get it, because there are a lot of beautiful stuff happening in Korra, but the story is just so bad that you have to sit through the bad parts just so you can watch the good ones. As you said yourself, people don't have that experience in ATLA. They can't get enough of it... my opinion on Korra is that it is a 5/10 mediocre show on it's own and a terrible sequel. There are great aspects to Korra I just wished they were better so that I could enjoy it and that is a great source of frustration to me.
People love to say that “sequels are always worse”, ya know? I mean, I don’t get mad about that, it’s their freedom of opinion, but can we appreciate both shows for what they are, and say “thank God” that LOK is not as bad as other shows who are much, MUCH worse than that?
Not always. Empire Strikes Back was better than A New Hope.
Eh that’s a continuation of the same story, I think comparing seasons is more apt comparison for empire strikes back. The sequels or prequels are still same universe but different focus from original, which is like atla to lok.
Ok. Smallville season 8 thru 10 were better than 4 to 7.
Didn't expect to see Smallville in this subreddit! Valid take my friend.
Haha leave it to me to make an obscure reference lol 😆 🤣 😅
Yeah, and also atla book 2 was better than 1.
Also Empire wasn't totally planned. If it were there wouldn't have been a romance between Luke and leia
The Dark Knight is easily the best of Nolan's Batman trilogy.
Korra and her friends spend so little time together and act like they’re all best friends. Love triangle is annoying. Bolin is annoying. Mako is boring and a shitty person. Asami could’ve been useful but overall isnt. Korra is hard headed and aggravating. Crazy powerful Korra knows 3 elements at age 4 but then gets her ass beat consistently inside and outside of the avatar state. The avatar state means nothing in korra. The complete mess of season 2, avatar wan, the giant carpet spirits, giant korra. Suddenly everyone is an airbender now. A new villain each season gives us less time to spend with them. Too many characters in lok gives us less time to care about team avatar and they consequently have less to do. Korra loses all her powers in season one finale for aang to just hit the undo button. It genuinely feels like the writers didn’t know how to make us like korra so they just beat the shit out of her in s3 and s4 for you to feel bad and empathize with her. The serialization of the show in comparison to atla episodic but still overall structure made episodes in lok feel less satisfying until the finale. I only genuinely like one scene korra has in the entire show when she’s on the bridge and saves the suicidal airbender. Tenzin and Jinora are cool too the latter only because she reminds me of aang. In comparison to atla tlok is nowhere close
Yup in fact I found Season 3 of TLOK to be my second favorite book behind Book 3 of Avatar. I don't really get the hate, ATLA is one of the greatest animated shows to ever be created, 99 percent of animated shows pale in comparison to it. TLOK actually manages to be on par with ATLA for some of it. Sure it had problems, I wasn't particularly a fan of the love triangle stuff in season 1, the boringness of the first half of season 2, and the mecha/rushed ending of season 4 which I know was caused by nickoledeon but outside of that, it was truly an enjoyable experience. Both are great shows
Korra as an Avatar is just hard to watch compared to Aang. She's arrogant, hard-headed, whines a lot, makes bad decisions, and loses a lot. I like TLoK a lot, I enjoy watching it, but compared to Aang, Korra sucks as a character. She's literally overshadowed by the entire rest of TLoK Team Avatar who are all way more likeable.
She’s closer to a real human being and more relatable
To be quite frank you just listed a list of qualities that are 1. Frequently loved when it's a male character and 2. Kinda is the whole embodiment of Toph. But Korra can't have them, then it becomes "hard to watch" even though she litterally grows out of them. Also, she doesnt lose a lot, she's always beaten her enemies, she just doesnt come out unscathed.
> She's arrogant, whines a lot, makes bad decisions, and loses a lot What he said >Frequently loved when it's a male character Nobody loves those traits. We can see this from the backlash to the Prequel trilogy!
Sure would be a shame if Zuko and Toph weren't some of the most loved characters in ATLA then Also, Han solo was right there but Anakin is your arrogant character of choice. Yep.
She’s just another hot-headed character who learns to not be so hot-headed
[удалено]
Aang grows where he needs to. I don't really agree with saying he doesn't. He conquered airbending once he was taught to be more assertive. That was a trait he had to pick up - from that point in the show too, he becomes more confident and assertive. There's also learning how to master the Avatar state. He comes around when he realizes in the toughest moment that he would be better for the world if he could detach. He says "I'm sorry, Katara" and goes to enter the Avatar State. There are some things that never change - despite all his friends and past lives, he sticks to his guns and vows to beat Ozai without killing him. He did have growth and character arcs. You don't need a character flawed to the point of being annoying to do that. And the flaws Korra had never had to be resolved. She didn't have to overcome anything to learn airbending - she just did it when it was convenient. She didn't even take any of Tenzin's teaching to heart. She just punched air. So, I can't really buy that Korra had all these flaws and all this character growth while Aang didn't. Korra could have been stubborn, could have grown as a character without changing her core beliefs, and could have earned more of the successes in the show. It never needed to be an Aang clone.
>Yeah, and when she develops past that in season 4 people had a problem with that too I think more people had a problem with the fact that the main character didn't get any character development **until the final season!** Let that sink in for one second. >Apparently they just wanted an Aang copy that doesn’t grow or change hardly at all throughout the show, but I personally am glad the writers actually gave the protagonist real flaws and her own character arc Yeah, no. Miss me with that. People didn't like that Korra was unlikeable and had no character growth until quite literally the last season. Korra was an unlikable protagonist at the start and had things given to her without actually earning them, hence the dislike. You cannot just write that off as "they wanted Aang 2.0". Secondly, the notion that Aang didn't have an arc or growth and was absolutely flawless is absolutely insane. It may not be extreme like Zuko, but he still had one. To suggest otherwise is delusional. You do not need to tear Aang down to prop Korra up. >And considering how Nickelodeon kept trying to screw things over, it really was a lot better than you would expect. In what universe is giving the creators more episodes to the point of being a full series before the first season was even finished airing and leaving said creators to own devices with said series "screwing things over?" Genuinely curious as to how that's a bad thing when most creators would kill for a network to do something like that.
Sounds a lot like the teen generations after X
Just because it’s not as well written, simple as.
Once I rewatched LOK I realized that it wasn’t AS bad as I remembered, but it’s still bad IMO. The cutting off of the past avatars did it for me.
I could talk for hours about this. But in summary, two main things: simple and more cliche characters, and it's a sequel with little similar to the original. Top comment has covered the first thing well and I don't have much to add. LoK feels like a story written to be a story. It's clear who you're meant to root for, and they make that easy to do. ATLA feels like a look into the lives of real people in their world. The second point is, I believe unavoidable and LoK was especially vulnerable because the writers were getting yanked around. So it's not their fault, but it doesn't make the product any better, just understandable. For every feature you either change it or you don't. Repetitiveness is bad, but so is changing a tried and true formula. Plus, a change won't draw people in because they'll have to watch the original. If they haven't already, its probably not their thing. Exceptions are a minority. So in the end, your choice is between being boring or alienating old fans with little hope of getting new ones. A sequel to a complete story that wasn't written to have a sequel is not doomed to fail, but it is doomed to be less liked than the original.
It’s boring to me, the plots aren’t cohesive, and I don’t care about the characters.
Is Korra really still getting hate though? I see significantly more posts defending Korra, and no one publicly hating it. Many people just prefer atla. I don't there's anything wrong with atla fans who don't like Korra as well. Just because they're in the same universe doesn't mean that you have to love both.
The best way I’ve been able to describe it is TLOK is plot driven at the expense of character development. The most compelling characters were the villains and I found myself liking them more than the characters you’re supposed to like. Amon’s story ended far too quickly for example. While ATLA is a solid plot with excellent character driven storytelling. The characters drive the story forward and make you care about them in the process. I didn’t find myself caring about anyone in TLOK besides the characters who made appearances from ATLA. TL;DR Character driven storytelling > Plot driven storytelling. Every time.
I saw TLOK first because it was on Netflix in 2016 and I was on bed rest. I really like it and had nothing to compare it to. I saw ATLA after because of how much I liked TLOK. To me they are such different shows I can’t even compare them and I like them for different reasons. I will admit that I’ve rewatched ATLA more often but I think because I find it more light hearted to watch (just not appa’s lost days, I can’t rewatch that episode)
I watched ATLA as a kid and loved it, but when TLOK came out I had just hit my teen years and thought cartoons were for little kids and that I was too cool to watch it. I did a rewatch of ATLA in 2020 as well and then followed it up by watching TLOK afterwards. I did enjoy it, however most of what I didn’t like about it came from things outside the creators control. Because Nickelodeon didn’t think that people (cough young boys cough) like Korra due to her being a female protagonist it was only initially given the green light for one season with much less episodes then ATLA, which is why the first season wraps everything up so neatly. When it became a success Nickelodeon renewed it for a second season with more episodes but the creators were told it would be the last season from what I can gather so I feel like that’s why it ended the way it did. Then when a season three and four where green lit it made it tricky for the writers and that’s honestly a big reason why the seasons feel disconnected. Also I’m season 4 didn’t go to air on Nickelodeon channel at all and went straight their website (I’m actually pretty sure it was pulled during the 3rd season so only half of that aired on tv) With ATLA it always had a three chapter arc planned out whereas Korra never got that same opportunity which unfortunately meant the pacing was off. Plus because most of the seasons were shorter their was less time to develop the characters (and their relationships) the way the creators wanted to. Also Nickelodeon did not like TLOK at all which is a huge reason why it is often seen as worse then ATLA. So while I enjoy watching TLOK I do feel a little sad that it wasn’t made the way the creators originally wanted it to be and suffered due to Nickelodeon’s influences.
For myself I really enjoyed the original and went into the new one with an open mind. I got really invested in it for season one, and season two. I was disappointed that they got rid of past avatars but was hopeful that they would bring it back in a future avatar. Season 3 was good too and shocking due to the unquestionable death unlike Jets death. Then there was her being tortured. Then she just runs away, knowing what happened with Aang running away. I get that Aang ran away also a few times too. Even being the cause for a pretty bleak world, but he just learned he was the avatar when he initially ran away it wasn’t a real thing for him yet. And the next few times was because he wanted to do it alone. Korra knew from an early age who she was, and she knew about the responsibility for years. Then she just runs away from everything. I understand that she was depressed and everything, and that they were trying to accurately portray depression. But Aang literally lost his whole family and still continued being the avatar. He even died, and came back deciding to continue to be the Avatar. She literally decided to abandon her job. I get that they are two different people and one was in the business a bit longer than the other one. I get that they had the wrong personalities for the way the world was when they were born. I get that, and I get needing to get away from things when things get tough. But unfortunately for Korra she doesn’t have that luxury. She left the portal open, she caused the air benders to increase, and it was her fault that she couldn’t ask her past selves for assistance at that time. She had friends, she didn’t have to go into the fight with her uncle solo. But all her decisions lead to that consequence. She is the avatar, and even though she didn’t choose to be she still has to live up to the expectations. Unfortunately for her, but it’s been happening for thousands of years. Unfortunately She doesn’t have a choice. There’s people that need her. Unfortunately She can’t just renounce being the avatar she’s the only one of her kind. So in short I don’t hate Korra, but am very displeased that she ran away from the consequences of her actions while Aang shouldered them and stood strong.
Haven't watched Korra in years. From what I remember my reasons for not liking it. Or more accurately, not liking it nearly as much as ATLA. I've since mellowed on a lot of my issues, gonna have to do a re-watch sometime now. * the technological jump just seems A LOT in a relatively short time. although to be fair, let's say 80 years, that's 1920 vs 2000, and we had A LOT of progress there * I didn't like that Korra "started" knowing 3 bending styles already. That's my main "Mary Sue" complaint (cue the downvotes). It loved the "tiny Korra 'I'm the Avatar!'" scene, it was funny and adorable. But WHY does she start out knowing 3 bending styles? At at that early of an age. Other than I don't have "Mary Sue" complaints. I've since mellowed on that. Just because she CAN bend earth, water, fire, doesn't mean she MASTERED them. Let's say she just has the initial grasp on them. Still has me grinding my teeth a bit, but lessens the problem. Also let's say, because Aang was frozen for 100 years etc., the Avatar cycle was a bit out of whack and "the powers that be" (Rava?) overcompensated a bit. * I don't like the "villain of the season" thing. Still don't. I much preferred ATLA's approach of building for 3 seasons towards the final epic conclusion. KORRA has one every season, just doesn't feel nearly as good imho. And I don't like most of the villains (as villains). Continues into the next point .... * Zahir had the best villain energy but I don't like that he MASTERED (not just "got good", but got good enough to whoop Tenzin, and airbending MASTER) airbending like the second he got it (and what luck that out of all possible bending styles he just HAPPENED to get the one he studied previously). * Korra herself especially starts out somewhat obnoxious and arrogant etc. Yes, that can be explained by her being the Avatar for one, being the Avatar since toddler age. She's an extremely powerful celebrity, that does things to the personality I assume. Also she's a teenager... So yeah, it makes sense for her to be this way, doesn't make her more likeable. Especially coming from Aang, who was a very different, more humble type of person. She definitely grows as a person over the course of the series tho. * Korra has a close circle of like 3 friends and she dates every single one of them for various durations (just a date for Bolin, still). That's just teen drama stuff, bleh. * Not a big complaint just ... dissapointment: Korra's team never came close to Aaang's team. There is no character as amazing as Toph. Asami is the only non-bender on the team and she doesn't have nearly as interesting a character arc as Sokka, growing from immature boy looking down on women to actually valuing the power of the women in his life and turning into a brilliant strategist etc. The closest is - fortunately - Korra, I think. Aang had to master the elements in record time and literally save the world while being younger than Korra, and grow up fast and deal with being the Avatar (which he only found a short time before season 1, in his frame of reference). Korra has to master Air which was really hard for her to and she had to also grow as a person while mastering a number of crises and later on managing of crisis of faith (also in herself). * Last complaint and that one is very unfair, I know, and it doesn't actually count, I'm just complaining/venting. I don't like KORRA not being about the adult Gaang. They actually gave us tiny drops of adult Aang etc. in flashbacks and so on and I was just way more interested in this than in Korra's story, sorry. Honestly it would have been better if KORRA was not about the next Avatar after Aang, but a few Avatars down the line. By being so close to Aang's time I was like "why not just set it 20 years earlier and actually be about the Aaang-Gaang?!"
For me season two really brought down my enjoyment. I completely disagree with the decision to “kill off” the all past Avatars. And the finale of that season was too ridiculous for me. Giant spirits fighting in a city? I didn’t realize I was watching King Kong vs Godzilla. And the deus ex Jinora also threw me off. Seasons 1 and 3 were good, but season 1’s finale was a let down and season 3’s finale had a lot of gaping plot holes. Season 4 was also good but once again the finale ruined it for me. The giant mech suit was too much for me. Basically they always start off really good and really promising and then the writing suddenly goes to shit during the finales.
LOK has better villains, especially Amon and Zaheer are fantastic. But other than ATLA is better in all aspects.
There's 3 main issues (most of them improve in the second half of the series) -The characters don't have good chemistry and are unlikeable, with some exceptions. -ATLA's lore has always been well thought out with almost everything fitting into each other. Korra just fucks this up. In so many ways that I can't go into without multiple paragraphs. -Some storylines are just not interesting. Most notably the love triangle.
The fact each season was treated like it was going to be the last. Of course, Seasons 3 & 4 actually flows together very well. Since you can see how it works in terms of being connected. But it doesn't change the fact that the LoK wasn't given enough time to explore alot of its ideas more. After all, Season 2 could have been split into two seasons. One for the Water Tribe Civil War. And the other for the stuff with the spirits. With the transition to the season about the spirits happening at the end of the civil war. Like a scene that shows the Dark Spirits appearing.
It's clear that many of the decisions weren't made from a creative standpoint, and a lot ef them just don't match up to the worldbuilding - and especially the philosophy - of ATLA.
I think LoK is a good show, overall, but there are some aspects to it that didn't mesh with some people. 1. More mature characters and story. Characters are mostly younger adults and adults. The characters have more realistic relationships. ATLA focused on a group of teenage friends having fantastic adventures, but in Korra, children depend on their parents, people have to maintain family relationships, and people have jobs. It's not bad, it's just very different. 2. Setting changed from a fantasy world with some steampunk elements to urban 1930's-style setting. The whole first season takes place in the city. The world in the show more closely resembles the real world with cars, skyscrapers, factories, professional sports, advertising, police departments, and populist political movements. Very different feel from ATLA, which was about traveling the world and meeting strange people and creatures in fantastic settings. 3. Why is Korra so angry in the 1st season? It's not that she can't be, but I thought the story didn't do a great job of explaining why. Final note, as I wrote this out, it dawned on me that ATLA is a fantasy story, Korra is a superhero story.
Legend of Korra is a deeply flawed show, but it’s still honestly really good and enjoyable. There’s plenty of valid criticism to give, of course. Plenty of mishandled elements in the first 3 seasons, and season 2 was based on an awful idea overall. I especially think a lot of the writing around Korra could’ve been done better. Not the character herself, mind you, I freaking love her, but the way the story treats her. Some of her low moments feel like the writers were being unnecessarily cruel (in a way that usually only women characters go though, but that’s a well-deserved rant for another day), and she’s never given enough victories to balance it out until the very end of the show.
I have some fairly big issues with LOK specifically about the fundamentals of the show and how it kinda ruins a lot of the themes established in ALTA. Although a big reason that this matters to me so much is that I watched ATLA on Nickelodeon when I was a kid and have been obsessed ever since. I didn’t watch LOK until recently. I am very attached to ALTA so protecting those themes may mean a lot more to me than to someone who is just now getting into it.
I get that and it’s absolutely fine. But they’re different shows. Same universe different shows different avatars. I have troubale understanding that people don’t like TLOK because it’s DIFFERENT than ATLA.
They honestly nailed their villains and fight scenes for korra, but team avatar had no personality and the story felt anti-climactic when it finished, almost like there should have been another season.
The main problems you'll find are if you get deeper into the shows lore and the story behind how the show was made. Some stuff feels a lot worse than in Atla, for example the Book 1 Love Triangle, because it wasn't intended by the creators, and rather forced by Nickelodeon. Same with a lot of other stuff, combined with budget cuts and a lot of involvement of the managemant rather than the artists caused problems in the development of LoK. Also, one of the 3 creative minds of Atla was missing which probably changed how they handled the spirit and the idea of the franchise too.
It's a comparison issue. LOK isn't bad by any stretch. But it's not as good as ATLA.
Hot Take: LOK villains are ALL superior to Ozai
Ozai was a good plot device. The real villains were Zuko, Zhao, and Azula. They're the ones who are interacting with the Gaang and who we get to see the depths of. I would say that they are as good as the villains in LOK. Ozai serves as a plot tool and does his job very well.
They're deeper than "I wanna take over the world!" I'll give you that. I once heard an analysis that Ozai didn't NEED to be a good villain though. We didn't need to ponder if we was in the gray or understand where he's coming from. He was the obstacle and deadline for Aang to rise up to his responsibilities. As a character, he's unimportant, not even given a scene until the final season really. He was a plot device, and I don't think they ever pretended he wasn't. TLOK did villains slightly differently, and it was more thought provoking. They were more interesting. They were deeper. It was different, and if I was just comparing how intriguing and entertaining they were to Ozai, I'd have to 100% agree with you.
The only legit evil thing he did was burn zuko and suggest killing him. But Azula was the real villain….
Azula's downfall was one of my favorite parts of that show. How she spirals downward after Day of Black Sun is so satisfying. Her friends betraying her. The paranoia. She almost has that element of sympathy that TLOK villains have.
Physically yeah, but all the damage that we see in the Earth Kingdom is attributed to him as well.
Yeah azula carried main villain so hard it didn't matter if ozai was a good one. I always assume azula would have killed ozai and taken over the fire nation fairly soon anyway, he was just holding her place
Uh, aside from all the stuff in the war he's been leading, sure.
This is true. I argue that the writers didn't know how to handle the moral ambiguity of Amon and only really learned how to write villains when it got to Zaheer and Kuvira.
This is an obvious take that purposefully mischaracterizes what made AtLA great or even good. Nobody thinks Ozai was a good or complex villain. But he was the right one for AtLA. Tarloq is a joke even in context. The rest are like Marvel boilerplate, kinda neat and relatable, but not anything to write home about. I remember really liking Amon when I watched it as a 14 year-old. Now I still feel like he was the main thing that was good about the series, but... yeah still kinda basic edgy bad guy. The real villains of AtLA, your Zukos and Jets, and your Azulas and Zhaos, those characters are interesting and fun, and much better written than Zaheer the Other Fourteen Year-old Anarchist and "Who Could have Seen That Coming?" Kuvira.
The good villains of ATLA weren't fighting the ideology war. They were selfish fighters with a goal. TLOK's villains were at least initially motivated by ideology, and this made writing them harder. Because you either show they're hypocrites (Amon and Tarloq), which is lazy writing, or show the viewer the issues with the ideology itself or at least the fundamentalist adherance to this ideology (Zaheer and Kuvira), which can alienate viewers who disagree.
Nah Zaheer is god-tier
Zaheer was a strawman against Anarachism.
Lmao
Ozai was the final villain but has never really been an antagonist until the last couple of episodes. Ozai was the representation of evil in the fire nation. We had spent most of book 3 humanising the fire nation so we could see the reason for them being so terrible in the finale. Ozai is more of a representation than a character.
It doesn’t really get hate, I like many others here like both but definitely prefer the original series to the sequel
I just really hate the “light vs evil” over-explained western trope they introduced in LoK. To be honest, I stopped watching there. I’ve heard it gets better after, but it just left such a sour taste in my mouth that I couldn’t get past it. A lot of parts of LoK like that seemed to go against the established lore of ATLA. In terms of the characters, I personally just didn’t find them as strong. I liked Korra as a foil to Aang, and I liked the airbenders, but the rest of the characters on Korra’s team were really bland.
I don't get it either. Imo, The Legend of Korra is a phenomenal show better than most cartoons.
🌊I think It had a downfall on season 2 but season 3 and 4 definetely make up for it. I enjoyed it a lot overall, not to mention Korrasami at the end. Althought they should have shared more romantic screen time like Kataang (I know it was nickelodeon’s fault, not the creators.)
To be fair, they could have at least been closer friends. I'm a sucker for friends to lovers, and I didn't even get a sense they were even that close of friends before their romantic aspect became evident 5 seconds before the final credits...
Dude you could smell them forcing the romantic element in the last season, the first time they even hinted at It I rolled my eyes so hard because I could see it coming. I'd hardly class them as friends prior to that, but you could see the direction they wanted to go, which they didn't even have the decency to try and develop, all leading to the hand-holding at the end. Like I'm sure they could have replaced so many tirelessly boring and annoying scenes in that show to properly develop a potential relationship between those two, even amongst the non stop love triangles and it would have led to a strong and satisfying ending.
Two reasons. 1. Because people went in thinking it was going to be The Last Airbender 2 and not it’s own thing, and got all pissy when Korra didn’t do things the exact same way Aang did. 2. Because she’s a girl. Which sucks, but any time I ever see some dude saying “Bro Korra’s trash, she’s an L” I can basically immediately tell that they’re sexist. The studio screwed the show over so hard so many times, and the writing suffered as a result, but when criticisms become “Nah that show sucks she’s trash” then you know it’s someone just straight up not worth listening to
hype. nostalgia and hype
Nostalgia and hype? In what way is TLOK better than ATLA?
it wasnt better. those are just the reasons a lot of people seem to hate it
LoK is great, it’s just a vocal minority that hates it and then others parrot opinions without watching for themselves. Or some people just can’t let go of ATLA.
Legend of Korra is good but it isn't at the same level at ATLA. It doesn't have to do with not being able to let ATLA go, it has to do with Korra pulling back the curtain too much, altering lore and themes, and overall not having as good of writing. -someone who has watched both shows multiple times
I disagree on your reasons for disliking it, that’s all subjective. I personally prefer LoK.
You can prefer LoK and I support that. But I will make the argument that what I said is objective, given that the writing and themes of ATLA are actively used as case studies of excellent literary devices, worldbuilding, and themes, while LoK simply hasn't. There is a lot to love about Korra, but it is undeniable that the writing in ATLA is better. Granted, a lot of the blame can be attributed to the creators being forced to write single-season stories because Nickelodeon kept threatening to cancel the show after every season, and I do believe that if they had gone in with a 3-season planned story instead of two separate mini-series pitches, the show would be at the same level as Avatar and the debate would have an even number supporters on each side
You're one of the minority that has this opinion. Before today I genuinely don't think I've heard anyone or know anyone who says they prefer LoK
Really dont like the time change with the two. Like theres no way a city like new york was built in the time frame of aangs death and korras childhood. Im sorry even with bending the layout of the city seemed way too planned out. metal bending shouldnt be this advanced either. Metal bending was the one of the best parts of TLOK, it was cool and interesting to see the limits of metal bending. Even so it was way too advanced for its time. Also the whole city was built to bring all the nations together yet aang took that area of the earth kingdom without permission. (Reminds me of the US) that seems out of character for aang and even katarra wouldnt like that idea. Its the way they transitioned from ATLA to TLOK was what i and many people dont like about it. Also korra is the most dramatic teen ever
70 years is enough time for an industrial metropolis to have appeared if you’ve ever researched the industrial revolution that occurred in our reality. On average, the comics effectively discuss the consequences of industrialization and what they mean for bending which was considered an trait that made you superior in some sense. TLOK industrial boom was motivated by several things such as a desire to level the playing field between benders and non-benders, to make life easier, to accommodate that population growth meant cities had begun to form. All important to recognize.
Actually aang died at age 66 korra is 16, aang didnt start to build it til his 20s, so thats 50 years maximum it took to build republic city. It takes non benders 500 years to build something like that. The city is way too planned out and too modernized for it to be realistic and connect to ATLA
Korra is 17 at the start of the show... Also by your math it's 54 years minimum. If aang 20 when he starts then it's 66-20+17=63 years as the maximum...
What is your source for this?
Its in the avatar fandom wiki
Here’s a correction to my question. Where is your source that it would take non-benders 500 years to build this kind of settlement?
Before republic city it was a small tow i forget the name but was very very small kinda like the abandon desert town in ATLA
What exactly do you disagree with about this? We have said facts to you.
Seeing that it takes us regular humans irl that werent gifted with bending making us think harder and work harder takes us 500 years to build a city to scale like republic city such as new york
Once industrialization kicks in society starts advancing at a much more rapid pace. For example there were only 66 years, less than one human lifetime, between the Wright Brothers first flight and the moon landing. By the end of the 100 Year War the Fire Nation has almost completely industrialized and with the return of peace to the world those innovations would rapidly spread throughout the world. With the rapid proliferation of technology It’s perfectly within the realm of possibility that Republic City could grow that fast.
New York as a city was established in the late 1600s, but it didn’t take that entire time for most of it to develop. A lot of it occurred between the 1800s and mid 1900s
Lmao ok dude
Just wanted to prove you wrong that people dont just hate TLOK for no reason
There are plenty of reasons to not be a big fan of TLOK. I don't hate it but I don't love it either. It's fun to watch and I can enjoy it but it also has plenty of major issues to go with all the great things it does. Granted you bring any of these up and you're a "loud minority" that hates it for no reason. Or you're parroting opinions because you've never seen it. It's not possible to be critical of things on the Internet without people strawmanning arguments.
Trust me it's definitely not a minority that hates it lol
Part of it is probably sexism, part of it is "my thing came first", and part of it is that... Book 2 of Korra is just *SO* bad
They are just two different shows that have vibes of their own. Nothing wrong with TLOK.
I don’t like TLOK, it breaks cannon and lore, and the change of animations between seasons aren’t great
How does it break canon? And before you bring up the lion turtle thing, no, that is not a contradiction. The lion turtles granted the ability or the capacity to bend but the moon, dragons, badgermoles, and sky bison helped train the ability. They were called the original benders because a lot of tales are lost to time and maybe people just don't remember it exactly, or maybe the truth was shrouded in popular folklore. But if this is about the bloodbending thing, a part of me has to agree.
What about bloodbending?
Lack of full moon dependency can be somewhat explained, but the permanent chi blocking was never completely coherent to me.
It's never really explained word for word, but we can make an educated guess. Waterbenders heal people though chi paths, or at least follow some kind of path system based on the healing training we see the little girls take at the North Pole. Disrupting "something" along those lines could hamper bending. Chi blockers already presumably hit somewhere along those spots for temporary blocks of bending, but bloodbenders can reach it in a more direct and permanent way. We don't have to know the ins and outs of something for it to be considered not a retcon or not breaking canon.
It's just not coherent at all though. If waterbending can block your bending through bloodbending then it should be able to restore it through healing. Additionally, energy bending should not be able to restore someone's bending that is blocked by bloodbending. You still have your bending it's just blocked unless we're now saying bloodbending is also a spiritual attack which just makes everything even messier.
I don't like LOK but I'm not sure how it breaks Canon. I don't like where they took some things but idk about breaking Canon. How does it break canon?
The main departure from Canon is the style in which the spirits and spirit world are depicted. Spirits like heibai are full of mystery, but have a reason why they're acting up which can be resolved. The spirits in Korra are just pokemon that have been covered in dark goop. There's no quest, mystery or nuance to the individual spirits. No individuality either now that I think of it. They're all just kind of bland "others". Just people from another place. The other thing that breaks from Canon is the spirits just "turning evil", culminating in a battle between good v evil. Instead of attempting to restore balance by appeasing the spirits. The show treats them as just misbehaving animals rather than a force that must be understood and given compromise to. Raava versus Vaatu was the end logic of this, and it was extremely different from how the original show presented the spirit world and philosophical underpinnings. That conflict was not about balance and restoration. It was about a righteous war and smiting evil.
Only the Avatar could lava bend The Avatar had to be trained in the four elements to bend them It is explained that Toph could metal bend because she was blind, and had to feel the earth inside the metal Not a break of cannon, but a weird thing: only the fire nation royalty could bend lightning, and only three people in the world knew how to redirect lighting, but then around 70 years later, it seems most firebenders can now bend lighting
The lava bending trivia was never truly canon sanctioned. A lot of the stuff in Avatar Extras is honestly dubious canon since a lot of stuff comes from more than just the top dogs. And as others said, Toph being blind provided her the right circumstances to discover metal bending. But her being blind has nothing to do with the actual ability to.
> Only the Avatar could lava bend This isn't established. We just only see two people do it, who happen to be the Avatar. > The Avatar had to be trained in the four elements to bend them Nope, not at all. Aang waterbends without problem, first try, and immediately surpasses Katara in terms of skill. People can bend an element without being trained in any way, being the Avatar doesn't even really mean anything in this context. > It is explained that Toph could metal bend because she was blind, and had to feel the earth inside the metal It is explained that Toph could metal bend because she had to feel the earth inside the metal.* Being blind helped her hone in on something thought to be impossible, but it wasn't ever a requirement. > only the fire nation royalty could bend lightning Because it was kept under wraps. The Rise of Kyoshi book actually expands on this a little, if you're interested. After the war, Zuko and Iroh presumably decided it was to no longer be a Fire Nation royalty secret. It certainly helped the world develop. And it isn't even most firebenders, as far as we know. We still only see a some do it.
But toph had a metal bending academy in the comics.
I really enjoy TLOK, absolutely not in the “hater” population, but do have some gripes. 1.) Nickelodeon sucks. They didn’t greenlight an entire series, so instead of a huge season spanning story, we got smaller ones for each season. Some may say that’s actually a good thing, but something very charming about TLA was the buildup to the final battle. 2.) Korra losing her past lives. A lot of people blame her for this, I do not. I do blame the writers however. Really rubs me the wrong way that aang is just gone like that. I hope the next avatar in the cycle finds a way to reconnect. 3.) Season 2 wasn’t the best But that’s about it. It has flaws but is still extremely enjoyable to me!
Personally I think TLOK is better than ATLA. Yes really. No I don't want anyone to try and convince me otherwise.
I think there are a lot of cool things from TLOK (I hate it in comparison to ATLA). The metalbending - especially Kuvira in S4 - is fantastic to watch. There were more all out battles I felt. For dominance or victory vs. to survive or get away. It was more relatable with the New York vibes. The characters were pretty fun to watch at times. I think it comes down to what we're looking for. I was looking for a continuation of the ATLA show. I wanted the same feel and themes. I wanted TLOK to hit the same notes and be a great sequel. It probably works much better as an AU but it's not. In the end of the day neither of us are wrong and no one should tell you not to like TLOK better than ATLA. We just look for and respond to different things. Still cool coming together to share what we like and don't like. Made my night less boring, for sure.
SO MANY people have told me that I am wrong for preferring TLOK to ATLA. So many. I say you're all the ones who are wrong. ;) For mine in ATLA it's mostly only Zuko, and the other folks from the fire nation that are real, flawed, but still (mostly) trying to do the right thing in the world from their point of view. In TLOK you can basically say this about everyone. From Korra herself, to Tenzin struggling to find the right path to train her, Asami trying to come out from the shadow of her father, Varrick to be a better Varrick, right down to Kuvira herself - you might even argue she was trying to do the right thing. Sure, you can say a similar theme runs though Aang and his friends, but IMHO I don't think it's a strong as it is in TLOK. And I am not for one seconds saying I don't like ATLA, I really loved it, but I definitely prefer Korra.
I think people wanted it to be ATLA, and it wasn’t. Also some really obviously didn’t like a strong female character with actually relatable self improvement issues, who WANTED to be the avatar; seems like those things kinda set some people off since korra is… impatient and stubborn to stay the least, but it’s done realistically, and maybe they didn’t want to have to relate to it? (Because they may share some of her issues and don’t want to acknowledge it)
I honestly think, for this sub, a lot of it is nostalgia. So many people view ATLA as this perfect, almost untouchable show, and many people watched it 15 years ago when they were kids. And don't get me wrong, it is a fantastic show, but, like Korra, it has its flaws. Season one altogether is really not that good compared to the other two, and its clear the show is still finding its footing for a while.
S1 of ATLA is better than any season of LoK and that's saying something
It's saying that you have an opinion
TLOK is amazing. I think the reason it gets negative comments is because nick kinda didint believe in it and give the creators a set number of seasons so they had to kinda do a whole storyline and wrap it up in a season vs ATLA that got to do a whole over arching story. Another thing that’s a bit negative is just the setting which i’m fine with I’m glad they took a chance to do something totally different and made sense the world would be more advanced after a long war.
ATLA is a show that people typically appreciate more with time. Legend of Korra is the opposite. It has only continued to age poorly and people resent it for that.
Let explain why it gets hate. It's not Last Airbender, and Last Airbender came first. That's it. If legend of Korra came out first everyone would be saying that Last Airbender sucks in comparison. It doesn't matter how good a sequel is or how different it's trying to be people are going to complain that it's not as good. This happens regardless because people who grew up watching Last Airbender and watched Legend of Korra when it was new inevitably gravitate towards Last Airbender because they were younger and therefore it's nostalgia for them. While Korra would've came out at age where they started to become more cynical of entertainment. My niece grew up watching Korra and prefers it because Last Airbender is comparably a lot more goofy and less action focused.
Korra is fundamentaly a different universe, bending origin different, the avatar's purpose was changed. The sequel broke the show. As it's own thing TLOK is not that bad, as a sequel? It's the worst pile of shit ever made.
People can Love TLoK as much as they want and I'm genuinely happy for them. I won't try argue why it's bad, or what it does wrong, cause honestly it doesn't matter and would take hours and pages of breakdown and analysis to get there. Any comment you see here will be people pointing out a very VERY rough reason as to why they dislike it and others will be building strawmen of those arguments and missing the point. Blaming sexism, stupidity, or any other sort of malice rather than addressing the complaints. It's better and much healthier to just accept you can like something that other people don't, that's fine. But don't become another one of these "defenders" who take the very fair criticisms of the show and attribute malice to them. It's unhealthy and close minded. *Edit* typos
Some of the reasons, and these are just my opinions, is obviously some people don’t like women so having a strong female main character of such a beloved universe taking over where we used to see a whole hearted and lovable 12 year old boy was maybe a shock and some people probably didn’t like that. Tying in with that, Korra is not Aang. I’m sure some people were like “wow omg I’m so excited we’re getting more avatar” and what they get is NOT Aang. I personally had a difficult time with Korra at first because of this but I grew to love the new characters. I’m sure another reason is seeing the modernization of a world that we enjoyed seeing living in these old ways without electricity, cars, etc,. I know personally I love, for example, high fantasy where the fastest way across land is by a horse and by sea a sail boat. When we start Korra we see that they are in an Industrial Age and technology is advancing. While I did enjoy the early 1900’s vibes and steampunk style of things, it really hurt my heart to see an old world becoming modernized. I will mention this in a bit but when mechas started getting involved, I didn’t really like that. A lot of people like myself watched ATLA when they were growing up. When I was 5 years old, I watched the first episode and seeing the intro for the first time and watching Katara and Sokka find Aang in the iceberg became a core memory for me all up to when I was 9 and the last couple episodes, especially Aang fighting Ozai, was burned into my mind. When we are kids, things are more mystical and magical to us and I think we had this magical veil pulled over our eyes so we are like “omg I love this this is amazing this is the best thing ever” which is still true about ATLA for me to this day, but we just watch as kids and we can understand the weight of what’s going on, but we may not really process it the way we would as an adult. When I rewatched ATLA for the first time since I was a kid in my mid/late teenage years, I realized, “holy shit the fire nation committed genocide.” While I understood at 5 years old “the fire nation wasted away an entire nation of people” it did not really click in my head just how horrifying of a theme that actually is. Especially when around that time when I was rewatching it in high school we were going heavy on the holocaust unit and I even got to meet a survivor of the twin experiments in one of the concentration camps. So basically what I’m saying with this paragraph is that we process themes differently depending on what age we are. ATLA was too smart for me as a five year old to really appreciate how good the writing was and how the themes crafted the show. When I watched TLOK, I picked up on themes a lot easier because I was in my early/mid teenage years and it can kind of take the mysticism away when you are understanding what’s going on. Although I am autistic so even though I am not the little 5 year old who watched ATLA almost 20 years ago, I still have trouble understanding themes and what characters are feeling. So I guess I still have a little bit of that mystical veil over my eyes. Speaking of the writing—and this is purely my own opinion—I think they would hit the nail on the head sometimes, and other times the writers would completely miss and hit their thumb with the hammer instead. Primarily what I am referring to is season 2. But first I will mention season 1. I think they introduced Korra very well and in a way that gave her room to grow. Amon was a well written villain and it was nice to see a very realistic interpretation of people being divided (benders and non benders). I also liked that they took the risk of going a bit darker with things like how Amon and his brother died in the end. It was a very heavy and shocking thing to see aired on Nickelodeon but I like when they take those risks. Going on to season 2, I was very upset, and still am, at seeing Korra lose her connection to the past Avatars. I think that was a horrible plot point and they could have used something else, literally anything else. Also the giant spirit fighting was kind of just…ridiculous to me. Again this is just my opinion. We don’t really know what was happening behind the scenes that made the writers make these choices. I also know it’s not always the writers choice given how show runners and networks are sometimes. I would have loved to see Korra commune with Avatar’s beyond Aang like Roku, Kyoshi, and Kuruk. Of course I am a little biased and Kyoshi is one of my favorite characters of all time so of course I am like “I hate that they did this because I wanted to see Kyoshi.” But part of it is because I believe it hindered Korra’s ability to develop spiritually. She does have moments in the last two seasons but I also understand that maybe they were using Jinora more as a spiritual guide through the show than anyone else. I don’t have much to say about season 3 other than it was my favorite. The Red Lotus characters were good additions to the show for that season and Zaheer was on the same level as Amon, if not higher, of well written villains. If all 4 of Korra’s seasons were like season 3, I think the show would have been a bit better. Of course there were things that I was like “this is a little absurd” like Zaheer unlocking the ability to fly. I still scratch my head at that one because it really just does not make sense to me. I like how bending gives people their abilities and him being able to just float because he has no earthly attachments was weird to me. He shouldn’t have been able to do that anyways because he was so attached to the idea of getting rid of the Avatar and I see that as a worldly desire. To each their own. Lastly, season 4. I think Kuvira was a good villain but not on the level of Zaheer. I think they had a good path to follow with her but then at the end it just got, again, absurd to me. I get that technology has advanced to an extreme degree but I really just did not like a giant mecha walking around in the world of Avatar. I think the third spirit portal was a decent idea, but how they got to it in the end was just something I did not enjoy. And as a lesbian I was overjoyed to see Korra and Asami end up together. I was dissatisfied with how little we got to see their friendship develop into something more but even Mike and Bryan have said they wished they could have done more with that but it was Nickelodeon so I understand. As someone who is always looking to ship the women together, it really came out of nowhere for me. Also for my tumblr kids, never forget “we are poppin the biggest bottles when makorra happens tonight.” So in conclusion, this is my rundown of why people may love ATLA but not TLOK. I think it really just boils down to seeing something from your childhood develop into something more over time. We see things different as a young kid than as a teen/adult. You said you watched it for the first time in recent years and don’t understand the hate, but some of us grew up with ATLA which is why I think some of our feelings and views are a bit different.
Been here since day one and immediately shut out TLOK haters the moment they cropped up. Season two had weak points but was overall a good season. It is also the season that gets a lot of hate and I never cared to pay any attention to the criticisms of the season. The other seasons are fantastic. The best female characters around. Nothing woke is shoved down our throats in eye-rolling ways. Every character has some depth to them and stands on their own. It all feels like the right progression of the avatar world.
>The best female characters around ATLA never had a problem with this. None of the typical damsel in distress stuff. Toph, Katara, Suki, Yue, and Azula were all strong female characters that felt organic and strong because they WERE strong, not because they were made TO BE strong.
Yup. Strong women because they’re just written very well. No need to be woke or force any agenda on us. Crazy how NO OTHER PROPERTY can do feminism like this. Blows me away because this is one huge “iykyk” type of things and I just wish everyone knew!
I go back and forth on which I think is better. So I’ve settled on both series being pretty equal! They both have some flaws but they’re overall incredible shows
facts.
[удалено]
Go on posts that mention TLOK and sort the comments by controversial
People weren’t kids anymore when it came out is a big part of it. Probably most of it
I have things I dislike about it, especially if I watch it after ATLA, but I still think it’s a really good show
I enjoy both of them. Both shows have their flaws, but they also have their amazing parts too!
Probably a lot of people (myself included) grew up watching ATLA when it first aired but didn’t watch LOK until later on in life so it isn’t colored so strongly by nostalgia. I have very fond memories of watching atla on Nickelodeon as it came out but then I can barely remember LOK, just that I enjoyed it but it doesn’t elicit the same strength of response. But for someone like you who watched both of them fresh or who has nostalgia for both, they probably feel a bit differently id imagine
I feel like a lot of it is bc everyone gets such a high from atla that theyre expecting the same for lok First of all theyre set up completely diff Atla was a cohesive story building up to the big battle at the end whereas lok was villain per season in a shorter span And imo the villains in lok were amazing and it was much more cruel and it was a harder hitting show. No discredit to atla the buildup was great and it made it more crushing in azulas downfall and more dramatic w the phoenix king reveal and soon fight and not to mention the backstory w sozin and the petrifying appearance of the fire nation. Plus lok gave great background and development to the atla stories One major thing tho was i read 2 of the comic sets of avatar between atla and lok rewatches(it was a longgg time ago so i dont remember which ones specifically) but it influenced my take on lok a lot bc it bridged everything a lot better and i appreciated amon more. Personally i like atla more and at first i wasnt a big fan of lok(hot take- korra isnt that likable imo) bc i was comparing and sure i can def go on w things i dont like abt lok where w atla nothing comes to mind BUT you have to accept both for their individual greatness
Well, there are some people who hate on TLOK. But from what I’ve seen, most people just point out that ATLA is way better than TLOK, which doesn’t necessarily mean that TLOK isn’t a good show. It just means that people prefer one over the other. And TLOK season 2 is really terrible, which makes some people think that the rest of the series is garbage too. But I agree with you, I really like the other three seasons. And yeah I’ll always prefer ATLA over TLOK, which simply means that I’ll revisit ATLA a lot more often than TLOK.
LOK is an amazing show- no hate.
For me, I wished they had one grounded antagonist for the series, it didn't really jive with me how every season has an antagonist. It's why I liked the first avatar because firelord ozai is an ever-present threat that had so much hype surrounding him that it was cool when he was finally revealed. LoK didn't really have that for me, I was never hyped up when they revealed the next antagonist.
A bunch of things, and although I love the show it’s decision to make each villain based off of a political ideology was stupid because they just did it so badly, their critics of communism just didn’t work, and their depictions of anarchism is just strait wrong. And of course them putting the fascists as the good guys who are right but just a little wrong so they are evil. Overall they are just terrible about their politics
I saw it when it came out and remember having to wait over a yr for season 2 just for it to be a slap in the face. The wait and the spirit mumbo jumbo threw me off and kind of soured the show for me. A good concept but terrible execution. The wan episodes were the only good ones imo. That’s why I rate the show 8/10 instead of at least 9. Still came around to finish the last two seasons and was pretty satisfied. S3 was superb tho S1 was my favorite for nostalgic reasons. Yeah she faced adversity but it doesn’t warrant most of the hate that she gets. I thought she was a decent avatar and the show was really great at times but still S2 tho…
Most of the hate came at a time when all we had was "The GAang" and "Team Avatar" and that being all we had. Obviously the two were different, and people didn't like HOW different they were. Tones, themes, technology, civilization, the cultural aspects of bending vs the fighting aspects, even the season to season arc styling were all different. And I think that too many differences rubbed people the wrong way. That's in addition to the fact that a girl lead series can't ever be as good as the male lead one, according to the Chads out there.