Why Korra's decision to keep the portals open bugs me:
It’s not done with the consent of ANYONE except Tenzin - there’s no thought to the other nations and the general world
If the portals have to be closed/opened on particular days, Korra could have closed the portals, had a discussion with the world leaders, and the reopened them the next year.
Avatar Wan KNEW what the spirits are capable of - he even LIKED spirits - but he recognized they presented a serious threat to the human race so he closed the portals
In Avatar Wan’s day, the spirits had forced humanity into isolated small communities protected by lion turtles - the spirits had successfully invaded the world and claimed it from humanity. In Korra’s time, there are no lion turtles to provide safe heavens and the human population couldn’t fit on them anyways.
From how the worlds are set up and what background Beginnings gave us - it appears that the Spirit World belongs to the spirits and the Human World to the humans and other physical creatures. I think the divide is there for a reason - to each their own Spirits invading the human world and setting up shop is not okay, likewise humans invading the spirit world. Maybe the odd human or spirit is allowed to live in the other world, but that’s limited.
Spirits don’t play by human morals - and they don’t value human life (as seen in Beginnings). In folklore in our world, spirits often retaliate with significant and sometimes deadly violence for offences humans would see a minor (such as eating fruit from the wrong tree or trespassing without knowing they’re trespassing and without causing any harm). In the Avatar world, take Hei Bei which blamed an innocent village for harm to its forest, terrorized and abducted people from the village. It was only the Avatar who was able to do anything about this.
Korra is taking Unalaq’s word over Wan’s. Aside from the whole Vaatu problem, Unalaq never lived with spirits for the entirety of his life and he was able to consistently control them when he did encounter them. On the other hand, Wan lived with spirits and was mostly at their mercy until he gained bending. Even with bending, he still had trouble controlling/dealing with spirits.
Korra no longer has help from past Avatars who have dealt with spirits which remained on this side nor does she have help from Wan. Any research or knowledge on spirits has probably been lost over the centuries. Korra, and maybe Eska and Desna and Jinora, are the only people who know how to fight spirits (granted - that we’ve seen).
***If Air has spirit-bending as its secondary, then there are only four, potentially five, Airbenders in the whole world - and three of those are too young and untrained. That leaves one fully capable twelve-year-old and one semi-capable adult to deal with spirits. Adding in Korra means three people to handle all spirit problems - a preteen, a only partly skilled adult, and Korra. Maybe five if you can convince me Eska and Desna are altruistic enough to help out - which I highly doubt they are.
As for everyone else…good luck. They’re basically defenseless. The best they can do is ‘think good thoughts’ which is BS because negative emotions are part and parcel of life.
In my opinion, Korra’s decision to keep the portals open is thoughtless, reckless, and dangerous. The stated reason of it 'feeling right’ doesn’t work for me - Roku felt he was doing the right thing with Sozin, Kuruk didn’t bother confronting the Face Eater until it came after someone he loved, Kyoshi didn’t stop Chin the Conqueror until he went after her home. Avatars relying solely on their personal 'feelings’ have caused trouble. Somewhere along the line LOGIC and caring for people beyond their circle has to enter the equation.
However, Korra’s decision is not out of character. I hope seasons three and four do justice to the consequences of this decision. I hope the writers don’t gloss over the potential damage done by spirits and pretend it’s all hunky-dory except for, you know, one spirit which gives a few people nightmares and stops as soon as Korra says to stop. I hope Korra has to deal with victims of spirits and wrestle with her decision - consider if the hurt/deaths inflicted by the spirits are worth keeping the portals open. If Korra was unwilling to sacrifice Jinora to prevent Vaatu (the evilest of evil) from escaping, I think she be forced to understand she should be equally as unwilling to allow any stranger to be harmed by the spirits because of their presence in the world due to her choice.
***Since Water can also spirit-bend in addition to Air, I can’t help but believe that all elements can. Maybe over the centuries, Earth & Fire forgot how. Which means that spirit-bending is not a secondary to Air. Air would still have an unknown secondary bending.
