The Light At The End Of The Tunnel

Hello there, Cass here. Just made this blog to post my feels about everything about LOK and ATLA. I hardly post shit everything with me is just reblogs. But hey if anyone wanted to get to know me ya know I'm pretty friendly.

[firebendxr]

For years people have been telling me they can help me get better, nothing’s worked. I need to figure this out on my own.

[lokgifs]

[fantastic-nonsense]

So I decided to do a count-up of all of the (major) characters and see how many lines they got in Book 4. The results? Pretty sad, honestly.

Totals:

Korra: 312 lines

Bolin: 175 lines

Mako: 153 lines

Kuvira: 142 lines

Varrick: 129 lines

Wu: 115…

[ultrasparklystrawberry]

why are you judging it by the number of lines? i would think what matter more is whether or not you enjoyed book 4

[fantastic-nonsense]

That’s kind of the point. I DIDN’T enjoy Book 4. I mean, I enjoyed large parts of it (Korra Alone, Beyond the Wilds, parts of The Coronation and The Calling, and most of Operation Beifong), but there were large sections of it I didn’t like, and a lot about the season as a whole I didn’t like. 

Most of it had to do with writing quality, narrative, and actual plot progression. And then some of it has to do with stuff like this. Asami being so far down on the list of characters with speaking roles. JINORA being so far down the list. Asami, Tenzin, and Lin literally reduced to c and d-list characters while Wu and Varrick were elevated to b-list. The main characters of this show being overshadowed by pure comic relief characters that had little to no relevance to the actual plot (Wu was annoying and should have exited the narrative stage left after “Reunions” and Meelo should not have had more lines than Tenzin).

Look. When Toph, who was only in the series for three episodes (plus her tiny bit at the end of Korra Alone), has more screentime and lines than Asami, who is billed as a main character and the love interest of the protagonist, can you not just admit you have a problem? I’m upset characters like Asami were shafted by the narrative and writers. I’ve already done all of my extensive meta and whatnot. This was pure statistics to back up the meta. 

Why you all are ignoring the cold hard fact that, no matter how much Bryan and Mike talk her up, they have rarely actually give Asami any meaningful addition to the narrative and overall plot since Book 2 (honestly I would even say Book 1, since her company issues were ultimately dropped in a hot minute the second Korra came back and Harmonic Convergence started happening). Honestly, the only time I would say that she actually made an important contribution to the plot since that point would be during the events of “Long Live the Queen.” Her relationship with her father was brought back for one episode only for him to be fridged in the finale for a two line conversation about how she “couldn’t imagine losing him and Korra in the same day.” Her fight with Korra against bandits in “The Earth Queen” was pointless to the actual plot except to showcase Korra and Asami actually doing something together (which I appreciated, don’t get me wrong). Her being the one to go with Korra during “The Stakeout” was because Mako told her to and because she was a non-bender up against two ridiculously skilled benders with their own specialized subskills. She didn’t really participate in either the Book 2 or Book 3 finales at all. She was practically useless (on-screen) while building the hummingbird machines (they were her design, but Varrick got all of the talking and credit in relation to them). Asami was upstaged by Varrick on multiple occasions throughout Book 4 despite them having the same skillset. She barely got any screentime actually with Korra (if I remember that video correctly, the entire amount of time she spent with Korra amounted to just over a little bit of the length of a single episode).

Asami is a brilliant character, and it makes me upset that she was so undervalued, underused, and underdeveloped. More than that, it makes me incredibly upset knowing that I defended that for so long. I defended Bryke’s crappy treatment of her. She started off as a rich tech-savvy girl with a heart of gold and daddy issues, and that’s exactly where she ended. Most if not all of her character development happened in the first two seasons, and there was really nothing else after that. So forgive me for being upset that someone billed as a main character and the love interest to the protagonist of the whole show was given less lines than a character from a previous series in the last season of the show, and forgive me for being upset that a relationship that had the potential to be really well-handled and very wonderful ultimately ended up being rushed, extremely underdeveloped, and one-sided because of Bryke’s uneven narrative and uneven screentime.

[jeonggukiest]

LOK meme [3/5 characters]: Master Jinora

I’m not a little girl anymore! I can airbend just as well as you. I know everything about our culture and history, and I have a stronger connection with the spirits than you ever will.

[breakbleheavens]

Korra Appreciation Week: Day 3 - Animal Companion

[avatr]

[booliin]

Bolin and Mako against the Dai Li

[itzbatz-deactivated20240722]

[avatr]

[thewaterbendingmaster]

[jerkbend]

#without katara the world would have literally fucking ended wtf 

[steviepsyclone]

I still kinda geek a lil when she stops the rain

[themightyglamazon]

Katara is so important, you guys.

I see a lot of criticism going around about how Katara was Aang’s “prize” at the end of the series, that she lost importance in Korra once she popped out an Airbender baby and just generally didn’t have agency but I don’t gel with that.

How about we look for a moment at what Katara is, who Katara is, what she’s done.

This flawless queen:

- Lost deeply at a young age in the war that was all she had ever known, and turned that loss into an abiding empathy and determination to care for those who were losing around her.

- Found and praticed her own power with a brother telling her she was strange for doing it, and no prospect of anyone to ever teach her how to do it well.

- Captured the heart of an ancient spirit who had been born and loved a thousand times and a thousand mortals with the blue of her eyes and the strength of her spirit.

- Left her own home, desecrated by the army that had dominated her life, her people, determined to chase that evil down and steal her brand-new friend back from it with nothing but a canoe and her untrained power.

- Fought The Man and earned his respect for her spirit and her potential by being that good even without formal training.

- RESURRECTED THE GOD OF HER WORLD.

- Found within herself a great and terrible power, and even though power was something she had sought all her life, put it aside not to be used because it was not a power that brought peace.

- Looked the mother’s murderer in the eye, put him at the knife’s edge of death, and judged him not worth the stain on her soul or her mothers’ memory.

- Faced the Fire Nation princess, she who would be kinslayer, the only Fire Nation soldier ever to breach the walls of Ba Sing Se, and defeated her on her own ground.

- Returned to her home, restored her home, and ensured no children of her culture would ever again find themselves with a great and beautiful power, and no hope of ever learning to wield it.

- Played one of the most essential roles in ending the war that was all she had ever known since the day she was born.

- The wandering god of her world, the nomad from a culture of detachment, pledged himself to her and gave HER strong, good children. For fuck’s sake, why do so many people try to turn motherhood into an abdication of agency? As if having a child is something a woman does for the man who fathers the child, never a want a man assists a woman in achieving? And Katara secured a mortal god for the father of her children. Girl. Girl. GEDDIT.

Conclusion: Katara is better than us all. Let us kneel and give praise.

[swan2swan]

I would also like to add that she was the one who secured the throne for Firelord Zuko—she was a child so insignificant, the Fire Nation’s soldiers didn’t even care about killing her, and yet she was the one who decided the Fire Nation’s next ruler. He directly owes his crown to her. 

[avatar-style]

And let’s not forget that she taught Korra to walk again after she was poisoned and took her through her PTSD. Not only did she resurrect the God of her world, she helped the next one overcome mental illness in order to be a stronger person than ever before. 

[fireferretfuzzies]

Most precious illustration of Korra and Naga by Christine Bian in the Book 3 Artbook

[meelo]

[kekepuaa]

Korra + Nonbending combat

[askthepolarbeardog]

[objectivemistress]

Curious. Roll call! Reblog if you’ve been here since Book 1!

[tonraq]

[trylanaire]

One of my headcanons is that when Korra and Mako have kids, Korra will just leave the kids around the house with Naga, and Naga treats them like her own pups and carries them around in her mouth, and the kids totally love it, but it scares the crap out of Mako and he panics everytime he has to leave the kids alone with Korra.