i’m so sick of ATLA discourse. why is everyone so obsessed with who was the “best avatar”. it’s so stupid. Kyoshi was ruthless, plain and simple, it was for the greater good, but her tactics had consequences, as did her creation of the Dai Li. she lived to be 230 years old. 230 years of having an Avatar that just kills people who oppose her is long enough to create a bad reputation. Roku, as the Avatar after her, was forced to act in her shadow, and against expectations created by her. Roku, above all else, was scared of being seen as a tyrant, which makes sense considering his predecessor. it was his inaction that led to Sozin wiping out the air nomads in his quest to end the Avatar, but you could argue that Kyoshi set a bad precedent that forced Roku into the position he was in. imagine how it would look if he killed the fire lord, especially after Sozin garnered support for his cause. Aang, the Avatar after him,ran away. he abandoned his duty as the Avatar and doomed the world to a war spanning 100 years because he was scared, but you could argue that Roku left him in a terrible spot as a child, by refusing to deal with Sozin when he had the chance. Korra, the Avatar after him, reset the Avater cycle, but you could argue that Aang put her in a bad position by leaving the world in the middle of reconstruction. Amon was only able to gain power because Aang died before he could finish ensuring that the new world he created was equitable for everyone, and he only died young as a result of cellular degeneration due to his time in the iceberg, which he ended up in because he ran away. Korra wouldn’t have been the Avatar if Aang had never run away, but he did, and he died young and the cycle had to choose somebody earlier than it was supposed to. why do you think she was bending three elements at like 4 years old. Korra made some bad choices, but she literally had to get speedrun through the process because by the time she was 17, the world was supposed to have a fully realized Avatar and it didn’t. Korra reset the Avatar cycle, and Pavi or whoever is gonna make a bunch of mistakes as a result of that, mistakes that the next Avatar is gonna have to fix. that’s literally how the cycle works, and Korra’s reset of it serves as a blank slate, a way to erase the mistakes of Avatars past and start anew. any time i hear somebody say “Korra should’ve done x, Aang should’ve done y, Roku should’ve done z” all i hear is “i wish the story didn’t happen and also i’m stupid”. shut up. the Avatar cycle is a narrative device meant to represent balance, and how the sisyphean task of “fixing the world” gets pushed onto the next generation. Korra would smack Aang in a fight and he would beat her in chess. do you feel better now? is that really the most interesting part of the story to you? fuck you man.
