Why “The Legend of Korra” is Incredible
’“Avatar: The Last Airbender” Series has been announced for netflix. They are planning to do a live-action tv show that will do what the movie couldn’t. I’m so excited even though it won’t be coming for a couple of years.
But after reading about this I was brought back to Korra. She is one of my favorite female characters, and I loved each season of the series. A lot of people were upset with how things were done, and many put a lot of hate on Korra. So I wanted to make a love post for her. Because this awesome character deserves some love.
Korra is a strong Character, but she also has some faults.
One of the things I find so relatable about Korra is how she thinks, feels and acts. She is a strong-minded, with a fierce temper, and aggressive nature. But even with this she has to question a lot of things in her life. What is her purpose, especially if she can’t be what everyone else wants her to be? Is she only the avatar, or can she be more? Is she strong enough to do the right thing? How can she bring balance to the world? She is constantly asking these questions, and even though she puts on a brave face, she obviously struggles.
At the end of Season 1, she has lost her bending ability. She questions wether or not she can be the avatar without her bending. She has to question her entire existance. She has been raised with only one purpose. She hasn’t grown up being taught how society works, heck at one point she has issues because she has never dealt with money before in her LIFE. She has been set on a course in which she has one option, be the avatar. And now that is all gone.
She sits at the edge of the cliff and contiplates suicide. She is horribly depressed, and ready to take her life. Because if she can’t be the avatar, she can die and another one will live. Another person will take on the responsibilities that she can no longer fulfill. Someone else will be able to save the world, like she was supposed to.
But before she does, she accepts herself. She may not be the avatar anymore but that is okay. She is happy just being Korra.
Aang doesn’t appear because Korra was sad. Aang appears and gives her back her bending because she had found acceptance in herself as herself.
At the end of Season 3 I think this is such a huge moment. It’s one of the sadest things. Korra keeps losing things, but she keeps coming back, but will she. She has suffered injury after injury, both mentally and physically. She was near-death and is still suffering daily from the pain of the metal in her blood.
She is broken. In season 2 she decided that the spirit world, and the real world should reamin connected, as they are two parts of one coin. By doing so, she renounces certain aspects of her job as Avatar. She doens’t do this to be lazy, but because the world doesn’t need one person, it needs balance. And balance is not achievable if only one person is trying. This is why every Avatar before her has failed. This is why she is destined to fail. So in an attempt to change the world, and help create balance, she leaves the portals open, and becomes a symbolic instrumant for balance.
Also she lost her connection to the her past lives. She is the last Avatar of the first era, and the first Avatar of the second era. And she is now completely alone. But this doesn’t come in until later.
In season 3 she must face the conciquences of this decision, which may or may not have been right. But as we get to the end of the season, she is left debilitated and broken, physically and mentally. She no longer had her past lives to help her, but it is through the help of her friends that they are able to succeed. Without her friends she would have failed.
Now she is left broken, unable to do her job as avatar. Unable to even be Korra. She can’t even dress herself! She is in horrible pain, and faced with all these questions. What happens next? How will the world keep balance?
But there is hope in the world, because her friends will step up. Together everyone can do her job. The World doesn’t need her, and she no longer matters. This Sucks for her, but it’s how the world works.
In Season 4 her fears begin to manefest. She begins to fight herself, chacing a shadow of what she once was, what she can never be again. She is alone now, trying to find herself, but never able to reach it, or accept it.
She is suffering not only physical but MENTAL challenges. She wants to give up, but she doesn’t. She keeps fighting. She learns and evolves as a character. She accepts the pain, accepts what happened to her, and takes it in her, but she doesn’t let that stop her from being korra. It took a lot of time for her to get there. three years plus.
In the end Korra realizes that violence isn’t the only way. She could probably have just killed Kuvira, but that wasn’t what she wanted. She needed to help Kuvira be better. To see reason.
Each of the villains had a reason for their actions.
Amon wanted Equality - but did so by prosecuting others
Unaloq wanted Reconnection and Convergance - but did so through destruction
Zaheer wants Freedom - but tries to take it through chaos
Kovira wanted Peace and Order - but wanted to take it from submission of others
Each of the villains had a great purpose. They were trying to help society. They were trying to help people and make the world a better place, but they did so through brute force, prosecution, hatred and destruction. By having Korra change Kovira’s mind, she has proven that love, compassion, and reason are more powerful.
Aang, from Avatar the last airbender, always was peacful. he never wanted to fight. But from the beginning Korra was a fighter, and had to fight. Aang was faced with the choice to force, and kill, but he choose peace. Korra had to develop to the point where she could choose peace.
Korra achieves balance in her life. It wasn’t easy, but she finaly makes peace in her life, as who she is, what she stands for, what she is in the world.
I think that the purpose of the Legend of Korra is to step back and consider everything. Look at your enemies, what are they working toward? Is there a reason that they think these things? How can we be more concious of the people around us, and make better choices to help everyone.
The winner writes the history book, so the loser will always be written as the bad guy. What we need is to find balance, with each other, and especially ourselves. YOU ARE IMPORTANT! YOU MATTER! YOU HAVE PURPOSE! YOU CAN CHANGE THE WORLD!
I’ll probably come back to this post again, because I am by no means finished ranting about how awesome the series was. Heck, I could do a bunch of seperate threads on different aspects of the series, like the villains, how the relationships developed, various other characters and why they were awesome like Bolin, or Asami, or JINORA!!! heck i could go on about Aang’s portrail in the series.
Add some comments to share the Korra Love. The series deserved more than it got!