The Flaw with LOK villains:
Legend Of Korra presents its villains as having noble goals that are right, but they go about it in terrible ways. The problem is I disagree with most of their ideologies. So, it's not a matter of how they pursue their ideologies but that their ideologies are just fundamentally flawed. Here's why:
Amon: His ideology of Equalism is fundamentally wrong. He thinks by putting non benders in power over benders this creates equality but in reality, all he created was an inverted hierarchy. I wish the show would let his ideology play out to its logical conclusion and show where benders get kicked out of their homes and have their stuff taken. This would focus on the people of Republic City themselves and not Korra. Especially since the show is from Korra's persepctive so an on the ground perspective from the citizens would be enlightening. Rich and poor nonbenders steal from the benders. Asami's dad takes over a shit ton of real estate because he's a non bender and is filthy rich to begin with. The point is his ideology does not create equality it just reverses the roles in society. It creates an inverted form of oppression. The problem are rich elites of the city, not this non bender vs bender struggle.
And that's not getting to the possible eugenics had his ideology taken its logical conclusion although that's more speculation on my part. I think if he truly wanted to eliminate bending, he would have to control who gets to breed since in the Avatar universe bending is partially determined by genetics. So, he might start some breeding programs and try to eliminate any benders via controlled breeding and eugenics laws. This could fit given that Republic City is based off of 1920's New York. And in America at that time eugenics was in vogue and was considered a scientific truth rather than the bigoted pseudoscience it's seen as now. Again, that is more speculation on my part and is not my main point. I only bring it up because I think it's an interesting angle they could have gone with.
One defense I have seen of Amon back when this show was coming out was that he is a self-hating bender and that should make him deep. And that would be deep if the show actually explored it! Seriously, as a concept Amon being a self-hating bender has so much potential. He hates his own bending because he was forced to do blood bending by his father. You could really explore his self-loathing and how his Amon persona may be an escape and twisted redemption from his past. That is a genuinely cool concept, but the show never explores that. At least he and his brother have a great death scene.
Unalaq: He is all about spirituality and wants spirits to live in the human world. The problem is humans and spirits do not get along. It's self-destructive to bring humans and spirits together as shown with the Avatar Won flashbacks. The humans and spirits hated each other and would always fight. Yet Korra opens the spirit portals anyway that cause chaos. The results are people being forced to live with spirits or in some cases being displaced by them. And it causes airbending to return somehow. The whole thing with spirits and humans being forced to live together sounds like one of those well-meaning attempts at coexistence that does not consider the consequences.
Another aspect I want to complain about Unalaq is how shallow and one note he is as a villain. At first his whole spirituality angle might seem intriguing, and he could be seen as a religious fanatic. But the show never really explores him that well as a character. He's just a very generic evil bad guy with a religious angle to him. Even when he does his political manipulations its very basic and very obvious to see he's manipulating Korra. Which is annoying to me because you'd think Korra would be more wary of silver-tongued Northern Water Tribe politicians after she dealt with Tarrlok.
Vatu: Vatu is this kite shaped spirit who is meant to be the opposite to Rava. He is presented as pure evil, but this seems to contradict the series theme of balance. A way you can show this balance with Vatu is that he serves an important function in their world despite how unpleasant he is. He is chaos and change. If Rava stays in power for too long things become stagnant and overgrown. Much like a forest with a ton of overgrowth and dead trees which prevents new growth from coming in. That's why you need Vatu to be this chaotic force of change. He clears out the old growth, much like a forest fire clears out old growth for new growth to come in. As horrible as he is, he still serves an important part of the life cycle of the Earth. This would fit better with the series themes of balance instead of the good vs evil route they went with in Season 2. I get that Avatar was always a mix of East and Western cultures but for the Legend of Korra they seemed to play up the Western influence a bit too much for my liking.
Zaheer: He is the based anarchist man. The only flaw with how he pursued his goals. He caused chaos after overthrowing earth queen and killing her. He is the one Legend of Korra villain where trope of a villain with noble goal going about it in a bad way actually applies. You could counter his view by showing some other members of the Red Lotus who embraced anarchism but decided to pursue it peacefully. Like these specific Red Lotus members could have founded their own anarchist town with no rulers and embraced agorism. It would show that anarchy could work and Zaheer didn't have to pursue it violently. We have anarchist towns in real life so it could work. It could also cause more discussion in the show on whether anarchy is the best political system.
Also, how he gains the ability to fly is interesting. When his girlfriend dies and all his earthly ties are cut as a result. So, he can fly now but at the cost of any human connections. Also, his feet can never touch the ground again. His ability to fly is like a double-edged sword. It cuts both ways. It's an interesting concept. He gains the ability to fly and enlightenment but at a great cost. He is one of the more interesting Legend of Korra villains.
Kuvira: She is very underdeveloped as a character. She should have had more screen time and interactions with Korra in season 3 to better help establish her as Korra's dark mirror. The show tries to paint her as this mirror to Korra with the vision she receives in Season 3 of a light being resembling Korra and ultimately it is confirmed in Season 4 with the final vision revealing that light being was Kuvira. It's meant to mirror the vision Aang had about Toph. Where he sees her in the tree in Season 2 but he doesn't know who she is because he never met her yet. The problem is that Kuvira is never that fleshed out as a character, so it does not feel earned. Kuvira starts out as a background character in Season 3 with only one line of dialogue at the end of the season. And then when Season 4 comes around we just jump to her conquering the rest of the Earth Kingdom. She also married Bataar Jr. We never get to know her as a person before then or even that much in Season 4. When she talks with Bataar Jr.'s family it comes off as some half-assed attempt to show her relationship with them. When they could have actually shown their relationship with Kuvira in Season 3.
Here's how I think you could solve this problem. You start out with Kuvira in Season 3 as Korra fan girl but has her own insecurities. She likes how Korra solves her problems with violence which surprises Korra. Since Kuvira would imitate these violent tendencies of Korra she would provide a dark mirror to Korra. And when Korra sees this dark behavior as a reflection of herself it will cause Korra to change her own behavior to be less violent. Through conflict with Zaheer and fall of Earth Kingdom Kuvira becomes more hardened as warrior and dictator. Basically, she is Anakin Skywalker and at least with Anakin you saw his gradual fall to the dark side. They do not show that with Kuvira, but they should show her gradual fall to tyranny.
I know I was supposed to talk about Kuvira's ideology but it's not really that well explored in the show. At best she seems to be influenced by Chang Kai Shek and Mao Zedong. Specifically, with how she brutally unifies the country after a brutal civil war and centralizes everything. But that requires knowledge of outside history and isn't something the show explores that much itself other than using trains to achieve her goals. We don't get a detailed idea of how she runs the economy other than centralizing it. At most her ideology is presented as authoritarian in a very generic sense and is a reaction to Zaheer's anarchism. Which is somewhat interesting in the sense that extremism begets extremism.
Her character is very strict and rigid and is a good strategist. In fact, that's one thing I liked about her is how her fighting style matches her strategic mindset. She relies on precision strikes with her metal bending rather than using raw power like most Avatar villains do. It's one of the few interesting quirks about Kuvira. It's funny how her ideology and her character are not very well set up in the show. At best you get a general idea of her ideology and who she is as a person but never anything deeper.
Bataar Jr.: He's not a full-on villain but I want to talk about him because I felt the jump from him in Season 3 to being married to Kuvira in Season 4 was not very well explored. We barely get to see romantic scenes between the two. It never felt like she loved him that much. The way I would correct this is in Season 3 by exploring more of the Beifong family. Bataar Jr. is the eldest and he's skilled as an inventor and artist. But because he comes from a family of ultra-talented people, he has to constantly keep up with them especially since he's the eldest sibling. That and he's not the greatest fighter. He could have this insecurity to him. And since Kuvira being the family bodyguard is privy to all the Beifong family drama she might feel some sympathy with Bataar Jr. and comfort him. She likes him for who he is, and he feels like he doesn't have to constantly compete when he is around her. And my version Kuvira has her own insecurities since while she is a good fighter she comes off as intimidating to most men, so they don't want to date her. But Bataar Jr. likes her for who she is and is not bothered by her being this deadly fighter. So, they could bond over their insecurities and strengthen each other. This would lead into Season 4 where we see them fully realized as a couple and overcoming their insecurities. The only problem is they do this while leading an authoritarian dictatorship.
If I were to rank the Legend of Korra villains from best to worst, it would be this:
Amon
Zaheer
Kuvira
Vatu
Unalaq
Overall, those are my problems with the Legend of Korra villains. They have half-baked ideologies, underdeveloped characterization, and are very one note. In regard to the ideologies, I get the impression Bryke only included them in the show to be seen as deep and intelligent, but they didn't want to do the hard work of actually exploring these ideologies. That's why they come off as so basic and not very well thought out. Which is a shame because if you truly took these characters ideologies to their logical conclusion you would get some interesting stuff.
