The Legend of Korra - Series Review

The Legend of Korra (LoK) takes place roughly 70 years after the events in Avatar: The Last Airbender (ATLA). Aang has passed away but left quite a legacy. In addition to ending the 100-year war, he and Zuko worked together to found Republic City, the capital of the United Republic of Nations. Aang and Katara had 3 kids together. With his passing, the new Avatar is a girl from the Southern Water Tribe named Korra. Unlike Aang and Roku before him, she immediately knows how to do 3 elements instead of not learning them until being she is told she is the Avatar. Her introduction includes a cute emphatic line of how she’s the Avatar, and you’re going to have to deal with it. LoK is divided up into 4 seasons of 13-14 episodes each, with one primary villain and main story for each of those seasons.

The first season is titled Book One: Air. After seeing Korra as a child, we see her as a 17-year-old girl finishing her firebending training and wishing to soon learn airbending, the only type of the main four elements she has not been already able to do.  She knows waterbending and earthbending already as well. Korra moves to Republic City to stay with Tenzin, Aang’s youngest son who is a father of three children with a fourth on the way. When Korra arrives in Republic City, she is enthusiastic and curious. She learns about the Equalists, a troubling group actively against the existence of benders for abusing their power against non-benders, which we learn some benders do. Korra also learns about pro-bending and takes an interest. She meets two brothers, Bolin and Mako and develops a crush on Mako despite him being a jerk to her from the moment they met.

The main villain of the first season is known by the name Amon for most of it and seems to have the frightening power of permanently removing a person’s ability to be a bender. I personally felt that was entirely too powerful. Aang may have done it in the finale of the previous season, but he did it with the help of a Lion Turtle and maintaining balance within himself, something that seemed unlikely to be the same in Amon’s case. Additionally, if the explanation of bloodbending closing certain chakras is the method, then it shouldn’t be permanent because chakras can be opened based on Aang’s time with a guru in ATLA. Maybe this knowledge is not well-known or easy to do even if it is? Korra loses her bending and then airbends for the first time, and the story never clarifies if Amon perhaps could not actually block airbending. He was about to do exactly that to Tenzin’s family but didn’t because of them being saved. As the season concludes, Korra is able to contact her past life, Aang, and he returns her bending to her. Korra does the same for Lin.

The second season, Book Two: Spirits moves the main party of Team Avatar to the Southern Water Tribe. Initially, Korra is visiting for a festival and supposed to go with Tenzin on vacation to see some air temples. As the story progresses, she chooses instead to stay and try to learn about spirits from her uncle, chief of the Northern Water Tribe, Unalaq.  She and Mako struggle to keep their relationship together. This season also introduces one of the most fun characters, Varrick. He is very rich, very smart, and very silly. Also a bit of a jerk. Korra opens a spirit portal with her uncle’s guidance but much later realizes he is not the man he seems. She also learns from the first Avatar, Wan, about their origin of receiving bending from different lion turtles as part of his efforts to fix a mistake he made, separating the spirit Raava from Vaatu. Eventually, they managed to trap Vaatu, closing the spirit portals at both the North and South poles of the planet. Afterwards, they must continue to work in maintaining balance throughout the world, even in future reincarnations. Unalaq’s goal is to free Vaatu.

In an effort to stop him, Korra goes into the spirit world with the help of Tenzin’s oldest daughter and child, Jinora. There, the two become separated, and Korra so frightened she turns into a little girl version of herself. She encounters Iroh, who provides some guidance. I really like Iroh, but I didn’t like that his guidance involved telling a scared little girl she shouldn’t cry because she’s upsetting the spirits. It’s okay to be scared, and it’s okay to cry. Continually telling kids otherwise is harmful to their well-being. The actions with or following one’s fear are what matters. Korra didn’t actively hurt any of the spirits and was in a dire situation. In any case, Unalaq succeeds in becoming a Dark Avatar with Vaatu. With some help from Jinora and cosmic energy, Korra manages to defeat their combined form, in a large blue spirt form herself. As things begin to wrap in the aftermath of their battle, Korra decides to keep the spirit portals open. Earlier in the season, Mako broke up with Korra, but she forgot because of amnesia she had right before learning from Wan about the Avatar origin. After everything that happens in defeating the Dark Avatar, Korra admits she remembers, and she breaks up with Mako. It’s never clear to me what Unalaq did to calm dark, angry spirits, and I’m really bothered with the notion that Vaatu could affect spirits to the extent that he did. He basically had a “make any spirit evil card” with no regard at all for that own spirit’s intentions or desires without his influence. Giant blue spirit Korra was cool, and it reminded me of a form Aang used at the end of season 1 of ATLA, also giant and blue but not really humanoid.

The third season, Book Three: Change, is the best, by far though it is not without its own set of faults and questions. With the spirit portals open, the world has changed. Spirit vines wrap around parts of Republic City, and it is soon realized by many that many people have become airbenders. Given that up until then, Tenzin’s family had been the last of the airbenders altogether, it is a dream come true for him. Korra decides to aid in Tenzin’s search to recruit people into moving with him to one of the temples and developing their newfound skill. Unbeknownst to Korra, one new airbender in the world is a man named Zaheer who, along with three other people, tried to kidnap her when she was little. The other members of his group had all been benders, an earthbender named Ghazan, a waterbender named Ming-Hua, and a firebender named P’Li, his girlfriend. Zaheer had been the only nonbender among them. Despite having no training in airbending at all, Zaheer escapes prison with masterful use of his new skill, slowly aiding in releasing his friends in other prisons all over the world

For Tenzin and Korra, the airbender search does not start off well because not many people have any desire to make the commitments Tenzin says comes with joining him. Eventually, they do manage to recruit a trouble-making boy near Jinora’s age, Kai. They continue on to Ba Sing Se and meet the queen, an unkind and commanding woman who is conscripting her own citizens to make her own airbending army. Kai is kidnapped as well. Team Avatar saves the airbenders and in so doing receive a number of willing recruits who go with Tenzin to the Northern Air Temple. Lin shows up to warn them all about Zaheer’s escape, Korra learning of his attempted kidnapping when she was little for the first time. She insists on still going to the metalbending of Zaofu to pick up another airbender. Lin reluctantly agrees. There, they meet Toph’s other daughter, Su-Yin and find tensions between her and Lin that are eventually resolved.

Many events lead to Zaheer’s team killing the Earth Kingdom queen and then later capturing the airbenders in order to force Korra to come to them. Korra concedes and finally learns Zaheer’s plan of killing her, specifically in her Avatar State to break the cycle entirely. Zaheer has her poisoned, and though Korra resists, she eventually succumbs and trounces Zaheer’s team and puts up a tough fight against Zaheer, only falling as the poison starts to hurt her during their fight. She, as Zaheer points out, cannot fight both him and the poison. Thanks to Jinora, the other benders, and Su-Yin, Korra is saved. The season ends with a ceremony for Jinora becoming an airbending master with blue arrow tattoos. Korra sits in a wheelchair, aided by Asami in an earlier scene and starts to cry after Tenzin notes the airbenders’ appreciation for her sacrifice.

Three years pass between the third season and the fourth, Book Four: Balance. A woman named Kuvira has been working to stabilizing the Earth Kingdom after the death of the queen and the chaos that ensued as a result. She has been successful but insists on pledged loyalty and certain dialogue points indicate dissidents are sent to prison camps, warning of her desire to be a dictator. Meanwhile, Korra is still struggling from her recovery. She is not as capable as she used to be and has a recurring vision of herself in an Avatar State with a chain, that self out to harm Korra. She eventually meets Toph who tells Korra she actually still has some of the poison wearing her down in her body. With Toph’s guidance, suggesting Korra learn from her enemies and re-connect with people in life through touching the Banyan-grove tree, Korra unites with Tenzin’s children: Jinora, Ikki, and Meelo. Shortly after this encounter, she manages to later take the rest of the poison out from her own body.

Meanwhile, earlier in separate events, Kuvira refused to give up her power for Prince Wu, a great nephew of the deceased queen’s. She set her sights on Zaofu. With the help of Tenzin’s children, Korra immediately heads to Zaofu to try and help stave off the brewing confrontation between Su-Yin and Kuvira. She attempts to reason with both women in separate meetings and fails, leading to her being challenged by Kuvira. She does not fare well until entering the Avatar State and as she is about to possibly win sees a vision of the chained Korra, scaring her and leading to her defeat. Kuvira takes Zaofu along with much of Su-Yin’s family, prisoner. Opal, Su-Yin’s airbending daughter, Lin, Bolin, and Toph later save the Beifong family and learn some horrifying news of Kuvira’s work on a new weapon.

Korra, Team Avatar, and many others must then work to defend Republic City from an encroaching Kuvira. They work together with multiple strategies and with a lot of effort and teamwork, manage to stop her. In the clash between Korra and Kuvira, the weapon rips open a new sprit portal in the middle of Republic City. The season and series conclude with a wedding between Varrick and his former assistant Zhu Li. At the reception, Asami and Korra talk about what to do next and decide to check out the spirit world, gently clasping their fingers together to hold hands and face each other, smiling, before whisking away.

I remember the reaction to the ending on Twitter and Tumblr with many excited fans about bi representation and yet a little sadness too for wishing it could be more explicit. With all that already in my mind, I was very interested in seeing the whole thing for myself. In fact, since I knew so little about the series, I had a different narrative in my head because I had seen a lot more of Kuvira than Asami so thought it was a Korra and Kuvira story. Ha-ha, whoops, but that is part of why I wanted to see The Legend of Korra.

Here are a few extra notes that couldn’t really find their place between my summaries. I like Bolin from seasons 1 and 3 and it was fun to watch him be a mover star in season 2, but it’s not OK that he outright assaulted Ginger for a kiss at one point. I liked Korra wanting to learn and learn more about pro-bending. I liked Jinora. I didn’t like that Korra was interested in Mako after he was such an initial jerk to her. I wanted more Korra, period. I was so annoyed with the Wan two-parter because her presence was already lacking in the episode for it. I didn’t like that Korra lost her connection to all her past lives. If she can regain her connection to Raava, if she can be the Avatar again, and access the Avatar State again, she should have a connection to her past lives. I didn’t like that somehow Zaheer had the ability to actively speak from his body when in the spirit world. I was not comfortable with Korra throwing Mako’s desk at a door during an argument or Lin and Su-Yin bending metal at each other in argument to get tensions out of their system.