The new team avatar is bunch of coworkers that really only like each other because they have to be there together and never communicate outside of work.
@Christian Sollo if season 2 was judt about the civil war plot and they didn't go into explaining the magic it would've worked, but yeah all the characters in LoK are watered down versions of ATLA
Season 2 was bad because that’s the creators mistakeso get y’all little aang loving korra hating selves out of here there team is good there not just casual coworkers they even fought together in the spirit world I’m tired of people saying and is more a lovable charecter just because she broke the avatar cycle but seriously stop she’s not a Mary Sue or anything so just stop.yeah I’m pretty sure it’s ok for a 12 year old immature avatar to stop a war than a 19 year old realized avatar to littearly stop a giant dark spirt of 10,000 years of darkness no avatar has done that so appreciat korra idiots.
They honestly don't even contribute all that much to helping each other with personal issues either like actual friends and companions would. 2 of the 4 are usually absent and the 3rd usually just says " I'm here to help/ or if you need me"
Thank you for calling out the nonsense on Aangs parenting. He’s not perfect, but I can’t imagine him being anything else than a deeply loving dad (albeit a busy one sometimes). Even if he did accidentally play favorites due to sheer excitement Katara would’ve smacked him upside the head so hard his arrows would spin
The worst part was that they didn’t show any of it, they just brought in a new character (Kya) to tell us that. It’s so outta character for Aang, why make us have all this animosity for the messenger? Why are we expected to just take her at her word? Just do a fucking flashback. Guess they’d want to avoid it because it’d be a more interesting show than the one they’re doing. They’d rather not give Aang a single line and then unceremoniously murder a jpeg of him at the end of the season so he doesn’t outshine Korra.
Blake F in interviews the creators said they really wanted to avoid flashbacks in korra. Which is bizarre because some of the best episodes of the original were literally all flashback. They were also shocked when people’s take away from this subplot was that Aang was a bad dad. It wasn’t what they intended to come across. That doesn’t say great things about their reading comprehension
i just hated the whole god and evil. spirits were malicious in various ways, not outright evil. even the most evil one we saw in ATLA (Ko) aided the avatar. but no, here they are reduced to "boo you bad guy, yay, you good guy". Shows seem to descend into this more and more these days *cough* GoT later seasons and Witcher netflix *cough*
Yeah the worst part is that they still could have a spirit bad guy but at least make it bearable. If they just removed ravaa and made vatuu just some spirit thats pissed of at humans for their disrespect and destruction of nature the whole story already would be better. Now unalaq would have a actual motive of helping the spirit instead of just waning to be de edgelord avatar. Unalaq could be manipulated by said spirit because he would think helping him would bring the respect to the spirits back when in reality that spirits wants to destroy all humans. The other spirits could still be corrupted by vatuu but this time it's not by evil energy but because he convinced them that humans are evil and only want destruction. Korra could still explore the spirit world and have some kind of epic battle in the end but she would also need to fix the relation between humans and spirits to really solve the problem. This way it isn't just a satan vs god story and korra actually learns what the purpose of the spiritual side of the avatar is.
@@barackobama2295 Yep. Your idea sucks. I like what they did in the show much better. There is nothing wrong with the God vs. Satan narrative. You just need there to be one so you can look cool.
@@rangers94ism Again,you are not on the same page with us. This is a franchise based on Eastern Mythology and in particular Daoist philosophy. This ruins the entire idea. There is plenty wrong with this narrative. Your taste doesn't define what is good. Consistency does.
I hated how Book II basically reduced the conflict down to good versus evil, light versus dark cliché. I would rather if they shown Raava and Vaatu being opposing forces that compliment one-another. They could have made Vaatu more flattering as a force. If Raava is peace and order, Vaatu is war and chaos, but war and chaos aren't entirely terrible. Peace is stable, unchanging. Raava is about giving up the fight and settling. Vaatu should be rebellion and passion, unsatisfied with how things currently are. Vaatu should really be the embodiment of change, the drive to improve and aim for ideals. And that's not bad at all. Change is always happening. That's what time is. It's just a struggle between how much we want to expend energy for change and how much we want to stop and settle.
Exactly, I expected there to be a nuanced ying yang message about how creative destruction and freedom is needed for a balanced world. Instead its message is what? Never change. Being good requires only order and peace and society can never change or grow.
@@alexturlais8558 And yet the ending they seemed to have attempted was "actually, change good after all". Like they set up this dichotomy, sealed part of it away (without actually impacting the chaotic nature of either plane of existence) and then loosely imply that maybe chaos should be free after all but not really.
My ideal resolution for Book II, if we HAD to have Raava and Vaatu, is Korra, instead of imprisoning him back in the tree, instead takes him in as a second Avatar spirit alongside Raava. It would show Korra having a better outlook than Wan, and it would have made her a much better character/Avatar. She would be restoring balance within the entire Avatar line.
@@DFAnton Vaatu was never re-imprisoned in the tree afair. He was destroyed during Harmonic Convergence, which means he'll be reborn through Raava. The Dark Avatar may be reborn like it's Light Avatar cousin.
After season 1 Kora should not have got her bending back after it was taken. a spiritual journey helping her become a true avatar is what season 2 should have been about
If the writers knew that there was going to be more seasons than just 1 season (it was first planned as a mini-series) then that would have been a good set-up for next season. Since the writers didn’t know that, they needed to close all lose ends in the first season since it was supposed to be all they had to work with
@@AnonimusQualquer but you can still salvage it. maybe korra learning the importance of bending because she lost it, even for a short period of time? maybe korra learning that bending isnt just martial arts but a big part of the cultures of the nations? you could even rewrite unalaq to be an actually well intentioned character taking the wrong approach and it would be a perfect fit for a spiritual season
@@AnonimusQualquer Nickelodeon is definitely to blame for that, but at the same time its Hard to believe that the show creators didn't think the sequel series to one of the Networks highest rated and reviewed shows wouldn't get green lit for a second season. Even if they thought the chances were slim they still should've ended it with Korra not getting her bending back. That way fan interest and demand to know if she gets it back would've definitely had a sequel being greenlit
I agree with this. It fucks up the power tier list. Aang and all the other avatars are weaker than satan in rug form? But korra on her own without god in rug form can beat that? She can still do all her avatar shit when she re-fuses with god rug? What the fuck
@@spookey3114 She had an advantage when he got distracted seeing raava form inside him. If he didn't get distracted the chances of her winning that fight would have been lower.
The biggest problem with Korra is that it's not the same team. It has the same creators managing the show, but it doesn't have the same head writer. Aaron Ehasz was the head writer and one of the producers of ATLA. His writing made the Avatar special without him LOK suffered.
It is incredibly frustrating to see Aaron Ehasz being put up on a pedestal as if he is the sole reason ATLA was good and Korra was "BAD". It's nonsense. Lots of original ATLA writers came onboard starting with season 2, all the way to book 4.
So the biggest waste of time in LOK was Mako. He's a poor city boy whose parents was killed by a criminal and did presusmably " illegal jobs" for the bender mafia for money to support himself and his brother. Then he becomes a cop... they had a good setup for him to have character development arc, possibly abusing his power on criminals, Varrick finds out blackmails him or tip off Bei Fong to so he can be involved in the plot without the love triangle.
That's actually very interesting on paper lol. All those details are awesome, but he's very boring of a character if you watch the show who's most significant arc is getting over the awkwardness of his two exes.
the problem with korra is simple; they wanted to do more "real" conflicts that weren't just "good vs evil", except they didn't know how to do that. most the seasons started off good, with an interesting plot, then just devolve as things went on. season 1: what they wanted - struggle between classes with no real "fault" between the two sides. what they did - bad guy terrorizing people, because he didn't like his dad season 2: what they wanted - struggle between progress and tradition. spirituality vs materialism. what they did - kaiju battles, dark avatars, and "spirits are cool right?" season 3: what they wanted - struggle between centralized power and decentralized freedom. what they did - fly boi says "anarchy cool lol" season 4: what they wanted - struggle between using force to maintain traditional order vs allowing geopolitical world to evolve. what they did - tyrant lady tries to take over with robots.
No offense but this is really bad critisiscm, its like saying the finale of ATLA is "Aang almost loses to fire man, but wins using turtle powers" you see how dumb that sounds? you completely miss the point.
I still cringe at the fact that they portrait Korra as an abusive girlfriend and it just gets brushed aside, nobody even bat an eye or corrects her in the show about how she treats Mako... Wtf
@@ItsRemmyy heck she acted like a bitch in disregarding Bolin's feelings for her. And we just expect her and Asami to be in a great relationship in the end despite all the shit she put Mako and Bolin through?. Hell Asami should have called her out when she was the one who first kissed Mako during their relationship.
@@toledochristianmatthew9919 yeah but calling her Korra out for that would be wrong I guess. Ans its weird how Bolin sat there and watched the whole thing but still blamed Mako for everything.
@@ItsRemmyy my biggest problem with this show is that Korra got off too easy and didn't take responsibility for her actions. I mean she left the portal open in season 2 without the permission of the spirits or the humans on the matter. I mean in season 3, she just ran away from the Spirit problem to hitch hike with Tenzin to find the new Air Nomads which was bullshit way of the writers moving on to the next conflict of the series and i find it bullshit in season 4 that the conflict just disappeared and the Spirits and humans just suddenly live together.(despite all the warnings of how Spirits would transform humans into monsters and how some of the monsters could be easily tocked off and conflict will arise between the Spirits and humans again). Everything was her own fault if she wasn't such a jerk and act so irresponsible in the first half of season 2. Her not listening to her friends and family and just suddenly believing Unalaaq is the cause of everything from Season 2 onwards including her suffering because of her mistakes. Even in the comics after Season 4, she still acts so brash and impulsive that it makes me dislike her and how she barely changed despite all the shit she cause and went through.
the kites should've been both destructive when separated; if they really wanted to go with the yin-yang balance thing. If the Avater needs to be in possession of a spirit like them, make it that they need both. Hell; make Unalok trying to separate them be the big evil plan if you have to do that shtick.
yea that was my main gripe with the second season it was that Raava and Vaatu didn't even make sense in the yin-yang balanced view, bc if the avatar was truly about balance they would hold both Raava and Vaatu.
@@Dell-ol6hb Exactly. The Avatar seems to only be about the balance of the WORLD then. Because balance there means more peace. That's who Raava is. So in the Yin Yang concept the Avatar really isn't true balance. You could make the argument that Raava and Vaatu were both trapped, Raava with a human, Vaatu in the Tree. But Vaatu didn't merge with anyone until the finale. Raava did. Vaatu is trapped in the spirit world. Raava isn't. The way Raava said they kept each other in balance was by fighting and keeping each other in check. They can't do that. So balance can't be achieved.
Korra could have been the dark avatar but in an iconographic symbolism until balanced with yin to become balanced Yang- feminine, repressed, chaotic, unknown
In the original show, Aang LOVED nothing more than talking about his culture other than Katara, so I find it suspect he wouldn't do everything possible to spread that same joy to his kids, even if they weren't airbenders. I think the show, like the Star Wars sequels, would have benefitted from not being set directly after the originals. Skip "Korra" and go to the next Avatar bender. Your airbender is then Aang's grandkids grown up, not his kids. Then you skip having to do flashbacks of defined characters and your easter eggs can be thrown away one liners.
Frankly I actually liked the idea of Kya and Bumi having an inferiority complex because of Aang accidentally showing favouritism to Tenzin. That really works for me. But I think the writers really crossed the line - there's a difference between unintentionally hurting your children by showing favouritism to the one chance to truly continue your dying culture, and just never taking your other kids on holiday with you... :(
@@Muzer0 that's a good point. The writers could have striven for a middle ground where Aang wasn't a perfect dad, but added flashback scenes of forgotten memories from the kids that showed Aang was a good dad to them. Esp things they didnt understand as kids but could appreciate as adults.
@@MaelstromEnergy or maybe in scenes were Aang brought everyone to teach Airbending culture Bumi and Kyia can't get into it but Tenzin is making Aang proud could make the siblings jealous.
@@lonebattledroid4474 That could have worked too. The show wasn't Aang's story, but if you are gonna do that angle, you gotta show it in a flashback. The scene you laid out could have ended with the adults realizing they hated airbending teachings and Aang didn't force them to go. Then it would have been like "yeah, he could done more with us, but we weren't neglected."
@@MaelstromEnergy yeah, though I felt the story of Korra should've partly been about the old characters. Obviously you still need to focus on the new characters and story but it also should've been about the old characters conclusions to their characters and we only got that with Toph. (And it'd difficult for Aang as he's technically dead but still alive too but it could still work.)
The fact that Aang fell victim to the ‘Original protagonist becomes a bad parent’ trope really just rubbed me the wrong way. It is by far one of my most hated tropes in fiction because 90% of the time, you can tell the writers just did it for cheap drama or ‘it makes the character more realistic’ bullshit, even if it’s out of character. Everything you said about that topic basically summed up everything I felt about. The fact that they tried to make viewers believe Aang, one of the sweetest and loving characters in the original series was neglectful towards his kids is just baffling to me
Thats how I feel about naruto. Its crazy to think that the orphan that had to live in a house alone his entire childhood and experienced what it was like to not have parents in your life would neglect his kids the way he does.
I can buy Aang giving more attention to or having a deeper bond with Tenzin, but I cannot buy him straight up neglecting Kya and Bumi. Everyone who’s watched the OG series knows that Katara and Zuko wouldn’t let that shit slide.
@@taylorsly2392 thats what I think. Theres no realistic way that aang would just get away with neglecting his kids when he's married the overprotective Katara and is friends with the most neglected kid in avatar Zuko. Maybe I understand him doing it once but once katara saw the neglect she would have slapped him so hard it would awaken the avatar state.
@Colt James Never had a role model? Did you just forget about Gyatso, the other monks and Roku? I can completely buy Aang spending extra time with Tenzin to teach him about airbending and airbending culture, seeing as when he’s gone, Tenzin is his only hope of keeping airbending alive. What I can’t buy is him be neglective towards his other children, due to his nature, him knowing how bad parenting or a absent parent can effect a child due to his friends and knowing the person he married, Katara (cause if Aang did show signs of being neglectful towards his kids, knowing Katara, she would have slap him so hard that his arrow would have done a whole 360)
The thing is that the show never said was a bad parent , he just wasn’t a perfect dad. For crying out loud Aang fully accepted Kya when she came out , he wasn’t bad he just wasn’t perfect. Y’all are acting like sibling don’t argue with each other
@@spaacedust I love lin- that's why I said that s2 is bad because there wasn't enough of her 😳 a lack of something means not enough. A lack of lin is not enough lin.
Oh dear lord the designs of the spirits are one of the infuriating things about LoK! When I was a child, apart from the bending, I was always excited to see the spirits. What are their powers? Will they attack the Gaang, help them, or be neutral? is this their land or temple? Do they know the people of this village? What is their history? It was interesting! Whenever a spirit appeared, the tone of the scene chenged and everything would feel trascendental and, forgive the redundancy, spiritual. In TLoK it does feel like pokemons and yet-to-be-taimed alien pets, beings that don't have any goals, nor personalities, and get manipulated by gods. It's boring and sad, disrespect to the lore.
I still remember my initial reaction to the "corrupted" spirit in LoK. This is gonna be a long comment, but bear with me. Tenzin actually asks the spirit why it's so angry. This - and I thought it was meaningful - is pretty much what Aang did with Hei Bai. The spirit is angry, so it gets all weird and geometric. The way to deal with that is to calm it down. It worked in "Avatar" - spirits represent nature and the world. We need nature, but nature is not nice. It makes sense that a protector of the forest goes ballistic when its forest is burnt. "Avatar" gets the simple, but effective message across. When Tenzin can't calm a spirit down and Unalaq performs a weird light show to pacify it, I thought "oh wow! That's brilliant! Unalaq is brainwashing the spirit or sapping its energy or something! Instead of respecting nature and the spirit wishes properly, he's manipulating them somehow. He's a bad guy, but Korra is buying it, because he's an authority figure and she's still learning. Aw man, she's gonna be SO PISSED that he's brainwashing spirits!" That made sense to me. It'd be consistent with the original show, and create believable conflict - Unalaq knows a lot about spirits, but he takes shortcuts. It'd work with his personality, it could work with the whole "corruption" angle, except it'd turn out HE was a corrupting influence. But no, apparently if spirits are angry, they're just cranky and need a time-out. Spirit of Aang probably feels pretty stupid. Instead of talking to Hei Bai, he just needed to perform a special magic water dance! Respect spirits and try to figure out what they want before they smash everything in their path? That's for chumps! Hell, Tenzin seems to think the Aang approach is the correct one, so the show isn't just ignoring the established rules, it's bringing them up, and THEN discarding them! (besides, the original show indicated that going berserk was a spirit "thing" in general. The Owl Spirit that protected the library also turned into a weird thing when angered. TLoK could've expanded on that in some way, instead it just created a magical trick to pacify sapient beings. WELL THAT'S GREAT.)
This was lovely. I don't remember the scene in vivid detail but I do remember tenzin trying and unalaq just "fixing" the spirit. You and SC really brought the problem with spirits in korra to my attention.....wait. Why wasn't the ocean spirit and moon spirit ever mentioned?
@@zerofang009 my comment doesn't even touch on many ways I feel the plot could've been fixed. The world of Avatar has gone through its version of the Industrial Revolution (clearly), so the conflict could've revolved around that. What if spirits are just incoherently angry a lot of the time because they feel humans have gone too far? At some point, they can't be convinced all the changes humans made can be undone, like Aang convinced a forest spirit 60+ years ago that a single forest could grow back. So, since spirits are just about done with humans' BS and humans not only won't, but can't back down, Unalaq could present his method of calming spirits down as the only way to deal with them, since you can't exactly undo the industrialisation. So there could be this issue "Unalaq has a solution, it's clearly a bad one, but we still need our cities and gasoline and cars. So maybe his solution is the ONLY solution?". You could throw out the entire Dark Avatar stuff, focus on Unalaq presenting himself as the only person who can deal with the human-spirit conflict (and tie that to the civil war, which had to do with disrespect for all traditions in Unalaq's mind anyway). Great story potential there. I'm not saying the show HAD to do it like that, but that's just one example new stories could be squeezed out of the Avatar world without changing the rules drastically. It's possible to push a fictional world forward while keeping what had been used before.
@@Victor-qx3vx Appa or momo could've made a return as spirit guide. That would've made a good call back to roku and aang. For Koh though? It wouldve been cool to see him and it would make sense but it would be disaster. People have discusion all the time how Series 2 protagonist would do against series 1 antagonist in alot of media. In this case, korra would lose her face.
Watching season 2 makes me feel like Mike and Bryan literally wanted to destroy the canon. Like Kaiju Vaatu tossing aang's statue was the embodiment of their own hate for their Magnum Opus
@@luisfernando2489 Well technically Aang is no longer Korras past life so maybe they just wanted to show that she was her own person and not aang?. It kinda make sense when you see all these people hating on her because shes not Aang and that she has a different personality from him. Maybe they did it as a middle finger to those fans basically saying " Korra is her own person, she isn't nor does she need aang or any other avatar".
@@Guy-7719 she does go through growth as a character but you won't see it if you watch the show just to hate on it. She was an idiot at the start but she changed over the seasons. People do hate on her because shes not a copy of aang. Literally one of the reasons they hate on her is because she does things that aang wouldn't do. They hate her because she doesn't have the same personality as aang. They hate her character simply because she isn't a copy of aang.
@@Guy-7719 Korra isn't my favorite show. If you think that the show is trash then thats your opinion but don't act like its fact. You clearly weren't paying attention if your think that the lesson every season was about her knowing that the avatar is more than just her bending. Heck by your own admission you were even paying attention until season 3.
Bad things in season 2 Korra 1: love triangle appears, and is MUCH more potent 2: The first avatar story was meh 3: DaRk AvAtAr 4: All the good side characters just kinda exist 5: giant kaiju battle.... ok? But why though? 6: the spirit kites never shoulda existed 7: the spirit world was underwhelming 8: I keep forgetting the main bad guys name. He’s that forgettable. 9: Korra’s IQ went down a couple of notches for her to get tricked THIS easy Ok now the good points 1: Verrick! :D That is all.
The most hilarious misstep to me is the love triangle. Aang and Katara's affection made sense to me because you have two generally good people spending literally every day of a year together. They are forced to to end the war and they see each other through some highs and lows. The context of the journey also gives them few options to fall for anyone else. Meanwhile, Makko, Asami and Korra are all super attractive teenagers with their own things going on LIVING IN A HUGE CITY WITH PLENTY OF OTHER PEOPLE AND OPTIONS but they gotta stay in this love triangle? Makko is literally a pro athelete and cop, Asami is a beautiful smart rich woman and Korra is the freaking Avatar...but they never meet anyone else outside the group that interests them?
The dark avatar was awesome, though when I first heard of a dark avatar I expected it would be someone who could bend all 4 elements, but it was just a waterbender stronger than normal with a powerful spirit in him.
Avatar Juan made it redeemable for me and most people. I really wish they didnt do that bullshit they did with killing off the avatar cycle it wasnt needed. If they really wanted to do that they could of done it book 3 or even. Book 4 .
@@rennemarie Or just have Korra herself deciding to not rely on the old avatars constantly and make her own decisions herself. I’ve heard one of the reasons the creators did this was so Korra didn’t have to depend on the old avatars to help her, which I thought was stupid and frankly lazy writing, did they really think killing them was the only way to do it? It would’ve been completely in character for Korra to want to do things by her own and not needing the other avatars to rely on. Hell even in the avatar comic books Aang does exactly this when Roku kept telling him to just kill off Zuko and restore the lands back to the earth kingdom even when the people don’t want to, Aang himself decided to reject Ruko’s advice to do what he thought was right and after that he decided to cut ties with Ruko no longer needing his advice and helped create the republic of nations. Their was no actual reason to get rid of the avatars permanently, it was itching more then shock bait and lazy way of developing Korra.
Fire Nation commits genocide against the airbenders and attack their temples Spirits: I sleep Korra’s Dad Destroys one forest Spirits: I’M GONNA STOMP YOU DOWN!!!
U don't know what is harmonic convergence dont you ? You don't know that vaatu 's influence on spirit is growing stronger as it approaches don't you? Please rewatch the show everything makes sense. Y
"Wan is an unruly teenager who does some bad things but never goes too far." Also Wan: Kills several hunters for the crime of trying to provide for their families rather than show then which foods are safe or simply chasing them away. Presumably there IS a safe source of food considering Wan is still alive and not starving years later..
@@mckenzie.latham91He wasn’t at the time though. He became the avatar and realised all of his responsibilities years later. At that point he was just a down on his luck teenager who didn’t think his actions through. It‘s called growth. We even see it in the episodes.
This season was basically Mike and Bryan picking at the Avatar universe for dramatic cliche battles between good and evil, etc. It ruined the previously very compelling Spirit World and instead made it another dimension with PORTALS and stuff. There’s just no moderation in this season. It’s all action and cheap drama on things that had little to no character development last season (like Korra’s dad.) No storytelling, no development, most importantly no mysterious or mystic elements, unlike the original, which is what made its universe so compelling in the first place. Mike and Bryan didn’t care about the universe. They just wanted an EPIK BATOL for entertainment! No depth whatsoever!
@@IM_GOING_TOO_HAM Raava and Vatu are pretty clearly supposed to be good and evil, and the show never makes any attempt to show nuance or treat them as needing balance. Instead it's just about one being the spirit of the avatar and of good, and the other one wanting to destroy the world. Seems pretty good and evil to me.
Jason Jones light and dark doesn't automatically mean good and bad. There cant be peace if theres not a little bit of chaos. Neither ravva or vatu can be destroyed or live without the other. There is a piece of each within each other.
If it were me I would have changed the ending of the professor in the library. I would have left an air of mystery by having Wong Shi Tong call a fox servant by that name. Never answer the question. But theoretically it would instead imply that by staying the library for all eternity and being lured by the knowledge, he we was forced into servitude and lost his humanity. Or maybe have the guy hung up and displayed like an insect. Wong Shi Tong wouldn't just leave corpses around in his precious library.
I really liked Professor Zei. He had a true yearning and passion for knowledge. While it was a bit cruddy Sokka used information he gathered in the library for war, I feel like Zei's philosophy of knowledge for knowledge's sake should have restored Wan Shi Tong's faith in humanity and allowed good-natured scholars admission.
@@EyesWillRule I saw in some fic an idea that he became a spirit himself. Or rather a ghost, so he can keep reading and learning for forever. I liked that, he didn't deserve such death.
I like the idea of having his skeleton (tho you're right it would make sense Wong Shi Tong would make them an exhibit) AND the fox thing. Though I don't think it would necessarily imply he was "forced into servitude and lost his humanity". The dude had a selfless pure LOVE for knowledge, there's no reason to think he wouldn't do that willingly or see it as a reward if it happened without his input. I think the real intrigue of it would be the question of "Is this actually the professor?? Or was Wong Shi Tong so moved by someone being so purely devoted to knowledge without ulterior motives that he formed a bond with this human despite his resentment of humans and cynicism about human nature that he ended up naming one of his foxes after him to remember him by? If it is the professor, did Wong Shi Tong have anything to do with him becoming a collector spirit, or was this a spontaneous transformation of the professor's spirit upon his death as a result of his love for this place and likely presence in a spiritual space when he died? How DID he die? How long did he survive down there and why?" It would have been so cool and bittersweet, a satisfying ending for a character but still so chilling. Like the professor would probably be thrilled and honored by EITHER possibility. But we as the audience have to reckon with the fact either Wong Shi Tong finally made a human friend and cared for them so much he can't fully let them go, or that the guy the Gaang were forced to leave behind by his own will was so single-mindedly devoted to his passion he'll spend all of eternity building up a library for one lone hoarder owlman, and probably love every second of it, if he's even capable of enjoyment. THAT'S SICK AS HELL!!! Also my new HC, so thank you for that.
I can never forgive the fact they made Korra loser her connection, I think that is some of the worst bs possible. people who are like iT shOws hOw poWeRfUl kOrrA iS oN hEr oWn, wiThOuT tHe aVatAr sPirT and I’m just like ... :/ that’s kinda the whole point of the avatar/ the avatar state. The avatar is a chosen person to bring balance, already making them the most powerful bender and then the avatar state is to help them in situations of dire need, obviously the avatar state can be used for lesser emergencies but LOK completely throws that very personal and vulnerablity of the avatar out the window in season two, whether that be because of korras arrogance or just sloppy writing. And the way they ~almost~ never act like that loss is a big deal/try to find more answers/fix it is super disappointing and even out of character for characters like Tenzin. The avatar spirt/state was so deeply neglected in LOK after being so perfectly crafted in ATLA that makes season 2 so unbearably awful and cringey.
That they deleted the avatars is the most anticlimactic things ever, even in the context of the show itself. In season4, we even see how useless the avatarstate became and it feels like they missed the point entirely. It is supposed to be a godmode that over generations grew beyond what a human is supposed to be able to do, which is why Aang only got the ability to use it freely when the story was already over and he did not need it anymore. The need to nerf it to keep the plot intact and the act of actually going through with it shows how much they fucked it up.
They totally messed it up. We should have seen Korra go into the avatar state sooner than the last episode. Like when Amon was taking her bending away, why didn't it awaken then? Or when she waa fighting tarlock and started loosing. There were multiple times when the avatar state should've kicked in but it didn't.
I think the biggest problem with Korra is its hard shift from Eastern Buddhism to Western Christianity. Avatar felt like a true representation of Buddhism, harmony and polytheism. It was nebulous about spirituality because in that culture, spirituality isn't a bunch of rights and wrongs, but varying perspectives. In Korra, everything is just literalized and narrow. Instead of the spirit world being an internal journey of fables and nature, it's just another dimension with weird plants and aliens. Instead of balance, there's now just general God and Satan figures, with ultimate good and ultimate evil. Korra feels like a Westernized version of Avatar, which ends up oversimplifying the original's nuance.
I don't get ur comment this season is all about balance. Its all about yin and yang. And just because these concept are personnified into raava and vaatu, this for u makes a "hard shift to christianism". Quite surprising. Then the spirit world is ALL about spiritual journey... wan korra, jenorah tenzin his brother and sister all evolved spiritually by walking their way through it. its right in front your eye and you don't see it. Then un end up about the original nuance about balance. I would respond that lok did the great work in explaing that the quest for balance isnt "just " an issue of the material world. Its actually a matter of both worlds and we learn that get to understand that rhe world we knew in avatar ang story was in disbalance because raava and wan defeated and enprisonned vaatu + seperated the two worlds. And the the true quest of the avatar is to understand that both need to remain free and balanced. Unalaq had to come over and explain it to korra. Everything makes totally sense
@@10thletter40 @eldrad9131 The whole reason the Western conception of good and evil even exists is _because_ of Christianity, that's _where_ it comes from, the basic philosophical lens that someone from the West uses to define good and evil can trace its origins back to various Christian philosophers, who were of course using The Bible as their framework. Eastern philosophy has an entirely different way of defining good and evil, but the most important detail that will be emphasized the moment it comes up is: Yin and Yang do _not_ represent good and evil. Yin and Yang encompass all things, almost any concept or idea you can name falls under either element in Daoism, light is Yang, darkness is Yin, masculine is Yang, feminine is Yin, (this is why Aang is even named Aang, it's a masculine male name derived directly from Yang), but _good_ does not fall under Yang, and _evil_ does not fall under Yin, this is a misinterpretion that comes into existence exclusively when someone operating from a Western framework learns about Yin and Yang. Good can be broadly defined as having a proper balance between yin and yang, and evil is the result of them falling out of balance. Example: say ambition is Yang, and compassion is Yin, if your ambition outpaces your compassion, then you get an Ozai or Azula, but when they are in balance, you get ideal warriors like Zuko and Iroh. Someone who has compassion but no ambition would be unable to act when they need to, likely becoming some kind of enabler. _This_ is the traditional philosophical framework the East uses for morality, there are no traits that are inherently good or evil like we see in Western stories, it's all about reckoning with what traits you have and finding a productive balance between them, Vegeta in Dragon Ball doesn't lose or gain any traits throughout his redemption arc, they're only _rearranged_ and have their individual emphasis rebalanced.
@@Cri_Jackal bro i like your comment. U understand the principles of balance. My point is that you guys are the ones who uses western eyes and only focus on good v evil narrative when looking at this season. Take a sec to Reconsider it. All what you say is PRECISELY what Unalag is saying. He understood that there's actually no evil and good but only balance matter He understood that the world the way it was with spiritual and material world being seperated, with vaatu element of yin being traped, with the existence of the avatar maybe also with human overproliferating.... all this world is in disbalance and need to be fixed. That is what i see. Unalaq is right and an era with raava dominating isnt a " good " thing. So to me this is how alok surpasses atla as it is not just about making the avatar fight a vilain who wants to dominate the world like osai but its about making her understand that there is a profound disbalance in the world with spiritual and material sphere being separated and with her very existence as raava avatar and the dominance over vaatu. Finally at the end of the season, vaatu is defeated but free to come back again, i think raava also is kinda diminished and both worlds are reunited.= More balanced world.... but still raava's avatar is still there and season 3 tells us that balance is still not achieved And Zaire is probably the solution. But now if you want to reduce the show into good vs bad fight its your problem and your bias. Nothing is perfect but to me the show does a good work regarding eastern spirituality.
Without Aaron and Elizabeth Ehasz, we got a twighlightified fanfic of ATLA aka Legend of Korra. It looks like Avatar, sounds like Avatar, kinda feels like Avatar, but it just ends up falling short. Legend of Korra completely ignored many of the things that the fanbase loved about ATLA. The character development and how they interact with each other, you felt that they had tangible relationships in ATLA. In LOK, it was them telling us that they were "friends" but you could see right through it.
I just don’t understand how (or more importantly why) a series that was originally fantasy turned into 1920’s steampunk became GIANT ROBOTS WITH LASERS? You can defend the advancement of their tech from avatar to korra but please explain to me how we go from 1920’s tech to giant laser bots. Please.
Holy hell, yes! I’ve watched and loved the original so many times. I’m really sure, but I’ve never been been hooked on Kora. My kids have started watching it, so I’ve been in and out and this was the same question I had.
In The Last Airbender, the two creators wanted to have a love triangle between Aang, Katara, and Toph. Aaron Ehasz stepped in, and changed it. In Korra, the creators wanted the same thing. This time, Aaron Ehasz wasn’t there to stop them because he wasn’t the head writer. That’s why Korra was so different, the creators were the head writers. Michael and Bryan may have made Avatar, but they aren’t writers. Aaron Ehasz was what made Avatar’s writing so good. Korra is what the creators wanted The Last Airbender to be like. Edit: I have no memory of commenting this, I don’t even know if it’s true lmao sorry
Ömer Direkci I think he’s both under and overrated. Elizabeth also doesn’t get enough credit Aaron’s role was basically as Brykes filter. He kept character arcs straight
@@omerdirekci8857 not really. He's actually overrated. Don't get me wrong, without him Atla wouldn't be as good but same with Bryke. If Bryke or Aaron were the masterminds, then both of their shows would be as amazing as Atla. Look at Aaron's the dragon prince. The pacing of it is way too slow and it takes way too many ideas from Atla. Yes I know you can take some from a show you work on but it takes way more. Neither Bryke or Aaron could recreate the success of avatar on their own. Both get way too much credit. It was the entire production team that made avatar good. Not certain individuals
@@samdude1526 The best summary I heard was that they were like the Beatles. Together they were a creative masterpiece but their solo careers were never as good as they didn't have each other to cancel each other out
Mako and bolin from the legend of korra aren't that interesting but every time those two are put together there are so many sweet and funny moments which is interesting. Mako and bolins relationship is well written but them by themselves isn't interesting
@@billbutton8468 Name one love triangle that was good or helped the plot in anyway? The Korra love triangle waa terrible. It popped up in random places like Mako being relived that Korra didn't get her bending taken away and that she was fine. At that moment they decided to ram a love triangle plot into it.
@@ItsRemmyy i dont know many love triangles. I just liked the drama of it. I liked how LoK wasnt scared to go into their relationships and even have it be messy
@@billbutton8468 Thats why people don't like them. They are messy and cause drama at the wrong moments. They aren't brave for putting this into their show.
season 1: love the asthetic and vibes, good introduction, love probending, good villain, definitely above average season 2: vibe aint it, boring season, EXTREMELY stupid end fight, avatar past lives all destroyed season 3: pretty good, good villains season 4: alright until the end, then just a clusterfuck of nonsense
@@rangers94ism you mean the fight between two giant world ending spiritual giants that embody light and darkness? Don’t sound very avatar-y or remotely like every other fight in both series to me
I absolutely hate the new designs of sprits, the avatar ones were mostly just animals just a little more mysterious but now they’re unnatural colours, glowy, semi translucent and looked like they are made of jelly or plastic
This season REALLY bummed me out. I wholeheartedly think that LOK could have been just as good as ATLA, but season 2 demonstrates that every time it feels like every time they have the beginnings of a good idea or interesting plot/characters, they find a way to resolve it into irrelevance just so they can pump in the love triangle and shitty megaboss death lazers. Also, THANK YOU for bringing up how often Asami just gets fucked over by the writers!!!! She is one of my favorite characters because like the equalists, Suki, Mai, and Ty Lee, I think it's really fun to watch nonbenders be able to compete with benders in fights! But they reduce her down to be a literal plot device when convenient and write her out of scenes when theres nothing else she can do for anyone else. I rewatched LOK when it was on Netflix and the amount of times she would literally just appear in the middle of a scene so that she can do something for the others is astounding. We'll only see Korra, Mako, and Bolin talking and then all of a sudden they'll switch "camera angles" and Asami will be there to tell them she can drive or involve her business in some way.
Just saw it....fan fiction at it's finest. Just bad. What a complete dissappointment. Korra as a character was written so bad. Tenzin got butchered to a stooge. And the whole spirit world concept got completely destroyed, did the creators even paid attention to everything that ATLA did with the spirits? That 1st avatar story went complete anime (bad one). Dear lord what the hell were they thinking besides cheap pop by making Aang a bad father, just unbelievable.also thr bolin abusive relationship wasnt funny.
Why does korra never listens to Tenzin, he was always right at the end.And his words were good fr bUt KoRrA wAs So SmArT sHe CuT oF aLl HeR pAsT aVaTaRs 🤠🤡🤠🤡🤠🤡 (The avatar sons who was the closest to him)
I'll confess: I came to Korra late. I enjoyed Avatar and Korra had finished. I avoided spoilers so I knew there were multiple seasons. I was finishing up season 1, saw that season 2 was named "spirits" and grew excited! Why the villain has robbed her of her power! This would make her vulnerable. This is going to be awesome as she goes on a quest in the next season to like, relearn the roots of the Avatar, that there's more than just the physical abilities, there's a spiritual element to it. We'll even have echoes back to S1 as she gets to experience what it's like being less powerful. We'll get to see a part of the world that was barely touched upon in the first series! This is going to be so awes-- Wait. What is Aang doing there? That to me, is Korra in a nutshell. They have golden opportunities with excellent, organic set ups for numerous potential stories, and then will proceed to kill all of them and try to frankenstein the corpse.
You are overreacting at a point its funny.Ang is literally there in flashbacks of the past and during few second as korra connects with her past avatar... and for this lok is shit. Ahahah people are crazy
@@eldrad9131 - You misread. I wasn't referring to flashbacks, I was referring to the end of S1. There it looks like the show is set to have an interesting and captivating plot line for the next season... and then Aang's spirit *literally* shows up from no where and fixes the problem.
@@simplegarak i understand the resolution of her loosing her bending was quite brutal, considering it was grown during the whole season as the worst thing to happen . BUT i found it on point for a reason : It coincided with her finally reaching the Avatar State which was also a background development of the season. That was pretty satisfying to see what we expected the most being the solution to what we feared the most. A good ending to what could have been by the way a one season series
@@eldrad9131- ?? It didn't "coincide" with her reaching the avatar state - it was literally just being handed to her by Aang just like getting her powers restored. It had nothing to do with her efforts or character development.
@@simplegarak it did coincide with her character development. I dont remember exactly the instances but i think she went trough all the processes to open her chakra just like how aang was trained to do with that chakra master in order to control the avatar state.
I hate what they did to Aang and his kids. I can buy Aang accidentally and subconsciously favoring Tenzin slightly. Nobody’s perfect and Aang has a lot of trauma he doesn’t have time to process, not to mention childcare ideals 100 years out-of-date. But I draw the line at Aang being blatantly neglectful and Katara not kicking his butt for it
The 2nd season was SOOOOOO bad, like why they went the route they did made no sense! It turned into a shitty love triangle, a crazy spirit obsessed uncle trying to kill his niece, and ended with the Avatar Cycle destroyed....LIKE WHY?!
Season 2 is like if you were to let your cousin, little sibling, or nephew your account to play on and come back a couple hours later to see the damage they have cause from their actions.
The writers missed a big opportunity in season one when they said Amon took Korra's bending. They could've had Korra go on a full series journey to regain her powers by reconnecting with the elements. Having her grow and mature, learn humility and learn to appreciate the spiritual side of bending after losing her powers. And they could've had the original team Avatar train her.
This, one of the biggest arguments ive seen someone make is saying „not only is the avatar mastering the elements by searching for a teacher of their own and travelling the world it also implies that the avatar is constantly engaging with the world that they are supposed to protect“ but we never get that because Korra was already bending (although not perfectly) 3 of the 4 elements since she was a little kid, she also got basically held captive at the sourthern water tribe.
I remember mildly disliking season two way back when I first watched it, but back then it was simply because I preferred the darker 1920s noir aesthetic of the first season and didn't like the sudden swallow dive into pure anime fantasy complete with knockoff Ghibli spirits, kaiju battles, and the flying mint bunny from Hetalia. That and it had way less scenes of Lin Beifong, who was my favourite character throughout the show 🤣 Years later after watching numerous breakdowns of S2, I REALLY dislike it, especially after seeing people point out problems with it that 17-year-old me didn't notice, and now I just feel like we were cheated out of a genuinely interesting season about Korra realising that the Avatar can't solve everything in favour of a Dark-Avatar-Kaiju-Battle 😮💨
Korra had adult themes/ideas and feels like it was written by a child. ATLA had child friendly ideas but was written in quite a mature and adult way. ATLAs antagonists are nuanced, with Zuko being given a redemption arc and Azula being shown to be emotionally abused and also a victim of the firelord. We get a mature nuanced look at the fire nation and colonisation, and we're shown that not every individual is evil, but that they are still complicit in the crimes of their government? Korra? Let's invent bending communists who think everyone should be equal and take away bending, but also have them be led by a bender and forget about any genuine societal issues or commentary. Let's have our anarchist talk about how much he loves anarchy and and kill one dictator, but have him just fighting the avatar and air nomads for the rest of the season instead of like, doing anarchism.
and lets have other political ideologies portrayed as literal evil. wtf? this isnt how politics work. sure extremism is bad but you have to at least see the other persons point of view and explore why its bad, some sort of middle ground maybe? the world isnt perfect and change may be good. this shows 0 understanding of political issues. and then at the end things improve (non benders are treated better, the world becomes more spiritual, the earth kingdom is no longer opressed) just because someone was so loud about their beliefs and because they took things too far. only extremism has any change in the world of korra but the show expects you to believe that its bad
@@waifu_png_pl6854 yeah turns out all we needed to create a free and democratic earth kingdom is to have an anarchist and a fascist get involved. Who would have guessed? Oh and communism is just kill everyone with powers now apparently (tbf a pretty good summary of stalinism). No discussion about how people might actually be affected in a world where a portion of the population can basically kill anyone they want at any time.
Season 2 is the season that made me stop watching Korra. Then followed by my friends telling me I was wrong for dropping it because “a bad season doesn’t make a bad show”. I was then told that Bumi, my favorite character of Aang’s children, was turned into an air bender by the writers. I was not going back to the show. I wanted Bumi to have his own purpose of being the No bender son of the avatar who is just as good, if not greater, than his siblings. I also hated the changes that none of my friends seemed to understand. The retcons to the canon of the Avatar universe was genuinely terrible, and I hated it. If anyone’s curious, my friends just told me that the team didn’t know they were getting more seasons, hence why the show is written that way. I didn’t care. That’s no excuse for those changes or those horrible executions.
The way I manage to cope with Korea and season two is that I just think of it more like a fan fiction, kinda like the cursed child in Harry Potter, its technically Canon, but like is it really
The show badly needed a proper direction, aka hiring a head writer like Aaron Ehasz. It's clear the creators aren't that strong as writers, season 2 proved this.
He’s really well written and personally my favourite character (and possibly favourite part) of the show. But he receives waayyy more focus then any other character apart from maybe korra. Like the “new team avatar” have barely enough about them to be character and instead feel more like a characterture
@@finlayames6216 Its only because of its serialized format. The only way for these characters to get a good backstory is if the show had an episodic format.
When korra released I tried my best to care about it as the heir apparent to my favorite nickelodeon show of all time. I stopped after season 1 because i found Korra to be flawed beyond repair, a pointless love triangle, and somehow a villain to be more relatable than the protagonist. Oh and that the powercreep of the bending system was so bad that it relegated lightning bending as a factory job and energy bending to be basically moot as bloodbending can basically do the same thing without the risk of losing your own bending in the process. And to hear that season 1 was supposed to be a standalone that then was expanded into 4 seasons only makes the flaws of season 1 more glaring.
I always thought that the reason ATLA was so near perfect was because they had a brilliant team of writers to help the 2 creators guide their ideas, tell them what makes sense, what doesn't, whats dumb, what's awesome, people who knew how to create a world with unique lore that was believable and cohesive. When watching LOK, you can just tell that was not the case. Any chance of LOK being up to par with ATLA disappeared when I saw that it wasn't the same writing team.
Please don't defend its flaws. We need to call them out if we want improvements if there is ever more Avatar content. (Besides the live Action netflix one although I don't have high hopes for that one)
@Colt James yeah I mean I went from loving korra to hating it now I think it's kind of meh but I dont agree that its "garbage" from people like E;R who clearly have their own agenda for hating the show.
Every time that i rewatch korra is skip the season 2, 3 and 4 are the best by so far and 1 is a good concept but the love triangle don't let me enjoy it at all
Thing is, they didn't. Regardless of whether they didn't plan for more seasons, the love square was a fault of the writing. If all the drama between Bolin/Mako/Korra/Asami was cut out, there would've been plenty of time to develop the new Team Avatar. Who was begging for it to be brought back in season 2 and eat up episodes of screen time?
Do you have a video where you dive a little more deeply into Korra's character and why you like her? For me, I kind of hated her in season 1 & 2, whereas season 3 & 4 I guess you can say my opinion of her improved from hate to I don't like or dislike her now. I could sorta see where they were going for a reverse Aang arc, but I'm not entirely convinced it was very well done or earned.
The new spirit designs are freaking ugly - not to mention, I thought the Avatar was a symbol rather than a person - which is why the First Avatar shit bugs me. If there is a first of something, then everyone who comes after them will inevitably have insecurity about being "better." The balance of the universe should not have a "better." attached to it!
How can an Avatar be a symbol? Do you even know what an Avatar is? The Avatar is the human incarnation of a divine power or deity. Hence every Avatar is basically the Avatar of Raava.
@@vetarlittorf1807 While I don't agree at all with OP, that is also not how the Avatar works. The Avatar isnt an incarnation of Raava, they are fused with Raava. If anything the Avatar is more akin to a jinchuriki from Naruto.
@@dw3134 that makes no sense. The avatar cycle has always been able to end and that doesn't mean that the avatar isn't an incarnation of something. The avatar is the incarnation of Raava. That being able to be broken doesnt change that
To be fair to Korra, they didn't know they were gonna get three more seasons. They thought they were just gonna be a mini series with book one, but then Nickelodeon ordered more seasons. had the creators been given the four seasons from the very start, they probably would've come up with something more cohesive and less disjointed.
There have been great miniseries that didn’t get seasons green lit and were still able to be more cohesive and respectful to their source material than LoK.
@@dreampiper I think you misunderstand the problem that WhatAlsaid! is addressing. It's not that the creators were unable to make something good, (the fact that they made Avatar should show how competent they are as writers) it was that they were victim to corporate mismanagement and were rushed into pumping out extra seasons that they couldn't plan out.
@@dreampiper a Mini-series is something that only lasts *ONE* season. Legend of Korra was originally just supposed to be *ONE* season, but then the studio ordered more seasons, turning it into a full series. Say what you want about books 2-4, but book 1 was solid A+ and that's because that's all the creators intended in making.
Remember Shaolin Showdown? The show literally had a McGuffin that turned good characters evil and evil characters good, but even that show handled the villains with some personality and nuance
Bolin's whole movie star story was so obviously ripped off from Pratchett's Moving Pictures, with Varrick as CMOT Dibbler, the actress named Ginger, magic dog and then of course there's a kaiju fight at the end. Except Moving Pictures is bloody hilarious.
Wan's story is awesome and evocative right up until he runs into the two spirits. Then the whole show takes a nose dive. It's the idea that undercuts all of the other interesting ideas. A story about just a civil war is interesting, and has difficult things to say. A story about the devil is lazy.
Good things about season 2: - Avatar Wan - The civil war storyline (for me it was sorta interesting to see them fight with waterbenders on both sides) - Varrik and his war profiteering storyline - The scene of Wan imprisoning Vaatu - The scene of Raava telling Korra to fight Vaatu Bad Things: - RETCONNING THE SPIRITS! WHO IN THEIR RIGHT MIND? WHY? I... just can't - Raava & Vaatu should be more about balance vs disorder. The show acts like Raava is the personification of good, when it could've explored how both were essential to maintaining balance - Retconning the spirit world. Stuff like "your emotions control it now" and introducing the tree of time which was solely a plot device - The ending fight, I mean cmon, giant spirit people? Really? - The words dark avatar -The love triangle -Unalaq is supposed to be some spiritual master but he doesn't know that Vaatu doesn't just want to reunite the spirit and human worlds, he wants to do random evil stuff too
This sums up my views of season 2 as well, it had some good ideas but the execution was a mess, avatar wan and his story was definitely the best part for me
Season 1: I liked it, Amon was a cool villain but I didn’t like the love triangle Season 2: aweful Season 3: I like it so far though I’m only on episode 5 Season 4: haven’t watched it yet
Your description of Book 4: Balance, is actually surprisingly accurate for me(or it was for a while), as it only aired online and I didn’t know about the sudden change until a few years later(which is kind of ironic considering the first episode’s name and the time jump). I wouldn’t be surprised if anyone just found out about the fourth season because it’s on Netflix now.
"aweful" I know that's a typo but it's also a perfect new word to describe something so awful, you're sort of in awe at how something THIS bad can exist at all.
Season 1: this is awesome. This might be better than the first show. Better action and way more interesting story. Season 2: still really interesting story but maybe not as good.. I really like the avatar origin. Haven't watched the rest yet. Can't wait.
I remember when the finale for season 2 aired, the only thing I saw people saying about it was "Holy crap! Did you see Admiral Zhao!? Lol What're you doing outside of A:TLA season 1!?"
Here is my issue with this season- The civil war has potential but leads to nowhere or push it to the backdrop after the beginnings too many B-plots Asami does nothing, Bolin is still off Missing the point of Raava and Vaatu as yin-yang. They supposed to be together and balanced not defeat the dark on just assumption of evil. Book 3 has a better yin yang symbol because red lotis want freedom even spreading chaos without leaders. Love triangle screws up the dynamic of team avatar, they did it better in book 3 because the love triangle is thrown out of the window. Mako is too pessamistic I forgot about unalaaq because that how forgetful is he, he supposed to be a fundamentalist villain that wants to conquer in the name of the spirits instead of power-hungry. Don't get me started with Dark Avatar Korra is too cocky and trigger-happy compared season one Korra until after beginnings without any development (season 3-4 have it) Kuviara feels like the true dark avatar than what we got because it presents the dark version of korra Love triangles are handled better in Steven universe- Greg vs Perl over Rose, Steven Universe handled anime tropes better- even the kaiju/ Ultraman reference are handled better
Korra season 2 is pretty mediocre for me with Ravaa and Vatuu being too black and white but the plot with Tenzin and Kya and Bumi was my favorite part and was pretty eye opening that OMG Aang changed over many decades IKR so hard to get
Wan's story would've been awesome as its own unique stand-alone myth---and the animation style in those episodes was just breathtaking---but it frankly drags down the quality and ruins of the mystery of the Avatarverse.
Korra was written to be a big jerk. The show gives her a pass by almost everyone because of Avatar status I still can't understand why Asami would want to be in a romantic relationship with that crazy person who *bleeped* her life six ways to Sunday and waked all over others. Season 1 and 4 made a big deal about daddy betraying Asami's trust and it was personal. She doesn't hold any hint of ire against Mako and Korra, who just used her for her resources.
A good example of proper use of the “good and evil balance” stuff, I would say is Star Wars. As much as people narc on the prequel trilogy I think it shows Anakin’s journey very well. The idea that he was destined to bring balance as that he DOESNT do that is preposterous to me. He did bring balance by sadly having to wipe out the Jedi, and then, even though it may have been years later, he still took down Palpatine and brought balance in the end between good and evil. One side can’t outweigh the other for there to be balance. The Jedi got too powerful so it just had to happen.
I'd say he's more akin to, well, Iroh or either of Azula's friends. He's explored and has a significant influence on the story, but he's still secondary. Zuko is easily AtLA's deuteroganist.
@@BonaparteBardithion I dunno. Tenzin is VERY clearly part of the main cast. At least in the first three seasons. He is the only character outside of Korra to have to constantly deal with his own supporting cast and antagonists. In book 1, his conflict with Tarlokk and issues with Lin are just as present as Korra's issues with Mako and Asami, and conflict with Tarlok. The first episode sets up the main conflict between him and Korra and how they both need to learn from one another. In book 2, his whole side story with his family is pretty much the same as Zuko's side stories with Iroh and later Azula's group. His journey to find spirituality is key to the plot because he NEEDS to succeed in order to help Korra. Book 3 is about bringing back the airbenders, and the main villain is an airbender enthusiast. I don't need to explain how key season 3 was to Tenzin's character. And I think that's on purpose. It's why he narrates the opening, like his mother before him (who was the tritagonist of the original series). His status as the deuteragonist (of the first three seasons) isn't immediately apparent to us because he's totally different from the expected cases. You normally expect the love interest (Mako), sidekick (Bolin), or rival (Asami?) to be the deuteragonist. And normally they are someone in the same age range as the protag. It's normally not the mentor character because they normally should have everything figured out. But Tenzin's arc into being the proper mentor is tied to carrying on the legacy of the Avatar, his father. Just like Korra is trying to begin her own legacy as the avatar. The two are tied together on a spiritual level. Just like Aang and Zuko (who also is a descendant of a previous avatar). Honestly, Tenzin got just the perfect amount of time and care dedicated to him. I can't say it's his fault the other characters sucked. Because we've seen before that that's not the case. Lin, Bumi, Kya, and Jinora could easily fall into Tenzin's supporting cast of his story (Just like Iroh and Azula for Zuko's) and they all are super fleshed out and are able to contribute to the narrative as a whole rather than just being the main characters' cheerleaders.
When you explain it like that he does actually have a lot in common with Zuko's role. While Tenzin's support cast are decently fleshed out, his story suffers from most of his support cast channeling their energies to, as you put it, cheerlead Korra. The main difference between Tenzin and Zuko is that Zuko was allowed to exist outside of his "catch/help the Avatar" quest. They did that a little bit with Tenzin later on (especially after reintroducing airbenders), but like many parts of the show Tenzin's half of the story would have been greatly improved by more time and better pacing.
@@BonaparteBardithion Well, that's what we get when Nick doesn't give Korra the proper runtime. That's not an excuse, I know, but it clearly affected the show. Korra suffers from trying to tackle more complex issues with less time on its hands than the original. Which ends up making all its ideas feel half baked.
I mean, one could claim that Zuko himself for the amount of time spent on him, is one of the main characters himself, in fact i would say Zuko has more claim to being a main character than Toph because she comes in season 2 whereas Zuko has been there since episode 1 season 1. The issue is that in terms of how more developed Tenzin is then most of new team avatar, this would be like only focussing on Zuko and Aang and never bothering giving katara, toph or sokka any real development and assigning them to support and or B roles that go very little anywhere,
2:52 It was awful how Korra was bothering Mako at work. I mean sure complain anywhere else but why go to your boyfriend's workplace, the police station, to berate him while he's working.
She's not only bothering him. She made a scene and smashed/kicked whatever his desk causing his paperwork to be disorganized and his office mates be disturbed on their work too.
@@queenberuthiel5469thankfully for him, Lin didn't hold him accountable for this, probably cuz she herself had a wild break up with Tenzin where she did something to Air Temple Island (we don't know what she did but I assume that she damaged ATI with her earthbending or something)
Something I felt was stupid was that things like metal bending and bending lightning are pretty common now. I mean the reason most can't bend lightning is because they need inner peace along with being able to take a lot of time to master it and metal bending pretty much needs you to inspect the material in sense which is why Toph can do it. So I could understand Toph's child learning metal bending but not a massive police force.
I remember when Korra was airing, and as soon as I watched the season 2 finale as a young teen, I dropped the show entirely. I had previously watched ATLA and loved it up until the very end. I was born in China and adopted by an American family, and when I saw a show with tremendous eastern influence I connected with it immediately. Seeing Korra, where basically every aspect is mishandled at least slightly, and with such high expectations for the Avatar team from their previous work, I was so disappointed.
I hate it when people say" well the avatar wasn't a masterpiece either but no one talks about that". People actually do talk about its flaws but people seem to over look that. We don't need to sit here and go through all the flaws of one show just to criticze the sequal. And wether or not the avatar or Korra are both good or bad shows is an opinion so don't go around claiming its a fact.
@@sinistrality511 yeah but people don't understand that. In fact the flaws made the show better. If it was sl perfect and no one ever messed up and grew as characters then people would be complaining its not realistic.
@@sinistrality511 and really some of the flaws in Korra don't even take away the enjoyment. I would say that the things that take away yhe enjoyment are the love triangle, the giant robot, and the giant Kiju fight.
@@ItsRemmyy I enjoyed ATLA cuz of the semi-realistic issues they would deal with. It seemed real, and it felt like it actually taught good lessons and there was something you can learn from it. Korra felt too fantasized, it felt clunky and i didnt learn anything from it. I don't blame the creators for that, nickelodeon fucked them over.
Maybe, but at that point you are rewriting the characters pretty much beyond recognition from what we got. I just can’t believe people say Korra is more “mature” when the bad guy straight up says he wants to be the “dark avatar”. Like that’s so silly and obviously evil. And then two seasons later they try and say that he had a point? Nah man, he wanted the world to end
Dr. Topher it would've unleashed 10,000 years of chaos which in the shows context is presented as a very bad thing. if the concept were truly about balance then they shouldn't have made vaatu just purely evil
Allow me to rewrite wans story, if you will. We start after he's been kicked out of his village. I will keep in the turtles, as it appears they may have been the original balancers, back when humans were not a strong presence in the world. The only change I shall make is that they grant bending to all who ask, regardless of what species they are, and they do not "Give" bending as they were shown to, but rather, "Unlock" bending, or unlocking the chakaras and the knowledge to allow a person to begin bending a certain element. Won was starving, dying from exposure, dying from his inability to kill. He has been hurt from a few altercations with the hunters from his village, driving him to run further than they can reach. He stumbles into a dark bramble, the world more spirit than natural here. He goes in circles, the camera spinning wildly as he begins to panic. He hits against a tree and lashes out. It catches fire. He panics further as the bramble begins to catch alight around him. He still cannot see an exit, only fire and wood and thorns and smoke. He realizes he needs to learn to control the fire. He looks to his hand, then he looks up to the burning bramble around him. He takes a deep breath, then another, calming himself. He connects to the fire, breathing deeply, unconsciously keeping tight control of his core (As Iroh tried to teach zuko to do). As he calms himself and begins to balance himself, the fire dims, then swirls around him. He feels a sense of hope, looking around himself now in amazement. He closes the fire, leaving only a small flame by which to see. A twig snaps behind wan. He jolts, still on edge, and almost lashes out again, fire beginning to form. He dulls it back to his light, remembering to breathe. "Who's there?" He calls out. A spirit steps into the light. They are the protector of the bramble, and the secrets that lie within. The vines curl around them, forming a gentle face and a sweeping cape/dress (It is unclear which, as the leaves twist and shape and bend constantly but gently), and gestures to the singed bark. "Oh. Right. Sorry about almost burning down... your home?" The spirit nods. "Yeah, sorry. I didn't mean to. I just.. I'm scared of the dark nowadays." The spirit turn sto go. Wan turns to go as well, but collapses from his injuries. The spirit turns back hearing it. Things fade to black. Wan wakes up in a bed of soft leaves and moss. moonlight gently filters in above him. He groans and rolls over, then puts a hand to an injury. It is wrapped with cloth, padded with moss where it needs to be. Since this is already very long, I will leave it off here. Wan builds a relationship with this spirit, calming it from it's own rage when men attack it for firewood. He talks to the men and to the spirit, striking a deal to where the men take the wood, and in payment, they build within sight of the spirit, allowing it to see what it's home is used for. They are hesitant to live in the spirit wilds, but wan convinces them that it's better than fighting a spirit over it's home. Once he is well, he thanks the spirit and goes on his way. He naturally learns other bending forms slowly, overtime, as he becomes tuned to the way things work. (I can never remember the light and dark spirits) the spirit of yang comes to Wan. They talk, they form a true friendship. As he journey's across the world, he learns air through letting go, through dance and through balance. As he journey's, he goes through the avatar cycle, building knowledge of the element before it to improve the one after it. Fire and air, both flowing and free. Air and water, strong yet gentle. Water and earth, unyeidling and relentless. Earth and fire, both strong and bold. He talks to people, to spirits, forming friendships, making deals, aiding both the spirits and the humans as he needs to. He learns from the original benders. First the dragons, then the sky bison, the moon, and the badger moles, as well as the first benders. They learns together, forming a friendship and a bond unbreakable and everlasting. He lives a long life, during which the turtles disappear. The spirit world naturally begins to separate from the human world, the bitter spirits praying on humans and retreating further from civilization. On his death bed, the spirits of control and chaos come to him, holding onto his hands as he dies. As he closes his eyes, they bend to him, twirling around him. As he breathes his last breath, it changes, swirling into the avatar cycle. The series ends with a crying child, dressed like an air nomad. The avatar cycle has begun in full.
Can I read this in full? I always thought about Wan backstory could be little better. Also from what I understand people still live on Lion Turtle coresponding their element and grant them the knowledge through praying? I still don't get that
For me the problems with season 2 are just amplified issues that exist throughout TLOK. It's a great show but it tried so hard to build upon what ATLA did while trying to distance itself from that story and it's characters. I can understand why that would be the case since this is supposed to be about a new Avatar and her setting. It wouldn't be fair to Korra to have her story overshadowed by more established and beloved characters, but in doing so they really cut off TLOK from it's source material. Those characters were instrumental in creating the world Korra inhabited, and to ignore their presence except when convenient really hurt the show. Think of how integral Roku was to Aang in both providing guidance and explaining how his failures lead to the situation Aang faced. TLOK actively avoided that relationship between Aang and Korra so she could be the focus of the story but in the process had to either ignore important plot points or farm them out to other characters as side plots that only served as gimmicks for information dumps. Season 2 is a prime example of this as we're immediately introduced to the issues between the Northern and Southern Water Tribes and the spirits. Well, what was Aang doing for the majority of his time as the Avatar that things became this unbalanced? Did he neglect those duties? Might that tie into his potential failings as a father? And could that could relate to Korra's issues with her parents and relationship with Mako? Could all of this have been given greater perspective through a spirit mentor session with Aang where he reflected upon his failings and the difficulties of repairing a world torn apart by 100 years of war in his absence? And how balancing those responsibilities placed stress on his personal relationships, including as a husband and father? And maybe by the time a young Tenzin exhibits airbending Aang was exhausted and jaded with his role as the Avatar? That he saw the opportunity to rebuild the Air Nomads through his son as a chance to finally indulge in his own selfish needs while still satisfying his role as bringing balance to the world? It wouldn't have solved Korra's problems but it would have given her insight and inspiration that this sort of professional and personal struggle isn't just because she's bad at being an Avatar but that being the Avatar is really difficult. That simple scene would have given a ton of more insight into Tenzin and his siblings. Aang might very well have been a bad father because the only thing that could still bring him hope was the idea that the Air Nomads would slowly return through his son. That resulting pressure on Tenzin would have shaped so much of his personality and choices. Maybe that's really why he and Lin didn't work out? He was so obsessed with pleasing his beloved father and his dream of resurrecting the Air Nomads that he felt guilty about listening to his heart at the risk of having a relationship with a woman who might very well produce earthbenders than airbenders? That would have cut down on the necessity of needing Tenzin to be so heavily centered in Season 2 in secondary plots to serve as information dumps. That time then could have been better spent on his character development and the character development of others. And while we're at it, the entire North vs South and spirit unrest plotlines conspicuously avoided two key water tribe individuals from ATLA: Katara and Sokka. Katara is still alive during the events of Season 2 and we know Sokka was alive as recently as when Korra was a young girl. What changed in that time period that the North attained dominion over the South? Why was the festival allowed to become commercialized and the spirits ignored? Was it something Katara or Sokka did? Or something they fought against but ultimately lost? That would have fleshed things out and given viewers a more firm grasp on the setting while tying in beloved characters from the first series. That's pretty much the issue with all of TLOK. It's largely divorced from it's source material because it's afraid the inevitable nostalgia and comparisons to the first series would overpower it. Instead they take long detours to explain developments in the world since the last series and inevitably venture into revisions that are neither organic to the series or helpful in advancing the development of the current set of characters. When they do bring back characters it's clear they're simply doing fan service since their roles could have been handled by others just as easily, or they serve to further complicate the plotlines by introducing a whole slew of new characters and issues. *coughBeiFongscough*
Ya know, before Korra was made, I heard of a theory about a "dark avatar" and it seemed cool. But the dark avatar we got wasn't what I thought when I heard about a dark avatar.
One of the more memorable scenes to me in this season was Korra threatening a judge. On no evidence that he was actually corrupt. She's lucky he actually ended up being corrupt, or she'd be in some deep shit. There isn't a lot to like in this show. Any grey area or nuance the villain has, in any of the seasons, is eventually tossed aside by the end, so we can still have the good guy vs bad guy. Rather than just two people with different but justifiable views being in conflict with each other. Yeah, I know Avatar did this with Ozai obviously being a psychopath, but he was never protrayed as maybe having a good point at first, then shifting to "No, he's just evil".
The problem is that this season had SO MUCH POTENTIAL. They executed it SO POORLY. It was like they used wattpad as a reference instead of actually going back to the Og source material and making something wonderful out of this. Exploring the spirit world. Actually portraying yin and Yang ads complimentary instead of being antagonistic against one another. I was thinking Korra would play it as though they made a mistake in locking up Vatuu because without them there is no balance and rebellion against the overbearing ‘peace’. I just like to pretend s2 doesn’t exist at this point😓
I remember never being able to fully get into korrasami cuz I remembered Korra’s abusive behaviour towards Mako in this season and just being really worried for Asami. That poor girl has her work cut out for her. Also I’m deadass convinced they removed the past avatars because they really thought critics would stop comparing Korra to Aang, Kyoshi etc if she was now the only avatar. It felt like they were trying to force the audience to like her by making her the default.
It may be evidence that I am a basic Biotch, but my favorite execution of the dark mirror trope is and possibly always will be, Saren vs. Shepard. Varik is the best villain in LoK, and he's even better, because he wins.
I almost skipped through the part at the beginning because I thought it was a sponsored ad for apples lol. Then I looked more carefully and realized that the blue smudge was an arrow.
I never got into Korra, as much as i liked the improvement in animation as well as the excellent voice cast and the fact they brought in a lot of big names such as Aubrey plaza as well as J.K simmons, Steven Blum, Lance Hendrisken etc. etc. I never got into it because of the writing...all seasons have massive issues with character development, plot, screwing around with the original story and of course none of the villains are that well developed and only have an idea behind them that’s never fleshed out 1. Amon’s talk about the equality between benders and non benders means nothing cause he’s a water bender who uses blood bending and spirit bending... 2. Ulaq wants to create the dark avatar to champion the spits, but in actuality just wants power and to unleash 10k years of darkness on the world, and corrupts the spirits. 3. Zaheer and the red lotus are terrorists basically, but preach the importance of freedom and the tyrannical oppression of society, however they are anarchists and their brand of anarchy is self retributive and basically is the purge level of chaos, the idea that chaos brings order is a false one. 4. Kulvira is brought up as this increasingly authoritarian despot but we see none of its we’re just told she is. The writers and show want to push the idea that evil is complex and that these villains have a point, but none of them actually do. not one because the writers were more interested in pushing the good vs evil cliche but at the same time wanted to make twist villains with a point a goal the two don’t work well and take specific writing to make work.
Problem is, for that to work Vaatu would have to represent the positive aspects of chaos (change and freedom) not just be generic bad guy like the writers went with.
@@jacobd1984 Not really. If you go that route with him doing good evil then you're basically saying" vaatu is needed but only because is similar to raava". It really wouldn't matter what type of evil he does because its still balance.
SayianPrince The idea is for them not to be similar at all. In this scenario, Vaatu only wants change, and Raava only wants stability. Put them together and you achieve balance. As it was written, creating balance means getting rid of Vaatu (at least until he’s reborn) because he only has bad qualities, and Raava only has good ones. Fusing with him wouldn’t make the avatar better.
Unaloq did have one good point: spirits are important. That's all that he ever said that was even mildly positive. I think that's what they were /trying/ to say in Season 4. And failing.
16:15 It’s not the same team; I don't know why people act like Aaron Ehasz doesn’t exist; he was the fing head writer in The Last Airbender; do you want to know how important he was? In the original vision of the character, Uncle Iroh Michael and Bryan wanted him just to be someone who’s ruthless and who teaches Zuko firebending, but Aaron Ehasz reshaped the character and made it how we see it today.
![Lethal Company Music Video 🎵 "Follow The Orders" [VERSION A]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/QeooZB4Z7RA/mqdefault.jpg)
The new team avatar is bunch of coworkers that really only like each other because they have to be there together and never communicate outside of work.
Yeah exactly, by season 4 Mako, Bolin and Korra are just casual acquaintances that used to be on a sports team together.
@@yukijames1321 Thank you!I completely agree.
@Christian Sollo if season 2 was judt about the civil war plot and they didn't go into explaining the magic it would've worked, but yeah all the characters in LoK are watered down versions of ATLA
Season 2 was bad because that’s the creators mistakeso get y’all little aang loving korra hating selves out of here there team is good there not just casual coworkers they even fought together in the spirit world I’m tired of people saying and is more a lovable charecter just because she broke the avatar cycle but seriously stop she’s not a Mary Sue or anything so just stop.yeah I’m pretty sure it’s ok for a 12 year old immature avatar to stop a war than a 19 year old realized avatar to littearly stop a giant dark spirt of 10,000 years of darkness no avatar has done that so appreciat korra idiots.
They honestly don't even contribute all that much to helping each other with personal issues either like actual friends and companions would. 2 of the 4 are usually absent and the 3rd usually just says " I'm here to help/ or if you need me"
Thank you for calling out the nonsense on Aangs parenting. He’s not perfect, but I can’t imagine him being anything else than a deeply loving dad (albeit a busy one sometimes). Even if he did accidentally play favorites due to sheer excitement Katara would’ve smacked him upside the head so hard his arrows would spin
“His arrow’s would spin” 😂😂😂
The worst part was that they didn’t show any of it, they just brought in a new character (Kya) to tell us that. It’s so outta character for Aang, why make us have all this animosity for the messenger? Why are we expected to just take her at her word? Just do a fucking flashback. Guess they’d want to avoid it because it’d be a more interesting show than the one they’re doing. They’d rather not give Aang a single line and then unceremoniously murder a jpeg of him at the end of the season so he doesn’t outshine Korra.
Blake F in interviews the creators said they really wanted to avoid flashbacks in korra. Which is bizarre because some of the best episodes of the original were literally all flashback.
They were also shocked when people’s take away from this subplot was that Aang was a bad dad. It wasn’t what they intended to come across. That doesn’t say great things about their reading comprehension
Joseph Cain no i think it’s the other around. Y’all lack good comprehension
Aang's parenting actually explains alot about Tenzin, and his parenting style.
i just hated the whole god and evil. spirits were malicious in various ways, not outright evil. even the most evil one we saw in ATLA (Ko) aided the avatar. but no, here they are reduced to "boo you bad guy, yay, you good guy". Shows seem to descend into this more and more these days *cough* GoT later seasons and Witcher netflix *cough*
Yeah the worst part is that they still could have a spirit bad guy but at least make it bearable. If they just removed ravaa and made vatuu just some spirit thats pissed of at humans for their disrespect and destruction of nature the whole story already would be better. Now unalaq would have a actual motive of helping the spirit instead of just waning to be de edgelord avatar. Unalaq could be manipulated by said spirit because he would think helping him would bring the respect to the spirits back when in reality that spirits wants to destroy all humans. The other spirits could still be corrupted by vatuu but this time it's not by evil energy but because he convinced them that humans are evil and only want destruction. Korra could still explore the spirit world and have some kind of epic battle in the end but she would also need to fix the relation between humans and spirits to really solve the problem. This way it isn't just a satan vs god story and korra actually learns what the purpose of the spiritual side of the avatar is.
I feel like we should all watch this:ruclips.net/video/s7P9qTdVnMY/видео.html 👍🏽
@@barackobama2295 Yep. Your idea sucks. I like what they did in the show much better. There is nothing wrong with the God vs. Satan narrative. You just need there to be one so you can look cool.
@@rangers94ism nah stfu their idea was better than the shit show of season 2
@@rangers94ism Again,you are not on the same page with us. This is a franchise based on Eastern Mythology and in particular Daoist philosophy. This ruins the entire idea.
There is plenty wrong with this narrative. Your taste doesn't define what is good. Consistency does.
I hated how Book II basically reduced the conflict down to good versus evil, light versus dark cliché. I would rather if they shown Raava and Vaatu being opposing forces that compliment one-another. They could have made Vaatu more flattering as a force. If Raava is peace and order, Vaatu is war and chaos, but war and chaos aren't entirely terrible. Peace is stable, unchanging. Raava is about giving up the fight and settling. Vaatu should be rebellion and passion, unsatisfied with how things currently are. Vaatu should really be the embodiment of change, the drive to improve and aim for ideals. And that's not bad at all. Change is always happening. That's what time is. It's just a struggle between how much we want to expend energy for change and how much we want to stop and settle.
Exactly, I expected there to be a nuanced ying yang message about how creative destruction and freedom is needed for a balanced world. Instead its message is what? Never change. Being good requires only order and peace and society can never change or grow.
@@alexturlais8558
And yet the ending they seemed to have attempted was "actually, change good after all". Like they set up this dichotomy, sealed part of it away (without actually impacting the chaotic nature of either plane of existence) and then loosely imply that maybe chaos should be free after all but not really.
I feel like we should all watch this: ruclips.net/video/s7P9qTdVnMY/видео.html 👍🏽
My ideal resolution for Book II, if we HAD to have Raava and Vaatu, is Korra, instead of imprisoning him back in the tree, instead takes him in as a second Avatar spirit alongside Raava. It would show Korra having a better outlook than Wan, and it would have made her a much better character/Avatar. She would be restoring balance within the entire Avatar line.
@@DFAnton Vaatu was never re-imprisoned in the tree afair. He was destroyed during Harmonic Convergence, which means he'll be reborn through Raava. The Dark Avatar may be reborn like it's Light Avatar cousin.
After season 1 Kora should not have got her bending back after it was taken. a spiritual journey helping her become a true avatar is what season 2 should have been about
If the writers knew that there was going to be more seasons than just 1 season (it was first planned as a mini-series) then that would have been a good set-up for next season. Since the writers didn’t know that, they needed to close all lose ends in the first season since it was supposed to be all they had to work with
@@AnonimusQualquer but you can still salvage it. maybe korra learning the importance of bending because she lost it, even for a short period of time? maybe korra learning that bending isnt just martial arts but a big part of the cultures of the nations? you could even rewrite unalaq to be an actually well intentioned character taking the wrong approach and it would be a perfect fit for a spiritual season
@@AnonimusQualquer Nickelodeon is definitely to blame for that, but at the same time its Hard to believe that the show creators didn't think the sequel series to one of the Networks highest rated and reviewed shows wouldn't get green lit for a second season. Even if they thought the chances were slim they still should've ended it with Korra not getting her bending back. That way fan interest and demand to know if she gets it back would've definitely had a sequel being greenlit
@@AnonimusQualquer I don’t like your comment I want her to have her bending
It should end with getting her ben
Ok this is a good vid but the past avatars being destroyed ENRAGED me and still enrages me to this day
That's why I hate korra👁💧👄💧👁✌
Ikr i was just done with the show after that happened
I agree with this. It fucks up the power tier list. Aang and all the other avatars are weaker than satan in rug form? But korra on her own without god in rug form can beat that? She can still do all her avatar shit when she re-fuses with god rug? What the fuck
@@spookey3114 She had an advantage when he got distracted seeing raava form inside him. If he didn't get distracted the chances of her winning that fight would have been lower.
I got over it
The biggest problem with Korra is that it's not the same team. It has the same creators managing the show, but it doesn't have the same head writer. Aaron Ehasz was the head writer and one of the producers of ATLA. His writing made the Avatar special without him LOK suffered.
I disagree, the comics didn't have Ehasz and they're great.
@@Peasham With the exception of the search, I hated all them in some way or another
@@luisfernando2489 Why?
It is incredibly frustrating to see Aaron Ehasz being put up on a pedestal as if he is the sole reason ATLA was good and Korra was "BAD". It's nonsense. Lots of original ATLA writers came onboard starting with season 2, all the way to book 4.
Season two is good it’s just it’s finally that sucks
So the biggest waste of time in LOK was Mako. He's a poor city boy whose parents was killed by a criminal and did presusmably " illegal jobs" for the bender mafia for money to support himself and his brother. Then he becomes a cop... they had a good setup for him to have character development arc, possibly abusing his power on criminals, Varrick finds out blackmails him or tip off Bei Fong to so he can be involved in the plot without the love triangle.
That's exactly why he's perfect, and not a waste of time.
Yep that makes the story interesting. Don't get why he is a waste of time.
That's actually very interesting on paper lol. All those details are awesome, but he's very boring of a character if you watch the show who's most significant arc is getting over the awkwardness of his two exes.
@@PaintedHoundie everyone one of his arcs is significant.
@@IM_GOING_TOO_HAM yeah sure
the problem with korra is simple; they wanted to do more "real" conflicts that weren't just "good vs evil", except they didn't know how to do that. most the seasons started off good, with an interesting plot, then just devolve as things went on.
season 1: what they wanted - struggle between classes with no real "fault" between the two sides. what they did - bad guy terrorizing people, because he didn't like his dad
season 2: what they wanted - struggle between progress and tradition. spirituality vs materialism. what they did - kaiju battles, dark avatars, and "spirits are cool right?"
season 3: what they wanted - struggle between centralized power and decentralized freedom. what they did - fly boi says "anarchy cool lol"
season 4: what they wanted - struggle between using force to maintain traditional order vs allowing geopolitical world to evolve. what they did - tyrant lady tries to take over with robots.
It's tough cause you can see good ideas at first but fail to execute them properly and that's what's my main problem with the while show
bearholdensharks LUX BRO SHUTUP
there are "good" and 'evil" sides in this conflicts. And Korra is on evil side
No offense but this is really bad critisiscm, its like saying the finale of ATLA is "Aang almost loses to fire man, but wins using turtle powers" you see how dumb that sounds? you completely miss the point.
Season 1 3 and 4 are all good to ok seasons it is a kids show. It’s pretty good for what it is.
I still cringe at the fact that they portrait Korra as an abusive girlfriend and it just gets brushed aside, nobody even bat an eye or corrects her in the show about how she treats Mako... Wtf
I bet there would be an outrage if she did the same thing with asami.
@@ItsRemmyy heck she acted like a bitch in disregarding Bolin's feelings for her. And we just expect her and Asami to be in a great relationship in the end despite all the shit she put Mako and Bolin through?. Hell Asami should have called her out when she was the one who first kissed Mako during their relationship.
@@toledochristianmatthew9919 yeah but calling her Korra out for that would be wrong I guess. Ans its weird how Bolin sat there and watched the whole thing but still blamed Mako for everything.
@@ItsRemmyy my biggest problem with this show is that Korra got off too easy and didn't take responsibility for her actions. I mean she left the portal open in season 2 without the permission of the spirits or the humans on the matter. I mean in season 3, she just ran away from the Spirit problem to hitch hike with Tenzin to find the new Air Nomads which was bullshit way of the writers moving on to the next conflict of the series and i find it bullshit in season 4 that the conflict just disappeared and the Spirits and humans just suddenly live together.(despite all the warnings of how Spirits would transform humans into monsters and how some of the monsters could be easily tocked off and conflict will arise between the Spirits and humans again). Everything was her own fault if she wasn't such a jerk and act so irresponsible in the first half of season 2. Her not listening to her friends and family and just suddenly believing Unalaaq is the cause of everything from Season 2 onwards including her suffering because of her mistakes. Even in the comics after Season 4, she still acts so brash and impulsive that it makes me dislike her and how she barely changed despite all the shit she cause and went through.
@@toledochristianmatthew9919 Korra never was interested romantically in Bolin though, that was one sided
the kites should've been both destructive when separated; if they really wanted to go with the yin-yang balance thing. If the Avater needs to be in possession of a spirit like them, make it that they need both. Hell; make Unalok trying to separate them be the big evil plan if you have to do that shtick.
She did need both, that's why Jinora and Iroh helped.
yea that was my main gripe with the second season it was that Raava and Vaatu didn't even make sense in the yin-yang balanced view, bc if the avatar was truly about balance they would hold both Raava and Vaatu.
@@Dell-ol6hb Exactly. The Avatar seems to only be about the balance of the WORLD then. Because balance there means more peace. That's who Raava is. So in the Yin Yang concept the Avatar really isn't true balance. You could make the argument that Raava and Vaatu were both trapped, Raava with a human, Vaatu in the Tree. But Vaatu didn't merge with anyone until the finale. Raava did. Vaatu is trapped in the spirit world. Raava isn't. The way Raava said they kept each other in balance was by fighting and keeping each other in check. They can't do that. So balance can't be achieved.
Korra could have been the dark avatar but in an iconographic symbolism until balanced with yin to become balanced
Yang- feminine, repressed, chaotic, unknown
@@BravoTango-vt8em you are right and that's the point of season 2 Unalaq is trying to create balance by creating a Dark avatar.
In the original show, Aang LOVED nothing more than talking about his culture other than Katara, so I find it suspect he wouldn't do everything possible to spread that same joy to his kids, even if they weren't airbenders.
I think the show, like the Star Wars sequels, would have benefitted from not being set directly after the originals. Skip "Korra" and go to the next Avatar bender. Your airbender is then Aang's grandkids grown up, not his kids. Then you skip having to do flashbacks of defined characters and your easter eggs can be thrown away one liners.
Frankly I actually liked the idea of Kya and Bumi having an inferiority complex because of Aang accidentally showing favouritism to Tenzin. That really works for me. But I think the writers really crossed the line - there's a difference between unintentionally hurting your children by showing favouritism to the one chance to truly continue your dying culture, and just never taking your other kids on holiday with you... :(
@@Muzer0 that's a good point. The writers could have striven for a middle ground where Aang wasn't a perfect dad, but added flashback scenes of forgotten memories from the kids that showed Aang was a good dad to them. Esp things they didnt understand as kids but could appreciate as adults.
@@MaelstromEnergy or maybe in scenes were Aang brought everyone to teach Airbending culture Bumi and Kyia can't get into it but Tenzin is making Aang proud could make the siblings jealous.
@@lonebattledroid4474 That could have worked too. The show wasn't Aang's story, but if you are gonna do that angle, you gotta show it in a flashback. The scene you laid out could have ended with the adults realizing they hated airbending teachings and Aang didn't force them to go. Then it would have been like "yeah, he could done more with us, but we weren't neglected."
@@MaelstromEnergy yeah, though I felt the story of Korra should've partly been about the old characters. Obviously you still need to focus on the new characters and story but it also should've been about the old characters conclusions to their characters and we only got that with Toph. (And it'd difficult for Aang as he's technically dead but still alive too but it could still work.)
The fact that Aang fell victim to the ‘Original protagonist becomes a bad parent’ trope really just rubbed me the wrong way. It is by far one of my most hated tropes in fiction because 90% of the time, you can tell the writers just did it for cheap drama or ‘it makes the character more realistic’ bullshit, even if it’s out of character. Everything you said about that topic basically summed up everything I felt about. The fact that they tried to make viewers believe Aang, one of the sweetest and loving characters in the original series was neglectful towards his kids is just baffling to me
Thats how I feel about naruto. Its crazy to think that the orphan that had to live in a house alone his entire childhood and experienced what it was like to not have parents in your life would neglect his kids the way he does.
I can buy Aang giving more attention to or having a deeper bond with Tenzin, but I cannot buy him straight up neglecting Kya and Bumi. Everyone who’s watched the OG series knows that Katara and Zuko wouldn’t let that shit slide.
@@taylorsly2392 thats what I think. Theres no realistic way that aang would just get away with neglecting his kids when he's married the overprotective Katara and is friends with the most neglected kid in avatar Zuko. Maybe I understand him doing it once but once katara saw the neglect she would have slapped him so hard it would awaken the avatar state.
@Colt James Never had a role model? Did you just forget about Gyatso, the other monks and Roku? I can completely buy Aang spending extra time with Tenzin to teach him about airbending and airbending culture, seeing as when he’s gone, Tenzin is his only hope of keeping airbending alive. What I can’t buy is him be neglective towards his other children, due to his nature, him knowing how bad parenting or a absent parent can effect a child due to his friends and knowing the person he married, Katara (cause if Aang did show signs of being neglectful towards his kids, knowing Katara, she would have slap him so hard that his arrow would have done a whole 360)
The thing is that the show never said was a bad parent , he just wasn’t a perfect dad. For crying out loud Aang fully accepted Kya when she came out , he wasn’t bad he just wasn’t perfect. Y’all are acting like sibling don’t argue with each other
You have an hour of reasoning and I'm just over here like
There was a huge lack of Lin Beifong and that makes it bad
exactly
@@roseleo8889 I see you're a man of culture as well
Tbh I like Lin but it’s your opinion
@@spaacedust I love lin- that's why I said that s2 is bad because there wasn't enough of her 😳 a lack of something means not enough. A lack of lin is not enough lin.
she was probably one of the best things about this show imo
Oh dear lord the designs of the spirits are one of the infuriating things about LoK! When I was a child, apart from the bending, I was always excited to see the spirits. What are their powers? Will they attack the Gaang, help them, or be neutral? is this their land or temple? Do they know the people of this village? What is their history? It was interesting! Whenever a spirit appeared, the tone of the scene chenged and everything would feel trascendental and,
forgive the redundancy, spiritual. In TLoK it does feel like pokemons and yet-to-be-taimed alien pets, beings that don't have any goals, nor personalities, and get manipulated by gods. It's boring and sad, disrespect to the lore.
"Wan was a rowdy kid"
Wan kills 2 people because they wanted food. And he feels no remorse over this.
Tardi Grade isn’t that what every responsible avatar does?
ruclips.net/video/W5gGEWqO_Ag/видео.html
Kaleem McIntyre already seen it lol
Time stamp?
Korra season 2 just really seems like a fanfiction
All of Korra feels like fanfiction
Don't insult fanfiction like this!
@@luisfernando2489 I forgot most fanfiction is plausible unlike the dark avatar
I’ve read fan fiction that does korra better
Like a BAD fanfiction.
I still remember my initial reaction to the "corrupted" spirit in LoK.
This is gonna be a long comment, but bear with me.
Tenzin actually asks the spirit why it's so angry. This - and I thought it was meaningful - is pretty much what Aang did with Hei Bai. The spirit is angry, so it gets all weird and geometric. The way to deal with that is to calm it down. It worked in "Avatar" - spirits represent nature and the world. We need nature, but nature is not nice. It makes sense that a protector of the forest goes ballistic when its forest is burnt. "Avatar" gets the simple, but effective message across.
When Tenzin can't calm a spirit down and Unalaq performs a weird light show to pacify it, I thought "oh wow! That's brilliant! Unalaq is brainwashing the spirit or sapping its energy or something! Instead of respecting nature and the spirit wishes properly, he's manipulating them somehow. He's a bad guy, but Korra is buying it, because he's an authority figure and she's still learning. Aw man, she's gonna be SO PISSED that he's brainwashing spirits!"
That made sense to me. It'd be consistent with the original show, and create believable conflict - Unalaq knows a lot about spirits, but he takes shortcuts. It'd work with his personality, it could work with the whole "corruption" angle, except it'd turn out HE was a corrupting influence.
But no, apparently if spirits are angry, they're just cranky and need a time-out. Spirit of Aang probably feels pretty stupid. Instead of talking to Hei Bai, he just needed to perform a special magic water dance! Respect spirits and try to figure out what they want before they smash everything in their path? That's for chumps! Hell, Tenzin seems to think the Aang approach is the correct one, so the show isn't just ignoring the established rules, it's bringing them up, and THEN discarding them!
(besides, the original show indicated that going berserk was a spirit "thing" in general. The Owl Spirit that protected the library also turned into a weird thing when angered. TLoK could've expanded on that in some way, instead it just created a magical trick to pacify sapient beings. WELL THAT'S GREAT.)
This was lovely. I don't remember the scene in vivid detail but I do remember tenzin trying and unalaq just "fixing" the spirit. You and SC really brought the problem with spirits in korra to my attention.....wait. Why wasn't the ocean spirit and moon spirit ever mentioned?
TronHD Why didn’t the Face Stealer made a cameo or something?
In ATLA his last words to the Avatar were “We’ll meet again.” Huge missed opportunity.
@@zerofang009 my comment doesn't even touch on many ways I feel the plot could've been fixed.
The world of Avatar has gone through its version of the Industrial Revolution (clearly), so the conflict could've revolved around that. What if spirits are just incoherently angry a lot of the time because they feel humans have gone too far? At some point, they can't be convinced all the changes humans made can be undone, like Aang convinced a forest spirit 60+ years ago that a single forest could grow back.
So, since spirits are just about done with humans' BS and humans not only won't, but can't back down, Unalaq could present his method of calming spirits down as the only way to deal with them, since you can't exactly undo the industrialisation.
So there could be this issue "Unalaq has a solution, it's clearly a bad one, but we still need our cities and gasoline and cars. So maybe his solution is the ONLY solution?". You could throw out the entire Dark Avatar stuff, focus on Unalaq presenting himself as the only person who can deal with the human-spirit conflict (and tie that to the civil war, which had to do with disrespect for all traditions in Unalaq's mind anyway). Great story potential there.
I'm not saying the show HAD to do it like that, but that's just one example new stories could be squeezed out of the Avatar world without changing the rules drastically.
It's possible to push a fictional world forward while keeping what had been used before.
@@Victor-qx3vx Appa or momo could've made a return as spirit guide. That would've made a good call back to roku and aang. For Koh though? It wouldve been cool to see him and it would make sense but it would be disaster. People have discusion all the time how Series 2 protagonist would do against series 1 antagonist in alot of media. In this case, korra would lose her face.
TronHD Yep. She would fail miserably at concealing her facial expressions.
Watching season 2 makes me feel like Mike and Bryan literally wanted to destroy the canon. Like Kaiju Vaatu tossing aang's statue was the embodiment of their own hate for their Magnum Opus
Considering they've been writing sequel comics to ATLA for a decade now, I'm pretty sure they didn't hate it.
The past lives being destroyed was a middle finger for the fans
@@luisfernando2489 Well technically Aang is no longer Korras past life so maybe they just wanted to show that she was her own person and not aang?. It kinda make sense when you see all these people hating on her because shes not Aang and that she has a different personality from him. Maybe they did it as a middle finger to those fans basically saying " Korra is her own person, she isn't nor does she need aang or any other avatar".
@@Guy-7719 she does go through growth as a character but you won't see it if you watch the show just to hate on it. She was an idiot at the start but she changed over the seasons. People do hate on her because shes not a copy of aang. Literally one of the reasons they hate on her is because she does things that aang wouldn't do. They hate her because she doesn't have the same personality as aang. They hate her character simply because she isn't a copy of aang.
@@Guy-7719 Korra isn't my favorite show. If you think that the show is trash then thats your opinion but don't act like its fact. You clearly weren't paying attention if your think that the lesson every season was about her knowing that the avatar is more than just her bending. Heck by your own admission you were even paying attention until season 3.
Bad things in season 2 Korra
1: love triangle appears, and is MUCH more potent
2: The first avatar story was meh
3: DaRk AvAtAr
4: All the good side characters just kinda exist
5: giant kaiju battle.... ok? But why though?
6: the spirit kites never shoulda existed
7: the spirit world was underwhelming
8: I keep forgetting the main bad guys name. He’s that forgettable.
9: Korra’s IQ went down a couple of notches for her to get tricked THIS easy
Ok now the good points
1: Verrick! :D
That is all.
The most hilarious misstep to me is the love triangle. Aang and Katara's affection made sense to me because you have two generally good people spending literally every day of a year together. They are forced to to end the war and they see each other through some highs and lows. The context of the journey also gives them few options to fall for anyone else.
Meanwhile, Makko, Asami and Korra are all super attractive teenagers with their own things going on LIVING IN A HUGE CITY WITH PLENTY OF OTHER PEOPLE AND OPTIONS but they gotta stay in this love triangle? Makko is literally a pro athelete and cop, Asami is a beautiful smart rich woman and Korra is the freaking Avatar...but they never meet anyone else outside the group that interests them?
10. Bolin's abusive relationship
The dark avatar was awesome, though when I first heard of a dark avatar I expected it would be someone who could bend all 4 elements, but it was just a waterbender stronger than normal with a powerful spirit in him.
Avatar Juan made it redeemable for me and most people. I really wish they didnt do that bullshit they did with killing off the avatar cycle it wasnt needed. If they really wanted to do that they could of done it book 3 or even. Book 4 .
@@rennemarie Or just have Korra herself deciding to not rely on the old avatars constantly and make her own decisions herself.
I’ve heard one of the reasons the creators did this was so Korra didn’t have to depend on the old avatars to help her, which I thought was stupid and frankly lazy writing, did they really think killing them was the only way to do it? It would’ve been completely in character for Korra to want to do things by her own and not needing the other avatars to rely on.
Hell even in the avatar comic books Aang does exactly this when Roku kept telling him to just kill off Zuko and restore the lands back to the earth kingdom even when the people don’t want to, Aang himself decided to reject Ruko’s advice to do what he thought was right and after that he decided to cut ties with Ruko no longer needing his advice and helped create the republic of nations.
Their was no actual reason to get rid of the avatars permanently, it was itching more then shock bait and lazy way of developing Korra.
Fire Nation commits genocide against the airbenders and attack their temples
Spirits: I sleep
Korra’s Dad Destroys one forest
Spirits: I’M GONNA STOMP YOU DOWN!!!
U don't know what is harmonic convergence dont you ?
You don't know that vaatu 's influence on spirit is growing stronger as it approaches don't you? Please rewatch the show everything makes sense.
Y
Spirits don’t care about what they deem as “human affairs”, in other words: the air nomad genocide was treated by spirits as a “not my business” thing
i mean that was like 70 years before she was born and it was kinda resolved by aang lol she has no skin in that game
@@themoroccanball the most spiritual nation is erase in the world for almost a hundred years and none of the spirit give a shit? wtf
@@commentlurker3874 it’s that spirits view it as human affairs and they don’t like meddling or getting caught in human affairs so… yea they don’t gaf
"Wan is an unruly teenager who does some bad things but never goes too far."
Also Wan: Kills several hunters for the crime of trying to provide for their families rather than show then which foods are safe or simply chasing them away. Presumably there IS a safe source of food considering Wan is still alive and not starving years later..
Basically
Yep. That pretty much sums it up.
It's not his obligation to provide for the health of his enemies, they picked a fight and lost and should get lost as a result of it.
@@basilofgoodwishes4138 Juan is literally the first Avatar his entire job is to find balance and find the better harmonious path,
@@mckenzie.latham91He wasn’t at the time though. He became the avatar and realised all of his responsibilities years later. At that point he was just a down on his luck teenager who didn’t think his actions through.
It‘s called growth. We even see it in the episodes.
This season was basically Mike and Bryan picking at the Avatar universe for dramatic cliche battles between good and evil, etc. It ruined the previously very compelling Spirit World and instead made it another dimension with PORTALS and stuff. There’s just no moderation in this season. It’s all action and cheap drama on things that had little to no character development last season (like Korra’s dad.) No storytelling, no development, most importantly no mysterious or mystic elements, unlike the original, which is what made its universe so compelling in the first place. Mike and Bryan didn’t care about the universe. They just wanted an EPIK BATOL for entertainment! No depth whatsoever!
This season had nothing to do with good and evil
@@IM_GOING_TOO_HAM Raava and Vatu are pretty clearly supposed to be good and evil, and the show never makes any attempt to show nuance or treat them as needing balance. Instead it's just about one being the spirit of the avatar and of good, and the other one wanting to destroy the world. Seems pretty good and evil to me.
@@alexturlais8558 So Raava and Vatu aren't good and evil. They are peace & chaos.
@@IM_GOING_TOO_HAM
Except they're straight up presented as light(good) and darkness(evil)
Jason Jones light and dark doesn't automatically mean good and bad. There cant be peace if theres not a little bit of chaos. Neither ravva or vatu can be destroyed or live without the other. There is a piece of each within each other.
If it were me I would have changed the ending of the professor in the library. I would have left an air of mystery by having Wong Shi Tong call a fox servant by that name. Never answer the question. But theoretically it would instead imply that by staying the library for all eternity and being lured by the knowledge, he we was forced into servitude and lost his humanity.
Or maybe have the guy hung up and displayed like an insect. Wong Shi Tong wouldn't just leave corpses around in his precious library.
MAD Master001 This is a very creative and interesting concept! To bad the LoK had those in short supply.
I really liked Professor Zei. He had a true yearning and passion for knowledge. While it was a bit cruddy Sokka used information he gathered in the library for war, I feel like Zei's philosophy of knowledge for knowledge's sake should have restored Wan Shi Tong's faith in humanity and allowed good-natured scholars admission.
@@EyesWillRule I saw in some fic an idea that he became a spirit himself. Or rather a ghost, so he can keep reading and learning for forever. I liked that, he didn't deserve such death.
Nah, I always thought it was fitting that he died. Like, he got to die in a place he was obsessed with and would happily go down with.
I like the idea of having his skeleton (tho you're right it would make sense Wong Shi Tong would make them an exhibit) AND the fox thing. Though I don't think it would necessarily imply he was "forced into servitude and lost his humanity". The dude had a selfless pure LOVE for knowledge, there's no reason to think he wouldn't do that willingly or see it as a reward if it happened without his input. I think the real intrigue of it would be the question of "Is this actually the professor?? Or was Wong Shi Tong so moved by someone being so purely devoted to knowledge without ulterior motives that he formed a bond with this human despite his resentment of humans and cynicism about human nature that he ended up naming one of his foxes after him to remember him by? If it is the professor, did Wong Shi Tong have anything to do with him becoming a collector spirit, or was this a spontaneous transformation of the professor's spirit upon his death as a result of his love for this place and likely presence in a spiritual space when he died? How DID he die? How long did he survive down there and why?"
It would have been so cool and bittersweet, a satisfying ending for a character but still so chilling. Like the professor would probably be thrilled and honored by EITHER possibility. But we as the audience have to reckon with the fact either Wong Shi Tong finally made a human friend and cared for them so much he can't fully let them go, or that the guy the Gaang were forced to leave behind by his own will was so single-mindedly devoted to his passion he'll spend all of eternity building up a library for one lone hoarder owlman, and probably love every second of it, if he's even capable of enjoyment. THAT'S SICK AS HELL!!! Also my new HC, so thank you for that.
I can never forgive the fact they made Korra loser her connection, I think that is some of the worst bs possible. people who are like iT shOws hOw poWeRfUl kOrrA iS oN hEr oWn, wiThOuT tHe aVatAr sPirT and I’m just like ... :/ that’s kinda the whole point of the avatar/ the avatar state. The avatar is a chosen person to bring balance, already making them the most powerful bender and then the avatar state is to help them in situations of dire need, obviously the avatar state can be used for lesser emergencies but LOK completely throws that very personal and vulnerablity of the avatar out the window in season two, whether that be because of korras arrogance or just sloppy writing. And the way they ~almost~ never act like that loss is a big deal/try to find more answers/fix it is super disappointing and even out of character for characters like Tenzin. The avatar spirt/state was so deeply neglected in LOK after being so perfectly crafted in ATLA that makes season 2 so unbearably awful and cringey.
That they deleted the avatars is the most anticlimactic things ever, even in the context of the show itself. In season4, we even see how useless the avatarstate became and it feels like they missed the point entirely. It is supposed to be a godmode that over generations grew beyond what a human is supposed to be able to do, which is why Aang only got the ability to use it freely when the story was already over and he did not need it anymore.
The need to nerf it to keep the plot intact and the act of actually going through with it shows how much they fucked it up.
They totally messed it up. We should have seen Korra go into the avatar state sooner than the last episode. Like when Amon was taking her bending away, why didn't it awaken then? Or when she waa fighting tarlock and started loosing. There were multiple times when the avatar state should've kicked in but it didn't.
SayianPrince Exactly it was supposed to be a defense mechanism and it activated when the avatar was in danger or when they felt an intense emotion.
@@You-yw9qpAnd being attacked by a terrorist and risk getting her bending removed forever doesn't count as ”in danger”?
Yall seem to forget that Aang barely even used his connection to the past avatars.
I think the biggest problem with Korra is its hard shift from Eastern Buddhism to Western Christianity. Avatar felt like a true representation of Buddhism, harmony and polytheism. It was nebulous about spirituality because in that culture, spirituality isn't a bunch of rights and wrongs, but varying perspectives. In Korra, everything is just literalized and narrow. Instead of the spirit world being an internal journey of fables and nature, it's just another dimension with weird plants and aliens. Instead of balance, there's now just general God and Satan figures, with ultimate good and ultimate evil. Korra feels like a Westernized version of Avatar, which ends up oversimplifying the original's nuance.
I don't get ur comment this season is all about balance. Its all about yin and yang. And just because these concept are personnified into raava and vaatu, this for u makes a "hard shift to christianism". Quite surprising.
Then the spirit world is ALL about spiritual journey... wan korra, jenorah tenzin his brother and sister all evolved spiritually by walking their way through it. its right in front your eye and you don't see it. Then un end up about the original nuance about balance. I would respond that lok did the great work in explaing that the quest for balance isnt "just " an issue of the material world. Its actually a matter of both worlds and we learn that get to understand that rhe world we knew in avatar ang story was in disbalance because raava and wan defeated and enprisonned vaatu + seperated the two worlds. And the the true quest of the avatar is to understand that both need to remain free and balanced. Unalaq had to come over and explain it to korra. Everything makes totally sense
Good and evil doesn't make it Christian I would say. You could convince me about western
@@10thletter40 @eldrad9131 The whole reason the Western conception of good and evil even exists is _because_ of Christianity, that's _where_ it comes from, the basic philosophical lens that someone from the West uses to define good and evil can trace its origins back to various Christian philosophers, who were of course using The Bible as their framework.
Eastern philosophy has an entirely different way of defining good and evil, but the most important detail that will be emphasized the moment it comes up is: Yin and Yang do _not_ represent good and evil.
Yin and Yang encompass all things, almost any concept or idea you can name falls under either element in Daoism, light is Yang, darkness is Yin, masculine is Yang, feminine is Yin, (this is why Aang is even named Aang, it's a masculine male name derived directly from Yang), but _good_ does not fall under Yang, and _evil_ does not fall under Yin, this is a misinterpretion that comes into existence exclusively when someone operating from a Western framework learns about Yin and Yang.
Good can be broadly defined as having a proper balance between yin and yang, and evil is the result of them falling out of balance.
Example: say ambition is Yang, and compassion is Yin, if your ambition outpaces your compassion, then you get an Ozai or Azula, but when they are in balance, you get ideal warriors like Zuko and Iroh. Someone who has compassion but no ambition would be unable to act when they need to, likely becoming some kind of enabler.
_This_ is the traditional philosophical framework the East uses for morality, there are no traits that are inherently good or evil like we see in Western stories, it's all about reckoning with what traits you have and finding a productive balance between them, Vegeta in Dragon Ball doesn't lose or gain any traits throughout his redemption arc, they're only _rearranged_ and have their individual emphasis rebalanced.
@@eldrad9131 they fuck up the portrayal of yin and yang though so that shit doesnt even work lmfao
@@Cri_Jackal bro i like your comment. U understand the principles of balance. My point is that you guys are the ones who uses western eyes and only focus on good v evil narrative when looking at this season.
Take a sec to Reconsider it. All what you say is PRECISELY what Unalag is saying.
He understood that there's actually no evil and good but only balance matter
He understood that the world the way it was with spiritual and material world being seperated, with vaatu element of yin being traped, with the existence of the avatar maybe also with human overproliferating.... all this world is in disbalance and need to be fixed. That is what i see.
Unalaq is right and an era with raava dominating isnt a " good " thing. So to me this is how alok surpasses atla as it is not just about making the avatar fight a vilain who wants to dominate the world like osai but its about making her understand that there is a profound disbalance in the world with spiritual and material sphere being separated and with her very existence as raava avatar and the dominance over vaatu.
Finally at the end of the season, vaatu is defeated but free to come back again, i think raava also is kinda diminished and both worlds are reunited.= More balanced world.... but still raava's avatar is still there and season 3 tells us that balance is still not achieved And Zaire is probably the solution.
But now if you want to reduce the show into good vs bad fight its your problem and your bias. Nothing is perfect but to me the show does a good work regarding eastern spirituality.
Without Aaron and Elizabeth Ehasz, we got a twighlightified fanfic of ATLA aka Legend of Korra. It looks like Avatar, sounds like Avatar, kinda feels like Avatar, but it just ends up falling short. Legend of Korra completely ignored many of the things that the fanbase loved about ATLA. The character development and how they interact with each other, you felt that they had tangible relationships in ATLA. In LOK, it was them telling us that they were "friends" but you could see right through it.
but LOK is not ATLA.deal with it
I just don’t understand how (or more importantly why) a series that was originally fantasy turned into 1920’s steampunk became GIANT ROBOTS WITH LASERS? You can defend the advancement of their tech from avatar to korra but please explain to me how we go from 1920’s tech to giant laser bots. Please.
Well, the Fire Nation already had tons of technology.
Fallout and Wolfenstein influence got the best of the writers.
The thing that was build up was magic nuke, the thing that defined the final battle was "also there's a mecha now"
Holy hell, yes! I’ve watched and loved the original so many times. I’m really sure, but I’ve never been been hooked on Kora. My kids have started watching it, so I’ve been in and out and this was the same question I had.
In The Last Airbender, the two creators wanted to have a love triangle between Aang, Katara, and Toph. Aaron Ehasz stepped in, and changed it. In Korra, the creators wanted the same thing. This time, Aaron Ehasz wasn’t there to stop them because he wasn’t the head writer. That’s why Korra was so different, the creators were the head writers. Michael and Bryan may have made Avatar, but they aren’t writers. Aaron Ehasz was what made Avatar’s writing so good.
Korra is what the creators wanted The Last Airbender to be like.
Edit: I have no memory of commenting this, I don’t even know if it’s true lmao sorry
Aaron's also the one who made Toph a girl. Otherwise, HE would have competed with Aang for Katara, I guess.
Aaron is super Underrated in the fanbase. He's the reason why atla is the masterpiece that it is
Ömer Direkci I think he’s both under and overrated. Elizabeth also doesn’t get enough credit
Aaron’s role was basically as Brykes filter. He kept character arcs straight
@@omerdirekci8857 not really. He's actually overrated. Don't get me wrong, without him Atla wouldn't be as good but same with Bryke. If Bryke or Aaron were the masterminds, then both of their shows would be as amazing as Atla. Look at Aaron's the dragon prince. The pacing of it is way too slow and it takes way too many ideas from Atla. Yes I know you can take some from a show you work on but it takes way more. Neither Bryke or Aaron could recreate the success of avatar on their own. Both get way too much credit. It was the entire production team that made avatar good. Not certain individuals
@@samdude1526 The best summary I heard was that they were like the Beatles. Together they were a creative masterpiece but their solo careers were never as good as they didn't have each other to cancel each other out
Also isn’t this when Iroh enters the spirit world and NEVER TELLS ZUKO
ZUKO HAD TO FIND OUT THROUGH KORRS
LIKE WHAT
Mako and bolin from the legend of korra aren't that interesting but every time those two are put together there are so many sweet and funny moments which is interesting. Mako and bolins relationship is well written but them by themselves isn't interesting
I would love a Sarcastic summary of infinity train it's a great show
*ABSOLUTELY*
*LET'S MAKE IT HAPPEN*
YES. That show seriously deserves more love
He's probably gonna wait for season 3 to finish if is going to do that.
I second this
Terrible writing advice: Did someone say love triangle?
I don't get why people dislike love triangles
Dark Avatar is worst
@@billbutton8468 Name one love triangle that was good or helped the plot in anyway? The Korra love triangle waa terrible. It popped up in random places like Mako being relived that Korra didn't get her bending taken away and that she was fine. At that moment they decided to ram a love triangle plot into it.
@@ItsRemmyy i dont know many love triangles. I just liked the drama of it. I liked how LoK wasnt scared to go into their relationships and even have it be messy
@@billbutton8468 Thats why people don't like them. They are messy and cause drama at the wrong moments. They aren't brave for putting this into their show.
season 1: love the asthetic and vibes, good introduction, love probending, good villain, definitely above average
season 2: vibe aint it, boring season, EXTREMELY stupid end fight, avatar past lives all destroyed
season 3: pretty good, good villains
season 4: alright until the end, then just a clusterfuck of nonsense
I was enjoying season 4 until they pulled that giant robot out of their arse.
I think u meant yo say bad villain because a villain can't be good
@@You-yw9qp me to
I really liked the fight at the end of season 2. But to each their own
@@rangers94ism you mean the fight between two giant world ending spiritual giants that embody light and darkness? Don’t sound very avatar-y or remotely like every other fight in both series to me
I absolutely hate the new designs of sprits, the avatar ones were mostly just animals just a little more mysterious but now they’re unnatural colours, glowy, semi translucent and looked like they are made of jelly or plastic
This season REALLY bummed me out. I wholeheartedly think that LOK could have been just as good as ATLA, but season 2 demonstrates that every time it feels like every time they have the beginnings of a good idea or interesting plot/characters, they find a way to resolve it into irrelevance just so they can pump in the love triangle and shitty megaboss death lazers.
Also, THANK YOU for bringing up how often Asami just gets fucked over by the writers!!!! She is one of my favorite characters because like the equalists, Suki, Mai, and Ty Lee, I think it's really fun to watch nonbenders be able to compete with benders in fights! But they reduce her down to be a literal plot device when convenient and write her out of scenes when theres nothing else she can do for anyone else. I rewatched LOK when it was on Netflix and the amount of times she would literally just appear in the middle of a scene so that she can do something for the others is astounding. We'll only see Korra, Mako, and Bolin talking and then all of a sudden they'll switch "camera angles" and Asami will be there to tell them she can drive or involve her business in some way.
Just saw it....fan fiction at it's finest. Just bad. What a complete dissappointment. Korra as a character was written so bad. Tenzin got butchered to a stooge. And the whole spirit world concept got completely destroyed, did the creators even paid attention to everything that ATLA did with the spirits? That 1st avatar story went complete anime (bad one). Dear lord what the hell were they thinking besides cheap pop by making Aang a bad father, just unbelievable.also thr bolin abusive relationship wasnt funny.
Why does korra never listens to Tenzin, he was always right at the end.And his words were good fr bUt KoRrA wAs So SmArT sHe CuT oF aLl HeR pAsT aVaTaRs 🤠🤡🤠🤡🤠🤡 (The avatar sons who was the closest to him)
Its because tenzin is an annoying douchebag and korra is the wise and spiritually strong airbender keeping his race together.
GalacticTM how is korra in his race Tenzin is actually wiser
It was a joke lol. It’s supposed to be the other way around
GalacticTM oh thank god -^-
I'll confess: I came to Korra late. I enjoyed Avatar and Korra had finished. I avoided spoilers so I knew there were multiple seasons. I was finishing up season 1, saw that season 2 was named "spirits" and grew excited! Why the villain has robbed her of her power! This would make her vulnerable. This is going to be awesome as she goes on a quest in the next season to like, relearn the roots of the Avatar, that there's more than just the physical abilities, there's a spiritual element to it. We'll even have echoes back to S1 as she gets to experience what it's like being less powerful. We'll get to see a part of the world that was barely touched upon in the first series! This is going to be so awes--
Wait. What is Aang doing there?
That to me, is Korra in a nutshell. They have golden opportunities with excellent, organic set ups for numerous potential stories, and then will proceed to kill all of them and try to frankenstein the corpse.
You are overreacting at a point its funny.Ang is literally there in flashbacks of the past and during few second as korra connects with her past avatar... and for this lok is shit. Ahahah people are crazy
@@eldrad9131 - You misread. I wasn't referring to flashbacks, I was referring to the end of S1. There it looks like the show is set to have an interesting and captivating plot line for the next season... and then Aang's spirit *literally* shows up from no where and fixes the problem.
@@simplegarak i understand the resolution of her loosing her bending was quite brutal, considering it was grown during the whole season as the worst thing to happen . BUT i found it on point for a reason : It coincided with her finally reaching the Avatar State which was also a background development of the season. That was pretty satisfying to see what we expected the most being the solution to what we feared the most. A good ending to what could have been by the way a one season series
@@eldrad9131- ?? It didn't "coincide" with her reaching the avatar state - it was literally just being handed to her by Aang just like getting her powers restored. It had nothing to do with her efforts or character development.
@@simplegarak it did coincide with her character development. I dont remember exactly the instances but i think she went trough all the processes to open her chakra just like how aang was trained to do with that chakra master in order to control the avatar state.
it's not the same team if Aaron and Elizabeth Ehasz are not there
I doubt spirits like lady tienhai, general old iron, the mother of faces or Koh would be controlled by vaatu and become evil JUST BECAUSE
I hate what they did to Aang and his kids. I can buy Aang accidentally and subconsciously favoring Tenzin slightly. Nobody’s perfect and Aang has a lot of trauma he doesn’t have time to process, not to mention childcare ideals 100 years out-of-date. But I draw the line at Aang being blatantly neglectful and Katara not kicking his butt for it
The 2nd season was SOOOOOO bad, like why they went the route they did made no sense! It turned into a shitty love triangle, a crazy spirit obsessed uncle trying to kill his niece, and ended with the Avatar Cycle destroyed....LIKE WHY?!
Season 2 is like if you were to let your cousin, little sibling, or nephew your account to play on and come back a couple hours later to see the damage they have cause from their actions.
The writers missed a big opportunity in season one when they said Amon took Korra's bending. They could've had Korra go on a full series journey to regain her powers by reconnecting with the elements.
Having her grow and mature, learn humility and learn to appreciate the spiritual side of bending after losing her powers. And they could've had the original team Avatar train her.
This, one of the biggest arguments ive seen someone make is saying „not only is the avatar mastering the elements by searching for a teacher of their own and travelling the world it also implies that the avatar is constantly engaging with the world that they are supposed to protect“ but we never get that because Korra was already bending (although not perfectly) 3 of the 4 elements since she was a little kid, she also got basically held captive at the sourthern water tribe.
I remember mildly disliking season two way back when I first watched it, but back then it was simply because I preferred the darker 1920s noir aesthetic of the first season and didn't like the sudden swallow dive into pure anime fantasy complete with knockoff Ghibli spirits, kaiju battles, and the flying mint bunny from Hetalia. That and it had way less scenes of Lin Beifong, who was my favourite character throughout the show 🤣
Years later after watching numerous breakdowns of S2, I REALLY dislike it, especially after seeing people point out problems with it that 17-year-old me didn't notice, and now I just feel like we were cheated out of a genuinely interesting season about Korra realising that the Avatar can't solve everything in favour of a Dark-Avatar-Kaiju-Battle 😮💨
So many people misunderstood book 2 its crazy. To me its the best season in the 2 series.
Korra had adult themes/ideas and feels like it was written by a child. ATLA had child friendly ideas but was written in quite a mature and adult way.
ATLAs antagonists are nuanced, with Zuko being given a redemption arc and Azula being shown to be emotionally abused and also a victim of the firelord. We get a mature nuanced look at the fire nation and colonisation, and we're shown that not every individual is evil, but that they are still complicit in the crimes of their government?
Korra? Let's invent bending communists who think everyone should be equal and take away bending, but also have them be led by a bender and forget about any genuine societal issues or commentary. Let's have our anarchist talk about how much he loves anarchy and and kill one dictator, but have him just fighting the avatar and air nomads for the rest of the season instead of like, doing anarchism.
and lets have other political ideologies portrayed as literal evil. wtf? this isnt how politics work. sure extremism is bad but you have to at least see the other persons point of view and explore why its bad, some sort of middle ground maybe? the world isnt perfect and change may be good. this shows 0 understanding of political issues. and then at the end things improve (non benders are treated better, the world becomes more spiritual, the earth kingdom is no longer opressed) just because someone was so loud about their beliefs and because they took things too far. only extremism has any change in the world of korra but the show expects you to believe that its bad
@@waifu_png_pl6854 yeah turns out all we needed to create a free and democratic earth kingdom is to have an anarchist and a fascist get involved. Who would have guessed?
Oh and communism is just kill everyone with powers now apparently (tbf a pretty good summary of stalinism). No discussion about how people might actually be affected in a world where a portion of the population can basically kill anyone they want at any time.
Season 2 is the season that made me stop watching Korra. Then followed by my friends telling me I was wrong for dropping it because “a bad season doesn’t make a bad show”. I was then told that Bumi, my favorite character of Aang’s children, was turned into an air bender by the writers. I was not going back to the show. I wanted Bumi to have his own purpose of being the No bender son of the avatar who is just as good, if not greater, than his siblings.
I also hated the changes that none of my friends seemed to understand. The retcons to the canon of the Avatar universe was genuinely terrible, and I hated it.
If anyone’s curious, my friends just told me that the team didn’t know they were getting more seasons, hence why the show is written that way. I didn’t care. That’s no excuse for those changes or those horrible executions.
so you are loser.good to know
The way I manage to cope with Korea and season two is that I just think of it more like a fan fiction, kinda like the cursed child in Harry Potter, its technically Canon, but like is it really
which is too bad because the friendship between Harry’s kid and Malfoy's kid is one of the best parts about that book.
The show badly needed a proper direction, aka hiring a head writer like Aaron Ehasz. It's clear the creators aren't that strong as writers, season 2 proved this.
tenzin is one of the best things in the show I loved seeing him just be. Wish he had more screen time sigh
He’s really well written and personally my favourite character (and possibly favourite part) of the show. But he receives waayyy more focus then any other character apart from maybe korra. Like the “new team avatar” have barely enough about them to be character and instead feel more like a characterture
They could've made the show about Tenzin and Lin and I would've watched it. At least the love triangle would've been mildly more interesting.
@@finlayames6216 Its only because of its serialized format. The only way for these characters to get a good backstory is if the show had an episodic format.
When korra released I tried my best to care about it as the heir apparent to my favorite nickelodeon show of all time. I stopped after season 1 because i found Korra to be flawed beyond repair, a pointless love triangle, and somehow a villain to be more relatable than the protagonist. Oh and that the powercreep of the bending system was so bad that it relegated lightning bending as a factory job and energy bending to be basically moot as bloodbending can basically do the same thing without the risk of losing your own bending in the process. And to hear that season 1 was supposed to be a standalone that then was expanded into 4 seasons only makes the flaws of season 1 more glaring.
You better than me. I watched about 2 episodes before I quit
Right there with you. I’ve watched original more times than I count. I quite literally couldn’t get further than the 2nd episode.
@@kathrinen3834 loser
@@jaylalove7308 loser
I always thought that the reason ATLA was so near perfect was because they had a brilliant team of writers to help the 2 creators guide their ideas, tell them what makes sense, what doesn't, whats dumb, what's awesome, people who knew how to create a world with unique lore that was believable and cohesive. When watching LOK, you can just tell that was not the case. Any chance of LOK being up to par with ATLA disappeared when I saw that it wasn't the same writing team.
It is a shame that Season 2 is so rough. I still love Korra, and it means more to me than ATLA, but I fully acknowledge the issues of the 2nd season.
Please don't defend its flaws. We need to call them out if we want improvements if there is ever more Avatar content. (Besides the live Action netflix one although I don't have high hopes for that one)
@Colt James yeah I mean I went from loving korra to hating it now I think it's kind of meh but I dont agree that its "garbage" from people like E;R who clearly have their own agenda for hating the show.
I feel like we should all take a moment to watch this: ruclips.net/video/s7P9qTdVnMY/видео.html
since we watch this
RachelTheIvysaur it’s not great
It’s just better than the cartoons we have now
Every time that i rewatch korra is skip the season 2, 3 and 4 are the best by so far and 1 is a good concept but the love triangle don't let me enjoy it at all
Nickelodeon: *destroys Korra* Why would anyone do this?
Thing is, they didn't. Regardless of whether they didn't plan for more seasons, the love square was a fault of the writing. If all the drama between Bolin/Mako/Korra/Asami was cut out, there would've been plenty of time to develop the new Team Avatar. Who was begging for it to be brought back in season 2 and eat up episodes of screen time?
its not just Nicks fault, the creators had some godawful writing
Unalog douse
Do you have a video where you dive a little more deeply into Korra's character and why you like her? For me, I kind of hated her in season 1 & 2, whereas season 3 & 4 I guess you can say my opinion of her improved from hate to I don't like or dislike her now. I could sorta see where they were going for a reverse Aang arc, but I'm not entirely convinced it was very well done or earned.
It's simple: she HAS ZERO CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT.
The new spirit designs are freaking ugly - not to mention, I thought the Avatar was a symbol rather than a person - which is why the First Avatar shit bugs me.
If there is a first of something, then everyone who comes after them will inevitably have insecurity about being "better."
The balance of the universe should not have a "better." attached to it!
How can an Avatar be a symbol? Do you even know what an Avatar is? The Avatar is the human incarnation of a divine power or deity. Hence every Avatar is basically the Avatar of Raava.
This critique really makes no sense
@@vetarlittorf1807 While I don't agree at all with OP, that is also not how the Avatar works. The Avatar isnt an incarnation of Raava, they are fused with Raava. If anything the Avatar is more akin to a jinchuriki from Naruto.
Hell, Raava can even be "removed" from the Avatar's body. So in the new lore established by LoK, the Avatar isnt the incarnation of anything really.
@@dw3134 that makes no sense. The avatar cycle has always been able to end and that doesn't mean that the avatar isn't an incarnation of something. The avatar is the incarnation of Raava. That being able to be broken doesnt change that
To be fair to Korra, they didn't know they were gonna get three more seasons. They thought they were just gonna be a mini series with book one, but then Nickelodeon ordered more seasons. had the creators been given the four seasons from the very start, they probably would've come up with something more cohesive and less disjointed.
There have been great miniseries that didn’t get seasons green lit and were still able to be more cohesive and respectful to their source material than LoK.
@@dreampiper I think you misunderstand the problem that WhatAlsaid! is addressing.
It's not that the creators were unable to make something good, (the fact that they made Avatar should show how competent they are as writers) it was that they were victim to corporate mismanagement and were rushed into pumping out extra seasons that they couldn't plan out.
He brought that up at around 17:22
n b I can understand the rushed production bit, but season restrictions are no excuse. People have made far more with far less.
@@dreampiper a Mini-series is something that only lasts *ONE* season. Legend of Korra was originally just supposed to be *ONE* season, but then the studio ordered more seasons, turning it into a full series. Say what you want about books 2-4, but book 1 was solid A+ and that's because that's all the creators intended in making.
Remember Shaolin Showdown? The show literally had a McGuffin that turned good characters evil and evil characters good, but even that show handled the villains with some personality and nuance
Bolin's whole movie star story was so obviously ripped off from Pratchett's Moving Pictures, with Varrick as CMOT Dibbler, the actress named Ginger, magic dog and then of course there's a kaiju fight at the end. Except Moving Pictures is bloody hilarious.
they should have seen that Unalaq was evil from his eyebrows only the evil ones are the ones with big eyebrows
"I don't like apples"
SC: *EAT THE APPLE*
*eats apple*
Lmaoo I live for these intros
Wan's story is awesome and evocative right up until he runs into the two spirits.
Then the whole show takes a nose dive.
It's the idea that undercuts all of the other interesting ideas.
A story about just a civil war is interesting, and has difficult things to say.
A story about the devil is lazy.
Hey he mentioned 50s Algeria did not expect him to mention France’s last attempt to control Africa
Good things about season 2:
- Avatar Wan
- The civil war storyline (for me it was sorta interesting to see them fight with waterbenders on both sides)
- Varrik and his war profiteering storyline
- The scene of Wan imprisoning Vaatu
- The scene of Raava telling Korra to fight Vaatu
Bad Things:
- RETCONNING THE SPIRITS! WHO IN THEIR RIGHT MIND? WHY? I... just can't
- Raava & Vaatu should be more about balance vs disorder. The show acts like Raava is the personification of good, when it could've explored how both were essential to maintaining balance
- Retconning the spirit world. Stuff like "your emotions control it now" and introducing the tree of time which was solely a plot device
- The ending fight, I mean cmon, giant spirit people? Really?
- The words dark avatar
-The love triangle
-Unalaq is supposed to be some spiritual master but he doesn't know that Vaatu doesn't just want to reunite the spirit and human worlds, he wants to do random evil stuff too
This sums up my views of season 2 as well, it had some good ideas but the execution was a mess, avatar wan and his story was definitely the best part for me
Book 2: Korra defeats the biggest bad of baddest baddies with a Care Bear Stare
Season 1: I liked it, Amon was a cool villain but I didn’t like the love triangle
Season 2: aweful
Season 3: I like it so far though I’m only on episode 5
Season 4: haven’t watched it yet
Your description of Book 4: Balance, is actually surprisingly accurate for me(or it was for a while), as it only aired online and I didn’t know about the sudden change until a few years later(which is kind of ironic considering the first episode’s name and the time jump). I wouldn’t be surprised if anyone just found out about the fourth season because it’s on Netflix now.
Season 3 is the best seasom
"aweful"
I know that's a typo but it's also a perfect new word to describe something so awful, you're sort of in awe at how something THIS bad can exist at all.
Okay so I finished season 4 and it was pretty good season 3 is definitely the best
Season 1: this is awesome. This might be better than the first show. Better action and way more interesting story.
Season 2: still really interesting story but maybe not as good.. I really like the avatar origin.
Haven't watched the rest yet. Can't wait.
I remember when the finale for season 2 aired, the only thing I saw people saying about it was "Holy crap! Did you see Admiral Zhao!? Lol What're you doing outside of A:TLA season 1!?"
Little known fact: the other guy is standing up in the intro, you'd just never know it.
Here is my issue with this season-
The civil war has potential but leads to nowhere or push it to the backdrop after the beginnings
too many B-plots
Asami does nothing, Bolin is still off
Missing the point of Raava and Vaatu as yin-yang. They supposed to be together and balanced not defeat the dark on just assumption of evil. Book 3 has a better yin yang symbol because red lotis want freedom even spreading chaos without leaders.
Love triangle screws up the dynamic of team avatar, they did it better in book 3 because the love triangle is thrown out of the window.
Mako is too pessamistic
I forgot about unalaaq because that how forgetful is he, he supposed to be a fundamentalist villain that wants to conquer in the name of the spirits instead of power-hungry. Don't get me started with Dark Avatar
Korra is too cocky and trigger-happy compared season one Korra until after beginnings without any development (season 3-4 have it)
Kuviara feels like the true dark avatar than what we got because it presents the dark version of korra
Love triangles are handled better in Steven universe- Greg vs Perl over Rose, Steven Universe handled anime tropes better- even the kaiju/ Ultraman reference are handled better
I remember being young when I watched the final fight and thinking to myself “why the hell is she a giant now?”
Korra season 2 is pretty mediocre for me with Ravaa and Vatuu being too black and white but the plot with Tenzin and Kya and Bumi was my favorite part and was pretty eye opening that OMG Aang changed over many decades IKR so hard to get
*Raava
*Vaatu
Wan's story would've been awesome as its own unique stand-alone myth---and the animation style in those episodes was just breathtaking---but it frankly drags down the quality and ruins of the mystery of the Avatarverse.
Korra was written to be a big jerk. The show gives her a pass by almost everyone because of Avatar status
I still can't understand why Asami would want to be in a romantic relationship with that crazy person who *bleeped* her life six ways to Sunday and waked all over others. Season 1 and 4 made a big deal about daddy betraying Asami's trust and it was personal. She doesn't hold any hint of ire against Mako and Korra, who just used her for her resources.
A good example of proper use of the “good and evil balance” stuff, I would say is Star Wars. As much as people narc on the prequel trilogy I think it shows Anakin’s journey very well. The idea that he was destined to bring balance as that he DOESNT do that is preposterous to me. He did bring balance by sadly having to wipe out the Jedi, and then, even though it may have been years later, he still took down Palpatine and brought balance in the end between good and evil. One side can’t outweigh the other for there to be balance. The Jedi got too powerful so it just had to happen.
I don't mind Tenzin getting the focus he gets. It's sorta like how Zuko got a lot of focus despite not being part of the main 4 characters.
I'd say he's more akin to, well, Iroh or either of Azula's friends. He's explored and has a significant influence on the story, but he's still secondary.
Zuko is easily AtLA's deuteroganist.
@@BonaparteBardithion I dunno.
Tenzin is VERY clearly part of the main cast. At least in the first three seasons.
He is the only character outside of Korra to have to constantly deal with his own supporting cast and antagonists.
In book 1, his conflict with Tarlokk and issues with Lin are just as present as Korra's issues with Mako and Asami, and conflict with Tarlok. The first episode sets up the main conflict between him and Korra and how they both need to learn from one another.
In book 2, his whole side story with his family is pretty much the same as Zuko's side stories with Iroh and later Azula's group. His journey to find spirituality is key to the plot because he NEEDS to succeed in order to help Korra.
Book 3 is about bringing back the airbenders, and the main villain is an airbender enthusiast. I don't need to explain how key season 3 was to Tenzin's character.
And I think that's on purpose. It's why he narrates the opening, like his mother before him (who was the tritagonist of the original series). His status as the deuteragonist (of the first three seasons) isn't immediately apparent to us because he's totally different from the expected cases. You normally expect the love interest (Mako), sidekick (Bolin), or rival (Asami?) to be the deuteragonist. And normally they are someone in the same age range as the protag. It's normally not the mentor character because they normally should have everything figured out. But Tenzin's arc into being the proper mentor is tied to carrying on the legacy of the Avatar, his father. Just like Korra is trying to begin her own legacy as the avatar. The two are tied together on a spiritual level.
Just like Aang and Zuko (who also is a descendant of a previous avatar).
Honestly, Tenzin got just the perfect amount of time and care dedicated to him. I can't say it's his fault the other characters sucked. Because we've seen before that that's not the case. Lin, Bumi, Kya, and Jinora could easily fall into Tenzin's supporting cast of his story (Just like Iroh and Azula for Zuko's) and they all are super fleshed out and are able to contribute to the narrative as a whole rather than just being the main characters' cheerleaders.
When you explain it like that he does actually have a lot in common with Zuko's role. While Tenzin's support cast are decently fleshed out, his story suffers from most of his support cast channeling their energies to, as you put it, cheerlead Korra.
The main difference between Tenzin and Zuko is that Zuko was allowed to exist outside of his "catch/help the Avatar" quest. They did that a little bit with Tenzin later on (especially after reintroducing airbenders), but like many parts of the show Tenzin's half of the story would have been greatly improved by more time and better pacing.
@@BonaparteBardithion
Well, that's what we get when Nick doesn't give Korra the proper runtime.
That's not an excuse, I know, but it clearly affected the show. Korra suffers from trying to tackle more complex issues with less time on its hands than the original. Which ends up making all its ideas feel half baked.
I mean, one could claim that Zuko himself for the amount of time spent on him, is one of the main characters himself, in fact i would say Zuko has more claim to being a main character than Toph because she comes in season 2 whereas Zuko has been there since episode 1 season 1.
The issue is that in terms of how more developed Tenzin is then most of new team avatar, this would be like only focussing on Zuko and Aang and never bothering giving katara, toph or sokka any real development and assigning them to support and or B roles that go very little anywhere,
2:52 It was awful how Korra was bothering Mako at work. I mean sure complain anywhere else but why go to your boyfriend's workplace, the police station, to berate him while he's working.
Korra is definetly the toxic one
She's not only bothering him. She made a scene and smashed/kicked whatever his desk causing his paperwork to be disorganized and his office mates be disturbed on their work too.
@@queenberuthiel5469thankfully for him, Lin didn't hold him accountable for this, probably cuz she herself had a wild break up with Tenzin where she did something to Air Temple Island (we don't know what she did but I assume that she damaged ATI with her earthbending or something)
Something I felt was stupid was that things like metal bending and bending lightning are pretty common now. I mean the reason most can't bend lightning is because they need inner peace along with being able to take a lot of time to master it and metal bending pretty much needs you to inspect the material in sense which is why Toph can do it. So I could understand Toph's child learning metal bending but not a massive police force.
I remember when Korra was airing, and as soon as I watched the season 2 finale as a young teen, I dropped the show entirely. I had previously watched ATLA and loved it up until the very end. I was born in China and adopted by an American family, and when I saw a show with tremendous eastern influence I connected with it immediately. Seeing Korra, where basically every aspect is mishandled at least slightly, and with such high expectations for the Avatar team from their previous work, I was so disappointed.
I hate it when people say" well the avatar wasn't a masterpiece either but no one talks about that". People actually do talk about its flaws but people seem to over look that. We don't need to sit here and go through all the flaws of one show just to criticze the sequal. And wether or not the avatar or Korra are both good or bad shows is an opinion so don't go around claiming its a fact.
@Zer0dog to be fair there are some flaws in the show.
@@ItsRemmyy Yea but they're so minute it doesn't take away from the experience of the show, unlike Korra
@@sinistrality511 yeah but people don't understand that. In fact the flaws made the show better. If it was sl perfect and no one ever messed up and grew as characters then people would be complaining its not realistic.
@@sinistrality511 and really some of the flaws in Korra don't even take away the enjoyment. I would say that the things that take away yhe enjoyment are the love triangle, the giant robot, and the giant Kiju fight.
@@ItsRemmyy I enjoyed ATLA cuz of the semi-realistic issues they would deal with. It seemed real, and it felt like it actually taught good lessons and there was something you can learn from it. Korra felt too fantasized, it felt clunky and i didnt learn anything from it. I don't blame the creators for that, nickelodeon fucked them over.
Bro tlok is a book made by sokka in spare time don’t take it serious
Blasphemy! Sokka could've written better than this!
I believe the dark Avatar thing could have worked if they made the villain more nuanced and didn't want to be the dark Avatar
Maybe, but at that point you are rewriting the characters pretty much beyond recognition from what we got. I just can’t believe people say Korra is more “mature” when the bad guy straight up says he wants to be the “dark avatar”. Like that’s so silly and obviously evil. And then two seasons later they try and say that he had a point? Nah man, he wanted the world to end
He didn't want the world to end, he was trying to bring balance.@@finlayames6216
@@IM_GOING_TOO_HAM YO WTF
@@angelsrageunleashed5441 He kinda was. It would have been better if they took that route but then they went with power hungry.
Dr. Topher it would've unleashed 10,000 years of chaos which in the shows context is presented as a very bad thing. if the concept were truly about balance then they shouldn't have made vaatu just purely evil
Allow me to rewrite wans story, if you will. We start after he's been kicked out of his village. I will keep in the turtles, as it appears they may have been the original balancers, back when humans were not a strong presence in the world. The only change I shall make is that they grant bending to all who ask, regardless of what species they are, and they do not "Give" bending as they were shown to, but rather, "Unlock" bending, or unlocking the chakaras and the knowledge to allow a person to begin bending a certain element.
Won was starving, dying from exposure, dying from his inability to kill. He has been hurt from a few altercations with the hunters from his village, driving him to run further than they can reach. He stumbles into a dark bramble, the world more spirit than natural here. He goes in circles, the camera spinning wildly as he begins to panic. He hits against a tree and lashes out. It catches fire. He panics further as the bramble begins to catch alight around him. He still cannot see an exit, only fire and wood and thorns and smoke.
He realizes he needs to learn to control the fire. He looks to his hand, then he looks up to the burning bramble around him. He takes a deep breath, then another, calming himself. He connects to the fire, breathing deeply, unconsciously keeping tight control of his core (As Iroh tried to teach zuko to do). As he calms himself and begins to balance himself, the fire dims, then swirls around him. He feels a sense of hope, looking around himself now in amazement. He closes the fire, leaving only a small flame by which to see.
A twig snaps behind wan. He jolts, still on edge, and almost lashes out again, fire beginning to form. He dulls it back to his light, remembering to breathe.
"Who's there?" He calls out.
A spirit steps into the light. They are the protector of the bramble, and the secrets that lie within. The vines curl around them, forming a gentle face and a sweeping cape/dress (It is unclear which, as the leaves twist and shape and bend constantly but gently), and gestures to the singed bark.
"Oh. Right. Sorry about almost burning down... your home?"
The spirit nods.
"Yeah, sorry. I didn't mean to. I just.. I'm scared of the dark nowadays."
The spirit turn sto go. Wan turns to go as well, but collapses from his injuries. The spirit turns back hearing it. Things fade to black.
Wan wakes up in a bed of soft leaves and moss. moonlight gently filters in above him. He groans and rolls over, then puts a hand to an injury. It is wrapped with cloth, padded with moss where it needs to be.
Since this is already very long, I will leave it off here. Wan builds a relationship with this spirit, calming it from it's own rage when men attack it for firewood. He talks to the men and to the spirit, striking a deal to where the men take the wood, and in payment, they build within sight of the spirit, allowing it to see what it's home is used for. They are hesitant to live in the spirit wilds, but wan convinces them that it's better than fighting a spirit over it's home.
Once he is well, he thanks the spirit and goes on his way. He naturally learns other bending forms slowly, overtime, as he becomes tuned to the way things work. (I can never remember the light and dark spirits) the spirit of yang comes to Wan. They talk, they form a true friendship. As he journey's across the world, he learns air through letting go, through dance and through balance. As he journey's, he goes through the avatar cycle, building knowledge of the element before it to improve the one after it. Fire and air, both flowing and free. Air and water, strong yet gentle. Water and earth, unyeidling and relentless. Earth and fire, both strong and bold.
He talks to people, to spirits, forming friendships, making deals, aiding both the spirits and the humans as he needs to. He learns from the original benders. First the dragons, then the sky bison, the moon, and the badger moles, as well as the first benders. They learns together, forming a friendship and a bond unbreakable and everlasting.
He lives a long life, during which the turtles disappear. The spirit world naturally begins to separate from the human world, the bitter spirits praying on humans and retreating further from civilization.
On his death bed, the spirits of control and chaos come to him, holding onto his hands as he dies. As he closes his eyes, they bend to him, twirling around him. As he breathes his last breath, it changes, swirling into the avatar cycle. The series ends with a crying child, dressed like an air nomad. The avatar cycle has begun in full.
Interesting. Good work 👏
Can I read this in full? I always thought about Wan backstory could be little better.
Also from what I understand people still live on Lion Turtle coresponding their element and grant them the knowledge through praying? I still don't get that
For me the problems with season 2 are just amplified issues that exist throughout TLOK. It's a great show but it tried so hard to build upon what ATLA did while trying to distance itself from that story and it's characters. I can understand why that would be the case since this is supposed to be about a new Avatar and her setting. It wouldn't be fair to Korra to have her story overshadowed by more established and beloved characters, but in doing so they really cut off TLOK from it's source material. Those characters were instrumental in creating the world Korra inhabited, and to ignore their presence except when convenient really hurt the show.
Think of how integral Roku was to Aang in both providing guidance and explaining how his failures lead to the situation Aang faced. TLOK actively avoided that relationship between Aang and Korra so she could be the focus of the story but in the process had to either ignore important plot points or farm them out to other characters as side plots that only served as gimmicks for information dumps.
Season 2 is a prime example of this as we're immediately introduced to the issues between the Northern and Southern Water Tribes and the spirits. Well, what was Aang doing for the majority of his time as the Avatar that things became this unbalanced? Did he neglect those duties? Might that tie into his potential failings as a father? And could that could relate to Korra's issues with her parents and relationship with Mako? Could all of this have been given greater perspective through a spirit mentor session with Aang where he reflected upon his failings and the difficulties of repairing a world torn apart by 100 years of war in his absence? And how balancing those responsibilities placed stress on his personal relationships, including as a husband and father? And maybe by the time a young Tenzin exhibits airbending Aang was exhausted and jaded with his role as the Avatar? That he saw the opportunity to rebuild the Air Nomads through his son as a chance to finally indulge in his own selfish needs while still satisfying his role as bringing balance to the world? It wouldn't have solved Korra's problems but it would have given her insight and inspiration that this sort of professional and personal struggle isn't just because she's bad at being an Avatar but that being the Avatar is really difficult.
That simple scene would have given a ton of more insight into Tenzin and his siblings. Aang might very well have been a bad father because the only thing that could still bring him hope was the idea that the Air Nomads would slowly return through his son. That resulting pressure on Tenzin would have shaped so much of his personality and choices. Maybe that's really why he and Lin didn't work out? He was so obsessed with pleasing his beloved father and his dream of resurrecting the Air Nomads that he felt guilty about listening to his heart at the risk of having a relationship with a woman who might very well produce earthbenders than airbenders? That would have cut down on the necessity of needing Tenzin to be so heavily centered in Season 2 in secondary plots to serve as information dumps. That time then could have been better spent on his character development and the character development of others.
And while we're at it, the entire North vs South and spirit unrest plotlines conspicuously avoided two key water tribe individuals from ATLA: Katara and Sokka. Katara is still alive during the events of Season 2 and we know Sokka was alive as recently as when Korra was a young girl. What changed in that time period that the North attained dominion over the South? Why was the festival allowed to become commercialized and the spirits ignored? Was it something Katara or Sokka did? Or something they fought against but ultimately lost? That would have fleshed things out and given viewers a more firm grasp on the setting while tying in beloved characters from the first series.
That's pretty much the issue with all of TLOK. It's largely divorced from it's source material because it's afraid the inevitable nostalgia and comparisons to the first series would overpower it. Instead they take long detours to explain developments in the world since the last series and inevitably venture into revisions that are neither organic to the series or helpful in advancing the development of the current set of characters. When they do bring back characters it's clear they're simply doing fan service since their roles could have been handled by others just as easily, or they serve to further complicate the plotlines by introducing a whole slew of new characters and issues. *coughBeiFongscough*
Ya know, before Korra was made, I heard of a theory about a "dark avatar" and it seemed cool. But the dark avatar we got wasn't what I thought when I heard about a dark avatar.
I love LOK, but I agree with season 2. Loosing connection to the past Avatars was the worst ideas they had.
One of the more memorable scenes to me in this season was Korra threatening a judge. On no evidence that he was actually corrupt. She's lucky he actually ended up being corrupt, or she'd be in some deep shit. There isn't a lot to like in this show. Any grey area or nuance the villain has, in any of the seasons, is eventually tossed aside by the end, so we can still have the good guy vs bad guy. Rather than just two people with different but justifiable views being in conflict with each other.
Yeah, I know Avatar did this with Ozai obviously being a psychopath, but he was never protrayed as maybe having a good point at first, then shifting to "No, he's just evil".
The problem is that this season had SO MUCH POTENTIAL. They executed it SO POORLY. It was like they used wattpad as a reference instead of actually going back to the Og source material and making something wonderful out of this. Exploring the spirit world. Actually portraying yin and Yang ads complimentary instead of being antagonistic against one another.
I was thinking Korra would play it as though they made a mistake in locking up Vatuu because without them there is no balance and rebellion against the overbearing ‘peace’.
I just like to pretend s2 doesn’t exist at this point😓
I remember never being able to fully get into korrasami cuz I remembered Korra’s abusive behaviour towards Mako in this season and just being really worried for Asami. That poor girl has her work cut out for her.
Also I’m deadass convinced they removed the past avatars because they really thought critics would stop comparing Korra to Aang, Kyoshi etc if she was now the only avatar. It felt like they were trying to force the audience to like her by making her the default.
i literally laughed out loud when Korra said Unalaq wants to "destroy the whole world"
like come on now
I wished we got a kyoshi or yangchen series instead of the legend of Korra.
im not because we got great korra
@@kamilszczęsny-m9dKyoshi and Yangchen is way better than Korra 100 fold
All Korra really did for me was make me wanna see Aang as a dad XD
More like watch other characters other than Korra
It may be evidence that I am a basic Biotch, but my favorite execution of the dark mirror trope is and possibly always will be, Saren vs. Shepard. Varik is the best villain in LoK, and he's even better, because he wins.
This is fair
I almost skipped through the part at the beginning because I thought it was a sponsored ad for apples lol. Then I looked more carefully and realized that the blue smudge was an arrow.
I never got into Korra, as much as i liked the improvement in animation as well as the excellent voice cast and the fact they brought in a lot of big names such as Aubrey plaza as well as J.K simmons, Steven Blum, Lance Hendrisken etc. etc.
I never got into it because of the writing...all seasons have massive issues with character development, plot, screwing around with the original story and of course none of the villains are that well developed and only have an idea behind them that’s never fleshed out
1. Amon’s talk about the equality between benders and non benders means nothing cause he’s a water bender who uses blood bending and spirit bending...
2. Ulaq wants to create the dark avatar to champion the spits, but in actuality just wants power and to unleash 10k years of darkness on the world, and corrupts the spirits.
3. Zaheer and the red lotus are terrorists basically, but preach the importance of freedom and the tyrannical oppression of society, however they are anarchists and their brand of anarchy is self retributive and basically is the purge level of chaos, the idea that chaos brings order is a false one.
4. Kulvira is brought up as this increasingly authoritarian despot but we see none of its we’re just told she is.
The writers and show want to push the idea that evil is complex and that these villains have a point, but none of them actually do. not one
because the writers were more interested in pushing the good vs evil cliche but at the same time wanted to make twist villains with a point a goal
the two don’t work well and take specific writing to make work.
If they really wanted the Avatar to be fused with a spirit, why not both Raava and Vaatu? it embodies balance perfectly!
Problem is, for that to work Vaatu would have to represent the positive aspects of chaos (change and freedom) not just be generic bad guy like the writers went with.
@@jacobd1984 the entirety of season 2 would have to be different for anything to have a basic level of quality tbh
@@jacobd1984 Not really. If you go that route with him doing good evil then you're basically saying" vaatu is needed but only because is similar to raava". It really wouldn't matter what type of evil he does because its still balance.
SayianPrince The idea is for them not to be similar at all. In this scenario, Vaatu only wants change, and Raava only wants stability. Put them together and you achieve balance. As it was written, creating balance means getting rid of Vaatu (at least until he’s reborn) because he only has bad qualities, and Raava only has good ones. Fusing with him wouldn’t make the avatar better.
@@jacobd1984 Yeah you're right.
I thought Unnalaq was gonna kill himself the moment Vaatu and him fused. I mean, game over right there right?
So you’re saying season 2 is The Great Divide.
Unaloq did have one good point: spirits are important. That's all that he ever said that was even mildly positive. I think that's what they were /trying/ to say in Season 4. And failing.
16:15 It’s not the same team; I don't know why people act like Aaron Ehasz doesn’t exist; he was the fing head writer in The Last Airbender; do you want to know how important he was? In the original vision of the character, Uncle Iroh Michael and Bryan wanted him just to be someone who’s ruthless and who teaches Zuko firebending, but Aaron Ehasz reshaped the character and made it how we see it today.