Reflections on The Legend of Korra

After the dust has settled, a critical look at the finale, the last season, and the series as a whole.

The series isn't gonna reflect on itself.

The Avatar franchise is perhaps the most underrated collection of stories of the past decade or so. Considering that the fanbase is both huge and devoted, this may seem like an odd statement. But - and this is obviously just my opinion - the merit of the series stacks up against the best that nerddom has to offer. Star Wars, Star Trek, Lord of the Rings... Avatar: The Last Airbender and it's sequel, The Legend of Korra are just as good as any of them and I challenge anyone to argue otherwise.

That being said, I have a confession to make. And it's likely to make almost every fellow traveler in the Avatar fanbase, who were only moments ago nodding their heads in agreement, scream aloud in horror and disgust - at least if the opinions I see on reddit are shared by the fanbase at large. Anyway, here goes.

I didn't think that the series finale of The Legend of Korra was the best thing ever made. Okay, I was exaggerating. But I didn't even think that Day of the Colossus and The Last Stand were even that 'mind -blowing', a term that I've heard countless times in reference to the finale.

I'll explain all of this in a moment, but my reaction was a bit more ambivalent than most. And now that the season is over, the series is done, and nothing new will be added to the franchise - at least for the foreseeable future - I think now is as good a time as any to critically examine the finale, both in the context of the final season, and the entire series. Now that it's complete, we can finally look at all of the elements with the whole picture in mind. If Return of the Jedi had sucked, it would have made the lack of resolution in The Empire Strikes Back suck too. In other words, the set-up can be brought down by the pay-off.

And, at the end of the day, looking at Legend of Korra as a whole - the show was great. I don't want to imply that I thought the finale was bad - it wasn't. But Legend of Korra is an example of a show with great moments and an exciting build-up that culminated in something that was less exciting than what we'd already seen. Don't get me wrong, this isn't in any way comparable to Lost or anything. But there's a good deal that I'm critical of. The set-up ultimately ended up being better than the pay-off.

1. The Set-Up.

Where we left off at the end of season 3, things seemed fairly bleak. In fact, if you look at the end of each season of Korra, things end on progressively worse terms. After defeating Amon, unlocking her airbending, finding love and finally accessing her spiritual self, season 1 was a huge victory for Korra. It's unequivocally positive. Then, after season 2, things change; and the ending, accordingly, is a little more of a mixed bag. As Tenzin mused, change can be good or bad, and there was definitely a little of both after defeating UnaVaatu. The destruction of the world is averted, and the spirits come back into the world, but Korra and Mako's relationship falls apart. Not to mention that Korra's link with her past lives is severed.

Finally, season 3 ends on a depressing note. Korra is handicapped. The Earth Kingdom is in chaos. Zaheer was defeated, but not before emotionally crippling the avatar and paving the way for the rise of an even greater evil. There is a glimmer of hope in the new airbenders - but Korra's single tear says more about how we're feeling: overwhelmed.

"When we hit our lowest point, we are open to the greatest change."

And, to be sure, Kuvira doesn't disappoint as the new villain. There was speculation for quite awhile that an Earthbending villain would have to be the main antagonist at some point - we'd covered every other element - and Kuvira exemplifies everything that an earthbending villain should be. Firebending villains try to destroy their enemies, waterbenders try to manipulate them, airbenders try to liberate power into the hands of the many. Like Long Feng and the Earth Queen, however, Kuvira tries to control her enemies. In direct contrast to the philosophy of the airbenders, Kuvira wants to centralize power, and unify her kingdom. As a representative of the element of substance, the United Earth Empire seems very grounded - they are solely devoted to worldly concerns, such as feeding their people, securing their borders, and scientific and technological progress. Not one of the soldiers blinks when their leader attacks the avatar, the most revered spiritual figure of all time.

Admittedly, I found Kuvira's backstory in the episode Enemy at the Gates to be a bit clumsy. I know that the episodes only have around 23 minutes to get everything across, but it still seemed to unfold a little too quickly. One moment, Kuvira respectfully disagrees with Suyin on a matter of policy; the next, she's betraying her city, inciting a mass defection to her side, and somehow winning a mandate to impose her will on the entire Earth Kingdom. To be fair, Sozin had an equally hasty turn - from a similar disagreement with the avatar to genocidal conquest in The Avatar and the Firelord. I guess neither really showed the reasoning behind the total descent into madness of these respective characters. The justification of Kuvira just wanting to unify the Earth Kingdom, but getting too carried away, seems a bit weak when she's lazer-blasting cities out of existence and enslaving her own people.

"I provide stability and equality. Tell your world leaders to stay out of Earth Kingdom business. We won't accept their hand-picked dictator."
-Kuvira

Hey wait a minute, isn't the United Republic a former Earth Kingdom territ-... oh...

But the comparison to the Firelord is important, because Korra's enemies thus far had all been of a different stripe than the imperialists and conquerors that Aang faced in The Last Airbender. Season 4 seems like something of an attempt to 'bring it home' - Kuvira represents the same kind of threat that Aang faced, and there are plenty of references and bits of fan service in this season. Only, unlike Aang, when the season begins, Korra is still dealing with the aftermath of her fight with Zaheer. It's one of the most compelling plot arcs that the franchise has ever done. You keep thinking, "Ah, it must be over now," but Korra's demons won't stop returning. It's very effective - the creators succeed in getting us to fear, right along with Korra, "This might never be over. Korra might never be the avatar she once was." When Korra finally resolves her issues - by going to Zaheer, no less - the result is one of the best episodes of the season.

The appearance of Toph was... do I really need to talk about this? We all know it was amazing.

Something about years of shaping geopolitics
just makes you wanna retire & go make soup in the swamp.

Many loose ends in character development and the overarching plot are tied off as the season continues, and finally everything comes to a head as Kuvira marches on Republic City. We all saw it coming - the United Earth Empire wants to reclaim all former territories, and the United Republic was formed from former Earth Kingdom land - but the creators still managed to push the envelope for what would be their seventh season finale. You just don't quite expect to see a colossal mech-warrior step out from behind the mountains, but it still believable given how we've watched technology progress throughout both shows.

2. The Pay-Off.

What arguably sets Legend of Korra above Last Airbender, in at least one respect, is the quality of animation. The bending techniques and battles only become more sophisticated and dazzling as the series went on; frankly, it was already a huge step-up from the very first season. I also don't hear a lot of fans talk about the music, but the score to Legend of Korra is, in my book, even better than Last Airbender. This all held true until the very end, and the final battle with the colossus ends up being the centerpiece of the finale. We've already seen a giant avatar battle a giant villain - it was a smart decision to have the small, insignificant-by-comparison protagonists all team up to take down the massive enemy. For the longest time, nothing they do seems to stop it, and we get some of the most impressive bending and captivating animation in the show.

Kuvira: yet another argument for more research into platinum-bending.

But the fighting wasn't all to smile about in the finale. Echoing the sentiments of most, I'd say the relationship between Varrick and Zhu Li was a long time coming, and it was satisfying to see it finally come to fruition. Their banter is priceless.

I'd been a little dissatisfied with Hiroshi's appearance that season. Sure, it was nice to get some closure on the character (I'd always wondered what became of him), but there was nothing surprising about the way they seemingly wrapped up his arc earlier in the season. Then, in the finale, you realize that it was only a set-up for his sacrifice, and it all works very sell. The writers masterfully include both Hiroshi and Zaheer this season as past antagonists that find themselves helping the heroes, and the justification for both is believable and in service of the characters.

I appreciated the scenes with Wu - they reminded me of something out of Last Airbender - although they took up a little too much screen time. Otherwise, the finale managed its pacing well, and found the time to showcase each character, at least a little bit.

So what wasn't to like about the ending, then? Well, I found it to be underwhelming. To explain how, I'm going to compare it with Sozin's Comet, and make a risky assertion - about what I feel to be one of the core appeals of the show, and why I found it to be lacking at the end of Legend of Korra.

You see, Avatar is a quotable franchise, and this is because there are eloquent bits of insight to be found throughout both shows. If one were to read some of the most cherished lines in the series without any context, I could see how a non-fan might think that some of the 'wisdom' offered in the show is trite. But, as Avatar fans, we find something deeper is elucidated by these lines in the context of the show, something we can learn from in these simple observations.

"Sometimes life is like this dark tunnel, you can’t always see the light at the end of the tunnel, but if you just keep moving, you will come to a better place."
-General Iroh

I'd argue that Avatar is a franchise that is littered with aphorisms - concise insights that are the calling card of much of Eastern Philosophy, and even some westerners, such as Nietzsche. And it's the brevity, and the simplicity of these statements that is most impressive about them. Teaching philosophy is difficult - and this is a show that attempts to relate philosophical concepts to children (it's a show meant for all audiences, after all) in the span of only twenty minutes. Elucidating something profound that even a child can understand is the mark of great writing.  I would say that the many aphorisms of Iroh, Guru Pathik, Tenzin and others form one of the central appeals of the series.

Coming hand-in-hand with the aphoristic teachings of Avatar are corresponding events of great profundity. We might describe these as something like a 'higher spiritual revelation', and I use the term 'corresponding' because one can't be separated from the other.

Maybe one day you will be an obnoxious nerd with overly critical opinions too!

The finale of season 2 of Last Airbender comes to mind here. The wisdom of the guru is given aphoristically, and sometimes consists of suggestions for self-improvement that are so basic as to seem obvious. However, living up to these mantras requires more than simply accepting them; the profound changes one might see to their own life and character were they to embrace such wisdom are made relatable by using Aang's experience as allegory. As he works through his own faults, we get an insight into the message behind the guru's words. The most significant insight for Aang is exemplified when tries tapping into the power of the last chakra. Aang experiences himself walking a narrow path, standing high above the world, signifying his responsibility. At the end, he can see himself - but at the same time, it's not quite himself. The visuals show that the avatar is something bigger than Aang. The meaning behind the guru's words that Aang must bring balance to himself before he brings balance to the world become clearer. One's power could become limitless, in a manner of speaking; the only thing holding you back is yourself.

Or consider when Aang encounters the Lion Turtle in Sozin's Comet. The sentiments he expresses seem conventional, perhaps even obvious, but his meaning is oblique and elusive.

"The true mind can weather all the lies and illusions without being lost. The true heart can tough the poison of hatred without being scarred. Since beginningless time, darkness thrives in the void, but always yields to purifying light."

But it must be understood in the context of Aang receiving the ability to bend energy. Since one's own spirit must be 'unbendable', Aang must steel himself before exposing his spirit to Ozai's. We can only subjectively interpret the ending of Aang's fight with Ozai, but the 'energy battle' at the end seems to be an allegory for the entire fight. Ozai's spirit is full of blind rage and abject hatred - Aang's is full of love and mercy. The last thing Aang wants is to kill another living thing, but showing compassion to someone who has nothing but hatred for you can seem almost impossible. The struggle between Aang's spirit and Ozai's is representative of Aang's struggle to find some way to live up to his own principles of peace and non-violence, when his enemy is unceasingly violent in return. The Lion Turtle's words of wisdom are the assurance that if Aang holds to his virtues and maintains his compassion for all life, he will even be able to 'tough the poison of hatred' and 'weather all the lies and illusions'. Light will prevail.

Another important point of comparison is that Aang's conflict in respect to how he would handle the final confrontation with Ozai had been building for some time, and how he was going to handle it would have huge implications for the character one way or the other. Basically - Aang's arc wasn't complete, not until the very last episode of the four-part finale.

In light of this, you can probably guess what I found to be lacking in the finale. And it's somewhat unfortunate, because I just praised the show for Korra's character arc in season 4. It's great. And given all that unfolds in the finale, I don't know if there really would have been time to retool it in order for Korra's arc to come to a conclusion during the events of the final two-parter. Korra's arc wrapped up pretty much the way it should have - but this meant that the main character had very little to learn in the final episode.

3. The Missed Opportunities.

This isn't a damning problem - all Korra really needed was something like one of those 'higher spiritual revelations' written in. A moral to the story - an aphorism to bring it all home, coupled with a spiritual experience to visualize the point being made. Something... there's that term again... mind-blowing. But there wasn't really anything like this.

I know that some of you disagree. And there are a few moments where the finale approaches something like this, but I'd argue that it failed on every count. The first, most obvious counter is that Korra learned that she was, in fact, a kind of 'mirror image' of Kuvira. It's even experienced as kind of a 'vision', right after Korra is blasted into the spirit world.

And technically, this meets all of the parameters I laid out. But I hate it. Because it's wrong. Factually wrong.

Kuvira and Korra are not mirror images of one another. I don't understand the attempt to force Kuvira into the role of a 'sympathetic villain'. Almost everyone Korra has faced, with the exception maybe of Unalaq, was more sympathetic, or at least more understandable, than Kuvira. There's been more than one comparison of Kuvira to Hitler, and while that may be a touch overwrought, the two aren't entirely dissimilar. Kuvira's movement could be described as fascist, demanding total reorganization of all one's life priorities to service of the state. Everything is brought under the state's purview, labor is reorganized, national defense and expansion are prioritized, and the law is strictly enforced and backed by a fanatical military. Citizens of other races and nationalities, as well as political dissenters are put into camps. Even Earth Kingdom nationals are being conscripted into forced labor operations. And there's that bit of rhetoric about re-unification, which might call to mind the Sudetenland.

"Join me or die" isn't usually the mantra of a sympathetic villain.

This isn't to speak of how many must have died as Kuvira marched across the kingdom, waging her campaign. She also violates the spirit wilds and abuses the spirit vines to harvest their power - for purely destructive purposes. She irresponsibly continues these operations even after she learns the dangers she's causing. At the beginning of the season, she brazenly exceeds her authority, and is asked by world leaders to cease, which she doesn't. When asked by the avatar, she tries to fight her. When asked by her husband, she tries to kill him.

At that point, at the very least, it seemed clear that conquest was all that mattered to Kuvira. "Well, she's gone insane," I thought aloud, or something to that effect. When you're willing to kill your own husband just to conquer the lands of a nearby people (which has offered a ceasefire, the terms of which would have you both returning to your respective territories and leaving it be), you've gone off the deep end. The only reason to take Republic City at this point was to satisfy a purely narcissistic desire for conquest and imperialism. Kuvira is only sympathetic insofar as her actions can be said to be 'for her people', or 'for her nation'. Waging what would surely be a costly war with Republic City only ever seemed detrimental to her people, and if the man she loves begging her to stop leads her to say, "Well, fuck it," and try to murder him... then my sympathies end.

Nerdgasm denial.

The weak explanation that both women are 'strong' and 'determined' falls flat. That could be said of virtually every Avatar villain. And what made this whole thing a slap in the face was the fact that the vision Korra has, however briefly, looks exactly like the vision that began Wan's story in Beginnings. In other words: the last time Korra looked deep within herself and made contact with her past avatars. Korra losing her past lives was one of the most controversial decisions in the series, and many wanted the creators to reverse it in some way. I respect them for following through with their artistic choices, but I think more than anything what a lot of fans really wanted was some kind of closure in that regard. We never really got it, which was fine, I guess - but teasing it with the exact same imagery, in the finale no less, was unforgivable. Especially when the 'realization' that Korra has is complete bogus.

But what about the new spirit portal? That was neat, I suppose. It was a nice touch that the purple beam created by the weapon seemed to be a powered-up version of Vaatu's beam - and Vaatu claimed to have been the one to have broken through into the material world. There was some sense to the beam having that effect upon Korra's intervention with the blast. But the spirit portals left often after season 2 never really did anything, and that stands as another criticism on the series as a whole. The final images of season 2 implies that the spirits would play a larger role in the destiny of the world, going forward, but aside from the spirit wilds being allowed to remain, and the occasional minor participation by spirits in an episode here or there, the spirit portals remaining open didn't seem to change much. And the rationalization that leaving the portals open brought airbending back into the world doesn't count - the only tie-in with the portals is simply that we're told via exposition that it was because the portals remained open that airbending returned. Because the spirit portals remaining open never seemed to matter much in the respective plots of season 3 & 4, seeing a new one open underwhelmed me. Cool, I guess?

An awe-inspiring landmark until the next Avatar comes and closes it.

But that was fine - the spirits now had more of a reason than ever to intervene in the fate of the world of men, given that Kuvira was perverting their energy into a terrible weapon. But the spirits rebuff the avatar when she asks them to help defend Republic City, claiming that she only wants what Kuvira wants, to use spirits as a weapon in a human war. For one, there's such an obvious distinction between what Korra is asking and what Kuvira is doing that the spirit in question comes off as a complete idiot. Korra is asking the spirits to help end the exploitation of their power. Furthermore, it is claimed that Unalaq was 'misusing' Vaatu's power to force spirits to fight for him. I don't know about this - it seemed like that was just what Vaatu did, and he was doing it ten thousand years before Unalaq was born. What exactly would be the 'proper use' for Vaatu's power?

I was thinking that when Kuvira wandered into the spirit wilds, they were going to kill her for what she had done - a fine pay-off that remedies all of this. But instead they did absolutely nothing, not even bothering to lift a finger for the world they'd lived in, or for the humans they've lived with. They return to the world after the conflict is already over, and everyone seems thrilled about this. I was a bit put off - the spirits seemed like cowards who disappeared right before the fight, but were happy to come and celebrate afterwards.

But speaking of the celebration afterwards, we get a pretty good 'epilogue' for each character we care about. Even Tahno shows up! The only character whose end felt unsatisfying was Mako's - this may not be a popular opinion, but I think it would have been more effective storytelling if he had died. It would have added weight to his engine room scene of awesomeness, which looked like they seriously thought about killing him and didn't. Plus, I don't really know where his character could go from here - he basically ends the show by asking to be the Robin to Korra's Batman.

I was also hoping for a bit more from Tenzin. "All of life is one, long bumpy ride"? Really? Iroh spouted off deeper shit than that on a weekly basis in Last Airbender.

4. Korrasami.

Of course, right after Tenzin hits us with that second-rate bit of wisdom, before you have any time to reflect on the shallowness of the sentiment, and then probably start to think about how the finale seemed to be missing quite a few things, it happens.

'Korrasami' has eclipsed pretty much everything else that happened during the finale, and considering that this kind of response was completely predictable - I knew, more or less, how people would react the moment I saw it - I can't help but be a bit cynical in my guess as to why that decision was made. I think they knew that what they'd come up with was, possibly, the weakest finale in comparison to what they'd already done. But, after what happened in the span of very last minute of the show, the creators managed to convince everyone that they'd done something groundbreaking and amazing.

And maybe they had. Perhaps a decision that may have been cynically-made and business-minded was simultaneously a groundbreaking move. And I'll admit that I liked Korrasami. I probably would've preferred that Korra not have to end up with someone, but Korrasami made the most sense out of all the possibilities for romance.

That being said, the creators have been less than civil about addressing criticism of Korrasami, even going so far as to claim that anyone who didn't pick up on the 'obvious' romantic development between the two was just looking at things with a 'hetero lens'. This is a less than charitable assessment of their own fans, and kind of disrespectful. You can't say that people were being biased by assuming that Korra wasn't gay, because season 1 ended with her and Mako together. When it was written, season 1 was supposed to be the start and end of the entire series, so you can't claim that the relationship wasn't supposed to be sincere. Obviously, it was still a possibility for Korra to be bisexual, but given that she had genuine feelings and relationships with men, and had never expressed any interest in women, I at least understand the folks who think this came out of left field. The dismissive retorts that it was 'obvious' are puzzling to me - given the declarations of devotion, friendship and love that pretty much all the protagonists on these shows are known for making, Korra and Asami's interactions didn't strike me as specifically romantic.

On the other hand, for all my criticisms, the significance of that scene to many people can't be understated, especially to young gay people and bisexuals who are now able to see their lifestyle normalized in children's television for the first time. And you could say that the scene eclipsed all these complaints about the quality of the finale and the character arcs involved because it simply was that much more important to a significant portion of the fanbase.

I liked how she was doing on her own, just my opinion.

But that's just it - Korrasami is very important to us, but it doesn't seem all that significant in the context of the story itself. In the end, it doesn't make up for an otherwise weak pay-off, and it doesn't seem like the completion of an arc that was building this. Korra's parents have been nothing but supportive, and she was on her own in a large, cosmopolitan city at the peak of her adolescence. It's not like anything was ever preventing her from getting together with a woman, and there's never been a character arc suggesting any kind of struggle in Korra that this resolves. The more obvious 'finale kiss' between Aang and Katara actually ended up being more effective, because tension had arisen between the characters and their relationship was uncertain. It may have been the most simplistic of arcs, but at least it was an arc. Korrasami is being accused of being fan service because it felt sudden and unexpected - and it felt that way because there wasn't a sense of tension that was being resolved, an arc coming to completion, or a pay-off to something that had been set up. In the grand scheme of things, it was just the hero getting the girl in the end - which is fine. But it isn't 'mind-blowing'.

5. The End.

So where does this leave the finale in respect to the series? Obviously this is all my subjective opinion, but it seems to me that The Legend of Korra is a show with many great moments but which developed into a flawed, but enjoyable whole. As we learned through Tenzin (via allegory, of course), in the spirit world at the end of season 2, it would have been a mistake to make Legend of Korra an imitation of The Last Airbender. But to that effect, Legend of Korra is more fractious. In one sense, it feels more real in this way - the characters and their lives go on. They grow, struggle and deal with a variety of different problems rather than one overarching one, with many adversaries as life goes on, not one boogeyman to kill at the end of it all. The consequences of almost every event are felt and usually seen through to their conclusions and they are not always positive. Some of the plot arcs are phenomenal, unfortunately some are sub-par.

Admittedly, however, the superior animation, the creative uses of bending, the beautiful backgrounds and stellar score make Legend of Korra much better then The Last Airbender on a technical level. This is ironic, because they seemed to have the most problems when it came to animation; with the final product, however, the biggest problem were bouts of weak writing. There are times when Legend of Korra fails to measure up to Last Airbender. But I'd argue that, on the other side of that coin, certain episodes outshine it. Beginnings, Korra Alone, Beyond the Wilds and the amazing finale to season 1 stand out as arguably as good or better than anything in Last Airbender. But when it comes to a complete picture, Last Airbender has Korra beaten. Sozin's Comet remains a paragon of series finales; Day of the Colossus and The Last Stand were serviceable by comparison. The bottom line: missed opportunities. There was a lot that the creators could have done to enrich the finale, but they didn't.

Stepping back to examine the entire franchise, however, I have to admit that the series finale for Korra managed to put a nice bow on it all. Despite the missed opportunities, I can't really say there was anything really wrong with the way it ended. The truth is that a competent ending is really all you need to avoid tarnishing the rest of the series, and this ending was just fine.

A show that knows it's going to draw comparisons from day one.

Since there are no current plans to expand the universe further, Avatar stands as a mighty, two-part epic. Two sagas that complement one another, each taking place decades apart in the same, fantastic world. There are some of the same characters, and you get to see in the second series where everyone ends up, how the world has developed and changed. And there's a stylistic and thematic bridge between the two. Viewing one enhances the viewing experience of the other, and taken together, they form one long, larger-than-life story.

I can think of two only other series that could be said to fit these parameters, which are both massively popular: Star Wars, and Lord of the Rings, two of the franchises I mentioned at the beginning of this article. Star Wars won't even qualify for much long, as it is about to be expanded further, and who knows what effect this will have on the overall quality of its franchise. But the fact is, when you look at Avatar as a saga - even considering everything I've said that's critical of Legend of Korra, season 4 and the finale - and compare it to either: the sum total is far and away the best of the three.

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