I Rewatched Korra Book 1 and GURL I Have NOTES (video script)

Intro:

Arguably one of the best hallmarks of a great friendship is all the new media they can introduce you to. In the last few years, I’ve been introduced to many different shows, animes, movies, and albums that I wouldn’t otherwise have touched, all thanks to weekly hangouts with friends over Discord.

One such friend actually introduced me to MASH, which I have no clue how I lived my entire life without. And it was quite kind of her considering I tortured her with RWBY first. But it’s okay, cuz I made up for it by introducing her to Avatar.

And I think seeing someone with no context fall in love with Avatar, it really shows you just how perfect it is on nearly every front. We recently started Legend of Korra, and… look, as I’ve said before - Korra is a mess, but she is my mess. I still think it’s an overall good series, who is forever doomed to suffer in the shadow of Avatar.

But that said… that doesn’t mean we need to sweep its problems under the rug. Book 1 has usually been regarded as one of the stronger seasons, albeit with a raging garbage fire for a finale. And… yeah, that hasn’t really changed much. Weirdly, in some areas Book 1 has actually proven better than I remember. But in others… oh hello, Proto-White Fang. I hope you’re not advocating for equal rights too hard!

So today, we’re gonna revisit Book 1, and go section by section with how I feel now about different aspects of the show. How has this season aged? And before y’all scream, yes, we’re taking into account that the creators didn’t know they’d be getting any additional seasons after this one… which honestly makes me resent that finale even more. Like, y’all thought this was gonna be your series finale, and you didn’t think to rearrange things to make it less… that?

Korra’s A Lot Better Than I Remember:

Korra has often been divisive among audiences. Some folks ADORE her, while others are lining up to call her the worst Avatar they’ve ever seen… really guys? Worse than Avatar “Failed to stop Sozin” Roku? Worse than Avatar “Lost my wife to the Face Stealer” Kuruk? I know y’all stan Kyoshi, and I do too, but y’all know she made the Dai Li too, right? Nobody’s perfect.

That said, the goal with Korra for the writers was to make her a total 180 from Aang. Where Aang was evasive, diplomatic, avoided his problems like the plague, and had a spine made out of jelly, Korra is hot-headed, assertive, and impulsive as hell, always ready to handle a problem head-on rather than dance around it.

Korra tends to get called a Mary Sue by certain sects of fandom… which let’s be real,  just means “A female character I don’t like because she’s not demure enough.” Like, she is flawed, and the narrative acknowledges those flaws, like her lack of patience, her inability to think things through, and her lack of social skills due to being locked away in a goddamn compound all her life.

I have my issues with how the narrative handles some of these flaws, specifically localized to Book 1, but we’ll get there later. But I was surprised on rewatch to find Korra a lot more… mature than I remember her being. She means well in trying to help people as the Avatar, even if it gets her into trouble with the law (which, oh dear, we need to unpack the copaganda too).

Even when it comes to the godforsaken Bermuda Love Triangle, she’s still willing to apologize for her part in the mess, whether it be for hurting Bolin’s feelings, or being kind to Asami while she’s dating Mako and going through the wringer.

There’s even the willingness to apologize for her brashness when she gets frustrated by Tenzin’s teachings and going behind his back. Tenzin had his issues too, and I genuinely love the mentor-student relationship between these two, where they’re both learning from each other. It’s one of the most wholesome things I’ve ever seen.

Oh, and as yikes-y and neoliberal as this show’s handling on politics is, and how that seeps into Korra’s dismissal of the Equalist movement because the narrative itself dismisses them immediately, we do get to see glimpses of Korra seeing the actual problems when Tarrlok goes off the rails. When he turns off the power for nonbenders, and the police are actively, wrongfully arresting loads of them, Korra steps in to get them out of dodge, then later confronts Tarrlok to tell him off and get him to stop.

It’s genuinely baffling that people read this disrespect for authority as haughty and self-righteous, because… isn’t this what Aang was doing in the last show? Standing against an unjust authority that was hurting people? That’s the whole point. The only difference here is that because the status quo seems less evil on the surface, it’s assumed to be inherently good and just, when it is the furthest thing from.

Granted, the narrative itself isn’t very interested in questioning these institutions, but I live for Korra telling them off when they’re either failing the people, or outright hurting and oppressing them. I need more of this Korra, please. An Avatar who is truly for the people, not the state and its branches.

The real problem comes in Korra’s arc of learning airbending. Which leads us into…

Why Is This Book Called “Air” Again?:

The elements have kinda… lost a lot of their philosophical and thematic purpose. Like, ya know how Aang learning earthbending was a proxy for growing a spine, or learning firebending was him no longer running from responsibility? Korra’s relationship with the elements… isn’t quite as elegant.

Yes, Korra’s inability to airbend, at a glance, is about learning the virtue of patience. Learning to find different ways to solve her problems instead of the gung-ho, guns-blazing attitude that allowed her to take so well to fire and earthbending. But it’s not enough for a narrative to tell you what it’s theme is, or what an arc is - it has to actually walk the walk. And with Korra… yeah, it doesn’t happen.

Korra’s inability to airbend being connected to this lack of patience isn’t ever really interrogated. We talk about her lack of spiritual aptitude a lot, but we don’t explore it the way we explored Aang’s issues when it came to learning new bending styles. And I’d suspect a lot of this, besides the corrosion of bending as a means of understanding oneself in relation to the world, comes from the fact we can’t pause the story to let the characters breathe.

With shorter seasons focused solely on the main plot, we lose the ability to have filler episodes, or even episodes that are just dedicated to one thing. Like, look at how many Avatar episodes focused on specific relationships between characters, or how Aang had a whole episode just about learning earthbending. Korra can’t do the same thing, because Korra only has 12 episodes to fight the Equalists, and we can’t waste a single one that isn’t trying to accomplish a dozen things in 20 minutes.

So the whole airbending training thing takes a backseat to fighting the Equalists. I’m not even sure why this book is called “Air,” cuz honestly, Book 3 does more for the element of air than Book 1 does. Even thematically, with the anti-bending revolution going on, and themes of the powerful versus the powerless, all the philosophies of airbending have… nothing to do with any of this.

And in the end, Korra can only airbend when Amon selectively takes away her water, fire, and earthbending. Which… how? They never explain how his bloodbending stuff works. And without clear, consistent rules, you’re left to just guess how it works, which gives the writers wiggle room for a lot of bullshit. It makes anything to do with this element cheap.

Like, how did Amon manage to take only three elements from Korra, but not air? Is it cuz she had no connection to air beforehand? I shouldn’t have to be guessing this, show. Little quality of life things like this, establishing consistent rules ahead of time, were always considerations back in Avatar, so when they’re absent in Korra, they add little road bumps that you may not notice at first, but you absolutely feel. And that shit adds up quickly.

And the fact Korra got her airbending through force of will. That she air punches Amon because it’s all she has left… yeah, it’s not cathartic or satisfying. Because she didn’t have to learn to be a new person in order to learn air - she, and the narrative, forced the element to work for her. Like, imagine if Aang didn’t have to become assertive to learn earth or fire, but found a way to learn them while remaining his avoidant self.

And yes, Korra does become more patient and mature across later seasons, and her airbending improves, but the air punches are never portrayed as a problem for her. She never has to acknowledge the fact she took a shortcut to learning air that circumvented character development. She just… eventually learns air as a side effect of becoming wiser. Yeah, that’s not all that compelling.

The Bermuda Love Triangle:

Yeah, this is the easiest thing to dunk on, and I think the most unpopular thing in the whole show. And… while the mess has grown on me, I have to admit it’s still not the best thing ever. Like, it’s fun to revel in just how nonsensical and stupid all of this is, especially as characters focus more on their romantic woes than the destruction and carnage around them. But it kinda reaffirms that these writers have never been all that great at writing romance.

Like, romance has always been the weakest aspect of Avatar to me. The original series suffered a lot from the societal expectations that are baked into all of us: everyone is straight by default, everyone must get with their one true soulmate of the opposite sex, and they must have a monogamous relationship with 3.5 children. Granted, a lot of characters like Sokka didn’t… but that’s less a thing we talk about and acknowledge, and more a thing the show uses to just discard their entire existence like they don’t matter.

So the romance in Korra… is a mess. On the one hand, part of me likes that, because Korra has been locked away for so long, she’s never had the chance to make friends her own age and socialize, let alone develop and explore crushes. Gay folks kinda have something similar. We’re not given the freedom or safety to explore cutesy relationships like the straights early on, so all our messy milestones wind up happening in late adulthood, and Korra is a similar case.

So Korra developing this crush on Mako, and going, “The first pretty, broody boi I must see must be my one true love”? I don’t mind that. But like… all the praise the show gets for letting Korra and Mako break up halfway through? How it breaks this ridiculous convention of your first being your one and only? That’s only cuz they realize how bad this relationship was in Book 2.

Remember, Book 1 was the only season they thought they were gonna get, so this happy ending for Korra and Mako was what they thought was endgame. And that doesn’t quite work cuz I just don’t buy their relationship. Like… why are they soulmates? All they do is butt heads and drive each other insane. This is what straight people who hate their partners and have no connection to their own sense of self think love is.

And because we have so little time, this subplot takes up way too much oxygen, not just in the first half, but even the second where Asami is reminding you how annoyed she is that Mako likes Korra. Like, I love Asami, but time and place, gurl. All this time that could’ve been used to get to know the characters on their own is instead dedicated to throwing them into whirlwind, messy love triangles… or love squares? Can I get to know Mako, Bolin, and Asami as people before you introduce them as potential love interests or roadblocks to the actual love interests?

It feels less like all of this is meant to help the characters grow and develop, and more just cuz the writers went, “Hey, they’re young adults. Young adults do romance, right? Let’s get messy.” And sure, that can be fun, but if you were to gut this, you wouldn’t be losing all that much in terms of story. It feels like they took two shows with wildly different tones, and stapled them together haphazardly.

And let’s be real… Bolin got robbed. Bolin is the real heartthrob here. He’s attractive, he’s sweet, he’s funny, and he’s a dumb dumb. And you’re telling me that nobody recognizes him as partner-worthy? He has to suffer through the “if we abuse men it’s funny” shit with Eska next season before getting an actual love interest?! Gurl, fuck off.

The Equalists:

So… this is gonna be a lot to unpack. As a foundation, I recommend this video by Kay and Skittles about the Politics of Legend of Korra. I’ve recommended it before, but it’s a great series that discusses how the show’s juvenile and lacking understanding of politics harms the show’s storytelling. And for Book 1, Amon is generally seen to be an analog to communism - by which I mean what the average westerner thinks communism is, as told to them by post-Red Scare pop culture.

There’s a number of reasons why this lens is faulty. For one, bending is an inherent trait, not a resource that can be distributed. When Amon takes someone’s bending, he’s taking a crucial part of their identity, which is a common sentiment among westerns towards communism. This makes the narrative less… trustworthy in how it reads Amon’s ideology.

The Equalists routinely posit how they’re discriminated against for being nonbenders, but the show never truly establishes that. The closest we get is crime gangs targeting a nonbender’s shop in the first episode, and the ruling council being composed of all benders - at least, I assume so? It’s never a thing that gets clarified, which to me demonstrates the show doesn’t understand how systems of oppression and inequality work.

The show has no real understanding of systems, only individuals. For example, this approach would view homophobia not as institutions persecuting gay people through policy, leaving them vulnerable to discrimination in housing, marriage, healthcare, etc. Instead, it would view homophobia as individual bigots throwing slurs at them, and the end of homophobia comes not with overhauling this broken system, but with band-aid solutions telling people to be nicer to gays.

Moreover, the entire Equalist movement falls apart when Amon is exposed as a bender. He isn’t a man who genuinely believes in his cause - he’s a fraud, so we don’t have to actually tackle his ideology head-on and confront whether or not he may be right. We can just write him off, then be comfy with the status quo as nonbenders collectively go, “Yeah, I guess we don’t need rights.”

Like, this isn’t how movements work. If MLK Jr. or Malcolm X were revealed to be frauds, that wouldn’t magically mean the Civil Rights Movement was wrong all along. Even the fact that it feels wild to compare the Equalists to IRL movements for equality kinda shows just how shallow the writers’ understanding of these movements are. This is how reactionaries and conservatives talk about things like Black Lives Matter or queer and trans people advocating for their rights in the modern era. People who’ve “gone too far” and have become the “new oppressors.”

The show also tries to sweep this all under the rug with the installation of President Raiko. We no longer have a council of people representing the Four Nations. Instead, we democratically elect a leader, like America… wow, they’re really not hiding all the Americana, are they? But because he’s a nonbender, it means nonbenders are gonna be okay. 

And I can shut this down with just one question: Did Barack Obama’s presidency end racism? If you answered yes, seek help.

Bloodbending Bullshit:

Once more, I cannot stand the bloodbender twist, practically or thematically. We’ll start with the basics: psychic bloodbending is bullshit. Like, what does that even mean? You can bend just by… looking at someone? How does that work? Why does it not require a full moon? When Yakone says they’re a long line, does that mean there were psychic bloodbenders before him? Potentially even before Katara and Hama? WHO THE FUCK KNOWS?

No, we don’t technically need to know, but the fact we go until the very end without these answers feels cheap, and makes anything to do with this subplot feel cheap by extension. When Avatar had things like seismic sense, or even chakras, they would always explain how they worked, not just practically, but in terms of philosophy.

Bloodbending does not get the same courtesy. Which especially makes Amon’s ability to take bending away through bloodbending feel frustrating, because… how do these things connect? Is it a chi path thing in the body? If so, having characters realize that could provide a realistic, engaging path to regaining bending by reopening those chi paths.

What could’ve made for an interesting story of characters understanding how Amon’s abilities work so as to undo the harm he does is just… written off as, “Oooo, spooky bloodbending magic!” And that also leads to a deeply unsatisfying ending that we’ll get into later. It’s just a perfect storm of things the show refuses to inspect deeper, leading to contrivance after contrivance, all cheapening the overall feel of that finale.

And even the fact Amon is secretly a bender, thus he is a fraud… gurl, fuck off. Not only is that not how movements work, that’s not how ideology works?! You can still be a bender and believe bending is evil, the same way you can possess privilege in an unjust system and believe that system must be dismantled.

Tarrlok has one line of going, “I guess Amon genuinely believes bending is evil,” but that never gets interrogated, because the show’s throwing all its eggs into the “HE’S A FRAUD” basket. Once again, gives us a convenient excuse not to ask ourselves is maybe he’s got some kinda point about the inequality of the Avatar world.

Korra doesn’t have to wonder if maybe this system does actually privilege benders over nonbenders. She doesn’t have to actually engage with Amon’s ideas about the world no longer needing benders - no longer needing an Avatar. She doesn’t even need to think about whether or not the Avatar is more than just that ability to bend. There’s no battle of ideologies here, but just a literal, physical battle that’s about as deep as a dried-up puddle.

Oh, and no, I don’t feel bad for Tarrlok. Seeing him all, “uwu soft boi” in that flashback episode made me nearly blow a gasket, cuz this man has been routinely oppressing and attacking people with his political power, and his freaky bloodbending. He gets no respect from me, even locked up here in the weird attic prison Tenzin has for some reason, no I’m not gonna unpack why he has this.

Like, Noatak calling Tarrlok “weak” and running away because… Tarrlok asked about their mom? Gurl, what kinda nonsensical non-sequitur is this?! It really gives they wanted Noatak to appear sociopathic and monstrous, and then worked backwards from their conclusion, which is why so much of this feels ridiculously contrived and unsatisfying.

Or even the fact Amon is the brother of Tarrlok, when we were given no indication Yakone had two sons. Like… what does this have to do thematically with anything, aside from going, “Ooo, Amon’s all freaky and bloodbendy”? Tarrlok going, “I’m Amon’s brother” haunts me to this day. There’s no way to take this line seriously. Like what is this, a telenovela?

Gurl Fuck That Ending:

So there’s been quite a lot of DISCOURSE about whether or not this ending is good. You’ve got people saying Korra got her powers handed back to her with no effort, and others going, “SHE HAS BEEN THROUGH ENOUGH, LEAVE HER ALONE!”

There’s even a reading that her looking down the cliff is… well, I have to choose my words carefully cuz of YouTube’s draconian systems, but let’s just say it was a thought about jumpstarting the reincarnation cycle.

And I wanna respect that reading, because Korra does go through a lot of anguish throughout the series, and questions her own self-worth when she feels like she can’t live up to the title of Avatar. It’s very much something people see themselves in, usually people who were considered “gifted kids” in school, only to be kicked around like a soda can by callous systems that ruined their mental health and self worth for fun.

But that all said… it doesn’t really erase the fact Korra does kinda just get her bending back at the last minute through no work on her part. And no, there is no glory in suffering for suffering’s sake, and I don’t wanna romanticize struggle when we should be doing all we can to minimize it. But in terms of storytelling… yeah, we kinda need to see characters putting in the work to grow to complete their arcs.

Sure, they thought this was gonna be the series finale, so there was no time to re-learn the elements. They had to restore her bending because they didn’t wanna potentially leave the show off on a note of her losing three of the four elements. Sure, it’d be fun seeing her regain the elements and form proper connections with them in Book 2, but they didn’t know they’d get a Book 2.

But I’d argue this cheap solution being the potential series finale is even more egregious. Like, you can just rewrite what you wrote to work better than this. You can rearrange episodes and omit pointless subplots, or better manage your time to allow for more space in the finale to find a better way for Korra to regain her connection to the elements.

Like, maybe cut all the pointless General Iroh stuff (because genuinely, he isn’t a character, he’s a cameo, and the worst one I’ve ever seen), and instead wrap up the Amon stuff in Chapter 11.  Then Chapter 12 can focus on wrapping up loose ends. Maybe Korra does what she did before, and meditates to connect to Aang, and she therefore initiates reopening her chakras.

And yes, just talking about the chakra stuff would be enough to fix all this. Have Korra LEARN how Amon did the bending removal, so that way it feels earned when she learns how to undo it, instead of vague “Oh it’s Avatar magic fix-y glow.” Aang speedrunned his chakras in one episode, and it surprisingly felt very cathartic and well done, so there’s no reason Korra couldn’t do the same thing in the finale episode. Could even include little affirmations of the lessons she’s learned throughout Book 1.

And then, not only is she using her Avatar glow to restore other people’s bending, but she’s helping people get more in touch with themselves to do so. Like, Lin having to reopen her chakras to get back in touch with earth and metalbending would be so cool, and same for other characters. It would reaffirm the thematic and cultural importance of bending, almost forcing the characters to go beyond the superficial, utilitarian use of the elements that they had by default.

Conclusion & Outro:

So… yeah. Clearly, I’ve got thoughts on Book 1, and they’re not all great. Overall, I’d say it was still enjoyable… until those last two episodes, those were absolute fucking misery. Like, I’d happily watch “The Spirit of Competition” before I ever touch “Skeletons in the Closet,” and  “Endgame” might actually be the worst episode of Avatar ever produced.

But again, I still love this show, even with all the problems I have. While I admire this show’s attempt to grapple more nuanced, complex topics, its inability to actually understand them frustrates me… but I’d also argue it led to a lot of people seeking to understand them on their own time as they got older. I know it did for me.

So maybe there is merit in that. It’s… baby’s first attempt at nuance. It’s gonna be messy and not great, and very yikes-y at times, but maybe that first step has to be allowed to be messy before you can arrive at greatness.