Four Ways The Legend of Korra Respected Its Younger Viewers

Mike Hoffman

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Sep 25, 2013
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Four Ways The Legend of Korra Respected Its Younger Viewers

The Legend of Korra wasn't so much subversive as it was respectful of its younger viewers.

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freaper

snuggere mongool
Apr 3, 2010
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I was pleasantly surprised by how they handled those different subjects. Let's hope the creators get another shot at a show together.
 

castlewise

Lord Fancypants
Jul 18, 2010
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I really feel the first four but the fifth is a little undeserved. The Korra/Asami relationship is a nice 5 minutes at the end of the last season, but they never really did much more than that with queer representation.
 

Renegade-pizza

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Jul 26, 2010
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While I really enjoyed it, P'Li's* death was kinda messed up (armor enclosing the detonation around her head). I liked that they tackled these subjects, without making it 'dark'.

*aka Combustion Woman
castlewise said:
I really feel the first four but the fifth is a little undeserved. The Korra/Asami relationship is a nice 5 minutes at the end of the last season, but they never really did much more than that with queer representation.
Someone needs to visit deviantart...
 

Super Cyborg

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I will put aside my huge problems with Korra aside and say it is nice to have these things in a kids show. If only they could've know there would've been four seasons, and made the writing and characterizations better, then all of this would've been cherries on the cake.

Only thing I wonder is if kids would pick up on the Korrasami part at the end. I understood it, which it was implied with as much subtlety as a baby crying on an airplane, but would younger kids get the implication?

Hopefully we can have more of this type of stuff in children's shows, along with better writing and stories.
 

NinjaDeathSlap

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Feb 20, 2011
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I was always rooting for Korra when it tried to tell more nuanced, adult stories, and it DID make progress. However, in my view it never quite nailed it. It presented lots of complex dilemmas, but when it came to resolving them, it all became a little too neat and simplistic again, I guess because at heart, it was still a kid's show.

I enjoyed the show very much, and I laud them for trying, but personally they never quite stuck the landing for me.
 

NinjaDeathSlap

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Feb 20, 2011
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Super Cyborg said:
I will put aside my huge problems with Korra aside and say it is nice to have these things in a kids show. If only they could've know there would've been four seasons, and made the writing and characterizations better, then all of this would've been cherries on the cake.

Only thing I wonder is if kids would pick up on the Korrasami part at the end. I understood it, which it was implied with as much subtlety as a baby crying on an airplane, but would younger kids get the implication?

Hopefully we can have more of this type of stuff in children's shows, along with better writing and stories.
If you mean 'Is an 8 year old going to guess that these two are about 5 seconds away from making out, in that last scene?' then probably not. However, I would argue that that's not necessarily the point. 8 year old's aren't really burdened with a detailed understanding of romantic relationship in general, but just seeing two women on TV holding hands, and looking at each-other in that way, and for the context of that image to be presented as in no way 'weird', is a powerful symbol that could take root and have an effect on how they view those kinds of things later on, when they do understand them better.
 

SNCommand

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NinjaDeathSlap said:
It presented lots of complex dilemmas, but when it came to resolving them, it all became a little too neat and simplistic again
Except for you know the dethroning of the tyrannical Earth Queen leading to a power vacuum that propelled the book 4 villain into power, anarchy lead to tyranny

I think the main one people felt was resolved too neatly was the Equalist revolution, but this is actually what happened in the west in real life, a lot of people during the 19th and early 20th century thought Western Europe's lower class would overthrow their governments in violent revolutions, and while some did happen, they were quickly beaten down and then things sort of just resolved themselves as small concessions were made and the lives of the poor in the west started to improve
 

Newage

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Having finished the show super recently, I have to say I really liked it. In fact I liked it so much that I also looked at the Tv Tropes page (as I usually do when I finish any piece of media I end up liking). Also I'm super sad now, because the show is over, and there won't be any new adventures.
 

NinjaDeathSlap

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SNCommand said:
NinjaDeathSlap said:
It presented lots of complex dilemmas, but when it came to resolving them, it all became a little too neat and simplistic again
Except for you know the dethroning of the tyrannical Earth Queen leading to a power vacuum that propelled the book 4 villain into power, anarchy lead to tyranny
But you can be pretty sure that if it had been the Avatar toppling the Earth Queen, rather than another villain, things would've turned out alright. In any case, One Zaheer is defeated, his ideology is all gone, and the Red Lotus are never brought up again, despite being shown to be a bigger movement than just him and his inner circle. The show did a good job in presenting a character who really believes in his cause, and is inspirational in that, but in terms of showing people what anarchy actually is and how it effects people versus the various alternatives? Very little. About 10 minutes of looting in Ba Sing Se, and then nothing until Kuvira unites the nation again 3 years later, where we're just told that she's a tryant now, with no in depth exploration of how she rose to power and how that process might have changed her.

It was the same in Book 1. The word 'Equality' was tossed around a lot, and it was generally understood that 'Equality' was supposed to be a 'Good Thing', even if Amon was a 'Bad Guy', but it kinda falls flat when the Equalist cause was largely reduced to a dude in the street shouting about bending being evil. Oh, and there was that one scene with the Triads who were using bending to bully a shopkeeper. One scene. Wow. I'm totally on board with the idea that the entire city hates benders and is now rising up behind Amon now... or that as soon as Amon was revealed to be a fraud, everyone just kinda went home.

I don't want to get into a long protracted argument about it, because I did really enjoy Korra, and I liked that it's writing had loftier ambitions for storytelling, I just wish it had gone just that extra step further much of the time, to be more thoughtful and less derivative.
 

SNCommand

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NinjaDeathSlap said:
SNCommand said:
NinjaDeathSlap said:
It presented lots of complex dilemmas, but when it came to resolving them, it all became a little too neat and simplistic again
Except for you know the dethroning of the tyrannical Earth Queen leading to a power vacuum that propelled the book 4 villain into power, anarchy lead to tyranny
But you can be pretty sure that if it had been the Avatar toppling the Earth Queen, rather than another villain, things would've turned out alright. In any case, One Zaheer is defeated, his ideology is all gone, and the Red Lotus are never brought up again, despite being shown to be a bigger movement than just him and his inner circle. The show did a good job in presenting a character who really believes in his cause, and is inspirational in that, but in terms of showing people what anarchy actually is and how it effects people versus the various alternatives? Very little. About 10 minutes of looting in Ba Sing Se, and then nothing until Kuvira unites the nation again 3 years later, where we're just told that she's a tryant now, with no in depth exploration of how she rose to power and how that process might have changed her.

It was the same in Book 1. The word 'Equality' was tossed around a lot, and it was generally understood that 'Equality' was supposed to be a 'Good Thing', even if Amon was a 'Bad Guy', but it kinda falls flat when the Equalist cause was largely reduced to a dude in the street shouting about bending being evil. Oh, and there was that one scene with the Triads who were using bending to bully a shopkeeper. One scene. Wow. I'm totally on board with the idea that the entire city hates benders and is now rising up behind Amon now... or that as soon as Amon was revealed to be a fraud, everyone just kinda went home.

I don't want to get into a long protracted argument about it, because I did really enjoy Korra, and I liked that it's writing had loftier ambitions for storytelling, I just wish it had gone just that extra step further much of the time, to be more thoughtful and less derivative.
Well, first off, Zaheer's ideology isn't gone, it's just lost its most powerful believers, that kills a cause, they still say in the end of Book 3 that there's still Red Lotus members out there and they have to be careful, now having the Red Lotus show up again would just be Book 3 all over again, instead they introduce a new villain who overshadows the possible threat of the remaining Red Lotus, and who is elevated to her position because of what the Red Lotus did

And what were they supposed to show of anarchy besides its effects? Zaheer explained his beliefs fairly well when he met Korra in the spirit world, and we both saw the violent aftermath of it after the Earth Queen was dethrones and then the stabilization afterwards, not much else to show really

As for Kuvira we are given a look on how she changed, during the flashback we see Kuvira beg to help the people and bring peace back, but she is denied, she then starts to bend the rules, goes behind the back of her surrogate mother, as she nears reuniting the Earth Kingdom she's in too deep in a world of necessary evils and hard truths, she then presents the same ideology taught to her by her surrogate mother and uses it as justification for taking charge of the Earth Kingdom, she won't have anymore kings when she believes she can rule better

As for the equalists I explained how it stays true to historical parallels, the communist revolution in Germany ended with it being beat down, but then the previous rulers abdicated and a new democratic government was instituted, just as what happened to the equalists, the Avatar and the United Forces crush the equalists, then the Council is removed from power and they elect a President
 

GabeZhul

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NinjaDeathSlap said:
It was the same in Book 1. The word 'Equality' was tossed around a lot, and it was generally understood that 'Equality' was supposed to be a 'Good Thing', even if Amon was a 'Bad Guy', but it kinda falls flat when the Equalist cause was largely reduced to a dude in the street shouting about bending being evil. Oh, and there was that one scene with the Triads who were using bending to bully a shopkeeper. One scene. Wow. I'm totally on board with the idea that the entire city hates benders and is now rising up behind Amon now... or that as soon as Amon was revealed to be a fraud, everyone just kinda went home.
In this regard I have to give credit to the Gonzo Podcast crew for noticing a huge glaring plot-hole in Amon's plans, namely that he doesn't really take away the bending of his victims, he just shuts off their ability to use them.

This means that even if he managed to un-bend every bender on the planet, their children would still inherit the ability! This means that the only way "equality" could be upheld is if Amon employed a small army of expert blood-benders to keep shutting off the bending of every newborn all around the world (meaning he needs benders to eradicate bending, but he can't eradicate benders because he needs them to eradicate bending).

In other words, his entire plan is completely and 100% infeasible and no one calls him out on it instead focusing on the mostly irrelevant "hypocrisy" and "morality" angles. Honestly, this fridge brilliance moment alone pretty much destroyed the image of Amon in my mind.
 

PunkRex

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Korra dealt with a lot of heavy topics, more so then Aang, but over all the latter series was more solid... even if Zhurrick had me gushing liquid man pride.

inu-kun said:
Whoah boy, where do I start, let's go one by one:

1. Death: "remember kids, bad guys take care of themselves, so bad guys will in the end kill themselves without need for the protagonist to filthy their hands, excepty, killing your uncle, that should not make you feel bad whatsoever if he was evil.

2. Sympathetic Villains: Yeah remember those 4 bad guys in season 3 who.... the fire gal and wind guy love each over, and the earth guy is one time sarcastic... and that water girl who was.... there... totally sympathetic despite probably causing the deaths of millions!

3. Depression: "remember kids, if you have a disability, rather than live with it you can find a magic cameo who will help you cure of your disability, because disabilities are for losers! Don't feel bad about your fate, you'll be fine in 3 episodes!".

4. Queer Representation: "remember kids, if you whine bad enough of what should be true, eventually the creative team will violate series canon to make it true! No need to justify it, there will be enough people screaming 'GENIUS' and 'MISOGYNIST' to anyone daring question it. Just as long as it's no MALE GAYS, those ones are icky".

All in all, I actually regret watching Korra, taking an interesting premise and wasting it while defiling it's canon.
You know, I can sort of agree with the first three, the conclusions of Korra did feel very clear cut which wasn't completely appropriate given the topics they choose to address but as for the last one, personally, I'm willing to cut them a bit of slack. Yes, it would have been nice for them to maybe have a few more scenes with just Korra and Asami 'bonding', but the show was already in trouble with the network as it was. A 'is gay okay' debate was the last thing the show needed. I do hope that one day real soon a family show bites the bullet and openly presents a gay relationship but maybe there is no high road to take in this situation. After all, if they were just giving in to tumblr I'm fairly sure BolinXEsker would have been a thing.
 

Nazrel

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GabeZhul said:
NinjaDeathSlap said:
It was the same in Book 1. The word 'Equality' was tossed around a lot, and it was generally understood that 'Equality' was supposed to be a 'Good Thing', even if Amon was a 'Bad Guy', but it kinda falls flat when the Equalist cause was largely reduced to a dude in the street shouting about bending being evil. Oh, and there was that one scene with the Triads who were using bending to bully a shopkeeper. One scene. Wow. I'm totally on board with the idea that the entire city hates benders and is now rising up behind Amon now... or that as soon as Amon was revealed to be a fraud, everyone just kinda went home.
In this regard I have to give credit to the Gonzo Podcast crew for noticing a huge glaring plot-hole in Amon's plans, namely that he doesn't really take away the bending of his victims, he just shuts off their ability to use them.

This means that even if he managed to un-bend every bender on the planet, their children would still inherit the ability! This means that the only way "equality" could be upheld is if Amon employed a small army of expert blood-benders to keep shutting off the bending of every newborn all around the world (meaning he needs benders to eradicate bending, but he can't eradicate benders because he needs them to eradicate bending).

In other words, his entire plan is completely and 100% infeasible and no one calls him out on it instead focusing on the mostly irrelevant "hypocrisy" and "morality" angles. Honestly, this fridge brilliance moment alone pretty much destroyed the image of Amon in my mind.
That's not the only flaw in the Equalist's plans. The 'Revelation' nicely pointed out the flaw in Equalist's veneration of electrical technology, in that the power plant's ran on lighting bending. Go a little further and most of the technology and infrastructure of all the nations are dependent on bending; the water tribes very ability to have civilizations are dependent on bending.

The very fact their plan was dependent on one individual removing the bending for every bender in the world is in itself ridiculous.

Equalist's were meant to be an understandable group, in that one can understand resenting benders for have greater opportunities do to what they can do, or for being victims of the triads; but they (and Amon) were never meant to be reasonable.

Up until Tarlocks reactionary measures, the validity of their complaints were on par with your average conspiracy theorist.
 

residentout1

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inu-kun said:
Whoah boy, where do I start, let's go one by one:
1. Death: "remember kids, bad guys take care of themselves, so bad guys will in the end kill themselves without need for the protagonist to filthy their hands, excepty, killing your uncle, that should not make you feel bad whatsoever if he was evil.

2. Sympathetic Villains: Yeah remember those 4 bad guys in season 3 who.... the fire gal and wind guy love each over, and the earth guy is one time sarcastic... and that water girl who was.... there... totally sympathetic despite probably causing the deaths of millions!

3. Depression: "remember kids, if you have a disability, rather than live with it you can find a magic cameo who will help you cure of your disability, because disabilities are for losers! Don't feel bad about your fate, you'll be fine in 3 episodes!".

4. Queer Representation: "remember kids, if you whine bad enough of what should be true, eventually the creative team will violate series canon to make it true! No need to justify it, there will be enough people screaming 'GENIUS' and 'MISOGYNIST' to anyone daring question it. Just as long as it's no MALE GAYS, those ones are icky".

All in all, I actually regret watching Korra, taking an interesting premise and wasting it while defiling it's canon.

1.you do know that Aang kill someone did not feel guilty right (that guy that kill the fish) and does death only count if the protagonist kills? good news Bruce Wayne your parents are not dead.


2. yes no villain had a back story for child abuse or wanted to change a system of abuse that between the rich and poor.


3. Korra was like a car accident victim badly injure but not to the point of disability you need to remember that being in a wheelchair after a fight she went through does not mean that she was disability. Also it took three years for her to healed. (with help from someone with a disability that they are find with)

4.so there are no gay people in the Avatar world yes Korra and Asami are the first that we know of but this is because the last airbender could not show gay people. Korra and Asami relationship was done the best way they could show you have to remember that the America has it problems with showing gay people. ( one million moms and the American Family Association being some of them)

5.yes who knows canon more some one who saw it or the creators of it.
 

tzimize

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castlewise said:
I really feel the first four but the fifth is a little undeserved. The Korra/Asami relationship is a nice 5 minutes at the end of the last season, but they never really did much more than that with queer representation.
But it DID make it in there. Remember what kind of audience they are speaking to, and what hoops they probably have to jump through to get it accepted by the management. There were subtle hints, like Korra seemingly being more happy to see Asami than anyone else.

Also, while I dont think the whole story comes off as good as the Aang one, this largely has to do with the fact that Airbender had several seasons building the whole plot, taking a journey and getting to know the characters.

Korra was a bit more....in pieces. The story did nonetheless move forward and I applaud ANY creator willing to take children seriously as an audience. Huge props to the creators for what they have done, both with this and Airbender. I'll be sure to follow them in the future :)