It's a shame they lost so many fans with the terribleness that was the first half of book two, because Book 3 was pretty great and so far I'm enjoying Book 4 - I'm not too far in yet, I'm going to watch it all in one sitting soon.
Man, three episodes down and then that will be the grand finale of the Avatar Universe. Although there is a new comic trilogy coming out soon focusing on the New Ozai Society.
One thing that I noticed about the Legend of Korra is that each villain represents a particular ideology that emerged during the early twentieth century: Amon- Communism, Unalaq-Religious Fundamentalism, Zaheer- Anarchism, and Kuveira- Fascism. That is one thing that I think Legend of Korra differs the most from Avatar is the politics. While some of it was there in the original series, it has more of a strong presence here. That is one theme that I like about this series is that each villain has a point about their agenda but were at the same time extreme in their actions.
(I started watching this when I was visiting my lady in Texas. I'm halfway through Book 3 of Avatar, and I'll be starting Korra next. Really enjoying it so far).
I just want to stress that ATLA and LoK are intended to be different in many ways. ATLA is more character and relationship focused more than LoK will ever be. LoK is plot-focused and has 4 different story arcs.
Moreover Aang has a fixed set of allies aka the Gaang and while Korra has her team Avatar as well, she actually has a larger network and thus each of these people have less focus than ATLA characters.
I hope you'll love both series. I love ATLA and LoK equally regardless of their differences in quality.
Wow...I was really surprised by the heavily implied Korrasami ending. Like I never expected that their friendship would be elevated to that level like Bubbline in Adventure Time.
However, I to say despite enjoying the finale this was my least favorite Book (for various reasons). My preference for the four books goes like this (from most favorite to least): Book 1>Book 3≈Book 2>>Book 4.
Edit: Theo I hope you don't mind but I added a spoiler tag to your post. I know this is a spoiler thread but it's the finale and I know a good few people haven't watched it yet, so I think it's best we keep things in spoilers until people start talking (if they start talking lol).
Anyway I think I might need to rewatch the whole series to give a proper verdict, but I loved the finale.
Blown away by the ending. You know there was a bit of chemistry between them over this season but I didn't think too much of it. In all honesty I thought "well there's the shipper feels for the poor shippers who'll never get what they want even though they should" and BAM, that finale. Blown. Away. I don't ship really, but if I were to pick one in this series it would have been Korrasami, and I'm so so so happy with the way that ended.
I like how Kuvira didn't die either, it was far nicer to have Korra kind of end things very peacefully.
I just loved it. Aside from what I consider to be a large misstep in the first half of book two, the rest of it has been awesome, and an excellent journey. I really want to go back and rewatch the whole thing now. And I think if I had watched all of book 2 in one go I wouldn't have become quite so pissed with it at the time, because the avatar Origins double bill I have watched upwards of 10 times now and it started getting better after that, it also ended on a high note.
Korrasami officially became a thing, big kudos to Mike and Bryanfor actually doing it but it should've happened ages ago. I swear is like they're listening to me. I said there were only two things that would get me interested again in LoK after the horrible first half of season 2, Toph being alive and Korrasami and now their both true. Coincidentally I'm now downloading all the episodes I've since the final 3 from season 2 and plan to spend my weekend catching up on Korra.
Edit: Theo I hope you don't mind but I added a spoiler tag to your post. I know this is a spoiler thread but it's the finale and I know a good few people haven't watched it yet, so I think it's best we keep things in spoilers until people start talking (if they start talking lol).
It's funny/strange, I think I have kinda the opposite opinion on TLOK than most people on this forum do. Most here seem to prefer the latter two books while I prefer the first two Books of the series.
The Avatar origins in Book 2 trump moments from Book 1, but the ratings above is what I give based on the whole package.
The Korrasami moment is simultaneously sad and awesome. Sad because it almost makes me forget everything else that happened in the finale and this season as a whole. I mean, Korrasami is ALL I want to think and talk about right now.
On one hand I really, REALLY want for cartoon shows to be progressive on a variety of topics, including the sexual. On the other hand it inevitably makes any gay implications or moments into a statement or agenda, instead of being seen as something ordinary and unremarkable. I'm saying this because it's a sad reminder of how far we still have to go before gay couplings in cartoon shows (that are meant to be watched by both children and adults) can be included AND without fanfare.
I am pretty convinced that a lesbian kiss was not allowed here. Because of this, the lack of a kiss makes me feel hollow. Yet if a lesbian kiss had happened, then that would have made us forget EVEN MORE about everything else that has happened in Legend of Korra.
Asami so often gets the short hand of the deal (I mean wow, the death of her father GEEZ) which makes me happy that at least she got rewarded with his HUMONGOUSLY implied romantic relationship with Korra. It feels right also in conjuction with how their friendship has grown over the seasons.
Well I think our opinions probably differ because of what it is we like about the show. I've always liked Korra, but I took extreme issue with what they tried to do with her character at the beginning of book two and I stand by that. The pain and journey she goes through in 3 and 4 are far more believable than going from an (at times) hot-headed character in Book 1 that is also very well rounded and reaches the end of an emotional maturation, to the brat we're exposed to at the beginning of book two. I don't really want to reopen debate on that topic because I know you disagree Theo, but that is my opinion.
Similarly, I don't dislike Mako. I did at first, but he grew on me. As a homosexual man exposed to heterosexuality in media (especially this kind of media) my entire life, Makorra neither surprised nor bothered me. It's boring, it's generic, it's a normal expected pairing. It neither adds to or detracts from the story to me. I would take issue if they'd spent an excess amount of time on any pairing throughout the series, but thankfully any sort of attraction/romance was told in nice subtle ways following the middle point of Book two.
Now having said all of that, neither Korra nor romance were my favourite things about the show, ever - just as Aang wasn't my favourite character in ATLA. What I am interested in is the overarching plot, the journey of the avatar and the characters within the world - all of them. I read that post and I didn't even notice that Korra had less screen time in book 4.
If I were to give my honest opinion, I think the overarching plot of book two would have worked better as the finale, but I understand that changing the world as it happened at the end of book two made it possible for certain events to occur in books 3 and 4. I was a little weirded out while watching book two and thinking "what can they do to top this as the overall threat? This seems kinda huge compared to everything else."
I like what they did with book 3. Zaheer and the merry band of crazies weren't the deepest villains in the cutlery drawer, but they were at least not quite as flat and one-dimensional as Unalaq. The dynamic with Unalaq was interesting because he was related to Korra but other than that I got bored of him very quickly. Watching book 3 again now btw - Kuvira shows up in quite a few episodes. I'm quite impressed by how subtly she was set up, I don't remember seeing her at all the first time round. I was particularly impressed by how dark things got in season 3 re: Zaheer, and I liked how they played the ambiguity card with whether or not he was actually doing the right thing. You could tell Korra was questioning her own views of the world at certain points with some of the stuff he was saying, because if he had reigned it in a little bit it would have made a lot more sense.
My opinion on Kuvira flip flops. I think that she's the least one-dimensional of any of the villains (aside from perhaps Amon, but Amon was just crazy really), but she is so strong and stout in her beliefs that she's just as crazy as the rest of them. I particularly like the parallels that were drawn between her and Korra in the finale. And I loved the fact that it didn't end with her death or her crazily screaming or otherwise throwing a temper tantrum. It's easy to come away with the impression that she actually recognises the error of what she's done at the end, which is progress for this series as a whole and speaks to Korra's ability to connect with people on a mature level - because of her experiences. And that's what a journey is supposed to be all about. Learning new things and successfully applying them. So I preferred the way Kuvira's story ended to any of the other villains for this reason.
Regarding shipping,
I'll say again I am neither here nor there when it comes to Makorra. I don't ship, so I'm kind of unbiased in that regard. I wouldn't have minded if the series had had a Makorra ending, I wouldn't have liked or disliked it any less. But that does not mean I'm not impressed with the ending, because I'm impressed as hell that they chose to do something as progressive as they did. There were very subtle Korrasami hints in season 3 and slightly more overt ones in season 4, but never in my life did I think they'd end the show like that. For me it was the cherry on the cake of a great finale. I've seen people super shocked like "where did this come from" but they obviously didn't pick up on the subtle cues that were dropped throughout books 3 and 4, and they're not to blame for that, society is. Because you don't generally look at lingering interactions between people of the same sex in a TV show and think "that's romantic" like you would if they were of the opposite sex. If you're watching members of the opposite sex interact, your brain is wired to look for cues of romantic attraction, and if it's members of the same sex that switch is in general turned off unless it's overt. The funny thing is if you rewatch it with the ending in mind, you can now recognise those cues when they appear and it's kind of hilarious how the show has managed to retroactively subvert its own tropes in this way. It's quite brilliant.
I was just really happy that the focus on the finale was the bonds between all of these characters and for me that's really what this series has been about: friendship and growth. Specifically teamwork. I kind of like that it wasn't all "the avatar goes into avatar mode to destroy the evil" like we were expecting, or like it has been in the past. Each character had an integral role to play. I was particularly moved by Mako's decision to risk his life, and Asami reconciling with her father. And Lin and Su working together. If I have one complaint about Book 4, it's the almost complete absence of Kya because I loved her. But her arc was over and I see why they did that.
So my feelings on the series as a whole are quite complex. If I were to rank them like you did I'd have to seperate them into categories, so I'm going to try that now (favourite to least favourite):
Villains
Book 4, Book 1, Book 3, Book 2
Overarching plot
Book 2, Book 1, Book 3, Book 4
Character Focus
Book 3, Book 4, Book 1, Book 2
Character Interactions
Book 4, Book 3, Book 1, Book 2
How much I personally enjoyed watching
Book 4, Book 3, Book 1, Book 2
One trait that has defined Legend of Korra from the start, for me, is that there's almost never a dull moment. This fact only intensified with the addition of more characters and more side-plots with each season. I feel that the original Avatar series had more quiet moments. The ending scene was drawn out and emotional, but Korra ended almost quicker than my brain could process. I wish the episode had given us some more emotional quiet time AND that the ending credits music had been different from the one that always play. The original Avatar had a different ending credits music which helped you feel the impact of this being "the end".
It hasn't really sunk in yet for me that Korra is over, due to the above stated reasons. I had to rewatch the ending now to allow some feelings to manifest. My lower lip feels heavy now. ;____:
I like that Kuvira kept the Korra tradition alive by inadvertedly causing a change towards the positive, due to her actions indirectly creating a third spirit portal. I feel a "out of the destruction something new grows" vibe here, much like I felt with the endings of season 2 and season 3.
The show was always excellent at making you feel the world was under change. I loved the transition from the Avatar Aang world to the Avatar Korra world, seeing the growth of technology, bending sports etc. I enjoy that this feeling of change was kept during the entire run of the show. Prince Wu saying that he plans the Earth Kingdom monarchy to end is, to me, one of the show's best CHANGE moments. (I wonder what its name will be? The United Earth States? Prince Wu (sorry if I'm not spelling that right) did say that he preferred if the 'states' had elected leaders) It fits with the themes of the show perfectly and my overall impression that the Avatar world is evolving towards something very similar to our real world.
Because of homo- and bisexuality never having been brought up in the Avatar shows, it opens up different headcanons as to whether Korrasami fits into a theme or not. If the Avatar world is anti-gay, then Korrasami represents a struggle where the world is yet to evolve and perhaps the Avatar will be a force to drive acceptance of non-hetero sexualities. Or maybe the Avatar world is very open about these things (again, we will never know because it's not within the show's borders to bring this topic up at all) and Korrasami is only relevant to the social progression of cartoons and not within the actual mythos of the show.
Korrasami is still the main reason why I feel so saddened by this ending. I don't feel sad because characters will not be seen again in new adventures (a sadness which I strongly felt for The Last Airbender). I feel sad because we live in a world where Korrasami had to be presented in ambiguity and heavy implication instead of being 100% open and clear. With its final moments, Legend of Korra lept out from the screen and touched the real world, showing how much change we have left before a balance can be found.
Well I think our opinions probably differ because of what it is we like about the show. I've always liked Korra, but I took extreme issue with what they tried to do with her character at the beginning of book two and I stand by that. The pain and journey she goes through in 3 and 4 are far more believable than going from an (at times) hot-headed character in Book 1 that is also very well rounded and reaches the end of an emotional maturation, to the brat we're exposed to at the beginning of book two. I don't really want to reopen debate on that topic because I know you disagree Theo, but that is my opinion.
So my feelings on the series as a whole are quite complex. If I were to rank them like you did I'd have to seperate them into categories, so I'm going to try that now (favourite to least favourite):
Villains
Book 4, Book 1, Book 3, Book 2
Overarching plot
Book 2, Book 1, Book 3, Book 4
Character Focus
Book 3, Book 4, Book 1, Book 2
Character Interactions
Book 4, Book 3, Book 1, Book 2
How much I personally enjoyed watching
Book 4, Book 3, Book 1, Book 2
Hmmm, if I did it category wise like that, it would look like this for me:
Villains
Book 1>Book 3>Book 4>Book 2 (though Vaatu (and Unalaq) felt the most epic even though they were the weakest character-wise)
Overarching plot
Book 2≈Book 1>Book 3>Book 4
Character Focus (for Korra in particular)
Book 2>Book 1>Book 4>Book 3
Character Interactions
Book 1>Book 3>Book 2>Book 4
How much I personally enjoyed watching
Again it would be:
Book 1>Book 3≈Book 2>Book 4
Also here are my Top 10 favorite episodes (two-parters and finales count as one slot and the order/ranking isn’t absolutely rigid just what I am feeling at the moment)
10. Book 3 finale (Enter the Void/Venom of the Red Lotus)
9. Civil Wars
8. Beyond the Wilds
7. Beginnings
6. A New Spiritual Age
5. Korra Alone
4. Book 1 finale (Skeletons in the Closest/Endgame)
3. When Extremes Meet
2. Book 2 finale (Harmonic Convergence (I think Bryke stated they consider the Book 2 finale as a three-parter)/Darkness Falls/Light in the Dark
1. The Revelation
You goddamn bastard. I came in here very excited to post that. ;_ ; I would've gotten it before you had I not been looking at some of their fanart on tumblr.
For those who needed it spelled out for them:
Since they couldn't kiss onscreen this to me would've been the best compromise:
I’ve seen people super shocked like “where did this come from” but they obviously didn’t pick up on the subtle cues that were dropped throughout books 3 and 4, and they’re not to blame for that, society is. Because you don’t generally look at lingering interactions between people of the same sex in a TV show and think “that’s romantic” like you would if they were of the opposite sex. If you’re watching members of the opposite sex interact, your brain is wired to look for cues of romantic attraction because of decades of your brain being hammered with it in the media, and if it’s members of the same sex that switch that tells you to look for these cues is in general turned off unless it’s overt. The funny thing is if you rewatch it with the ending in mind, you can now recognise those cues when they appear and it’s kind of hilarious how the show has managed to retroactively subvert its own tropes in this way. It’s quite brilliant.
And for the people floating around flat out denying that it could POSSIBLY EVER be romantic, I want you to replace Asami with a male character in that final scene, then tell me you think they seem like siblings. They could have gone through that portal with their arms sideways around each other smiling - THAT would have been an ambiguous ending. This one wasn’t.
Three days ago. And Bryan said this in his post:
“If it seems out of the blue to you, I think a second viewing of the last two seasons would show that perhaps you were looking at it only through a hetero lens."
Thanks to Bryke, Wikipedia and Wiki stopped being dicks about it.
For those who don't know, once the finale happened some people tried editing Korra's wikipedia page to list Asami under significant others. It wasn't allowed because according to wikipedia the ending was ambiguous and official confirmation was needed. Wiki was also not listing neither Korra or Asami under love interests in each others relationships page. Now that Bryke confirmed it, Asami is listed as girlfriend under significant others in Korra's wikipidea page. They're both listed under love interests in eachothers relationships page. Theyboth also have a trivia entry about their relationship on their character pages.
Never before have SO many straight men and women shipped a lesbian couple so damn hard before... and then it comes true... Even if they made another series with a gay or lesbian couple, it would only be for the sake of keeping that audience. THIS was truly genuine, and even the creators weren't sure who would be the best couple. And they chose this one, not to pander to horny teen boys or lesbians, but because they sincerely belong together. And that's something so rare (especially in American entertainment) that we can't help but be happy. I thank everybody who's supported this relationship ("ship" doesn't do it justice) and I thank the creators of the series for making it happen.
OK I will say right now that the first video made me cry (for the third time) but it set me off a little more this time because I felt everything they felt when I watched it.
However if that amount of noise is the typical American reaction to something and I'm ever watching an important finale with one of you I will fucking punch you into next week. They can't hear a word of what's going on HOW DO THEY EVEN KNOW WHAT THEY'RE SAYING making that much noise would drive me nuts. Kudos to the girl on the top left who flapped in silence like a decent human being <3
Then you're lucky you told me what was going to happen before we watched the episode together because my reaction would've been a lot louder than those.
