Thoughts about The Legend of Korra (with spoilers!)
I finally finished watching the four seasons of The Legend of Korra.
Book One: Air: one of the most interesting things about the way the series begun is the fact that Korra started off with pretty much all bending abilities, except for the airbending one. It's a nice counterpart of The Last Airbender and not exactly what I was expecting. It was good that we did not have to follow up with the discovery of every single bending aspect all over again, and when I think about it, it was a relatively risky maneuver. It would have been easy for the writers to just create a character and set her in the Hero's Journey to learn all bending forms like her predecessor has done. Instead, Korra begins her journey almost at the final stage of evolution, just waiting for the final bending to occur to her. On the other hand, I have to say I wasn't in love with the characters in the first season.
Book Two: Spirits: this, for me, was when everything went wrong. This was, by far, the worst season ever. Worse even than any of the most boring episodes of TLA. I'm usually not the biggest fan of romances, specially love triangles, and this season focused every single aspect I hate in a story: love triangle, characters that seem to be unwilling to effectively resolve their problems and don't know what are their priorities. Korra is unbearable and immature and once again we have that old stigma of girls not being able to be friends because - guess what! - they MUST be rivals competing for the love of the pretty boy. Poor tiuneo, who was watching the series with me, I don't think did anything other than complain about this season as we were watching it.
Book Three: Change: now here is where things start to get so much better. First of all, we have this amazing set of awesome villains who know exactly what their objectives are and how to accomplish them. They are competent, disciplined and their relationship is awesome. They have problems, they have flaws and they are better organized than team Korra. Sometimes I do find myself questioning the reason why I hated them. Had the series been on their point of view and had they been the heroes, I'd probably cheer for their success. Considering how upset I was with team Korra, I almost did. But then here is the thing: Korra matures, and she does it at an incredible pace (specially if compared to the two previous seasons). The tension between her and Asami no longer exist and they start the most beautiful friendship any girl can expect. Even Bolin, the character I disliked the most, starts acting differently and actually DOES things. Mako is still pretty much the same, but with a lot less angsty teenager drama. Not to mention every single chapter had a WOW factor. I just love it when, by the end of the episode, I get to say "THIS CHAPTER WAS SO AWESOME".
Book Four: Balance: I get torn between picking this season or the third as my favorite one, but given the villain to whom we are introduced in the last season, I think I'll keep this one as my all-times favorite. Book Four was so ridiculously good! I think Kuvira is, so far, my favorite villain of all times, and I don't usually like villains! Too bad the writers didn't explore so much the fact that Kuvira saved Korra's father at the end of Book Three, and I also wished she was a bit more humanized during the 13 final chapters, but the last season was still absolutely awesome. I started loving all characters, even the ones I used to hate, and that ending with Korra and Asami was perfection.
One thing that I liked in every single season (even in Book Two, which I hated) were the fighting sequences. This series has some of the best fighting sequences, specially the ones involving more than one person from Team Korra. It doesn't fall on the problem of all enemies making a circle around two people fighting: everybody fights as a team. This was something fascinating to watch, specially in Book Three. I really wish there was more of this.
Regarding the ending of the series, one thing that makes me mad is to see how such a great series was judged because, in the end, Korra and Asami walk away, hand in hand. The Legend of Korra has so many fascinating aspects regarding politics, moral decisions, self-discovery and coming of age, it shows an interesting magic system that initially looks like it has no limitations, but it does expand over what has been created on The Last Airbender and still has to follow certain rules, and yet people keep putting it down because Korra and Asami end up together.
Some people need more love in their lives.
Book One: Air: one of the most interesting things about the way the series begun is the fact that Korra started off with pretty much all bending abilities, except for the airbending one. It's a nice counterpart of The Last Airbender and not exactly what I was expecting. It was good that we did not have to follow up with the discovery of every single bending aspect all over again, and when I think about it, it was a relatively risky maneuver. It would have been easy for the writers to just create a character and set her in the Hero's Journey to learn all bending forms like her predecessor has done. Instead, Korra begins her journey almost at the final stage of evolution, just waiting for the final bending to occur to her. On the other hand, I have to say I wasn't in love with the characters in the first season.
Book Two: Spirits: this, for me, was when everything went wrong. This was, by far, the worst season ever. Worse even than any of the most boring episodes of TLA. I'm usually not the biggest fan of romances, specially love triangles, and this season focused every single aspect I hate in a story: love triangle, characters that seem to be unwilling to effectively resolve their problems and don't know what are their priorities. Korra is unbearable and immature and once again we have that old stigma of girls not being able to be friends because - guess what! - they MUST be rivals competing for the love of the pretty boy. Poor tiuneo, who was watching the series with me, I don't think did anything other than complain about this season as we were watching it.
Book Three: Change: now here is where things start to get so much better. First of all, we have this amazing set of awesome villains who know exactly what their objectives are and how to accomplish them. They are competent, disciplined and their relationship is awesome. They have problems, they have flaws and they are better organized than team Korra. Sometimes I do find myself questioning the reason why I hated them. Had the series been on their point of view and had they been the heroes, I'd probably cheer for their success. Considering how upset I was with team Korra, I almost did. But then here is the thing: Korra matures, and she does it at an incredible pace (specially if compared to the two previous seasons). The tension between her and Asami no longer exist and they start the most beautiful friendship any girl can expect. Even Bolin, the character I disliked the most, starts acting differently and actually DOES things. Mako is still pretty much the same, but with a lot less angsty teenager drama. Not to mention every single chapter had a WOW factor. I just love it when, by the end of the episode, I get to say "THIS CHAPTER WAS SO AWESOME".
Book Four: Balance: I get torn between picking this season or the third as my favorite one, but given the villain to whom we are introduced in the last season, I think I'll keep this one as my all-times favorite. Book Four was so ridiculously good! I think Kuvira is, so far, my favorite villain of all times, and I don't usually like villains! Too bad the writers didn't explore so much the fact that Kuvira saved Korra's father at the end of Book Three, and I also wished she was a bit more humanized during the 13 final chapters, but the last season was still absolutely awesome. I started loving all characters, even the ones I used to hate, and that ending with Korra and Asami was perfection.
One thing that I liked in every single season (even in Book Two, which I hated) were the fighting sequences. This series has some of the best fighting sequences, specially the ones involving more than one person from Team Korra. It doesn't fall on the problem of all enemies making a circle around two people fighting: everybody fights as a team. This was something fascinating to watch, specially in Book Three. I really wish there was more of this.
Regarding the ending of the series, one thing that makes me mad is to see how such a great series was judged because, in the end, Korra and Asami walk away, hand in hand. The Legend of Korra has so many fascinating aspects regarding politics, moral decisions, self-discovery and coming of age, it shows an interesting magic system that initially looks like it has no limitations, but it does expand over what has been created on The Last Airbender and still has to follow certain rules, and yet people keep putting it down because Korra and Asami end up together.
Some people need more love in their lives.