History Fridge / TheLegendOfKorra

* In ''WesternAnimation/AvatarTheLastAirbender'', it's explained you are supposed to master an element before moving on to the next one. Before Aang truly mastered waterbending he had begun practicing firebending and earthbending. Could this help to explain why Korra's personality is so different from what we would expect of a waterbender; if the manner in which you master the elements affects your immediate reincarnation it makes since. Because if the way you mastered the elements truly had no effect I doubt the Avatar would be expected to learn in the specific order they are required to learn the bending arts in.

* Mako and Korra leaving the Fire Ferrets, can be traced back to their relationship. Mako likely left first because of his new job which he is presumably paid well for. He never truly cared about pro-bending and only took it so seriously because of the tournament and it's winnings. A second reason being his relationship with Korra. Mid-way through the first book we saw how disastrous it was for the Ferrets when romance came into play, so he left to avoid complicating things with her. Korra, perhaps, simply missed Mako at practices and quickly dropped pro-bending because she couldn't get used to not having him around. Makes more sense with the six month gap and that the newer Ferrets seem completely novice, so they couldn't have joined immediately.

* Lin Beifong's [[BuildingSwing style]] of metalbending initially seems purely RuleOfCool when they already have decent cars and trucks ''then'' you remember Toph's [[LogicalWeakness inability to sense things not on the ground]]. You suddenly imagine a mother-daughter team of "I'll go low, you go high" where [[MortonsFork no matter what level a criminal's on, he's screwed]].

* Korra's physical trauma and Asami's emotional trauma mirrors each other:

** Aang and his friends were all from one nation; Korra and her team were of MixedAncestry.

* The LoveTriangle between Korra/Mako/Asami is actually an echo of Lin/Tenzin/Pema, as well as a illustration of the difference between [[FirstLove First]] and SecondLove. For Korra/Mako and Tenzin/Lin (or at least what we can infer from the latter couple), FirstLove is a tempestuous and passionate experience, but one that is also prone to hurt feelings, endless bickering and a tendency to burn out quickly. SecondLove (Korra/Asami, Tenzin/Pema) comes after a period of growth and maturity, and is based on compatibility, shared interests, and meaningful time spent together (more BirdsOfAFeather than OppositesAttract). It may not ''sound'' as exciting, but ultimately it's the surest way of attaining long-term happiness. With so much media extolling the ideal of having only OneTrueLove forever and ever, it's an important lesson that your FirstLove can be exciting and important and worth treasuring, but your [[SecondLove Second]] will ultimately be the one you spend the rest of your life with.

* When Bolin, Varrick and the escaped prisoners are trying to pass the border, Bolin mention they're from camp 14. Camp 14 is the infamous [[HellHolePrison North Korean Kaechon internment camp]] where prisoners are judged "unredeemable" by the [[PeoplesRepublicOfTyranny government]]. They are sentenced to hard labour, torture, starvation and other horrors 'til death, with no possible release. Ever. North Korean refugee [[Literature/EscapeFromCamp14 Shin Dong-hyuk]] is the only known person ever to be born in the camp ''and'' escape to South Korea. May count as FridgeHorror when you realize what Kuvira's "hard truths" are really about...

* Zaheer's body is in chains, but he mentions he can explore the spirit world at his leisure. He is [[EnlightenedAntagonist exactly the sort of person]] who could in Iroh's footsteps and abandon his body completely, attaining immortality and vast power in the spirit realm. At best, he's basically a KarmaHoudini. But there's nothing seen to stop him from hatching new plans and plots in the spirit world. In fact, there's already been a threat exactly like that: [[VideoGame/TheLegendOfKorra Hundun]], who meditated into the Spirit World to survive and more or less obtained immortality there but was trapped by the sealed portals.
** The threat of him conniving with other more free-bodied Red Lotus conspirators would have been curtailed by his enabling Korra to begin understanding just how powerful she is. He may have ruled it an acceptable price to pay to right Korra on the path to ending the threat Kuvira poses. How would this be a potential problem? Korra could pop into the Spirit World at any time, divine and fast-travel to his location, and go "OHAI!" to Zaheer in a secret meeting. And because of the potential reality-warping powers that Zaheer pointed her to, he couldn't do anything about it except abort.

** The threat of him conniving with other more free-bodied Red Lotus conspirators would have been curtailed by his enabling Korra to begin understanding just how powerful she is. He may have ruled it an acceptable price to pay to right Korra on the path to ending the threat Kuvira poses.

** Additionally, from both an outside and in-universe perspective, FirstLove couples ''seem'' the most obvious (Lin/Tenzin being [[SpinOffspring children of the Gaang]] and a ChildhoodFriendRomance, Makorra being Zutara 2.0/a sports romance,) that the same [[OppositesAttract passion]] [[AwesomeButImpractical ultimately becomes its own worst enemy in the long run]] while SecondLove couples ''seem'' unlikely/implausible (Pema not having any [[HeroicLineage special background]] or being another SpinOffspring to instead be [[BoringButPractical a simple housewife]] [[WhatDoYouMeanItsNotHeinous that just wants one non-bender kid that DOESN’T air-blast her in the face]] while Asami being a [[LesYay girl]] that was technically Korra’s romantic rival over Mako and whose romantic gestures would fly under the radar of a hetero lens as simply friendship) [[FridgeBrilliance has much greater compatibility due to only being a foil in having traits their loved one lacks.]] Prime examples of both was “Original Airbenders” where if Lin was switched in for Pema, [[DrillSergeantNasty she’d]] not only ''agree'' with Bumi’s aggressive approach, [[UpToEleven but insist he wasn’t going hard enough]] instead of calmly diffuse the situation. Aside from [[GadgeteerGenius tech skills]] and [[HoneyTrap feminine wiles,]] Mako in Asami’s place during “Long Live the Queen” would either have both point the finger after crashing the airship, if not argue all the way back to Ba Sing Se while still restrained, but either way they ''would'' be unconstructively argue as always.

* The start of Korra and Asami’s friendship begins with Asami apologizing to Korra for something she didn’t necessarily need to apologize for (i.e. kissing Mako when he and Korra were already broken up). [[spoiler:The start of Korra and Asami’s relationship begins with Korra apologizing to Asami for something she didn’t necessarily need to apologize for (i.e. Korra being away for three years due to the heavy trauma and severe depression at the hands of Zaheer).]]

** Book 4 -- [[spoiler:They become an OfficialCouple, and they find exactly what they need; Korra finds someone who will care for her when she’s in pain no matter how bad it is and will never hurt her and Asami found someone who will always love her and never leave her unlike everything else.]]

** Amon/Noatak -- Amon wanted to use Hiroshi’s inventions as weapons to rise to power. And what happened? Tarrlok used one of Hiroshi’s inventions to kill him (as well as himself).

*** P’li’s greatest weapon was being able to shoot energy beams. And what happened? Her energy beam rebounded off of the metal and her head exploded.

** Kuvira would have been killed by her own weapon (the spirit energy cannon) if Korra hadn’t saved her!
* The Lava Bending itself, we're shown it's possible as early as the first season of the first series by Avatar Roku, when he uses it to sink the Ember Island building.

* The modern Dai Li getting curbstomped by [[BashBrothers Mako and Bolin]] is easily explainable by the pro-bending style being more [[LightningBruiser responsive]] than [[MightyGlacier their telegraphing earthbending style]] as Bolin explained when he first met Korra while them losing to the Red Lotus ''seems'' like simple Worf Effect until you realize that compared to their predecessors actively maintaining the stepford status quo with [[StepfordSmiler Joo-Dees,]] Manchurian Agents and keeping the Fire Nation out, these guys have been glorified bodyguards to the queen no different than the OWL sentries until the new airbenders popped up and they weren’t even subtle about it given a common fruit vendor like Tu knew about the abductions as common knowledge and the other prisoners with Mako and Bolin were apparently weak non-benders that would be easy-pickings to capture. In short, [[WeHaveBecomeComplacent they’ve grown complacent obeying the queen]] against a wider WorldOfBadass.

** Except it doesn’t gel with his earlier characterization during a similarly personal tense situation. In “The Revelation,” he’s plausibly worried that Bolin, his brother/only family he has/only person he cares about besides himself, could be ''killed'' by the Equalists, a known hate group, instead of “just” [[FateWorseThanDeath debended]] like everyone would later learn seeing as how he’s just another dirt-poor orphan, but Mako kept his head and [[HotBlooded Korra]] remained the one needing to be kept in check even after a day of Bolin being AWOL. However, when Korra, a relative acquaintance/crush he hasn’t even known a full year and spent less than a handful of romantic times with, (which she even asked him about in “The Spirit of Competition,”) has been missing since last night and allegedly by Equalists who [[PragmaticVillainy said they’d save her for last to avoid making a martyr,]] he’s frantic like his wife’s been kidnapped. [[UnfortunateImplications In other words,]] ''a girl he crushed on getting spiritually crippled means more than than the life of his brother that he’s raised since childhood.'' He later admits that her kidnapping was his LoveEpiphany yet when [[WiseBeyondTheirYears Asami]] calmly and concisely asks him to just admit said feelings so everyone can move on, he not only ''still'' [[TheDitherer dithers]] for no good reason, the “crazy bloodbender” excuse is inaccurate ([[RightForTheWrongReasons as far as he knows at the time]]) when said panic was before he knew Tarrlok kidnapped her (and was curiously ''calmer'' after that fact,) but he also tries to [[WhatTheHellHero shift the blame onto Bolin]] [[NeverMyFault for his own indiscretion,]] [[ConflictBall dragging on]] the LoveTriangle a ''lot'' [[RomanticPlotTumor longer]] than it needed to be instead of being maturely diffused in one five minute conversation. That’s not HateDumb, those are perfectly valid reasons people both in and out-universe were ''tired'' of him at that point, alone.

** Not necessarily, Hama could still very well be the original bloodbender where once word-of-mouth spread of the technique, (who’d expect those Fire Nation villagers to keep their mouths shut after such a traumatic experience,) all it would take is other [[TheAce prodigies]] like Katara with a naturally [[PersonalityPowers aggressive/controlling personality]] no different than initial traits then enhancing them just like animal-breeding and a lingering resentment toward Fire Nation people/anyone else in their way then you’d have a whole [[NightmareFuel epidemic of sociopathic killer waterbenders]] [[ParanoiaFuel every full moon]] requiring Katara to outlaw the technique before you’d have a DangerouslyGenreSavvy [[UpToEleven Ace of Aces]] in Yakone being the latest sadistic waterbender in the family that's [[IAmNotLeftHanded powerful/skilled enough to not need the full moon yet exploiting the belief by bloodbending every other time.]] [[FromBadToWorse Then]] take those same traits into the next generation with even earlier training and you have a son whose an [[SerialEscalation Ace to the Ace of Aces]] that’s effectively the Antichrist. [[FridgeHorror Spirits help us all that neither Amon or Tarrlok left any heirs to continue the cycle.]]

* There is an added brilliant layer to why [[spoiler:Korra's near-death experience at the hands of Zaheer haunts her -- If an Avatar dies while in the Avatar State, the whole cycle will be broken. She was in the Avatar State when she was dying, and it's been established that she had some insecurities about being the Avatar, afraid of failing. In other words, Korra believes that she nearly failed the world because her enemy almost destroyed the cycle that helped keep the world safe and in balance.

* There is an added brilliant layer to why [[spoiler:Korra's near-death experience at the hands of Zaheer haunts her -- If an Avatar dies while in the Avatar State, the whole cycle will be broken. She was in the Avatar State when she was dying, and it's been established that she had some insecurities about being the Avatar, afraid of failing. In other words, Korra believes that she nearly failed the world because her enemy almost destroyed the cycle.]]
%%* [[http://avatarsymbolism.tumblr.com/post/122336525752/marauders4evr-oh-god-i-just-realized This post]] of how the deaths/defeats of the LOK villains are so ironic.

* [[http://avatarsymbolism.tumblr.com/post/122336525752/marauders4evr-oh-god-i-just-realized This post]] of how the deaths/defeats of the LOK villains are so ironic.

* [[http://lysse323.tumblr.com/post/105668864597/sir-iknik-blackston-of-the-southern-water-tribe The significance of Varrick and Zhu Li's full names.]]
** Blackstone also references the Space Sword.

* Minor brilliance regarding the past three Avatars and Korra. In the opening sequence, it shows the past three Avatars and Korra. Earth, Fire, Air, and Water. Notice that the Earth and Air Avatars were female, and that Fire and Air were male. Earth and Water are feminine elements, and Air and Fire are masculine.
* Why does Meelo [[TookALevelInJerkass become such a brat]] in Book 4? Well, in the previous book, he, along with his sisters, were tasked with becoming teachers to the New Air Nation. Having such a big and huge role in one's life can sometime increase their ego.

** If he really is lying for propaganda purposes, why does he claim that ''firebender wkilled his parents instead of a water- or earthbender? Because not only is the mental image of a fatal firebending attack that much more viscerally horrible than anything the other two can produce, but it plays on any lingering hatred [[FantasticRacism people may still have toward the Fire Nation]] for the Hundred Years' War.

* Opal's line about the "airbenders being spread pretty thin" is a clever CallBack to how the Air Nomads (prior to Sozin's attack) had the smallest population of the four nations.
** It also acts as a RealityEnsues moment. Even though Tenzin stated that the Air Nation would fulfill Korra's duties to help the Earth Nation, it proves that despite good intentions and fighting abilities, if you lack the numbers and power, you will not be able to fulfill such a large goal.