Cobra Kai has a lot of lessons applicable to real life, some of which are delivered with all the subtlety of a Crane Kick to the face.
- Bullying - both in-person and through cyberspace - is a serious problem in our schools and the methods used by most school administrations to combat it are largely ineffective and even counterproductive. Almost every teenage character in the show either is a bully or gets bullied at some point, and Counselor Blatt and the rest of the teachers at West Valley are portrayed as laughably incompetent in their attempts to deal with this, leading to the bullying victims being forced to resort to extreme measures like joining Cobra Kai to defend themselves.
- The show as a whole, but especially Season 4, argues against the idea that there are acceptable targets for bullying. Without knowing about their reputation, Kenny joins Cobra Kai due to being bullied at school, only to be bullied by Miyagi Do students for joining. This only leads to Kenny further embracing Cobra Kai’s philosophy. And while Sam has good reason to have a grudge against Tory, her callousness towards her situation and humiliating Tory at her job doesn’t make Sam any better. This is further proven by showing how Amanda's empathetic approach to Tory helps kickstart her Heel–Face Turn. Also, Kenny's No-Holds-Barred Beatdown of Anthony for bullying him all season and promise to do even worse when they get back to school is framed as Disproportionate Retribution and a sign of how Kenny has been corrupted by Cobra Kai rather than Laser-Guided Karma for Anthony (who was already facing comeuppance).
- The above moral even extends to Stingray, whose brutal beating at the hands of Terry Silver is not treated as some form of commupence for having an annoying personality. And while Stingray's neighbor has a right to be angry about his Manchild behaviour, breaking into his house uninvited and insulting Stingray on a personal level is portrayed as being needlessly cruel. Still, some viewers didn't get the message and thought Stringray's neighbor was perfectly justified in trespassing to humiliate someone in front of all his peers.
- Political correctness doesn't automatically fix things, and being politically correct doesn't necessarily make you a good person. Counselor Blatt is obsessed with using progressive-sounding buzzwords and performative gestures, and talking about unimportant things such as gender-neutral Halloween costumes, while completely oblivious to the blatant bullying occurring at her school that she is supposed to be preventing. Meanwhile, Kreese and Hawk are able to become Villains With Good Publicity by parroting clichéd buzzwords and Johnny, who makes non-PC jokes and gives his students demeaning nicknames and insults, ends up as one of the most sympathetically-portrayed characters on the show.
- Fighting fire with fire often makes you just as bad as your enemies. The Cobra Kai dojo stoop to the level of the bullies they originally learned karate to defend themselves from, sympathetic characters like Miguel, Sam, Daniel and Johnny often take their righteous anger too far and become the aggressors in their conflicts, and Daniel highlights the problems with this mentality when he quotes Mr. Miyagi's old saying: "If you want revenge, you can start by digging two graves."
- The show frequently illustrates that a Freudian Excuse Is No Excuse, such as through Kreese using his past trauma as a Vietnam veteran to justify his Social Darwinist worldview, Johnny bullying Daniel as a result of his stepfather's emotional abuse, Daniel refusing to accept that Johnny is trying to redeem himself and Cobra Kai and ruining his legitimate attempts to start his own business because of their high school rivalry, Hawk tormenting Demetri for being a reminder of his past as a bullying victim and Tory attacking Sam because of her jealousy of Sam's privileged upbringing and stable family. This message is firmly hammered home when Sam outright states: "Everybody's got a sob story. Doesn't give you the right to be a bully" with regard to Tory.
- At the same time, Season 4 illustrates that having a troubled and unstable home life as a teenager really does have an effect on a person's psyche and makes it more difficult to make rational decisions. Tory's bad situation might not excuse her behavior but it doesn't mean she doesn't have legitimate reasons to be angry at the world or that her vicious, resentful attitude came out of nowhere. Once Amanda learns how dire Tory's situation really is, she decides to step in and give her some assistance with taking care of her mom, getting an education, etc. And once Tory's life becomes more stable thanks to her help, she realizes she doesn't want to hurt people, especially Sam, anymore.
- In the same season, you can't use Freudian Excuse Is No Excuse as an excuse to act callous towards someone. While Sam has every right to be mad at Tory, she keeps provoking her when Tory is trying to get her life on track; mocking her at her already-degrading job, attacking her at the prom after-party when the situation could have been defused sooner, and dismissing her problems as some "fake sob story". It won't make you any better even if you're correct in your observations, and will only stop you from burying the hatchet.
- Season 4 also shows that people in bad situations only really improve when they get real help and positive encouragement from outside and without it, many never improve or get worse. A major reason why Tory came under Kreese's mentorship is because he was one of the few adults to ever show her any kindness or understanding and help her out. Kreese himself is an example of someone who needed help and never got it, only having his worst impulses reinforced. When someone is struggling, be it with poverty, mental health issues, or trauma, they need assistance and if they don't get it from those who have their best interests at heart, they will get it from those who don't.
- A recurring theme throughout the show that gets cemented in the third season is "You can't allow yourself to get stuck living in the past." Both Johnny and Daniel fall victim to this, being trapped in their hostility from their high school days and the third season finally confronts them with this with their learning they have to finally move beyond this. Kreese serves as their narrative foil, as much of the season deals with his backstory of how he became the man he is in the present during the Vietnam War. Kreese has been internally stuck in the toxic mindset instilled in him to survive the war and never managed to recover from it.
- Season 3 really drives home how Never My Fault is a slippery slope. While It's All My Fault can also be unhealthy, it allows people to live with guilt, accept responsibility, and try to do better next time. Both Johnny and Sam feel extreme guilt for what happened to Miguel. This allows them to confront their flaws and go through significant character development. Even Hawk starts to question his actions, and the guilt from breaking Demetri’s arm is part of what drives his Heel–Face Turn. While Tory and Robby initially feel guilty and try to be better, Kreese’s manipulations give them an out to embrace the Never My Fault attitude. Both become much worse as a result of blaming everyone else for their misfortunes and isolate themselves from their loved ones to stew in their own misplaced resentment.
- Just because someone comes from a privileged background doesn’t mean their struggles should be dismissed or trivialized, and money doesn't solve all your problems. Johnny may have grown up in a wealthy environment with Sid's financial support, but it was a very miserable time for him given Sid's verbal abuse and he admits he would gladly have given it up if it meant not having to deal with the abuse. In the present, Sam may have grown up with two loving parents and wealth, but she still had to deal with Kyler trying to date-rape her and later spreading vicious rumors about her, her next two boyfriends (Miguel and Robby) seeming to be nice at first until they turned into assholes, Daniel being an overprotective dad who isn't above meddling in her love life, and being ostracized at school as a result of Kyler's bullying and later from the school fight. It only gets much worse with her rival, Tory, basically tormenting her physically and emotionally on a regular basis precisely because she assumes Sam has a perfect privileged life and "deserves" some hardship. As Johnny nicely puts it in season 1, "just because [someone] live[s] in a nice house, doesn't mean nice things are going on inside."
- Mental health is a complicated, serious issue that needs to be treated with empathy and compassion. Tory is implied to be suffering from mental illness, which her difficult home life isn’t making any better. Sam (though understandably) doesn’t have any sympathy for Tory’s situation, and views her as a “psycho”, which does nothing to end their feud. While Miguel tries to broach the subject of Tory getting help, the way he says it makes her think he’s calling her crazy. Plus, him just brazenly telling her she needs help comes off as patronizing because as hard as Miguel has had it, he's had a good support network in Rosa, Carmen, and Johnny while Tory has no one. The only character who doesn’t upset Tory by bringing her mental health up is Amanda (her arch-enemy’s mother), because she genuinely wants Tory to feel better, and gives her actual resources to get help instead of just telling her to. This approach proves to be the most effective in helping Tory, as she appears to have gotten past her grudge towards Sam by the end of Season 4.
- Jealousy and ego often lead people to their worst decision making and habits. It's only by letting go of it can a person start making healthier decisions for their life. Daniel and Johnny's feud and rivalry is heavily rooted within the two. Johnny was jealous of Daniel gaining Ali's affection and took out all his rage in the first movie in relation to that, despite initially wanting to avoid doing anything as a delinquent that year, and it's his continued jealousy of Daniel's success in Season 1 in comparison to his own squalor that drives him. At the same time, Daniel had gained a significant ego due to his success from the movies, and is often dismissive towards anything that he deems beneath him or Mr. Miyagi's teachings. The irony is that Daniel and Johnny are shown to get along pretty well when they put aside said ego and jealousy but it always shows up to wreck things. This comes to a head in Season 4. While the two are actively on the same side trying to take down Cobra Kai and are making headway with each other's students, it's Johnny's jealousy of Daniel's growing relationship with Miguel and Daniel's ego of dismissing anything that isn't Miyagi-Do, feeling Johnny should just fall in line behind him and his paranoia about Silver when he’s back to the point of also saying that everyone needs to fall on Miyagi-Do that ultimately blows up the merger and leads to their inevitable defeat. It also shows that despite their desire to make things right with each other, such vices are incredibly hard to get past with any longevity and it's very easy to have them flare up again.
- Acting on anger, even if you have good reasons to be angry, often just makes things worse. Sometimes, it leads to the actor inflicting Disproportionate Retribution, like with Daniel trying to sabotage Johnny's burgeoning business for vandalizing a sign, Tory going after Sam in a bloodlust for Sam kissing Miguel, or Robby kicking Miguel off the balcony for trying to help him up after attacking him. It also causes characters to forego better solutions, like Myagi-Do always opting to confront Kreese or his students themselves with no evident plan instead of calling the police, Sam humiliating and ultimately causing Tory to quit her new job instead of just not engaging her, or even characters just forgiving each other for the greater good. Oftentimes, it causes the character to play right into the hands of the person they're angry at, which is how Kreese makes Amanda look unreasonable and turns Robby further against Johnny.
- Judging someone without actually knowing them or based solely on first impressions can lead to conflicts and extremely hostile relationships, as demonstrated many times throughout the series:
- Johnny and Daniel started to get along after they actually got to know each other better and they both realized that they had more in common than they thought.
- Daniel thought Miguel was a bully in the first two seasons just because he was a member of Cobra Kai and due to his actions at the tournament in Season 1. In Season 3 though, Daniel changes his opinion after he personally interacts with Miguel and realizes that he is actually a good kid with a background very similar to his own.
- Despite Tory and Sam's mutual antagonism, the two barely know each other and their rivalry was sparked by negative first encounters, misunderstandings and jealousy. Sam considers Tory to be a psychopath and petty criminal, and though this perception is justified (considering that Tory actually bragged about stealing and brutally attacked Sam over minor slights), she is still in the wrong for harassing Tory in Season 4 and not letting go of their rivalry when Tory is finally willing to during her self-improvement. Tory in turn views Sam as a Spoiled Brat and an entitled Rich Bitch who thinks the world revolves around her and she can just do/take whatever she wants without considering feelings of others. In reality, while Sam comes from a wealthy family, she is actually very humble and doesn’t brag about having money. There’s also the fact that the LaRusso family acquired their wealth through hard work, with Daniel and his mother barely having 2 cents when he was Sam's age. They ultimately ended their rivalry after Tory received help from Amanda in regards to her troubled home life and Sam saw with her own eyes what Tory has been going through.
- Similarly, Robby and Miguel have an extremely bitter rivalry because Robby is jealous of Miguel’s bond with Johnny, Robby's father, and due to Miguel attacking him at the beach, taking advantage of his injury during the tournament in Season 1, and fighting him during the school brawl in Season 2. Miguel also resents Robby because he saw him having dinner with Sam and her family in Season 1 and for kicking the former over the banister in the end of Season 2 after he showed him mercy. Miguel and Robby are both fundamentally good people, but neither of them sees that because they never had a real conversation or an encounter that didn’t end with a fight.
- Robby lampshades it when he confronts Kenny about him bullying Anthony.
Robby: You and Anthony might actually get along if you got to know each other. - There is no "right way" to practicing karate. All three senseis are convinced that their methodology is the only true way to fight, when the reality is that they all have their inherent advantages and disadvantages and it is the fighter's individual skill that truly matters. Notably in Season 4, all four All-Valley tournament finalists made it that far because they learned from karate styles outside of their dojo teachings and were able to incorporate it into their own approaches.
- Character Development is a good goal, but you have to approach it continuously and through self-reflection. Hawk was willing to put in the continuous work, but unfortunately, he became so impassioned he didn't ask himself if he was doing the right thing. It nearly destroyed his life, but once he took a moment to reflect, he became the best version of himself. Silver took the self-reflection just fine, realizing how ridiculous he acted, but he thought simply overcoming his drug addiction would solve his problem, which for a while it did. His unwillingness to actually overcome his other demons, like his insecurity about his strength despite being plenty strong, caused him to burn all the bridges he ever had and end up in prison. Stingray didn't take either approach and thought he could become strong by association, which ended horrendously for him over and over. Once he realizes the price he paid wasn't worth it, he actually starts making good decisions and seems to be on a path of genuine self-improvement.
- Daniel imparts to Miguel in Season 4 that there is no fixed path to finding success and happiness, and everyone's journey will be different. While you might face failure and false starts on the way, it doesn't mean you can't still succeed. It might just mean taking the long way around.
- An underlying lesson in season 5 is Cheaters Never Prosper. A victory that's fixed in one's favor is not worth it. When Tory found out Silver bribing the ref at the end of the All-Valley Tournament, she is visibly crushed and felt unworthy to be a champion. Even after calling out Silver over the bribery, the latter didn't care because he can, as shown during the Sekai Taikai tryouts when he bribes the ref to ensure Cobra Kai gets the upper hand, only for it to backfire when Sam managed to beat Devon clean. Tory would use her aforementioned confrontation against Silver to expose him as a fraud in front of the Cobra Kai students, leading to them throwing their gear at Silver once beaten by Daniel, and ultimately arrested.
