The Legend of Korra

Honestly, when people say Suyin had wasted potential and should have been a villain it feels like they want her to be evil for being a bit preachy and proud of her good works and accomplishments so they can feel good about her being taken down a peg.

Edited by lycropath on Sep 4th 2019 at 2:58:23 AM

I just found her uninteresting. They certainly could've done a lot more with the conflict between her, Lin and Toph, never mind her relationship with Kuvira. Not necessarily as a villain, but yeah, showing her in a more antagonistic role could've been more entertaining. Cool fights, though.

It's a bit grating that the show consistently acts as if Lin was in the wrong when she was upset that Suyin ruined their mother's career, scarred her face, and got off completely scot-free.

No one else knew what Suyin did so Toph's career wasn't really ruined over it. Toph just retired the following year and Lin just assumed it was out of guilt over what she did to protect Suyin but given Toph's personality it was probably just to her wanting to move onto other things.

Edited by lycropath on Sep 4th 2019 at 4:43:29 AM

Toph becoming a cop was weird

Suyin wasn't "wasted", her character was used in a direction some fans didn't like.

It's basically two things.

1 - It's annoying that Lin is somehow the bad guy because she won't forgive Suyin for everything mentioned above. Part of that is because Lin's an established character when Suyin comes along. We like Lin. It was always going to rub fans the wrong way when the show suddenly goes, "By the way, Lin sucks ass and is terrible. Check out this new character instead!"

Especially when Lin's grievance with Suyin is entirely reasonable.

2 - It's annoying that the Metal City is an isolationist society that basically shut its doors on the world and told everyone everywhere to go f*ck themselves. And they're basically a utopic paradise with no flaws whatsoever because of it.

Politically, that's kind of a shitty message.

Yeah, based on that, I'd like to see the Metal Kingdom go on a nationalist crusade, but then the rest of the Earth Kingdom is like "Who are you? You haven't been through shit yet."

I think that was all pretty baked into Lin's character, she's bitter and crumdgeonly and had a difficult time not being an ass to Korra just because she was still lashing out at Tenzin over a break up that happened probably decades ago. Her taking her rage out on Opal because of her issues with Su and looking like a jerk about it seems pretty in character.

Zaofu wasn't isolationist, it was a place people where welcome to explore their potentials but was otherwise like all the other relatively self governed lands of the Earth Kingdom. That Su didn't want to excise her will on the Earth Kingdom when the Queen died is a whole other issue entirely.

Edited by lycropath on Sep 4th 2019 at 6:01:35 AM

Lin was pretty terrible personality wise. We already know she can hold a grudge against someone. She seems pretty in character

Su also can hold a grudge pretty well also based on the recent book.

Though I do wonder if it will come up that all that could have been avoided if she just done the task like they originally requested her to do.

Su doesn't strike me as being motivated enough to try and force her ideals on anyone. The basis of her falling out with Kuvira was that she saw Kuvira as being no different from the Ozais of the world.

Su is basically the non-Avatar equivalent of Kuruk in that she follows "live and let live" to the extreme. And at least Kuruk had the excuse of growing up in era that didn't have much conflict.

Edited by windleopard on Sep 4th 2019 at 8:24:15 AM

Which they didn't like because they thought they "wasted" her.

And they were wrong, because that's not what that means.

Reminds me of how people didn't like Asami because she wasn't evil like they expected or wanted her to be.

I remember being afraid of Asami being evil because it would have just resolved the Love Triangle by default.

Though I don't know if Mako only breaking up with her and moving on to Korra after The Reveal would have been worse than what we got.

I think Asami just needed to be fleshed out a little bit more.

I think a lot of people can agree with that.

With regards to the Love Triangle, revealing Asami as an Equalist would have worked if it actually didn't resolve the triangle.

In a scenario where the writers were willing to commit to Mako/Asami being the Canon Couple, then it could have added a bit of intrigue. I'm imagining a story where Mako's like, "I know she's got some f*cked up ideas and we put her in jail and all, but is it wrong that I'm still kinda into her?"

There's a lot of Dating Catwoman stories but very few about "My S.O. is in Prison 'cause they suck but I still like them for the parts where they don't suck". We don't really talk about prison wives in media, unless it's a drama explicitly about being a prison wife. I'd be down for Mako as a prison wife.

Edited by TobiasDrake on Sep 21st 2019 at 1:50:26 PM

I am okay with Asami not so fleshed for the same reasons I'm okay with it for Toph. I already really like her character as is. Though I do get why some people disagree.

I also like they didn't make her evil. They actually dodged a bullet by not going down the cliche path. And it really surprised me when I first watched it.

Edited by Bullman on Sep 21st 2019 at 4:14:01 AM

I think that might be the only thing that would make Mako more despised by fans than he already is/was. Still having the hots for the Legend of Korra equivalent of a nazi sounds like the sort of thing that would people lose any sympathy for a character.

About the Su/Lin debacle, I think it would have been interesting if they portrayed more that both sides may have a point but are still pretty flawed.

Lin is letting a justified grievence unnecessarily poison herself & interactions she's has with people unrelated to it while Su skipping rightful judgement has given her something of a "Never accept blame", "Trust any criminal wholeheartidly", or "I am always right" mentality that has transferred to her own children.

Edited by slimcoder on Sep 21st 2019 at 2:38:21 AM

x2

The Equalist weren't the equivalent of Nazi's though. Like the big thing about Nazi's is that they were racist who wanted to wipe out an entire race as well as anyone else they didn't approve of. Benders and non-benders aren't different races and the Equalist weren't trying to commit a genocide. Obviously removing people's abilities to bend is wrong but it's nowhere near the same thing as killing them.

Just basically crippling a big amount of the population.

I find the Equalists closer to being Communist analogues. At the end of the day, though, they aren't either Nazis or Communists, because their entire existence is based in a fantasy concept that's not directly analogous to any one political or social movement, but drawing elements from many.

I'm pretty sure that while all the villains in Korra can be traced back to political extremes, the only concrete one would be the anarchist Red Lotus.