The Legend of Korra

Republic City's design is inspired by several cities in the Twenties and Thirties — NYC is just one of them.

Check out Shanghai in the 1920s. Mike and Bryan deliberately based the look of Republic City on it. I don't know about car races, but I guarantee there were gangs.

Yeah Republic City is partially patterned after NYC with the Aang statue and Melting pot aspect but it's also a very eastern looking city architecture wise. I think it's believable in the context of the world.

Its look is also based on Vancouver and Shanghai.

Korra absorbing just raava makes sense. Humans are a chaotic lot. We're passionate bold and reckless. Having a single spirit of order to balance it out makes more sense.

You can also interpret it as Zorastrianism. Vaatu is Angra Mainyu whereas Raava is Ohrmuzd.

Except the problem was that Raava also lacked empathy for mortals. That is exactly why Vaatu was able to trick Wan into freeing him. Raava only gained empathy for mortals after being bonded with Wan. The connection to the past lives of the Avatar has its issues since it also comes with the past lives' baggage — which is why Aang decided to stop listening to Roku — but it still came with the benefits of multiple lifetimes' worth of experience.

Korra would still be depowered for example if Aang hadn't shown her how to energybend herself back to normal.

Not to mention that when Korra was only channeling Raava when going up against the Red Lotus in the season finale, she fights like a raging bestial berserker. The Avatar State without any mortal perspective is a literal force of nature unleashed. Heck, even with the connection to past mortal lives, the Avatar State was plenty volatile and dangerous.

Edited by M84 on Feb 12th 2020 at 4:23:19 AM

> The connection to the past lives of the Avatar has its issues since it also comes with the past lives' baggage — which is why Aang decided to stop listening to Roku — but it still came with the benefits of multiple lifetimes' worth of experience.

I've always wanted the show to explore the origins of someone like the first avatar cycle,maybe it started out as a way cheating death but gradually evolved into something with more purpose,hell I could someone cutting a deal with the spirits thinking they're going to be immortal but the spirits have other ideas.Or maybe cycle started on it's own since the beginning of time,there a lot of potential there

The Avatar Cycle was more or less the result of an accident with the Harmonic Convergence.

Remember that this is reincarnation. It's not multiple spirits. It's multiple sets of past life memories. Or at least it was — the events of Korra essentially hit a reset button on the whole thing.

Edited by M84 on Feb 11th 2020 at 10:59:36 PM

It's not even clear if there even will be another Avatar after Korra. The show really shot itself into the foot with that dramatic twist.

I think they made it pretty clear the Avatar Cycle would continue after Korra, when the evil plot of the Red Lotus was specifically to end the Avatar Cycle by using the poison to force her into the Avatar State and then kill her.

Edited by lycropath on Feb 12th 2020 at 3:21:03 AM

Yes, but it is not clear what will happen once Korra dies.

I find that plot point rather baffling, honestly. It undermines the entire premise of the Avatar: someone who can draw on the power and experience of all their previous incarnations. So what happens to that now that all those ancestors are gone?

That's also somewhat brought up in the Hello Future Me video, Wan goes into the Avatar state when fighting Vaatu but as he points out, Wan was the first Avatar so it should have been useless to him yet the show seems to have retconed it so that the power of the Avatar state comes from Raava like a power-up in a shounen anime.

Oh, right. So that basically undermines the premise of the first series, in a way. Because that means it was Vaatu all along.

Yeah, and they never really did much with that plot point in seasons 3 and 4. Honestly it almost feels like it was their excuse for not featuring ghost adult Aang any more than they did, which is a bit ironic considering how those seasons had no qualms with bringing back ATLA characters.

There's no indication that there won't be another Avatar after Korra. As noted, the fact that Zaheer wants to specifically kill Korra in the Avatar State to end the cycle strongly suggests otherwise.

I take it that the next Avatar will have access to Korra's, er, "wisdom" and guidance, but not any of the Avatars before her. She basically began a new cycle when re-uniting with Raava.

As for why this plot point was a thing... I imagine it's for the same reasons why Mentor Occupational Hazard is a common trope: it's appealing to see the hero lose their mentor and adapt to having to deal with their problems on their own. And honestly, given that the first season ended on a huge Aang-induced Deus ex Machina, removing access to the past Avatars does kind of up the stakes.

Edited by DrDougsh on Feb 12th 2020 at 6:54:06 AM

I mean, Wan reincarnated back when it was just him and Raava. I get the impression that as long as Raava’s still bonded with a human, the Avatar cycle still exists. It’s just rebooted, so to speak.

This is why backups are important kids, if someone deletes your previous lives you could die for real

I feel bad for the next Avatar who has to look to Korra for advice.

Well this will(hopefully) be a Korra that's at least forty to fifty years older. We all saw what Aang was like in the original series but he seems like he could be a good mentor figure after he grew up. I imagine Korra would be the same.

Season 2 is supposed to be a new beginning for the Avatar, wiping the slate clean and starting over fresh with Korra as the new Wan for the new combined human-and-spirit world. On paper, it's an interesting premise that presents a new hurdle for Korra compared to Aang: having to make decisions without the wisdom of the past to call upon.

But it's undermined by a lot of things.

1. As noted, it doesn't really affect the plot much afterwards.
2. Kite Jesus and Kite Satan detract from the setting more than they add.
3. As noted, it retcons the Avatar State into being "Fully empowered by Kite Jesus".
4. The spirits in Legend of Korra suck and everyone hates them.
5. Korra doesn't really change as a character as a result of it.

Etc. etc. It could have been a very significant turning point in Korra's journey, but ultimately winds up just being a thing that happened during that one arc of the four.

Edited by TobiasDrake on Feb 12th 2020 at 9:05:15 AM

This, Korra getting all her past lives kind of erased in a sense means she will be the only one to help the next avatar.

And this actually not a good thing as from my understanding all jokes about Korra's brashness aside, Korra grasped a lot of the elements very easily barring air at a very young age. If the next avatar has issues with grasping elements she can't really help much there since she was a bonafide prodigy. This isn't to mention her bad attempts at diplomacy

Although, judging by it all Avatars are prodigal? Aang grasped water and earth easy once he got the basic bending forms, he only had issues with fire. And Korra could get better with age and hopefully provide wisdom.

That still leaves her as the lone past life though for the new avatar. The new avatar couldn't get a second opinion if they had to deal with a bad situation. And getting a second opinion could be very crucial to deal with Avatar matters I'd imagine.

Edited by Wispy on Feb 12th 2020 at 8:13:39 AM

Wan's successor would have had the same issue too and I imagine they lived in an even more tumultuous time.

> The new avatar couldn't get a second opinion if they had to deal with a bad situation.

They could turn to living and breathing people instead,maybe?

Other people don't have the duty of being the Avatar. A new avatar would only have Korra to rely on to learn Avatar duties. I don't think this is a good thing for Avatar specific problems or volatile situations like say a new war popping up.

Eh, not really. We see her using the elements as a gag to prove that she's the Avatar, but then the show immediately cuts away to Korra at like 16 or 17 completing actual formal training.

This part often gets ignored by the fandom, in favor of overemphasizing that one Rule of Funny moment at the beginning. The reason that she's very talented at the other three elements is because she's been learning, mastering, and practicing them offscreen for about a decade when we first meet her for real. She's literally been isolated in a compound, doing nothing but learning those three Elements.

Aang, by contrast, has to learn Water, Earth, and Fire from scratch. But he never once struggles with Air, and that's because like Korra, he's already fully trained in it when we meet him.

Edited by TobiasDrake on Feb 12th 2020 at 9:15:07 AM