Aang being somewhat of a negligent dad makes sense, but Aang just fucking off and taking only his airbender kid with him is just awful. I will never understand why they decided to crank the drama of that up to a billion. They could have just made Aang love all his kids, but accidentally favour Tenzin more, maybe make the other kids feel like they were less special, and have that fester into resentment. Maybe they felt like they didn't get to spend as much time with their dad and regret that after his death. That way, the drama's more believable.
I'm pretty sure that was the intention. The thing is we have very little info on the whole family dynamic and kya and bumi don't have massive hatred towards aang. The show never makes like aang hated his them for not being airbenders he just showed more attention to tenzin to make sure his culture would live on.
Yeah. Aang being busy with his responsibilities and putting extra weight on Tenzin's shoulders to preserve his culture makes perfect sense, but I think him travelling with Tenzin and nobody else seems out of character.
And it would make sense why he would accidently favor the child who inherits the air bending. He survived a genocide, he's the last air bender, so ofc he would care about his child whose an Airbender.
@@sugardady1019 you literally do not know that. You're making up some idealized view of how he should be based off some nostalgic view of how he was as a kid
100% agree with you. From what I've seen, people who defend Aang being a bad parent often forget about Toph. Personally, it makes more sense for her, given not only her upbringing but how it was done while respecting her character. While I'm not 100% sure about the execution, I can say it was at least addressed a little more tactfully than with Aang's kids. Granted, this excludes "Toph being a cop" because that's a whole another can of worms.
It was an unneeded concept made most likely to use as an argument to combat criticism against Korra. “Korra is a bad character, Aang was better.” “Yeah, Well Aang was a bad dad.”
@@Salazar.945 Not to mention when TLOK defenders say "Korra suffered through more than Aang," generally citing Korra losing the past Avatars (a result of her incompetence, in reality), being unable to walk (done so for shock value and which was resolved), her journey in book 4 (which ripped off Zuko Alone), etc. It's the same mentality as idiotic SW fans who say Anakin (who killed children twice, both of which resulted from him not doing anything about his visions in the first place--and him being an overall terrible person) and Rey (who managed to defeat and undermine Kylo Ren multiple times, along with many other issies) suffered more than Luke as a means to justify their favorite characters.
@@krraika1847 It really sucks how the show turned out. The concept of Korra personality and the struggles she faced in the plot were generally not a bad idea (ignoring lore contradictions). The show could have been great if she was allowed to realize that she’s technically a terrible person that needs to mature and grow, like Suburu from Re:Zero. However the current trend dictates that female character are fine just the way they are, and that only male character need self improvement. Which is funny because character that go through self improvement arcs tend to be popular.
@@Salazar.945 I can understand where you're coming from, but I doubt it just applies to female characters. Like I've said, I've seen a lot of people say Anakin suffered more than Luke. Hell, I've seen people also try to defend Kylo Ren just as much as Anakin. Not helped their arguments are generally the same, e.g. saying "he had a complicated childhood" without giving real proof, saying "he's complex and human" when mentioning how Anakin and Kylo kill innocent people without facing proper consequences, etc. Now, I'm not saying there has been leniency towards female characters in the media. I'm just saying this BS has been around for decades (used for both male and female characters), and it needs to die altogether. EDIT: Just putting this up after seeing all the PT fans responding to what I've said about Anakin. More or so, those guys are proving my comment here and my previous one right. More so when they: 1 - Conflate little things that weren’t actually developed and/or never really had an impact on his character, e.g. saying “Anakin was a SLAVE and lived a hard life” (even though TPM showed him with decent living conditions, friends, and a loving mom-and the other films don’t reflect his upbringing), bringing in Qui-Gon (even though Anakin never heard or mentioned him, so we don’t know if Anakin even gave a damn), bringing in the Chosen One (which Anakin only heard TWICE in the entire trilogy and never mentioned once), saying Palpatine manipulated Anakin (even though any actual manipulation was shown in RotS, since Anakin only had two short interactions with Palpatine before then), etc. 2 - Ignore stuff that’s actually shown in the films, e.g. Anakin in AotC not doing anything for his mom despite all the warnings and him already breaking the Jedi Code several times to get into Padme’s pants, Anakin killing women and children for a mom he (again) did nothing about, Anakin repeating the same mistake by doing little about the visions of his wife dying (the most he did was just go to Yoda and that’s it), etc. 3 - Include third-party material for stuff not shown in the movies, e.g. stuff in TCW like Ahsoka leaving and Obi-Wan “betraying” Anakin, etc. 4 - Make shit up altogether, e.g. “the Jedi Council were out to get him” (when at most it was just Windu not trusting Anakin in RotS and none of that, including the Jedi Council not accepting Anakin in TPM, was shown to have impacted any of Anakin’s decisions or behavior in AotC or RotS), “Anakin in RotS wanted to be a master to get access into the forbidden archives” (even though the “forbidden archives” were never once mentioned or shown, and Anakin didn’t even step into the archives-let alone express any interest in the films), "the children (of the Sand People) were trained murderers" (ignoring the fact that the women and children were never shown to have been involved in the death of Anakin's mom, as well as Anakin killing women and children for a mom he didn't try to rescue despite him already breaking the Jedi Code several times to get into Padme's pants in AotC), etc. Not to mention when those same people ignore the very fact that the PT goes out of its way to portray Anakin as sympathetic even though the films give no context for it. This is obvious since Anakin was excused for killing women and children TWICE. The first time in AotC ended with Padme in AotC saying “To be angry is to be human” (after hearing Anakin say he “slaughtered them like animals”) and Anakin not even shown to have any after-effects of his clearly Dark Side act. The second time was in RotS, where Padme says “Anakin wouldn’t do that!” to Obi-Wan about Anakin killing Younglings (even though she knew Anakin killed kids before) and Padme even says “There’s good in [Anakin]” despite all the terrible things Anakin-including choking her (all of which has no proper context given, as I’ve already explained). Saying “Anakin was burned alive and put in a suit” isn’t going to cut it when the so-called reasons and justifications that led up to it are just him acting stupid for the sake of the plot (again, not doing anything about his mom or him doing little about his visions of his wife dying). And all the more reason why Anakin is just a terribly-written character.
Holy balls.... you're right! Katara would've NEVER allowed that type of neglect, and not even Katara, Sokka and even Zuko would roast Aang's ass if he ever do that
Especially Sokka when he's the one that told Aang directly in the comics there's been a lot of tension between Benders and Nonbenders bcus of the fact Nonbenders have been essentially powerless against the benders and that Technology is given Nonbenders a chance. What makes it worse is Sokka also told Katara the same thing when she tried to stop him and the most she could say after hearing it was "IDK" when her very brother as a Nonbender is telling her it. The Man literally had a whole Episode Dedicated to pointing out how inadequate he felt about being the only Nonbender in the group.
Yeah, Not only Katara, Sokka, ZUKO AND TOPH Definitely would have talked to Aang’s face about how he’d be neglecting two of his kids and favoring One. ESPECIALLY ZUKO who First hand knows what that is like!
Have you realized everything nowadays has to be about bad parenting? It's either neglectful parents or failure parents that get on the way of the characters, and they just need to either have an entire episode pointing that out or that is the entire character backstory of the important characters. And we never get to see the viewpoint of the parents, we're just supposed to take what the characters say about them at face value too. It's almost like all the writers have daddy or mommy issues and use their profession to vent about it instead of going to therapy or trying to see the other side!
There is such a thing as art therapy lmao (though therapists that do this aren't paid a lot rip) From what I can understand a lot of creators are being told that 1. you are supposed to put a part of yourself in your art, and 2. you are supposed to write about things you know about. So a lot of creators follow these because research is time consuming and they are constantly on a deadline +it's easier to just talk about things you are interested in. Coincidentally, most of the creators that get hired have problems with their family they might not get to talk about irl (for whatever reason) and they are more left wing, so you will see this pattern more often.
God, I remember eating up so many of those types of stories as a kid; especially angsty fanfiction about mistreated MCs getting revenge on their parents as a coping mechanism for my own family troubles. (Also those historical webtoons with the sassy princess main character who doesn’t want to marry, that kind of thing) My parents weren’t and still aren’t the greatest, (especially my mother who’s an alcoholic) but even back then I desperately wanted to understand them and why they treated me the way they did. When I became older, they finally started to open up to me a little and while I don’t fully forgive them and likely never will, I can’t say I don’t understand their perspective and how hard it was on their end. I really wish more nuanced relationships were portrayed more often when it comes to familial turmoil and other complicated issues in general. When seeing something like a tragic backstory, many people say it’s a justification; But while you don’t need tragedy specifically to explain an action, I feel like it’s irresponsible for impressionable watchers/readers, especially those younger and going through similar situations, to take a very real issue and make it a one-way street where the abuser has absolutely zero motive to unintentionally or intentionally hurt you other than enjoying it or because they’re simply evil. Lisa: The Painful, an older indie game, portrayed the effects of parental abuse very very well on both sides. I won’t go too much into it here, but I recommend anyone to play or watch it. Just know what you’re getting into, as it’s still pretty damn disturbing.
@@bernkastel7438 I think the part of MCs getting revenge is something most kids kinda go through until their parents see them as old enough to talk about issues. The stigma around kids being too dumb to understand things can really impact their ego, and children that are indeed impressionable can go seek advice in things that aren't good for them. As people get older it's rare to go back to revenge media unless it's to cope for something in adult life. In general, there's a deep lack of nuance in writing in today's media because creators are constantly told to shock and leave an impact on viewers so they tune in for next week's episode. I often notice characters are stuck in tropes and stereotypes because they're easier to write this way. For example, like the sassy princess trope you mention, I know that most girls go through that phase because female characters are constantly written as only desirable when their life is about a man, and are constantly weaker than men in media when it comes to powers (shonen) and/or how to deal emotionally with something (girls crying over nothing in slice of life or american shows for example). Girls wouldn't have to go through that phase if female characters were written just as characters rather than extension of a men's fantasy. Girls still like feminine things but will be more tomboy if it means they will be treated equally to boys this way.
Just gotta say it’s not really for you to say whether or not a person decides to reflect on their own personal experience through their characters. Did you really just say to the writers “go get therapy”? Thats absurd. It also DOES make for an interesting story when done correctly
Honestly I think this is less about how the character Korra is a "Mary Sue" and more about how much the show fucked the worldbuilding in general. Like, no way in hell any of those metal bending cops had seismic sense
@@gabrielmutombo7078 It is shown to be incredibly hard. 100 thousand years of bending, and literally only Toph ever did it. If many earthbenders can bend metal, then why were the PROFESSIONAL EARTHBENDERS sent to get her , going to put her in a box she bend her way out of? Regular non bender peasants knew to not stick an earthbender in a metal cage, and put her in a wooden box instead.
Throwing out bending as martial arts was criminal. Just to make it clear, Korra's intro scene is the equivalent of a farm boy doing a perfect 5 punch combo, a double spinning heel kick and a fucking 360 tornado kick in succesion. Moves from multiple martial arts, self-taught. THAT'S the equivalent of what she did. If you saw any character do that, you'd call bs.
@@vetarlittorf1807 1. The intro scene. Clearly, you don't need martial arts training to bend, as a four year old did it on her own. 2. She's four. And she bended three elements, with ease. She literally did a trick shot, dousing out a flame with a precise stream of water. Katara could barely form water bubbles, requiring a lot of focus and calmness, after teaching herself for presumably years. At 14. AND SHE'S A WATERBENDING PRODIGY. Korra also displayed more precise and surgical earthbending in that scene alone than characters like Haru ever did period. And she's four. F.O.U.R.
@@360Roko Umm...no? She moved a pebble, a tiny puddle and a few coughs of flames. There was nothing impressive about what she did. There wasn't even any finesse to her movements.
It's also that Aang as a father doesn't seem to have the same type of behavior as young Aang. The whole point of Aang's character is that he's childish because he has trouble accepting responsability. He fixes that behavior as an Avatar, but not necessarily in all aspects of life. So, technically, Aang would be more of a permissive father that would be focused on constantly playing with the kids and teach about his culture (aka cool dad), and Katara would be the one that has to be more serious to compensate. Aang being too focused on Avatar duties just seems like a huge 180, a bit like how in The Lion King Simba is super chill and is like hakuna matata for anything but then he's an helicopter parent in LK2 and an asshole in Lion Guard. I think in general writers have trouble writing about permissive parenting styles because they don't see it as a bad thing. Also sorry but to me, animated JK Simmons is Omni-Man. Tenzin is just a beta.
@@KaiserShounen Speaking of random character changes as they get older... who decided Toph would have kids with two possible dudes and get pregnant and be a single mom? Who said that this was a natural progression for her character?
@@KaiserShounen PLEASE, you, and EVERYONE, if you haven't already, embrace the One True Only God YHWH Jehovah, Only One Jesus Christ His Only Begotten Son and Lord and Savior of our souls and the Only One Holy Spirit. God is good. God is love. Jesus is Lord. Jesus IS coming. Your soul depends on it! I have seen God act in my life. He saved my soul, changed my heart, changed my mind, helped people through me, took care of people in my life, people I hurt before I found God. God is the only reason I was able to reconcile with my dad before he died. God worked through Jesus Christ to save our souls. Jesus Christ died on the cross for our sins. Believe in your heart and confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus, and that God raised Him from the dead and you will be saved. Be baptized in The Holy Spirit, and if He wills, water as well. Repent of your sins, accept God, Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit into your heart, that Jesus Christ died on the cross for your sins. For God so loved the world that He gave His only Begotten Son Jesus Christ, that all who believe on Him should not perish but have everlasting life. Jesus Christ is The Way, The Truth and The Life. No one comes to the Father Jehovah God but through Him. Not long after I got saved I prayed to God for help understanding the Holy Bible, and that same day someone knocked on my door asking me if I wanted to understand the Bible. The Holy Bible says, "love thy enemy", "turn the other cheek", "If your enemy is hungry, feed him", "if he is thirsty, give him a drink", "pray for those who persecute you", "do not repay evil for evil". LORD willing, all humans may commit sin of almost every kind (gay, straight), and that's wrong, and all humans sin, as God tells us through the The Holy Bible, "for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by His grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus." The Holy Bible also says, "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness."
Aang was not focused on Avatar duties he was focused on AIR NATION duties. Read any of the comics. Read literally the first comic. As soon as the war ended Aang (who was a 13 year old boy and allowed to change his personality) became occupied with bringing the air nation back.
@KaiserShounen was Korra a master of the elements like that besides Aang had a lot fewer resources than Korra and he was far younger. I think he learned his element around a summer.
I hate that the legend of Korra made Aang a crappy dad. I mean after looking at what Aang went through in the last air bender, no way on earth you can tell me that he would be a bad father.
Even Aaron Ehasz said he would've made Aang be a decent dad if he was involved. Granted he liked TLOK, so I will only agree on what I mentioned in my first sentence. That being said, it goes to show that outside help is everything in these productions. Much like with SW.
Same goes for Toph and she litterally proved she was a good mother when she taught Aang how to earth bend. But apparently she was a better mother to Aang as a child than she was to her own children as an adult. And why the hell would she be police chief? Investigation is Sokka's specialty.
@@marqusmedina5983 But in the WAY she was a bad mother. If anything she'd push her kids to excel giving the kind of support she didn't get growing up, but she'd push them too far or end-up favoring the one who was better at earthbending. Lin would be the one who instead chose to be a police woman, (since it's highly likely Sokka is her father).
Something I really hated about The Legend of Korra was it gave multiple people the ability to use once unique bending techniques, not just Metalbending. Remember how much Zuko struggled to Lightningbend, and how there were only three Firebenders in the entire show that could use it? Now it's so common, you can get paid to generate lightning for the power plant. Remember how Hama explained that Bloodbending was only possible thanks to a Waterbender being at their peak strength during a full moon? Now you just need to be really skilled at Waterbending to Bloodbend. Remember how Lavabending was shown to be an Avatar-exclusive technique thanks to being a mixture of Earthbending and Firebending? Now any Earthbender can do it, even Bolin for some reason.
Idk about lavabending (as I only remember that one of the avatars shown to be from the Fire Nation who did this and at most Kyoshi) so it does seem like a complicated technique which is odd for someone like Bolin, who likely usually excels in probending, can master it. It's not that probending is bad but probending's techniques are likely used to minimize the big damage effects traditional bending does. But that's also where it's wrong, because Bolin was never trained in traditional ways of bending so stopping lava would honestly be very difficult. Lightningbending so easily is definitely wrong as it requires a new technique to do so, in which if you're not trained in lightning bending, then it's impossible. As a result, in Korra's world, what's supposed to be logical is that lightningbenders have a high paying job to generate electricity as they are extremely rare, but they will slowly fade to cut cost and find new ways to generate electricity. Blood bending is another thing that bothers me too. They treat bloodbending as though it were common knowledge when in reality, only waterbenders who have experimented a lot can discover what bloodbending even is, and that's not a lot. It requires a lot of potential and talent, as well as peak strength and will in order to bend something like blood. As a result, something like bloodbending would be such a rare occurence. The only cases we know so far would be Hama and Katara, Hama being one of the discoverers, but her type of people likely can be found only once in a blue moon and Katara didn't spread the knowledge of bloodbending because of how immoral it is for her. No matter how talented Yakone, Tarloq and Amon are, it's not possible for them to be able to bloodbend without a full moon. Not to mention, bending also requires a certain amount of spiritual connection and connection to their element, which is the reason why almost all Air Nomads are airbenders. Metalbending is the only one I can see that can be seen as more common as it explains that Toph has a metalbending school where she likely taught some people to become metalbending teachers to then teach other people how to metalbend. However, I don't understand why it's impossible to bend platinum as I'm pretty sure that platinum is a type of metal. All in all, it feels like they treat elements as a joke, whatnot with the way Korra bends elements in such a flawless manner at the age of 4. It's as if they're trying to say "Can't bend? Sounds like a skill issue"
@@itsjustvin7630 It would be a combination of fire and earth. Lava doesn't create fire and it's true that it's much more earth, but lava is also several degrees hot and can burn which makes it something akin to a combination of earth and fire
It reminds me of naruto in this awfull continuation of boruto. The dude grew up alone and always wanted to have parents more then anything, plud he went though alot of austracising and being neglected. Yet he has this ability to empathise and understand people on a emotional level and truly bond with them. And then they wanna tell me he becomes a bad, neglectfull dad
@@masteryoghurt2110 they can have faults, in fact they often do and thats ok. Its just stupid when it doesnt make sense. Like a character that is all about inclusion and connection abandoning his children makes no sense. There are alot of ways to give charaters fault and even drive conflict from it later on but it has to make sense
@@theoneandonly9775 Bruh, Aang was a child in the original series. Sometimes people change a lot. Being a family man and being the most important person in 2 world is a challenge. Aang didn't handle it too well. It would be stupid if he did.
@@masteryoghurt2110 that is such a bad reason. Yeah people change but these arent people, they are characters in a story and changing someone so much without decent explanation and all ofscreen is bad. And again there are ways to make conflict with staying true to character they just didnt and decided to go against established characters
Also aang DID grow up with a parent child dynamic. GYATSU!!!! his father figure in the story & the man who give him compassion & acceptance even when others were against it
His relationship with Gyatsu was not one of a father and son, lets remember that while yes monk Gyatsu lend some teachings to Aang, it was more about morale stuff, then proceed to both act as children throwing pies to other Air Nomads. There is nothing that suggest Aang had any idea how to be a father having to deal first with the fire nation, then what came after and Republic City.
@@Londinium09 Gyatso is without question Father and Son... What on earth are you talking about...? No Aang never heard Gyatso promise to not let the council separate them... But Aang CLEARLY remembers Gyatso specifically signaling Aang out to spend time with than the other children... Enough to the point that Aang always remembers Gyatso specifically before the rest of the air nomads... Not to mention it wasn't JUST a nomad's skeleton that set Aang off... It was Gyatso's... That's parent Child Grief... Without Question...
Which, granted, from a character perspective, that is the point. The problem isn't that Korra's a bitch. The problem is that she is a bitch and the plot barely calls it out.
@@KaiserShounen It is even worse how some fans use "homophobia" card to defend her mediocre relationship with Asami when it was a rushed thing that meant nothing. As much as I love AtLA and LoK, I gotta admit that both dealt with shipping in a terrible way. Zuko and Korra changed their partners so early, and we all paid the price for it. I am not a gay person, but I want relationships to have more impacts than "today's drama" or even "free segs"! The fact that Korra spent more time dating and sleeping with her teammates than actively training to master her powers says alot about her priorities.
nah korra doesn’t know how to operate functionally due to being cut off from society basically her whole life that’s why but of course y’all don’t pay attention
Aang being super busy, I can get behind. But they just had to ruin it with the elephant koi line. Like, this man brought two water tribesmen that he just met to ride the elephant koi, visit temples, and even played 7 rounds of airball with Sokka, a non-bender who literally couldn't play the game. There is absolutely no way he wouldn't drag his entire family on those trips, airbending or no. It's more realistic for Aang to have been that annoyingly overbearing road-trip dad than for him to have played favorites with his kids. Anyone to defends this decision either doesn't understand the character or doesn't care about consistency in the slightest.
@@stackingspaghettisauce4271 it is explained further in season 2 he was there for his kids he tried being a father to them just that sometimes he'd go out and try to prepare tenzin of the responsibility and burden because his other kids had other paths
@@goldenwolfae I think this is the better criticism. I could see Aang getting carried away and fixating on one child at the others' expense. I can't see Katarra allowing it to happen, or see Aang allowing it to continue when Katarra points it out. He's not immune to mistakes, but he's also a good person who would do whatever he could to make it right. Katarra should know that and have no problem pointing out what he was doing well before it got to the point that it did.
Why’d the writers do Aang so dirty tho? I mean, I wish we got more on the whole Katara+Aang family stuff, and MAYBE one day, they’ll make something to at least feel like Aang wasn’t as bad.
I've been preaching these same points about the "Aang was a Bad Dad" subplot for years. (In fact, one of my exact quotes is, it only works if we've never met Aang before. Or Katara for that matter.) It makes 0 sense, and it was only done- and defended- because it's trendy to tear down our heroes. This is not the way! So thank you for that. As for Korra, those are good points too, but my position has always been that the Mary Sue on this show was Asami "I Can Do Anything The Plot Needs of Me And I Have No Flaws" Sato.
I hadn't even considered that Aang had personal experiences that would work against him becoming a bad father figure, so good job. My personal arguments against this possibility thusfar were: 1. Katara wouldn't allow it 2. Fire Lord blunt-as-a-rock Zuko would definitely have picking up on it and explained to him why favouritism is poison to sibling relationships. Azula might also have done so, assuming she ever got that redemption arc they've been hinting at in the comics 3. The Air Acolytes are a thing, like you said 4. Bending can skip a generation, so for all Aang knew Bumi and Kya could still have airbender children of their own, and it would be good for them to be included in the lessons 5. Aang spent all of AtlA building a new found family and he never cared about any of their bending abilities then To be fair, I didn't fully dislike LoK either. The show has fantastic art and music direction and character designs, and I do genuinely like some of the world building and supporting cast. I don't fault it for the fact that it lacked a greater overarching plot, because that was due to uncertainty related to whether the show would be continued or not. However, the character assassination of Aang, Katara and Toph were painful, and the show spent an unnecessary amount of runtime on the love square of Team Avatar 2.0, that could have been spent fleshing out character motivations, the plot, and the villains. It's probably not a good sign that I found myself wishing the story would focus more on the surviving AtlA cast and their descendants than on Team Avatar 2.0. So yeah, I choose to treat LoK as an AU spin-off series. XD
Not to mention, there are other people who have the same spirit as Airbenders. Not a literal Spirit, but the same outlook as Airbenders. Aang already encountered this with Teo, and there are even characters like Ty Lee who can supposedly see people's auras (regardless if that was an actual thing or not, the point is that she is VERY free-spirited). For me, I already expected TLOK to be different from ATLA. ATLA set up Avatars are different from one another anyway (Aang isn't like Roku, Roku isn't like Kyoshi, etc.), and I'm used to tokusatsu like Power Rangers where the heroes are generally switched out anyway. That and the different iterations of TMNT (I first saw Korra as the Raphael to Aang's Michelangelo). My main issues are how poorly told were the characters and the story (much like you had mentioned in your comment).
Kya and Bump were childless in their 40s, with Kya also being a lesbian. So no, tenzin was the only hope for a future air nation since aang only had 3 kids
@@AyamesChronicles So Aang was selectively training his elementary school age kids because he had the foreknowledge that one was going to turn out a raging homosexual and the other was going to be childless respectively at 40? also this ignores the fact that a central theme in ATLA is you can learn from other bending philosophies, so it is again out of character for Aang not to diversify his daughter's waterbending and his son's hand to hand combat skills with airbending philosophies
@@phoebusapollo8365 remember: aang was alive up until 17 years before legend of Korra starting. Meaning Tenzin was 34 at the time and Kya and Bumi were pushing past 40. Kya was a world traveler until aang died and Bumi was in the military for who knows how long. Tenzin was committed to learning air nation culture and actively dating. If Bumi and Kya have no kids and aren't sticking around to learn even as adults, they make their choice.
@@AyamesChronicles and again I ask how does he just randomly know that that’s how it was going to turn out? Airbenders are taught from when they are kids, the airbending culture is deeply spiritual to the point where all air nomads were Airbenders. Obviously not all of Aang’s kids are Airbenders. But my point is Airbender children are immersed in the deeply spiritual culture from the moment they are born. I don’t see why Aang would selectively train his children, unless you’re telling me a 5 year old Kya left her household to travel the world and Bumi enlisted in the military. The point of contention between the kids is Aang quite literally leaving his 2 other children at home while he took his son Tenzin, the only Airbender, on field trips to air temples and only trained him in airbending philosophies. In hindsight, yes, it’s quite easy to see that Kya and Bumi wanted different things in life, but that’s not where the contention is, the point of contention is how Aang treated his children when they were but kids. Why would Aang selectively train his children when he doesn’t exactly have foresight to know what kind of life his children were going to learn and he knows learning from different bending philosophies only helps you. The premise isn’t that the kids didn’t want to learn from Aang, it’s that Aang apparently never gave them a chance and didn’t share his culture with them. They wanted to learn and spend time with their dad, which is where the resentment comes from.
I really wish we could have gotten a Korra childhood segment in the first season about how Korra couldn't water bend, getting depressed and made fun of by her peers, then being pissed and uncontrollably fire bending (a style which actually suits her personality). This would prompt her dad to kind of look at her mom weirdly, but also seek out the counsel from the lotus, who thus give Korra the avatar test that she passes. We could also see how Korra struggles with water bending (lots out counseling and lessons from Katara), which kinda makes sense given her personality.
Also another thing is how easily Korra gets away with shit in the first 2 seasons. She got caught by police for being a total menace? No problem, cause Tenzin just so happens to be childhood friends with Lin to bail her out. Korra can't fucking manage her anger issues and destroys a sacred artifact? It just gets fixed and she just gets scolded for it. Korra forcefully kisses a man who was already in a relationship? Nah, he falls for her instantly! Korra fucks up big time and losses her bending? Say no more, he comes Aang to save the day! Korra got her memory erased and is dying after her spirit is poisoned? Well, how nicely that she lands on an island THAT HAS EXACTLY THE PEOPLE THAT KNOW HER CONDITION AND EVEN KNOW HOW TO TREAT HER!!
Don't forget how Korra helped her uncle invade her own home (which isn't brought up after book 2), be so stubborn she didn't try to listen to her dad or even Mako, getting angry at Mako who tries to do his job and then acts like a victim when Mako suggests they break up, she doesn't listen to the past Avatars and even loses them due to her incompetence yet she so happens to have the tree of time to become a kaiju to fight Vaatu/Unalaq, and so on. And that's all within Book 2 alone.
@@toasterowens8916 Oh believe me, I could go all day like this! Other instances are when Amon was going to take Mako's bending away, she randomly learned aibending, how when she was captured by Tarlok, Amon just send a chi blocker to get her instead of him being able to be way more effective. In season 2, how she was never blamed for choosing to side with Unalaq, threatening the judge while she was a part of the problem
IMO Toph should have been a parent that struggled with being too protective AND too handsoff with her parenting. One minute, she's being overprotective of her daughters, but the second they try to push away and be independent, she completely steps away, having her never finding a proper healthy middle ground within her parenting style. Instead, they just made it seem like she would rather not deal with them most of the time.
@@silverking3796 she became parent who gave her children the freedom she never got because she believed it would be good training doesn't help that her friends were given that freedom so it affected her also
I could deal with Korra being a Mary Sue besides the fact that she’s a terrible person. Despite being the reincarnation of all that is pure and good in the world because that was such a great idea from a writing standpoint. She’s arrogant, selfish, coveting, lazy, brutish, and doesn’t care if her actions put other people in danger on the small scale or large scale
And the thing in which avatars are only pure good is also not logical. No matter what, you can't have just good as it can never appear. Avatars also make mistakes and can't be just perfect good. It also goes against what is established in the last Airbender's values where there's both good and bad for balance
@@chidubemanukwu it's not that they are good it's the fact that the so called avatar spirit which turned from being the spirit of the earth to being the spirit of all that's good.
TBH, I think one remedy to Korra's introduction would've had her access the 3 elements but not control them. Instead of her barging in and showing off her bending, she'd have a cold and accidentally sneeze out fire, shift earth while stumbling around, etc. I admit, that is merely addressing one symptom of the disease, given how bad Korra is written. ESPECIALLY in Book 2. Thank god, I already have Bionicle because I've gotten tired of this nonsense a long time ago.
@@KaiserShounen One thing I wish the show had done was show her traveling around learning elements from Aang's friends. You'd think that only having one season greenlit would mean they'd try to cram as much into it as possible instead of pretending the rest of the main cast was dead. It would've been amazing to see her as a teenager doing the Dragon Dance with Zuko as her graduation from fire bending, before heading off to Republic City to learn Airbending as her last element. (Hopefully renamed something better like Kuzon City after Aang's firebending friend)
@@brainflash1 The show technically tried to do that, hinting more at Korra learning from Katara and showing her learning from Toph in book 4. It's just that it wasn't done well. That being said, I believe what you've mentioned could still happened via flashbacks while keeping the main story (at least for book 1) in Republic City.
@@krraika1847 Oh yeah. I intended to keep the main story in "Republic" City, as it still makes sense that airbending would be Korra's weakness. They did imply Katara was one of Korra's instructors, but that was only because they kept her isolated at the south pole until she ran away.
Nick didnt give them the commitment to the number of ep they gave TLA so they had to "wrap things up" by the end of every season in case they had to leave it there. Then they got renewed and had to his the mental reset button
That's fascinating... Back when Korra's later seasons were airing, I remember reading on Wikipedia that the creators weren't aware if they'd be greenlit for a season two, so season ONE specifically had been made as a standalone season. The article then went on to state that Nick purchased the episodes for the rest of the series (seasons 2-4) in bulk. I was not the only fan working off that assumption. Of course, now we have Bryn's personal tumblr stating that 1-2 were ordered first and then the show was expanded to the full 52 episodes (which would have been seasons 3-4). And nothing still containing the inaccurate old info. It makes me wonder where the Wikipedia article got the inaccurate information from. I'm sure I wasn't the only fan making criticisms of the show as it was coming out based on that faulty information.
Even when you consider each season as an isolated cell of their own, there is still terrible, terrible writing. That excuse was BS. Heck, that excuse makes it worse.
*Metalbending* Said as much on the previous video. You bend the earth in the metal to bend the metal the same way you bend the water in blood to bend blood. And given how the latter requires some special circumstances to do, there's no reason to believe the same doesn't/shouldn't apply to metalbending. Even ignoring this comparison, how else are you detecting those earth fragments? Metalbending inherently doesn't make sense without Seismic Sense. *Mastering the Elements* I was gonna defend this with the "she's hardly bending, she's effectively flailing her arms around, but with elemental powers", but I didn't even think about the fact that Avatars don't even have access to the other elements until they start training in it. Roku only started with Fire. Kyoshi presumably only started with Earth. Aang only started with Air and couldn't even do Water until he actively started learning it. Korra fumblebucked her way into at least learning to do rudimentary Earth and Fire Bending. Fair point. I'm still personally fine with her speedrunning bending to get into the more Civil Struggle between the Avatar and a world that doesn't really need/want her. *Rahva* The issue isn't Rahva existing. The issue is " If Rahva and the other one exist, why doesn't anyone know about these two uber spirits that control the balance of the world itself or whatever they do?". None of the spirits we meet bring them up or care that they're threatening the life of the person with one of them ("He Hoo Knows A Thousand Things"). And if the Avatars can contact their past lives, how come no one ever thought to go back and commune with the fabled First Avatar, probably the best person to seek some kind of knowledge from? Again, the hole this creates begs more questions, and the holes those make weren't filled. They probably could've made Rahva work, but messed it up. *Daddy Aang* Ah okay. Yeah. That's dumb. My Aang wouldn't effectively ostracize his other kids to train Tenzin as the sole Airbender, and if he did (I could kinda see him having an obsession with wanting to push his Airbender son as a successor to the culture and arte), Katara wouldn't just let that slide.
Glad you agree with most of my points but on the end of mastering the elements point "I'm still personally fine with her speedrunning bending to get into the more Civil Struggle between the Avatar and a world that doesn't really need/want her.", I understand that but they literally could have just started the show with her being trained by the White Lotus (which happened immediately after that scene) and it would accomplish that same goal 100% better.
so somehow this child did what no other avatar is mentioned to do which is learn and a child have the stable mentality to utilize these elements thats would be foreign to the one she's raised in
Metalbending - the reason toph was the first metalbender was because she sensed the earth in the metal but it isnt needed to sense the earth to bend it. All one needs it to know its there. Until toph no one knew rhe earth was there and once she found it, she was able to teach it. Aang parenting - if you think about it it makes more sense. Aang is both the avatar and the last airbender. On top of being the avatar he has a limited time to teach his only airbending son everything he knows. But in spite of that aang was still a supportive, fun and attentive parent who both bumi and kya agree was pretty good. Aang just wasnt a perfect parent.
@@youngmaster7405 Why would you not need seismic sense to bend earth. You need to sense the earth to move and shape it. Bending just cause someone told you or you know isn't a good enough example. As for aang sure but the man would be more fun to his kids.
Aang being a bad father is just as stupid as Naruto being one. I hate when they destroy characters just to make a new generation. Both Aang and Naruto knew how it felt to be alone, why on earth would they do that to someone else? Especially when a keypoint in both of their characters are Empathy. This is why I just can't with next gens, just don't touch it. Make something else OR OR focus on a WHOLE OTHER PLACE IN THE WORLD. Let me have a ending! I'm tired of this constant continuations. Just let it end, happy ending or sad- idc. Stop making next gens, Idek who is asking for this crap. It has never worked out, I haven't seen a single good next gen. Just leave the ending up for interpretation at the very least. The next gens always stray the line of Mary sues, because they can't reuse the same storyline. However, they need drama so they have to add it somewhere. Where do they add it? By destroying the already beloved characters. I'm just so over it by now.
Honestly, I'd understand Aang being a poor father in the context of his culture. Air nomads didn't raise their children in a nuclear family system, but in a communal system divided by their sex(male western; female eastern). If the conflict came from him struggling to adapt his culture, it would be more true to Aang's character and story. Korra going for a more general issue of neglect really shows the change in focus and quality...
@Nathanimprove while yes, Aang did bond with monk Gyatso, it was noted in the show that this was not seen as ideal to the other members of the Air Nomads. Even so, this bond was formed within the perspectives and traditions of the communal child rearing culture. Honestly, Gyatso's bond with Aang may be reflected in how Aang favored one son over the other two children. But I still think the execution of such a character flaw lacked the nuances I would have wanted to see. But that wasn't the focus of LoK, so I guess it is headcannon time, lol.
My personal belief is that the reason we skip to Korra immediately knowing 3 of the elements is because we spent an entire journey beforehand learning about them. The only one we didn't get a lot of insight into was Air, which we get from Tensin. The same reason can be applied as to why we didn't get a Firebending antagonist in Korra's journey since we already had one with Aang. It can also be due to the fact that the show was planned to be way shorter, so perhaps they didn't want waste time spoonfeeding information to fans that already know this and they assumed that new fans wouldn't question it too much.
but you literally don't have to spoonfeed everything. Just open the show with her already being trained by the White Lotus. You ain't gotta explain shit.
@@KaiserShounenyou mean like her finishing her fire bending mastery test with the white lotus where they confer that she was a certified master of 3 elements now and could move onto air since she had to learn them in order?
@@AyamesChronicles You mean the scene that is better then the previous one people complain about? Yes. Open with that scene instead of her bending as a toddler.
@@KaiserShounen only took her 13 years to master her third element. So much better than aang who mastered air by 12 and the other 3 elements in a day lol
Avatar:lok summarized Book 1: Not good not bad Book 2: THAT'S NOT HOW THAT WORKS Book 3: Finally we're cooking Book 4: That's some good fanfic, but can we get the real show now?
Legend of Korra Season 1 was originally meant to be a stand-alone epilogue miniseries sequel to The Last Airbender. Honestly, it would leave a sour taste in my mouth if they really ended with Korra getting all of her bending back because of Aang suddenly rather than learning how to deal with it, and getting together with Mako after the obnoxious love triangle subplot.
@@robchuk4136 Regardless, it still would be either annoying at best with its horrible romance or frustrating at worst when Korra didn't learn her lesson after all the experience she had been through. Instead of having Korra deal with the loss of her 3 bendings, Aang suddenly appears and gives her powers back because... magic. I even have problems with Sozin's Comet finale where instead of having Aang figure out whether or not he should kill Ozai to end the war even if it goes against his beliefs, he suddenly gets Energy Bending from Lion Turtle to solve his problem.
I refuse to believe Aang wouldn’t be itching to take his kids (all of them) to see the world and the different kingdoms as well as the air nomad temples. I could see Katara being the one to be hesitant maybe saying to wait until they are of a certain age.
Metal bending is just different in Korra, then it is in Atla. You dont need seismic sensing at all... you just bend the metal itself. You can't bend the mechas because they smelt the iron to be 99.99 pure. No, there is a special metal called platinum (the soft metal) that kinda juat negates earth bending for some reason. Earth benders can bend mercury though, which is strange if you're using the Atla rules. Mercury in a liquid state is too dense, and the impurities would just float to the top. It really seems like you can just bend the metal itself in Korra because it seemed cool to the writers. The reason why I came to this conclusion was my suspension of disbelief. The information Atla gave me doesn't mix up well with what Korra is showing me.
You know, it's kinda weird how we don't call Katara a Mary Sue where she went from novice to boxing with azula in less than a year from being mostly self taught
16:00 I hate how sequels usually do character assassination on characters from the previous series to elevate the newer character(s)😮💨 Just like they did with Boruto
Absolutely agree, I think it's because they want to make the old characters less likable so you're forced to go, "Well, at least the new characters aren't total pieces of garbage." In my mind it's a fail safe in case they make unlikable characters and have to make sure the others are just even less likable.
This is anotha example of fans who have tunnel vision. The moment u critique their fav character. They comin for you. Well done, great vid. It ain’t against the law to point out flaws in a character. Just subscribed notifications bell on!!!
A lot of Tokyo Ghoul fans, Fire Emblem fans, Dragon Age fans, Final Fantasy fans, Tales of fans, Family Guy fans, South Park fans, Chainsaw Man fans, Your Lie in April fans, Naruto fans and both Marvel and DC fans have the same tunnel vision problem which causes them to completely hate on a certain character without fully understanding the situation.
I don’t care how you feel about this show or Korra as a character, but actually believing she’s a Mary Sue with all of her flaws and after all the shit that she went through is genuinely brain-dead behavior.
The thing about Korra being proficient at three elements at the beginning of the show was that Nickelodeon had only given the writers 1 season. The writers didn‘t know they would get more time and episodes, which is why they were forced to rush that part of hers.
The "point" of Korra's introduction is that it's cute and funny to have a little kid doing mini-Avatar stuff and you're all acting like Comic Book Guy over a 30 second long scene with a cartoon toddler...when did atla fans become so miserable and humourless?
They probably didn't learn metal bending because metal is rare. How often would a earth bending master come across metal 200 years before the series started?
@@AyamesChronicles Does it truly matter? It's not like being taught by badgers is what allowed her to do so. To be honest I do not remember what the original comment was addressing in the video lol.
Korra from "Avatar: The Legend of Korra" is generally not considered a "Mary Sue," although she does exhibit some traits that might superficially resemble this characterization. However, there are important differences that make Korra a more complex and well-developed character. Let's take a closer look. Traits of a "Mary Sue": Overly Perfect Character: A "Mary Sue" often has few to no weaknesses, acquires abilities without much effort, and is almost always viewed positively by other characters. Lack of Character Development: A "Mary Sue" typically undergoes little to no personal growth or challenges and overcomes problems too easily. Lack of Flaws: These characters rarely make mistakes and have few, if any, weaknesses that significantly impact them. Why Korra Is Not a "Mary Sue": Personal Challenges: Korra has numerous weaknesses from the beginning. She struggles with her temper, her lack of understanding of the spiritual side of being the Avatar, and her often impulsive behavior. She has significant difficulty mastering airbending, demonstrating that her abilities do not come without effort. Korra experiences severe personal and physical challenges, including a near-death experience and a long period where she is physically and emotionally broken (for example, at the end of the third and during the fourth season). Complex Character Development: Korra undergoes significant character development throughout the series. She starts as a confident and often stubborn young woman who wants to forge her own path and evolves into a more mature person who learns humility and better understands her role as the Avatar. Her journey is marked by self-doubt, identity crises, and deep personal conflicts, which she overcomes through hard work and self-reflection. Mistakes and Consequences: Korra makes many mistakes, which have serious consequences not only for herself but also for the world around her. Her decisions lead to conflicts and problems that she must then solve, often at great personal cost. These mistakes and their consequences show that she is a realistic and fallible character who, despite her abilities, faces real challenges. Conclusion: Korra is not a "Mary Sue" character. She has numerous flaws, makes mistakes, and must confront them, often facing significant challenges. Her character development is deep and complex, making her a relatable and human figure. The series clearly portrays her journey from an impulsive and headstrong person to a more mature individual who understands and accepts her role as the Avatar. All these aspects make Korra a well-developed character who goes far beyond the typical traits of a "Mary Sue."
Being a Mary Sue would imply she has no faults whatsoever, but Korra had many faults. She was hot headed, stubborn, immature, impulsive, aggressive, impatient, and a little biased when it came to her fellow countrymen. If anyone was a Mary Sue in LOK, it was Asami.
@@annsh.6487 what? Korra got wrecked in multiple occasions. Sure some of it was solved in a kinda dumb way, especially by Aang, but she did get herself in trouble and she hit arguably a few of the lowest lows on either series. Like, Aang restored her bending, but the girl was arguably contemplating throwing herself off a cliff at the moment. She also failed on multiple occasions and had to rely on other people, which she also initially failed to do. She's the protagonist and this is not a tragedy, so of course she bounced back, that doesn't make her a Marry Sue. And I don't buy that the narrative portrayed as being "in the right" regarding her flaws either, given the reaction Ive seen most people have to the series and her character.
@@annsh.6487she literally nearly died 3 times got crippled and lost the connection to the avatar because of those flaws and she grows out of it and stops showing those character traits It's the literal plot point of the show and it's not like its ambiguous
being a mary sue has absolutely nothing to do with being flawless. A Mary Sue has a ton of flaws. None of them matter, because they never come up. They never hinder or stop or hurt the mary sue in any way. she's a downright awful person, but everyone still loves her and adores her and does everything for her anyway. In reality she'd be in prison 5 minutes after going to Republic city for 10-20 years.
@@acrab6527 "They never hinder or stop or hurt the mary sue in any way." Yeah, good point. Korra walked right out of that conflict with Zaheer. Oh....right...she didn't. She was crippled and spent years recovering after nearly dying from mercury poisoning by a man who would've still been locked up if she hadn't indirectly granted him airbending.
Perfect explanation of the suspension of desbelief, I lost count of how many times I have dropped a book, show or whatever because I started to get annoyed at the author decisions, I have make this analogy before myself, just never had a chance to discuss it with someone else.
These videos are so entertaining to me seeing someone critique a show I watched and they point out the flaws that I don’t notice or just breeze over on my first watch
It's really not hard to believe that metal benders can use seismic sense after Toph metal bended 100 years ago. She started the metal bending police academy. During ATLA very few fire benders were able to shoot and/or redirect lightning and the LoK there are factory workers who do for pay.
Ok here's the thing with korra. I think her introductory scene was to set up the reveal she is stated to be a progity at fighting as stated after the flashback, keep in mind what they said "she mastered the physical side of bending, but has trouble with the spiritual side." As the avatar, she has to learn both. That flashback does not contradict this statement. As for the "bending not being based on martial arts anymore" arguments i keep seeing thrown around. It still is, but what they did with it was actually set up in avatar, they show benders who start to learn from each other and combine aspects of other bending. It makes sense that in the time frame between avatar and korra, bending would change and evolve. Also keep in mind as for her social issues, she was not allowed to interact with the outside world, she doesn't know how the world works, especially in republic city.
Because these people don't look up the buzzwords they shout If they did they would know that the creator of the Mary Sue term disowned it and says it shouldn't be used because of people like this
I agree with most of this because a lot of what went on with Korra was extremely unearned, but there are some inaccuracies: Seismic sense doesn’t seem to be required to metalbend. In the comics Toph opens a metalbending school and her students aren’t shown to use that skill when they finally metalbend. Korra is not 18 by the end of the series; she’s around 21 because a year goes by on screen, and there’s a 3 year time skip for season 4. Unlike other Avatars, Korra was aware that she was the Avatar before she was discovered. She started training with Katara in waterbending then. Aang was told that he was the Avatar when he was 12 due to extenuating circumstances, and he did not master all of the elements by the end of ATLA. We don’t know when Aang finished mastering everything. Roku wasn’t informed until he was 16, as tradition dictated. It took Roku 12 years to master air, water, and earth (4 years of training for each element). He was of course already a firebending master by the time he leaves to be the Avatar, so we can assume that took him anywhere from 4-12 years for that too. So Roku mastered everything in something like 16-24 years. If Korra actually started training at age 4, and she mastered water, earth, and fire by age 17, it took her 13 years to master them. She hadn’t airbended at all at that point, and if she did master it by the end of LoK, it took her another 4 years. So really it took Korra 17 years to master the elements. Katara became a mother figure at the age of 8, when her mom died. That’s why Sokka only sees her face when he tries to remember Kya (the elder).
I think the metal bending thing could've been extremely easily explained by saying they developed a metal alloy with whatever would count as a "rock" blended finely enough into its structure that even non seismic sensers could feel the rock in the metal. Then they could build off of that feeling onto harder to feel substances until they could properly metal bend. If they didn’t give at least that much of an explanation... that's on them for being dumber than someone just spitballing.
I can maybe see why they would feel the need to have an origin story, especially if there's going to be many more stories from that world. But I feel like it could have used a lot more time to cook, personally I liked this one rewrite where Raava and Vaatu helped the Wan learn all four elements then merged with him. (Don't remember if it was Future me or Unicorn of war) Or they could have come up with something else, honestly I didn't like that Korra's spirits ended up being more Western, I prefered ATLA's more Eastern approach. Also although parents play a big part in your growth and who you are as an adult, there's other factors that come into play. Aang could have been a good dad, maybe with a packed schedule because he's the Avatar but still a dad who wants to be there for his kids. Bumi and Kya could have still felt insecure about not being air benders while Tenzin works hard to live up to being an air nomad despite Aang telling all three of them that it's okay. Plus I can only imagine how famous all of Team Avatar was after the war, their kids probably had a lot of eyes on them and that alone sounds pretty stressful. Imagine overhearing that a bunch of random strangers were disappointed that you weren't born an air bender.
@krys9463 I kinda see adult Aang like Reed Richards. Both of them care alot about their families but might seem like they neglect them do to how much attention they place on their responsibilities ( on a side note theirs quite a lot in common between the dynamic of the fantastic four the gaang the more I think about it
I honestly could never explain why I didn’t like TLOK. I watched the first episode and saw how she acted and conducted herself when she arrived in Republic City. The amount of chaos and property damage she caused and acting like it was no big deal because she’s the Avatar seemed weird. Being the Avatar always seemed like a solemn duty, Roku seemed like a humble man and took his duties seriously, and even Aang, even though he ran away from his duties, understood the importance of his role and conducted himself most of the time with composure when it came to learning the elements and the ways of the world. Meanwhile Korra treated being the Avatar like a toy. Also the “I’m the Avatar and you have to deal with it” line seemed more directed at the audience and unnecessarily antagonistic towards the audience.
She’s not a Mary Sue, Mary Sue can’t do no wrong, is considered perfect, Korea messed up multiple times, she’s made many mistakes, not really her fault but she still makes bad choices and that’s what I love about her she was the perfect bender, but her actions were not perfect, if she was a marry sue she would’ve been perfect that everything
5:48 It's been seventy-five years since Metalbending was invented. That's plenty of time for people to build on Toph's original work or find their own paths to the same result. 7:34 She had more time to learn them than Aang did, which was less than a year.
ok few points I wanna make . 1. your bringing the comics in with aang starting the acolytes so I have to bring up tophs school were we see that you dont need seismic sense to use metal bending as her students are never shown to use it and none of her training involved teaching them that. (and that came out before season 3 before korra learned metal bending so even if you wanna say its a retcon its not a korra one so cant be used to call her a merry sue) 2. Toph was the first and no one else thought to do it before because no one knew it was possible, a similar real world example is the "four-minute mile" once one person figures it out and shows its possible other people start taking it seriously and putting their mind to it. 3. the metal that they use, that easily could have come from better metallurgical understanding that came from the fire and earth nation working together (as seen in the comics) + advancement in scientific knowledge to make better metals and is probably metal with high level of impurities that is made to help metal bender learn. could even be metal that was made from meteoric iron witch we know is a thing in the avatar world since space sword and "space earth"is more easily bended. 4. Korra learning the elements faster is easily explained by the fact that 1, she did not need to travel the world looking for masters to teach her like Aang and previous avatars since the white lotus took her in and brought in multiple masters to train her and she was not limited to learning one at a time from a single master+traveling the world looking for the others. and 2 having her entire life be nothing but training under multiple masters unlike other avatars who had to deal with stuff while learning like aang getting in adventures and fighting a war not leaving him that much time to practice and having to rush it or having duties . the rest of the points are valid tho
How would Korra have been trained to access the Avatar State when she explicitly couldn't until the end of Book 1? I suppose it's *possible* the White Lotus could have taught her some useful meditation techniques that would expedite her learning the Avatar State, but would it not have been more satisfying to see her learn that mastery through the show?
@@dismaltenedor3979 Oh wait, you right, I'm wrong. I for some reason thought that scene where she used the avatar state to win the race was in season 1 without thinking. I'll still defend her over-competence and over-confidence is the point of the series.
@@SaltyCalhoun If the avatar got 13 years of Katara level training directly from the whtie lotus while walking outside their house, they're allowed to be a little broken.
@@AyamesChronicles Absolutely, and that's a thing I think a lot of people miss. But even with the 13 years of training, Korra constantly runs into problems she can't solve by punching them. But I won't deny, that idea falters even in season 1. TLoK is flawed but awesome, and Korra's progression is a major reason why it's awesome.
@@animationcentral.3799 ...the guy just showed a clip of Aang's children talking about how one of them was morr favored than the rest. Which, to me, had similarities of Gohan choosing to research in his study instead of going to pick Pan up from school. It makes no sense for Aang and Gohan to act like this. Aang. Who who the last of his people. Aang. Who was excluded from activitied with other Air Nomands because of being the Avatar. Gohan. Who spent a good portion of his life away from his father. Gohan. Who lost his father to Cell due to over confidence. They should both want to be a part of their children's lives. Aang should not put one of his kids on a pedestal above the others. Gohan should want to be in Pan's life as much as he can be because anything can come to or be made on Earth to ruin those good times. That is what i meant by the comparisson
@@VantasticJackson his children feel that way but that doesn't make it true. Aang loved them equally but he had a lot of pressure on him finally having an Airbender kid after 2 tries and needing to teach him everything about Airbender culture and history. In that, he did end up being somewhat absent at times, but he was never a bad dad. He was not perfect, Which was the point
@@toasterowens8916 Aang literally deprived two of his children from learning his culture because they weren't Airbenders like him. When Aang took Tenzin to ride the elephant koi or visit the air temples to learn about Airbender traditions/ games, he simply refused to take Bumi and Kya. He took Katar and Sokka to do those exact things, but he couldn't bother to continue the tradition with two of his kids. It's not like Aang couldn't fit the whole family on Appa to travel to these Airbender pilgrimages. He was willing to show Airbending culture with his friends, the mechanists tribe, and the air acolytes; but not his own kids apparently. He simply didn't want two of his kids to join because they didn't have the right genetic makeup. This is textbook discrimination against non-airbenders. Imagine if you were a kid and your dad only invited your brother to go on the traditional family road trip. That sounds like a pretty bad and neglectful father to me.
Korra has many flaws from the start: She is a hothead, always thinking with her fists. Even with the best possible teacher, she struggled very much to learn airbend. She lacks a spiritual side.
No, she has flaws and was punished. Biut her "character development" basically got reset, a lot. She always got saved by the plot, and defeated by her flaws.
While I don't have the same kind of issue with 4yr old Korra bending other elements, I do dislike it. Metaphorically speaking, it was Babe Ruth pointing to the stands and saying "I'm going to hit a home run THERE."... then hitting a single. And when you fail that hard, everything else gets magnified. "Korra gets love and admiration when she doesn't deserve it!" like with Bolin, and... well, no, not really. Korra is beautiful, Bolin is effectively a jumped-up street urchin, so a beautiful woman being nice to him is going to have an outsized effect on him. Other people aren't nearly as taken with Korra as Bolin is, not even Mako. But because of that Entrance scene and how badly the show failed at living up to that promise, we look back on Korra and Bolin and use that as evidence of her being a Mary Sue. Korra gets her powers back at the end of season 1 just... cuz? Mary Sue. Korra takes up more of Tenzin's time and effort than anyone else? Again, Mary Sue. Etc. But was Korra a Mary Sue? Well... yeah - a badly written one. An unintentional one, but identified by the writers as being one. It was as if the writers knew that she was straying into that territory, tried to steer away from it... but then had to steer back into it out of necessity. "We need Korra to get all her powers back because we need to be able to pitch a lot more storylines for a hypothetical Season 2, so... "Energy Bending" from Aang and she's back to normal - but now with Air Bending!" So Korra is verred back into Mary Sue territory because the show needs it so they can pitch to Nickelodeon the kind of plotlines that MIGHT get them a Season 2. (Remember, Seasons 2 - 4 were ad hoc and not guaranteed before the end of the current season) Then they toss out other BS to try to negate or dilute the Korra BS (Bolin becoming a Lava Bender is the biggest example) which just goes to highlight the Korra BS that they've been forced into in order to be able to continue to pitch the show. Etc. So she ended up being a Mary Sue because of Network interference (ie: they didn't greenlight the show long enough in advance to plot out more than a single season at a time), the need to undue too much of the story so they could deal with the Network Interference, and setting expectations way, way, WAY too high from that first scene. Korra is a metaphorical single. Each season is a single - it got on base. But then in each season, they tried to "steal" a base - Raava, Lava Bender Bolin, Grandma Toph (she was so very close to working for me, but... just ... fell short, like instead of learning from her mistakes as an adult, she just decided to be 12yr old Toph in a Grandmothers body) - and ended up getting thrown out, setting the team back. So Season 4 ended with 1 person on base and a running getting thrown out for stealing, and that was the end of the game. It started off with a promise of a Home Run, ended up with nada.
Nice cope, but Mary Sues have flaws and are not loved by everyone. Mary Sues have forced poorly resolved or not resolved at all flaws that are often seen more as quircks than flaws and those that don't like a Mary sue are either evil or misguided.
I'm grown so tired of the certain types of people defending this show. Like you can enjoy Korra all you want, but don't stand there proclaiming it's best show ever and is perfect sequel to Airbender, then go after those who give it legit criticisms of it.
Thoughts before watching the video: Title is immediately wrong almost everything Korra does is flawed or has some negative repercussions for it even when it’s the right choice, she loses and has to get back up constantly which is the antithesis of a Mary Sue. Also seeing lots of things about "making aang a bad dad", he wasn't they never paint him to be he loved all his kids but with Tenzin he had an opportunity to pass on the ways of his dead people, It wasn't favoritism it was an attempt to keep his culture alive
The worst part of her becoming less a mary sue in season 3 and 4 is that they instead replaced her mary sue powers with torture porn and bondage streaks
I found it weird that Mako had a hard time choosing between Korra and Asami. Korra was always so brash and rude and angry, whereas Asami was kind and loving and supportive. Korra and Mako even BROKE UP, Mako started dating Asami, and he feels BAD about telling Korra because she lost her memory and thus FORGOT that they broke up...😑 And THEN, rude, abrasive Korra gets with Asami on top of it all. Yeah, ALL of that was strange.
also 2 other mary sue-ish aspects of korra's character: 1. how she kissed mako in season 1 while he was dating asami yet the series frames it as if mako is at fault for this--yeah she apologizes (to bolin) but the series uses it as 1 of many examples of mako being a bad boyfriend. like yeah he prolly should've told asami but korra kissed him by surprise, dude, he didn't initiate so I don't think he rlly should've felt bad. and 2. the book 2 finale where korra leaves the spirit portals open, then at the start of the next season is telling all the rightfully upset ppl to just deal w/ it. I was so baffled; vaatu, the spirit of evil and chaos, is the one who originally opened the portals--this led to spirits terrorizing humanity and forcing them to live on lion turtles. wan, the 1st avatar, shoved the spirits back into their own world and closed the portals. unalaq, the villain of book 2, wants to re-open the spirit portals. they clearly establish the spirit portals being open as a terrible thing. but then korra decides to leave them open "bc humans and spirits need to learn to live together" but she does nothing to help them co-exist and acts like everyone should just have to live w/ the consequences of her actions. ig when korra does it, letting the spirits roam free is suddenly a great plan lol
Mary Sue or not, Korra is such a deeply flawed and insufferable character in general. The one thing I will ALWAYS point out is her hesitation to rescue Tenzin and his family and all the airbenders from the Red Lotus in season 3. She spent like two episodes moping around and whining about how unfair it was that she was expected to turn herself over to be tortured to death in the place of the family who took her in and literally gave her everything. She struggles to do the right thing, the heroic thing which would save dozens of lives INCLUDING the lives of at least 4 young children (2 kids, 1 toddler, 1 infant), and again, it's a family who welcomed her into their home, gave her shelter and support, training, food, EVERYTHING and she almost refused to rescue them. Aang wouldn't have needed to know them personally, he would have done it without hesitation because that's what heroes do. Korra cannot even be called a hero because most everything she does in the show, she does for her OWN benefit. I like the show as a whole, but as far as main protagonists go, Korra is one of the WORST and most vile I've ever seen.
tbf I may be misremembering (and idk why I'm even trying to play devil's advocate when I don't even like korra lol) but didn't she know at that point that the red lotus was planning to kill her in the avatar state so they could end the cycle? at that point it's abt more than just her, she wouldn't just be worrying abt herself but the world being deprived of the avatar forever. but again, I could be totally off
I couldn't watch past season 1 because the characters were infuriating and people are surprised when i tell them that 😭 why is there a love triangle and then just Bolin, that's a horrible team
Legend of korra should have been a series about non-benders vs benders. They made it seem like a big issue in the first season that nonbenders are being discriminated against by protestors and amon but never go out there way to show it. They could've korra say powerless through season 2 that way she can see what nonbenders have to go through and tries to fix the issue and make things worse which is when they should introduce Zaheer so they can starts a civil war. And when harmonic convergence happens korra gets her bending back and only korra because she's the avatar. And season 3 could be korra tryna to stop Zaheer and the nonbenders from starting a new world order.
I clicked on the video not remembering Korra as a Mary Sue, because one thing I remember about Korra is her LOSING ALL THE TIME. Unlike Shonen protagonists who cant stop winning my memories of Korra is her getting her butt kicked sos forgive us if we don't consider her a Gary Stu
A big point of avatar:tla was for Aang having to take responsibility as the avatar and not abandoning the world for a second time. Making Aang an absent father is as bad as Disney making an apathetic Luke
I don't love LoK, but you're way off here. Half your arguments aren't even about Korra, they are about the worldbuilding. Korra is not a mary sue by the generally understood definition. Ripped from Wikipedia: The Mary Sue is a character archetype in fiction, usually a young woman, who is often portrayed as inexplicably competent across all domains, gifted with unique talents or powers, liked or respected by most other characters, unrealistically free of weaknesses, extremely attractive, innately virtuous, and generally lacking meaningful character flaws. Korra is naturally more gifted than other avatars. But that gift is her undoing. Her ability to be a great fighter without much effort (though she is shown having been in training for over 12 years) is her undoing. She is a better fighter but a worse person and, importantly, completely out of touch with the mental space necessary to airbend or communicate with her spiritual side. She's not a mary Sue because she is shown to have numerous flaws and to fail constantly. Sure, she is an unbelievably good fighter. But she's also naive, having been raised in isolation dedicated only to mastering the elements. She is literally "stupid" in that she is arrogant, inexperienced, headstrong, and stubborn. She is not beloved, and is actually disliked by many of the other characters, especially at first These are obvious flaws, and because of them, she loses and fails constantly. In order to win, she has to overcome these flaws, whereas a mary sue has no flaws, and the only adversity she overcomes is society trying to keep her from being the strong character that she already was. In short, korra is a flawed person who happens to be very powerful, and whose power is often a crutch. That's almost an inversion of the Mary Sue trope
I don't understand why people think she is a Mary Sue. She is a good fighter but during the first season we learn that her fighting style is outdated and she was flat footed. She also struggle against expert benders and sometimes lost badly.
You brought up some good points, but it just reinforces my opinion that "Mary Sue" is thrown around casually with the actual meaning being glossed over to fuel engagement. It's easy enough to explain how all these issues are possible, but that's something the writers should have done. I wonder if the expansion from one season to a full series had something to do with those inconsistencies, but that's speculation and doesn't change what's on screen. I do take issue with the idea that someone can be "kind of" a Mary Sue. When you broaden what a Sue is you can easily fit most protagonists into the mould. Good video. I really liked it. :)
I dont disagree with the fact that Korra just does shit without much effort, but I have to disagree with the Mary Sue thing. She SEEMS like one, but in season 1 alone there are many things that are the complete opposite of being a Mary Sue Character, which are defined by having zero flaws and are made to be "perfect": 1. Getting arrested after beating the Triad and needing to be bailed out by Tenzin (a Mary Sue wouldnt have been arrested) 2. Not being able to learn Air Bending movement until she found her own way of doing it at the arena (a Mary Sue would have no problem with it) 3. Her temper (Mary Sues only have a temper when the plot demands them to be angry for a final fight or something) 4. Being afraid of Amon (a Mary Sue isnt afraid of anything) 5. Getting her bending taken away in general (a Mary Sue would have kicked Amon's ass without him being able to take her bending away) 6. Korra actually has a personality that makes people like her (most Mary Sue characters are bland, boring, and just about always emotionless or only have a single emotion and often have a personality that makes you wonder why anyone likes them, yet everyone loves them anyway)
@@KaiserShounen making up your own definition to suit you does not change what it actually is supposed to mean. Criticize her character without saying bullshit
@@regularpotato Im not making up a definition. The one I use is what majority of other content creators use AND its the most practical. If you want to contest why my definition is wrong or didn't apply to Korra in seasons 1-2, watch my video on the topic and come back to me.
@@KaiserShounen "The one I use", buddy, there is only ONE definition of a Mary Sue, wtf are you talking about? A Mary Sue is a someone who is COMPLETELY FLAWLESS, PERFECT, AND IS VOID OF MISTAKES. Korra is OBJECTIVELY none of those things, as she herself has made MANY mistakes, is NOT flawless, and she is most definitely NOT perfect. Other content creators (and yourself) twisting the definition to suit your narrative doesn't change the fact yall are objectively WRONG in terms of the definition.
the worst type of main character: is a Mary Sue, seriously how is that supposed to speak to the audience. growing up loved a main character who had to earn their position in life.
At the end of Season 1, I kinda get why they wrote that Korra got her powers back, since they've only been greenlit for only ONE season. Nickelodeon only greenlit the other seasons AFTER Season 1 wrapped up productions and stuff.
I personally don't see Korra as a sue or partial sue. Instead I see her as a victim of unfortunate circumstance. The first was that Nick was screwing over the show from the start and continued to do so as the seasons went on. The second were the questionable decisions on the part of the writers, namely the first two seasons. Book 1, however, I am much more willing to downplay the negatives of though I still wouldn't call it good. They were only given one season and instead of cutting planned content it became, well, what it is. A jumbled speed run. They could've just cut out the love triange entirely and had more time to properly develop the story, but I digress. Then comes Book 2 and it becomes a matter of trying to find a new plot through chaos, and not the fun type of chaos either. The response to how do we get ourselves out of the corner we wrote ourselves into should not have been to set the established lore on fire. That said Books 3 and 4 were mostly fine despite inconsistencies.
i think what they should've done rather than the raava thing was explore what the world used to look like before bending, with the avatars still existing as sort of spirit mediums
Seeing Korra get shit on even today warms my heart , keep it on Korra haters , you are absolutely justified in hating this miserable example of a mary sue , her existence is an insult to the masterpiece that is the last Airbender , the writers shitting on their own rules for just that introduction of her really showed what type of story they were about to tell , this is just sad
She isn't a mary sue though? We literally see her get beaten so much to the point we want to advocate for her winning sometimes. A mary sue is a no flawed perfect character and Korra is the anti mary sue imo. If she was a mary sue why did she literally go on a adventure to rediscover herself after the poisoning on Season 4. There are actual flaws with her character but this is just objectively a wrong take.
@Sakura-Army alright let's go back in time , in her first fucking appearance as a toddler she was bending 3 elements at once water fire and earth and as far as we know being able to bend one element at that age is crazy even for avatars and she was doing it with 3 without having ever went through the proper training which goes against everything thst was special about bending from the previous series , she kept fucking up and creating issues from the first season and didn't really have to pay for shit or experience consequences like talking shit to poor tenzin in front of his kids and later barely apologized and the show forced the guy to apologize too even tho he Done nothing wrong , and at the finally she very conveniently didn't have her air bending blocked by amon even tho it makes no sense whatsoever how could that have happened as literally any argument Trying to explain it just creates more plot holes , and after that she can immidietly use air bending so well she beats up the guy that manhandled her with mako These are all extremely mary sue stuff and no the fact she gets her ass handed to her dye to her own stupidity doesn't cancel any of them , also who the hell replies to a 4 month old comment ? Did you not consider i might not be capable of arguing because i didn't concern myself with anything whorra related in months and would forget details and therefore would be difficult for me to put up an argument ? So much for consideration Oh Also, Aang from beyond that grave is capable of giving her her bending back even tho it doesn't make sense either since amon presumably blocks bending physically with blood bending and Aang uses energy bending , lucky for Korra that everything ultimately just works for her
@Sakura-Army first of all korra bending 3 elements as a toddler is world breaking because literally no avatar ever did that , the ones we know most about being roku and Aang didn't knew they were the avatar until told because them having bent an element other than the one they are in the nation of wouldn't make sense considering how tlab established bending works ( lok took the masterclass of world building that is avatar's world and reduced it to basic magic shit without any of the cultural stuff that influenced and made tla a great show ) And second you shouldn't un-classify Korra as a Mary sue just because she isn't the absolute Text book example , you are taking that too literally , she's a female character who's the center of the world and acts like it with nobody giving her shit for it despite her attitude and since i saw that post S4 comic i can tell its not solved , bitch called her parents narrow minded even tho their first reaction to knowing that she won't be continuing their lineage is immediat acceptance JUST BECAUSE they highlight the legitimate point that others may not accept it , also everybody does like her , the ones that don't are considered villians (even tho at least Raikou shouldn't , mf has some valid points , whorra literally destroed the city with vines thanks to her helping her uncle and later nuked it with kovera canon or whatever her name was , if she didn't help her uncle none of this would have happened and the Story doesn't even address that meaningfully )
7:59 I do not believe korra is a Mary Sue because I do think she’s got enough flaws and issues to circumvent it. But good lord that was a terrible introduction to her. If they started in media rez and just explained she’s been practicing the elements for a decade then it be good enough. Personally I always preferred the Mr enter version where because of her inability to except change she struggles to water bend and accidentally channels fire in her anger for the whole she’s the avatar reveal
@@vetarlittorf1807 she kinda does like her fears of the world not needing the avatar anymore when she banked so much of her identity on being the avatar.
@@skyslasher2297 That's not a fear of change. That's an existential fear of having no purpose. Being an adaptable person doesn't mean you automatically accept everything life throws at you or that you reject consistency in your life. In the very first episode, we see that Korra very much has the mentality of a true waterbender. She displays excitement for trying new things, she quickly embraces Republic City's way of life without any noticeable culture shock and remember the scene where she faced the triad? She immediately uses a very typical waterbending tactic; instead of drilling into her first opponent, she lets him go first and then redirects his attack, turning his own strength against him. In the next episode, she picks up the pro-bending styles rather quickly instead of continuing to use traditional styles. Accepting change was never a problem for Korra. In fact, Tenzin was the one who had trouble with accepting change. That's the whole reason why Korra and Tenzin's mentor/student relationship is so interesting. They learn from each other.
15:42 I believe Kotara was simular to Aang in wanting to preserve her culture to the point she fights with her dad and Soka about changes in the Southern tribe, i think if she Saw Aang doing that she'd have killed him herself.
@@joshthomasmoorenew The comic is called North And South. Katara and the others return to the South Pole to find it has changed radically after the Northern Water Tribe has stepped up to help rebuild the villages there. Only they've gone a bit overboard, and basically turned the the South Pole into the North Pole thus stripping it from its original identity. Or at least, that's sort of implied / what Katara thinks. Sokka at some point brings up a valid point, that the South Pole he and Katara knew was greatly diminished due to all the raids that had happened, and that neither of them actually really know what "real" Southern Water Tribe culture looked like.
You act like Korra is the only one who metalbend without seismic sense. it isn't required to metalbend no one ever said it was. Toph first 3 students learned it without using seismic sense. so no rule was broken her for there. L take while i see your point about bending 3 elements. she still had train 13 years to master them. that's basically how long it took Roku to master the other 3 elements
1. The fact that metal bending without seismic sense being utilized is in itself a problem regardless of which character does it because it breaks the rules. Im focusing on Korra in this video because her ability to do so mainly gives her a skill she had no business learning without serving the prerequisites. 2. If they stuck with her just training with the White Lotus, then yeah I would have no issue with that. But Korra being able to *learn* the 3 elements on her own at the age of 4 is improbable. It contradicts the established rules for the sake of making Korra seem capable and for a dumb joke.
@@KaiserShounen when did they say seismic sense is required to metalbend? no one said that. so no rule was broken there. so let me get straight they can rush Aang progression simply for the sake of the plot cuz had to beat the fire lord by summer's end. No he didn't master them. but he got pretty damn good in very short amount of time. while learning them at the same time. after saying mastering the elements takes years. We can overlook than, but Korra doing some elementary bending is where you draw line lol
@@dhollins Aang was consistently training throughout that time and he was established as being somewhat prodigious in nature. He still had to learn how to do the motions, channel his chi and maintain his mindset in order to bend those elements properly. And he didn't master the elements, by your admission. And he didn't win against Ozai with his bending skills alone (which granted the conflict wasn't just about the fight but whether or not Aang would kill Ozai to save the world). Nothing in the show is broken or made less compelling because of the rate he had to grow. The show fleshes out how this was a unique case for Aang as the avatar. But with Korra, all her first scene does is disregard the established rules of the show, for a dumb joke, and we never get an explanation for how she could do the basic bending for 3 elements at 4 years old. A slight change to this scene would have us avoid this problem altogether. Secondly, remember what I said in the video. It was never stated, but it was implied by the scene it was introduced and it makes the most sense from a worldbuilding perspective. I explained how Korra and the show broke those rules so i won't repeat myself
@@dhollins When did they say it didn't? The inherent assumption by virtue of Toph needing it to learn metalbending, teaching metalbending to others, and prominent pupils of hers like Aang and Chief Beifong, the leader of the metalbending police and one of Toph's daughters, knowing Seismic Sense. Heck, let's take it further. Everything about Toph's character revolved around her blindness and Seismic Sense. It's the foundation of her "wait and react" fighting style that Bumi wanted Aang to learn to be a proper earthbending master, the reason for her strengths and weaknesses as a character, and again, the reason she was able to metalbend in the first place. It is the single most important thing about her as a bender and as a person. Nevermind that she learned it from the badger moles, the original earthbenders. And I don't think I need to explain how important original bender teachings are, be they actual techniques or experiences that change one's mentality about the element. So in what world is Toph NOT teaching this character defining and fighting style defining technique learned off the "founders" of earthbending to her pupils, regardless of if she's teaching you metalbending? Based on what we know about the characters and metalbending, it's heavily implied that Seismic Sense is a necessity to metalbend. The reasonable assumption is that is, and it's on you to prove otherwise beyond a shadow of a doubt. The absence of her students being shown using it isn't evidence. Just because it wasn't shown doesn't mean they can't do it, and given how important of a technique this is to Toph and earthbending itself, it only makes sense that she taught them how to do it. If you're going to say SS isn't a requirement, then you're going to need a definitive statement by someone credible saying it isn't required, but makes learning it easier.
@@KaiserShounenyet there’s a entire city full of metal benders that don’t use seismic sense ok,only toph and her children ever use that technique, and it’s entirely possible for her to just use 3 elements as a child she didn’t master them she just used them we could argue angg could too if he wasn’t 1 trying to avoid being the avatar and 2 was exposed to these elements from a earlier age
I know I'm late to this video, but I'm still going to leave a few counter points about mental bending and Aang being a bad parent. In regards to metal bending, seismic sense only reveals the impurities within metal. It doesn't mean that the that the impurities within metal are not there, or are not bendable prior to being able to sense that they're there. Tough being the first Earth bend happened as a result of her being aware of the impurities of medals with seismic sense. This would then mean that every person who can Earthbend should have the capability to bend earth without necessarily having to sense that it's there. Book 4 also confirms that if a metal does not have enough impurities, it can't be metal bended as we saw with Kuvira's mech being made of platinum. In essence, seismic sense was a prerequisite for metal bending (because past earthbenders wouldn't be able to know that metal can be bent because they lacked seismic sense to be able to sense the impurities in metal) to come into existence but is not a prerequisite for metal bending to be performed. As for the point about Aang being a bad father. While I'll agree that is doesn't make sense that Aang would despite Kya and Bumi The opportunity to experience airbending culture with Tennzin, Aang spending specific time with does not mean he was completely neglectful towards his other two kids. The negative feelings Kyma and Bumi felt are towards the favouritism Tenzin received, not towards how they were treated by Aang him. Also, to equate Tenzin to the mechanist, and the Air accolites is just silly because at the time, they were seem as Aang only means of preserving his culture, but Tenzin was the first, and at least during his life, the ONLY means of that culture actually being ressurrected and continued. So it really THAT hard to believe that even someone like Aang would give a little extra attention to the first child born since the genocide of his entire race? As for Katara, as much as I agree she would never allow her children feel neglected, there is no way for her to understand what having Tenzin must have meant for Aang that she wouldn't antagonise him for doing what he thinks is best for his only Airbender child, even if it came at the expense of his other children. Also remember that Aang and Katara barely had parental figures in their lives when they were kids, so these teaching points may seem obvious to us, but wouldn't be to these lot. Hell, we even see how Toph's parent teaching style drastically changes from one child to another, showing that none of the OG team Avatar had a clear idea of what to do as parents regardless of how they were as children.
Korra is the avatar, calling her a mary sue is ridiculous. Every avatar before her is technically a mary sue. Aang, roku, kyoshi, kuruk, yang chen, hell even wan. The avatar will always be a prodigy and a powerful bender because they've been doing it for 10,000 years.
Aang being somewhat of a negligent dad makes sense, but Aang just fucking off and taking only his airbender kid with him is just awful. I will never understand why they decided to crank the drama of that up to a billion. They could have just made Aang love all his kids, but accidentally favour Tenzin more, maybe make the other kids feel like they were less special, and have that fester into resentment. Maybe they felt like they didn't get to spend as much time with their dad and regret that after his death. That way, the drama's more believable.
I'm pretty sure that was the intention. The thing is we have very little info on the whole family dynamic and kya and bumi don't have massive hatred towards aang. The show never makes like aang hated his them for not being airbenders he just showed more attention to tenzin to make sure his culture would live on.
Aang STILL wouldn’t do that. So no, even that wouldn’t make sense.
Yeah. Aang being busy with his responsibilities and putting extra weight on Tenzin's shoulders to preserve his culture makes perfect sense, but I think him travelling with Tenzin and nobody else seems out of character.
And it would make sense why he would accidently favor the child who inherits the air bending. He survived a genocide, he's the last air bender, so ofc he would care about his child whose an Airbender.
@@sugardady1019 you literally do not know that. You're making up some idealized view of how he should be based off some nostalgic view of how he was as a kid
I will never understand the desire to force family drama by making Aang a bad father. Nor will I ever understand the arguments defending the choice
100% agree with you.
From what I've seen, people who defend Aang being a bad parent often forget about Toph. Personally, it makes more sense for her, given not only her upbringing but how it was done while respecting her character. While I'm not 100% sure about the execution, I can say it was at least addressed a little more tactfully than with Aang's kids. Granted, this excludes "Toph being a cop" because that's a whole another can of worms.
It was an unneeded concept made most likely to use as an argument to combat criticism against Korra.
“Korra is a bad character, Aang was better.”
“Yeah, Well Aang was a bad dad.”
@@Salazar.945 Not to mention when TLOK defenders say "Korra suffered through more than Aang," generally citing Korra losing the past Avatars (a result of her incompetence, in reality), being unable to walk (done so for shock value and which was resolved), her journey in book 4 (which ripped off Zuko Alone), etc.
It's the same mentality as idiotic SW fans who say Anakin (who killed children twice, both of which resulted from him not doing anything about his visions in the first place--and him being an overall terrible person) and Rey (who managed to defeat and undermine Kylo Ren multiple times, along with many other issies) suffered more than Luke as a means to justify their favorite characters.
@@krraika1847 It really sucks how the show turned out. The concept of Korra personality and the struggles she faced in the plot were generally not a bad idea (ignoring lore contradictions). The show could have been great if she was allowed to realize that she’s technically a terrible person that needs to mature and grow, like Suburu from Re:Zero.
However the current trend dictates that female character are fine just the way they are, and that only male character need self improvement. Which is funny because character that go through self improvement arcs tend to be popular.
@@Salazar.945 I can understand where you're coming from, but I doubt it just applies to female characters. Like I've said, I've seen a lot of people say Anakin suffered more than Luke. Hell, I've seen people also try to defend Kylo Ren just as much as Anakin. Not helped their arguments are generally the same, e.g. saying "he had a complicated childhood" without giving real proof, saying "he's complex and human" when mentioning how Anakin and Kylo kill innocent people without facing proper consequences, etc.
Now, I'm not saying there has been leniency towards female characters in the media. I'm just saying this BS has been around for decades (used for both male and female characters), and it needs to die altogether.
EDIT: Just putting this up after seeing all the PT fans responding to what I've said about Anakin. More or so, those guys are proving my comment here and my previous one right. More so when they:
1 - Conflate little things that weren’t actually developed and/or never really had an impact on his character, e.g. saying “Anakin was a SLAVE and lived a hard life” (even though TPM showed him with decent living conditions, friends, and a loving mom-and the other films don’t reflect his upbringing), bringing in Qui-Gon (even though Anakin never heard or mentioned him, so we don’t know if Anakin even gave a damn), bringing in the Chosen One (which Anakin only heard TWICE in the entire trilogy and never mentioned once), saying Palpatine manipulated Anakin (even though any actual manipulation was shown in RotS, since Anakin only had two short interactions with Palpatine before then), etc.
2 - Ignore stuff that’s actually shown in the films, e.g. Anakin in AotC not doing anything for his mom despite all the warnings and him already breaking the Jedi Code several times to get into Padme’s pants, Anakin killing women and children for a mom he (again) did nothing about, Anakin repeating the same mistake by doing little about the visions of his wife dying (the most he did was just go to Yoda and that’s it), etc.
3 - Include third-party material for stuff not shown in the movies, e.g. stuff in TCW like Ahsoka leaving and Obi-Wan “betraying” Anakin, etc.
4 - Make shit up altogether, e.g. “the Jedi Council were out to get him” (when at most it was just Windu not trusting Anakin in RotS and none of that, including the Jedi Council not accepting Anakin in TPM, was shown to have impacted any of Anakin’s decisions or behavior in AotC or RotS), “Anakin in RotS wanted to be a master to get access into the forbidden archives” (even though the “forbidden archives” were never once mentioned or shown, and Anakin didn’t even step into the archives-let alone express any interest in the films), "the children (of the Sand People) were trained murderers" (ignoring the fact that the women and children were never shown to have been involved in the death of Anakin's mom, as well as Anakin killing women and children for a mom he didn't try to rescue despite him already breaking the Jedi Code several times to get into Padme's pants in AotC), etc.
Not to mention when those same people ignore the very fact that the PT goes out of its way to portray Anakin as sympathetic even though the films give no context for it. This is obvious since Anakin was excused for killing women and children TWICE. The first time in AotC ended with Padme in AotC saying “To be angry is to be human” (after hearing Anakin say he “slaughtered them like animals”) and Anakin not even shown to have any after-effects of his clearly Dark Side act. The second time was in RotS, where Padme says “Anakin wouldn’t do that!” to Obi-Wan about Anakin killing Younglings (even though she knew Anakin killed kids before) and Padme even says “There’s good in [Anakin]” despite all the terrible things Anakin-including choking her (all of which has no proper context given, as I’ve already explained).
Saying “Anakin was burned alive and put in a suit” isn’t going to cut it when the so-called reasons and justifications that led up to it are just him acting stupid for the sake of the plot (again, not doing anything about his mom or him doing little about his visions of his wife dying). And all the more reason why Anakin is just a terribly-written character.
Holy balls.... you're right! Katara would've NEVER allowed that type of neglect, and not even Katara, Sokka and even Zuko would roast Aang's ass if he ever do that
Especially Sokka when he's the one that told Aang directly in the comics there's been a lot of tension between Benders and Nonbenders bcus of the fact Nonbenders have been essentially powerless against the benders and that Technology is given Nonbenders a chance.
What makes it worse is Sokka also told Katara the same thing when she tried to stop him and the most she could say after hearing it was "IDK" when her very brother as a Nonbender is telling her it. The Man literally had a whole Episode Dedicated to pointing out how inadequate he felt about being the only Nonbender in the group.
@@kaimobley5324 Sokka don't let no bullshit get lived down.
If you read the comics you'll understand
Yeah, Not only Katara, Sokka, ZUKO AND TOPH Definitely would have talked to Aang’s face about how he’d be neglecting two of his kids and favoring One.
ESPECIALLY ZUKO who First hand knows what that is like!
Sokka and zuko would probably beat his ass for that
Have you realized everything nowadays has to be about bad parenting?
It's either neglectful parents or failure parents that get on the way of the characters, and they just need to either have an entire episode pointing that out or that is the entire character backstory of the important characters.
And we never get to see the viewpoint of the parents, we're just supposed to take what the characters say about them at face value too.
It's almost like all the writers have daddy or mommy issues and use their profession to vent about it instead of going to therapy or trying to see the other side!
There is such a thing as art therapy lmao (though therapists that do this aren't paid a lot rip) From what I can understand a lot of creators are being told that 1. you are supposed to put a part of yourself in your art, and 2. you are supposed to write about things you know about. So a lot of creators follow these because research is time consuming and they are constantly on a deadline +it's easier to just talk about things you are interested in. Coincidentally, most of the creators that get hired have problems with their family they might not get to talk about irl (for whatever reason) and they are more left wing, so you will see this pattern more often.
God, I remember eating up so many of those types of stories as a kid; especially angsty fanfiction about mistreated MCs getting revenge on their parents as a coping mechanism for my own family troubles. (Also those historical webtoons with the sassy princess main character who doesn’t want to marry, that kind of thing) My parents weren’t and still aren’t the greatest, (especially my mother who’s an alcoholic) but even back then I desperately wanted to understand them and why they treated me the way they did. When I became older, they finally started to open up to me a little and while I don’t fully forgive them and likely never will, I can’t say I don’t understand their perspective and how hard it was on their end. I really wish more nuanced relationships were portrayed more often when it comes to familial turmoil and other complicated issues in general. When seeing something like a tragic backstory, many people say it’s a justification; But while you don’t need tragedy specifically to explain an action, I feel like it’s irresponsible for impressionable watchers/readers, especially those younger and going through similar situations, to take a very real issue and make it a one-way street where the abuser has absolutely zero motive to unintentionally or intentionally hurt you other than enjoying it or because they’re simply evil.
Lisa: The Painful, an older indie game, portrayed the effects of parental abuse very very well on both sides. I won’t go too much into it here, but I recommend anyone to play or watch it. Just know what you’re getting into, as it’s still pretty damn disturbing.
@@bernkastel7438 I think the part of MCs getting revenge is something most kids kinda go through until their parents see them as old enough to talk about issues. The stigma around kids being too dumb to understand things can really impact their ego, and children that are indeed impressionable can go seek advice in things that aren't good for them. As people get older it's rare to go back to revenge media unless it's to cope for something in adult life.
In general, there's a deep lack of nuance in writing in today's media because creators are constantly told to shock and leave an impact on viewers so they tune in for next week's episode. I often notice characters are stuck in tropes and stereotypes because they're easier to write this way.
For example, like the sassy princess trope you mention, I know that most girls go through that phase because female characters are constantly written as only desirable when their life is about a man, and are constantly weaker than men in media when it comes to powers (shonen) and/or how to deal emotionally with something (girls crying over nothing in slice of life or american shows for example). Girls wouldn't have to go through that phase if female characters were written just as characters rather than extension of a men's fantasy. Girls still like feminine things but will be more tomboy if it means they will be treated equally to boys this way.
@@TwilightWolf032 at this point I think it's just trauma dumping disguised as a script... Are therapists THAT expensive?
Just gotta say it’s not really for you to say whether or not a person decides to reflect on their own personal experience through their characters. Did you really just say to the writers “go get therapy”? Thats absurd. It also DOES make for an interesting story when done correctly
Honestly I think this is less about how the character Korra is a "Mary Sue" and more about how much the show fucked the worldbuilding in general.
Like, no way in hell any of those metal bending cops had seismic sense
Why tho seismic sense is never should to be super difficult to learn in ATLA
@@gabrielmutombo7078that’s the thing. They didn’t even LEARN it. And who said it ain’t hard?
@@gabrielmutombo7078 It is shown to be incredibly hard. 100 thousand years of bending, and literally only Toph ever did it. If many earthbenders can bend metal, then why were the PROFESSIONAL EARTHBENDERS sent to get her , going to put her in a box she bend her way out of?
Regular non bender peasants knew to not stick an earthbender in a metal cage, and put her in a wooden box instead.
@@acrab6527How many blind earthbenders were there that trained with Badgermoles? She had the perfect conditions to discover Metalbending.
@@r3L4k5 all of the original earthbenders. And they also never metal bent.
Throwing out bending as martial arts was criminal. Just to make it clear, Korra's intro scene is the equivalent of a farm boy doing a perfect 5 punch combo, a double spinning heel kick and a fucking 360 tornado kick in succesion. Moves from multiple martial arts, self-taught. THAT'S the equivalent of what she did. If you saw any character do that, you'd call bs.
What makes you think they threw out the martial arts? And what makes you think Korra did anything that can be considered impressive in the intro?
@@vetarlittorf1807 1. The intro scene. Clearly, you don't need martial arts training to bend, as a four year old did it on her own.
2. She's four. And she bended three elements, with ease. She literally did a trick shot, dousing out a flame with a precise stream of water.
Katara could barely form water bubbles, requiring a lot of focus and calmness, after teaching herself for presumably years. At 14. AND SHE'S A WATERBENDING PRODIGY.
Korra also displayed more precise and surgical earthbending in that scene alone than characters like Haru ever did period. And she's four. F.O.U.R.
@@360Roko Umm...no? She moved a pebble, a tiny puddle and a few coughs of flames. There was nothing impressive about what she did. There wasn't even any finesse to her movements.
@@vetarlittorf1807 She broke a perfectly circular hole in the wall bro. What level of cope are you on ?
@@360Roko Oh riiight. Because punching a big hole in a wall totally makes you a legendary master 🙄
The only one coping here is you.
It's also that Aang as a father doesn't seem to have the same type of behavior as young Aang. The whole point of Aang's character is that he's childish because he has trouble accepting responsability. He fixes that behavior as an Avatar, but not necessarily in all aspects of life. So, technically, Aang would be more of a permissive father that would be focused on constantly playing with the kids and teach about his culture (aka cool dad), and Katara would be the one that has to be more serious to compensate. Aang being too focused on Avatar duties just seems like a huge 180, a bit like how in The Lion King Simba is super chill and is like hakuna matata for anything but then he's an helicopter parent in LK2 and an asshole in Lion Guard. I think in general writers have trouble writing about permissive parenting styles because they don't see it as a bad thing.
Also sorry but to me, animated JK Simmons is Omni-Man. Tenzin is just a beta.
THIS IS EXACTLY MY POINT LOL
I agree with this heavily because it feels like Aang didn't naturally become more serious. He just... is now lol
@@KaiserShounen Speaking of random character changes as they get older... who decided Toph would have kids with two possible dudes and get pregnant and be a single mom? Who said that this was a natural progression for her character?
Looks at aang during The Promise and The Rift
@@KaiserShounen PLEASE, you, and EVERYONE, if you haven't already, embrace the One True Only God YHWH Jehovah, Only One Jesus Christ His Only Begotten Son and Lord and Savior of our souls and the Only One Holy Spirit. God is good. God is love. Jesus is Lord. Jesus IS coming. Your soul depends on it!
I have seen God act in my life. He saved my soul, changed my heart, changed my mind, helped people through me, took care of people in my life, people I hurt before I found God. God is the only reason I was able to reconcile with my dad before he died.
God worked through Jesus Christ to save our souls. Jesus Christ died on the cross for our sins. Believe in your heart and confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus, and that God raised Him from the dead and you will be saved. Be baptized in The Holy Spirit, and if He wills, water as well. Repent of your sins, accept God, Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit into your heart, that Jesus Christ died on the cross for your sins.
For God so loved the world that He gave His only Begotten Son Jesus Christ, that all who believe on Him should not perish but have everlasting life. Jesus Christ is The Way, The Truth and The Life. No one comes to the Father Jehovah God but through Him.
Not long after I got saved I prayed to God for help understanding the Holy Bible, and that same day someone knocked on my door asking me if I wanted to understand the Bible.
The Holy Bible says, "love thy enemy", "turn the other cheek", "If your enemy is hungry, feed him", "if he is thirsty, give him a drink", "pray for those who persecute you", "do not repay evil for evil".
LORD willing, all humans may commit sin of almost every kind (gay, straight), and that's wrong, and all humans sin, as God tells us through the The Holy Bible, "for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by His grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus." The Holy Bible also says, "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness."
Aang was not focused on Avatar duties he was focused on AIR NATION duties. Read any of the comics. Read literally the first comic. As soon as the war ended Aang (who was a 13 year old boy and allowed to change his personality) became occupied with bringing the air nation back.
7:29 Aang didn't even master the elements by the end. Toph and zuko both point this out
Yeah this makes my point even more lol
@KaiserShounen was Korra a master of the elements like that besides Aang had a lot fewer resources than Korra and he was far younger. I think he learned his element around a summer.
@@chidubemanukwu Did you watch my video?
Yes, when he fought ozai, he used a lot of hit and run tactics.
@@KaiserShounen you clearly havent watched the show
I hate that the legend of Korra made Aang a crappy dad. I mean after looking at what Aang went through in the last air bender, no way on earth you can tell me that he would be a bad father.
Even Aaron Ehasz said he would've made Aang be a decent dad if he was involved. Granted he liked TLOK, so I will only agree on what I mentioned in my first sentence. That being said, it goes to show that outside help is everything in these productions. Much like with SW.
Not to mention KATARA letting that slide!? Miss me with that BS
Same goes for Toph and she litterally proved she was a good mother when she taught Aang how to earth bend. But apparently she was a better mother to Aang as a child than she was to her own children as an adult. And why the hell would she be police chief? Investigation is Sokka's specialty.
@@brainflash1 toph makes sense to some extent
@@marqusmedina5983 But in the WAY she was a bad mother. If anything she'd push her kids to excel giving the kind of support she didn't get growing up, but she'd push them too far or end-up favoring the one who was better at earthbending. Lin would be the one who instead chose to be a police woman, (since it's highly likely Sokka is her father).
Something I really hated about The Legend of Korra was it gave multiple people the ability to use once unique bending techniques, not just Metalbending.
Remember how much Zuko struggled to Lightningbend, and how there were only three Firebenders in the entire show that could use it? Now it's so common, you can get paid to generate lightning for the power plant.
Remember how Hama explained that Bloodbending was only possible thanks to a Waterbender being at their peak strength during a full moon? Now you just need to be really skilled at Waterbending to Bloodbend.
Remember how Lavabending was shown to be an Avatar-exclusive technique thanks to being a mixture of Earthbending and Firebending? Now any Earthbender can do it, even Bolin for some reason.
Idk about lavabending (as I only remember that one of the avatars shown to be from the Fire Nation who did this and at most Kyoshi) so it does seem like a complicated technique which is odd for someone like Bolin, who likely usually excels in probending, can master it. It's not that probending is bad but probending's techniques are likely used to minimize the big damage effects traditional bending does. But that's also where it's wrong, because Bolin was never trained in traditional ways of bending so stopping lava would honestly be very difficult.
Lightningbending so easily is definitely wrong as it requires a new technique to do so, in which if you're not trained in lightning bending, then it's impossible. As a result, in Korra's world, what's supposed to be logical is that lightningbenders have a high paying job to generate electricity as they are extremely rare, but they will slowly fade to cut cost and find new ways to generate electricity.
Blood bending is another thing that bothers me too. They treat bloodbending as though it were common knowledge when in reality, only waterbenders who have experimented a lot can discover what bloodbending even is, and that's not a lot. It requires a lot of potential and talent, as well as peak strength and will in order to bend something like blood. As a result, something like bloodbending would be such a rare occurence. The only cases we know so far would be Hama and Katara, Hama being one of the discoverers, but her type of people likely can be found only once in a blue moon and Katara didn't spread the knowledge of bloodbending because of how immoral it is for her. No matter how talented Yakone, Tarloq and Amon are, it's not possible for them to be able to bloodbend without a full moon. Not to mention, bending also requires a certain amount of spiritual connection and connection to their element, which is the reason why almost all Air Nomads are airbenders.
Metalbending is the only one I can see that can be seen as more common as it explains that Toph has a metalbending school where she likely taught some people to become metalbending teachers to then teach other people how to metalbend. However, I don't understand why it's impossible to bend platinum as I'm pretty sure that platinum is a type of metal.
All in all, it feels like they treat elements as a joke, whatnot with the way Korra bends elements in such a flawless manner at the age of 4. It's as if they're trying to say "Can't bend? Sounds like a skill issue"
Isnt Bolin a son of a fire bender and an earth bender
@@itsjustvin7630 But a person can only bend one element?
@@yukishiro3287 and lava is a subset of earth. Its molten rock, not flames
@@itsjustvin7630 It would be a combination of fire and earth. Lava doesn't create fire and it's true that it's much more earth, but lava is also several degrees hot and can burn which makes it something akin to a combination of earth and fire
Making Aang & Katara bad neglectful parents is some TLJ Luke Skywalker levels of character assassination.
It reminds me of naruto in this awfull continuation of boruto.
The dude grew up alone and always wanted to have parents more then anything, plud he went though alot of austracising and being neglected.
Yet he has this ability to empathise and understand people on a emotional level and truly bond with them.
And then they wanna tell me he becomes a bad, neglectfull dad
People can't stand that that almost unrealistically good characters have some defects.
@@masteryoghurt2110 they can have faults, in fact they often do and thats ok. Its just stupid when it doesnt make sense.
Like a character that is all about inclusion and connection abandoning his children makes no sense.
There are alot of ways to give charaters fault and even drive conflict from it later on but it has to make sense
@@theoneandonly9775 Bruh, Aang was a child in the original series. Sometimes people change a lot. Being a family man and being the most important person in 2 world is a challenge. Aang didn't handle it too well. It would be stupid if he did.
@@masteryoghurt2110 that is such a bad reason. Yeah people change but these arent people, they are characters in a story and changing someone so much without decent explanation and all ofscreen is bad. And again there are ways to make conflict with staying true to character they just didnt and decided to go against established characters
Also aang DID grow up with a parent child dynamic. GYATSU!!!! his father figure in the story & the man who give him compassion & acceptance even when others were against it
hehe, you said gyat
sorry
GYAT
His relationship with Gyatsu was not one of a father and son, lets remember that while yes monk Gyatsu lend some teachings to Aang, it was more about morale stuff, then proceed to both act as children throwing pies to other Air Nomads. There is nothing that suggest Aang had any idea how to be a father having to deal first with the fire nation, then what came after and Republic City.
@@Londinium09 Gyatso is without question Father and Son... What on earth are you talking about...? No Aang never heard Gyatso promise to not let the council separate them...
But Aang CLEARLY remembers Gyatso specifically signaling Aang out to spend time with than the other children... Enough to the point that Aang always remembers Gyatso specifically before the rest of the air nomads...
Not to mention it wasn't JUST a nomad's skeleton that set Aang off... It was Gyatso's...
That's parent Child Grief... Without Question...
Why do Americans think mature = Love triangle and immature behavior? Honestly, Korra acts way more childish than Aang, a literal child!
Which, granted, from a character perspective, that is the point. The problem isn't that Korra's a bitch. The problem is that she is a bitch and the plot barely calls it out.
@@KaiserShounen Not to mention, she doesn't properly grow from it. Like a certain Chosen One from SW I think of.
@@KaiserShounen It is even worse how some fans use "homophobia" card to defend her mediocre relationship with Asami when it was a rushed thing that meant nothing.
As much as I love AtLA and LoK, I gotta admit that both dealt with shipping in a terrible way. Zuko and Korra changed their partners so early, and we all paid the price for it.
I am not a gay person, but I want relationships to have more impacts than "today's drama" or even "free segs"! The fact that Korra spent more time dating and sleeping with her teammates than actively training to master her powers says alot about her priorities.
nah korra doesn’t know how to operate functionally due to being cut off from society basically her whole life that’s why but of course y’all don’t pay attention
@@animationcentral.3799 How is that a major character flaw when it barely has any effect on any important event?
Its really saddening to see LOK destroy the foundation of bending and also proceed to destroy the spirit world
In a real way or metaphorical way?
Aang being super busy, I can get behind. But they just had to ruin it with the elephant koi line. Like, this man brought two water tribesmen that he just met to ride the elephant koi, visit temples, and even played 7 rounds of airball with Sokka, a non-bender who literally couldn't play the game. There is absolutely no way he wouldn't drag his entire family on those trips, airbending or no. It's more realistic for Aang to have been that annoyingly overbearing road-trip dad than for him to have played favorites with his kids. Anyone to defends this decision either doesn't understand the character or doesn't care about consistency in the slightest.
@@stackingspaghettisauce4271 it is explained further in season 2 he was there for his kids he tried being a father to them just that sometimes he'd go out and try to prepare tenzin of the responsibility and burden because his other kids had other paths
not to mention katara would in no way let aang get away with that even if it was basically character assassination
@@goldenwolfae I think this is the better criticism. I could see Aang getting carried away and fixating on one child at the others' expense.
I can't see Katarra allowing it to happen, or see Aang allowing it to continue when Katarra points it out. He's not immune to mistakes, but he's also a good person who would do whatever he could to make it right. Katarra should know that and have no problem pointing out what he was doing well before it got to the point that it did.
I can totally picture Aang being the cool dad who lets his kids eat ice cream for breakfast, but he would never abandon his family. Wtf!?
Why’d the writers do Aang so dirty tho? I mean, I wish we got more on the whole Katara+Aang family stuff, and MAYBE one day, they’ll make something to at least feel like Aang wasn’t as bad.
I've been preaching these same points about the "Aang was a Bad Dad" subplot for years. (In fact, one of my exact quotes is, it only works if we've never met Aang before. Or Katara for that matter.) It makes 0 sense, and it was only done- and defended- because it's trendy to tear down our heroes. This is not the way!
So thank you for that.
As for Korra, those are good points too, but my position has always been that the Mary Sue on this show was Asami "I Can Do Anything The Plot Needs of Me And I Have No Flaws" Sato.
I hadn't even considered that Aang had personal experiences that would work against him becoming a bad father figure, so good job. My personal arguments against this possibility thusfar were:
1. Katara wouldn't allow it
2. Fire Lord blunt-as-a-rock Zuko would definitely have picking up on it and explained to him why favouritism is poison to sibling relationships. Azula might also have done so, assuming she ever got that redemption arc they've been hinting at in the comics
3. The Air Acolytes are a thing, like you said
4. Bending can skip a generation, so for all Aang knew Bumi and Kya could still have airbender children of their own, and it would be good for them to be included in the lessons
5. Aang spent all of AtlA building a new found family and he never cared about any of their bending abilities then
To be fair, I didn't fully dislike LoK either. The show has fantastic art and music direction and character designs, and I do genuinely like some of the world building and supporting cast. I don't fault it for the fact that it lacked a greater overarching plot, because that was due to uncertainty related to whether the show would be continued or not. However, the character assassination of Aang, Katara and Toph were painful, and the show spent an unnecessary amount of runtime on the love square of Team Avatar 2.0, that could have been spent fleshing out character motivations, the plot, and the villains. It's probably not a good sign that I found myself wishing the story would focus more on the surviving AtlA cast and their descendants than on Team Avatar 2.0.
So yeah, I choose to treat LoK as an AU spin-off series. XD
Not to mention, there are other people who have the same spirit as Airbenders. Not a literal Spirit, but the same outlook as Airbenders. Aang already encountered this with Teo, and there are even characters like Ty Lee who can supposedly see people's auras (regardless if that was an actual thing or not, the point is that she is VERY free-spirited).
For me, I already expected TLOK to be different from ATLA. ATLA set up Avatars are different from one another anyway (Aang isn't like Roku, Roku isn't like Kyoshi, etc.), and I'm used to tokusatsu like Power Rangers where the heroes are generally switched out anyway. That and the different iterations of TMNT (I first saw Korra as the Raphael to Aang's Michelangelo). My main issues are how poorly told were the characters and the story (much like you had mentioned in your comment).
Kya and Bump were childless in their 40s, with Kya also being a lesbian. So no, tenzin was the only hope for a future air nation since aang only had 3 kids
@@AyamesChronicles So Aang was selectively training his elementary school age kids because he had the foreknowledge that one was going to turn out a raging homosexual and the other was going to be childless respectively at 40?
also this ignores the fact that a central theme in ATLA is you can learn from other bending philosophies, so it is again out of character for Aang not to diversify his daughter's waterbending and his son's hand to hand combat skills with airbending philosophies
@@phoebusapollo8365 remember: aang was alive up until 17 years before legend of Korra starting. Meaning Tenzin was 34 at the time and Kya and Bumi were pushing past 40. Kya was a world traveler until aang died and Bumi was in the military for who knows how long. Tenzin was committed to learning air nation culture and actively dating.
If Bumi and Kya have no kids and aren't sticking around to learn even as adults, they make their choice.
@@AyamesChronicles and again I ask how does he just randomly know that that’s how it was going to turn out? Airbenders are taught from when they are kids, the airbending culture is deeply spiritual to the point where all air nomads were Airbenders. Obviously not all of Aang’s kids are Airbenders. But my point is Airbender children are immersed in the deeply spiritual culture from the moment they are born. I don’t see why Aang would selectively train his children, unless you’re telling me a 5 year old Kya left her household to travel the world and Bumi enlisted in the military. The point of contention between the kids is Aang quite literally leaving his 2 other children at home while he took his son Tenzin, the only Airbender, on field trips to air temples and only trained him in airbending philosophies.
In hindsight, yes, it’s quite easy to see that Kya and Bumi wanted different things in life, but that’s not where the contention is, the point of contention is how Aang treated his children when they were but kids. Why would Aang selectively train his children when he doesn’t exactly have foresight to know what kind of life his children were going to learn and he knows learning from different bending philosophies only helps you. The premise isn’t that the kids didn’t want to learn from Aang, it’s that Aang apparently never gave them a chance and didn’t share his culture with them. They wanted to learn and spend time with their dad, which is where the resentment comes from.
I really wish we could have gotten a Korra childhood segment in the first season about how Korra couldn't water bend, getting depressed and made fun of by her peers, then being pissed and uncontrollably fire bending (a style which actually suits her personality). This would prompt her dad to kind of look at her mom weirdly, but also seek out the counsel from the lotus, who thus give Korra the avatar test that she passes. We could also see how Korra struggles with water bending (lots out counseling and lessons from Katara), which kinda makes sense given her personality.
Also another thing is how easily Korra gets away with shit in the first 2 seasons. She got caught by police for being a total menace? No problem, cause Tenzin just so happens to be childhood friends with Lin to bail her out. Korra can't fucking manage her anger issues and destroys a sacred artifact? It just gets fixed and she just gets scolded for it. Korra forcefully kisses a man who was already in a relationship? Nah, he falls for her instantly! Korra fucks up big time and losses her bending? Say no more, he comes Aang to save the day! Korra got her memory erased and is dying after her spirit is poisoned? Well, how nicely that she lands on an island THAT HAS EXACTLY THE PEOPLE THAT KNOW HER CONDITION AND EVEN KNOW HOW TO TREAT HER!!
Don't forget how Korra helped her uncle invade her own home (which isn't brought up after book 2), be so stubborn she didn't try to listen to her dad or even Mako, getting angry at Mako who tries to do his job and then acts like a victim when Mako suggests they break up, she doesn't listen to the past Avatars and even loses them due to her incompetence yet she so happens to have the tree of time to become a kaiju to fight Vaatu/Unalaq, and so on.
And that's all within Book 2 alone.
@@krraika1847 You forgot the magical light of Jesus Jinora who comes just in time to give Korra her power boost
Seems like you're just nitpicking for most of this
@@toasterowens8916 Oh believe me, I could go all day like this! Other instances are when Amon was going to take Mako's bending away, she randomly learned aibending, how when she was captured by Tarlok, Amon just send a chi blocker to get her instead of him being able to be way more effective. In season 2, how she was never blamed for choosing to side with Unalaq, threatening the judge while she was a part of the problem
@@da_stoof4347 refer to previous reply
IMO Toph should have been a parent that struggled with being too protective AND too handsoff with her parenting. One minute, she's being overprotective of her daughters, but the second they try to push away and be independent, she completely steps away, having her never finding a proper healthy middle ground within her parenting style. Instead, they just made it seem like she would rather not deal with them most of the time.
@@silverking3796 she became parent who gave her children the freedom she never got because she believed it would be good training doesn't help that her friends were given that freedom so it affected her also
I could deal with Korra being a Mary Sue besides the fact that she’s a terrible person. Despite being the reincarnation of all that is pure and good in the world because that was such a great idea from a writing standpoint. She’s arrogant, selfish, coveting, lazy, brutish, and doesn’t care if her actions put other people in danger on the small scale or large scale
And the thing in which avatars are only pure good is also not logical. No matter what, you can't have just good as it can never appear. Avatars also make mistakes and can't be just perfect good. It also goes against what is established in the last Airbender's values where there's both good and bad for balance
Okay, first things. No avatar is just pure and good. Aang tried but he wasn't the Best. Previous avatars according to the books did far worse.
All that's pure and good in the world??
And she has a bad habit of deciding things for ppl when they never wanted it to begin with ex spirit vines.
@@chidubemanukwu it's not that they are good it's the fact that the so called avatar spirit which turned from being the spirit of the earth to being the spirit of all that's good.
I feel Korra's introduction could have worked perfectly well if she was moving pebbles and puddles while clearly having sloppy movements
Which would still be impressive considering her age at the time
TBH, I think one remedy to Korra's introduction would've had her access the 3 elements but not control them. Instead of her barging in and showing off her bending, she'd have a cold and accidentally sneeze out fire, shift earth while stumbling around, etc. I admit, that is merely addressing one symptom of the disease, given how bad Korra is written. ESPECIALLY in Book 2.
Thank god, I already have Bionicle because I've gotten tired of this nonsense a long time ago.
Fair enough lol. Not a bad idea
@@KaiserShounen One thing I wish the show had done was show her traveling around learning elements from Aang's friends. You'd think that only having one season greenlit would mean they'd try to cram as much into it as possible instead of pretending the rest of the main cast was dead. It would've been amazing to see her as a teenager doing the Dragon Dance with Zuko as her graduation from fire bending, before heading off to Republic City to learn Airbending as her last element. (Hopefully renamed something better like Kuzon City after Aang's firebending friend)
@@brainflash1 The show technically tried to do that, hinting more at Korra learning from Katara and showing her learning from Toph in book 4. It's just that it wasn't done well. That being said, I believe what you've mentioned could still happened via flashbacks while keeping the main story (at least for book 1) in Republic City.
@@krraika1847 Oh yeah. I intended to keep the main story in "Republic" City, as it still makes sense that airbending would be Korra's weakness. They did imply Katara was one of Korra's instructors, but that was only because they kept her isolated at the south pole until she ran away.
A more interesting thing than her actual introduction would be for her to only be able to firebend.
Nick didnt give them the commitment to the number of ep they gave TLA so they had to "wrap things up" by the end of every season in case they had to leave it there. Then they got renewed and had to his the mental reset button
That's fascinating... Back when Korra's later seasons were airing, I remember reading on Wikipedia that the creators weren't aware if they'd be greenlit for a season two, so season ONE specifically had been made as a standalone season. The article then went on to state that Nick purchased the episodes for the rest of the series (seasons 2-4) in bulk. I was not the only fan working off that assumption.
Of course, now we have Bryn's personal tumblr stating that 1-2 were ordered first and then the show was expanded to the full 52 episodes (which would have been seasons 3-4). And nothing still containing the inaccurate old info.
It makes me wonder where the Wikipedia article got the inaccurate information from. I'm sure I wasn't the only fan making criticisms of the show as it was coming out based on that faulty information.
You know what, it still could have been better written. Even if every season was self contained it still could have been better.
Even when you consider each season as an isolated cell of their own, there is still terrible, terrible writing. That excuse was BS. Heck, that excuse makes it worse.
*Metalbending*
Said as much on the previous video. You bend the earth in the metal to bend the metal the same way you bend the water in blood to bend blood. And given how the latter requires some special circumstances to do, there's no reason to believe the same doesn't/shouldn't apply to metalbending. Even ignoring this comparison, how else are you detecting those earth fragments? Metalbending inherently doesn't make sense without Seismic Sense.
*Mastering the Elements*
I was gonna defend this with the "she's hardly bending, she's effectively flailing her arms around, but with elemental powers", but I didn't even think about the fact that Avatars don't even have access to the other elements until they start training in it. Roku only started with Fire. Kyoshi presumably only started with Earth. Aang only started with Air and couldn't even do Water until he actively started learning it. Korra fumblebucked her way into at least learning to do rudimentary Earth and Fire Bending. Fair point. I'm still personally fine with her speedrunning bending to get into the more Civil Struggle between the Avatar and a world that doesn't really need/want her.
*Rahva*
The issue isn't Rahva existing. The issue is " If Rahva and the other one exist, why doesn't anyone know about these two uber spirits that control the balance of the world itself or whatever they do?". None of the spirits we meet bring them up or care that they're threatening the life of the person with one of them ("He Hoo Knows A Thousand Things"). And if the Avatars can contact their past lives, how come no one ever thought to go back and commune with the fabled First Avatar, probably the best person to seek some kind of knowledge from? Again, the hole this creates begs more questions, and the holes those make weren't filled. They probably could've made Rahva work, but messed it up.
*Daddy Aang*
Ah okay. Yeah. That's dumb. My Aang wouldn't effectively ostracize his other kids to train Tenzin as the sole Airbender, and if he did (I could kinda see him having an obsession with wanting to push his Airbender son as a successor to the culture and arte), Katara wouldn't just let that slide.
Glad you agree with most of my points but on the end of mastering the elements point "I'm still personally fine with her speedrunning bending to get into the more Civil Struggle between the Avatar and a world that doesn't really need/want her.", I understand that but they literally could have just started the show with her being trained by the White Lotus (which happened immediately after that scene) and it would accomplish that same goal 100% better.
so somehow this child did what no other avatar is mentioned to do which is learn and a child have the stable mentality to utilize these elements thats would be foreign to the one she's raised in
@@durrangodsgrief6503 Ding ding ding. We have a winner
Metalbending - the reason toph was the first metalbender was because she sensed the earth in the metal but it isnt needed to sense the earth to bend it. All one needs it to know its there. Until toph no one knew rhe earth was there and once she found it, she was able to teach it.
Aang parenting - if you think about it it makes more sense. Aang is both the avatar and the last airbender. On top of being the avatar he has a limited time to teach his only airbending son everything he knows. But in spite of that aang was still a supportive, fun and attentive parent who both bumi and kya agree was pretty good. Aang just wasnt a perfect parent.
@@youngmaster7405 Why would you not need seismic sense to bend earth. You need to sense the earth to move and shape it. Bending just cause someone told you or you know isn't a good enough example. As for aang sure but the man would be more fun to his kids.
Aang being a bad father is just as stupid as Naruto being one. I hate when they destroy characters just to make a new generation. Both Aang and Naruto knew how it felt to be alone, why on earth would they do that to someone else? Especially when a keypoint in both of their characters are Empathy. This is why I just can't with next gens, just don't touch it. Make something else OR OR focus on a WHOLE OTHER PLACE IN THE WORLD. Let me have a ending! I'm tired of this constant continuations. Just let it end, happy ending or sad- idc. Stop making next gens, Idek who is asking for this crap. It has never worked out, I haven't seen a single good next gen. Just leave the ending up for interpretation at the very least. The next gens always stray the line of Mary sues, because they can't reuse the same storyline. However, they need drama so they have to add it somewhere. Where do they add it? By destroying the already beloved characters. I'm just so over it by now.
at least in Boruto Next Generations Boruto said that Naruto is the best father ever and apologized for cheating after the Momoshiki event happened.
Honestly, I'd understand Aang being a poor father in the context of his culture. Air nomads didn't raise their children in a nuclear family system, but in a communal system divided by their sex(male western; female eastern). If the conflict came from him struggling to adapt his culture, it would be more true to Aang's character and story. Korra going for a more general issue of neglect really shows the change in focus and quality...
Did you forget that Aang still had a father figure? Gyatso? Even if had didn't have a true father Gyatso still basically raised him as one.
@Nathanimprove while yes, Aang did bond with monk Gyatso, it was noted in the show that this was not seen as ideal to the other members of the Air Nomads. Even so, this bond was formed within the perspectives and traditions of the communal child rearing culture.
Honestly, Gyatso's bond with Aang may be reflected in how Aang favored one son over the other two children. But I still think the execution of such a character flaw lacked the nuances I would have wanted to see. But that wasn't the focus of LoK, so I guess it is headcannon time, lol.
What I find hilarious is you foreshadowed this in your Ace ops video. EPIC FORESHADOWING
I see you're a historian of the channel lol
@@KaiserShounen Truly a man of culture. HAPPY BIRTHDAY
My personal belief is that the reason we skip to Korra immediately knowing 3 of the elements is because we spent an entire journey beforehand learning about them. The only one we didn't get a lot of insight into was Air, which we get from Tensin. The same reason can be applied as to why we didn't get a Firebending antagonist in Korra's journey since we already had one with Aang. It can also be due to the fact that the show was planned to be way shorter, so perhaps they didn't want waste time spoonfeeding information to fans that already know this and they assumed that new fans wouldn't question it too much.
but you literally don't have to spoonfeed everything. Just open the show with her already being trained by the White Lotus. You ain't gotta explain shit.
@@KaiserShounenyou mean like her finishing her fire bending mastery test with the white lotus where they confer that she was a certified master of 3 elements now and could move onto air since she had to learn them in order?
@@AyamesChronicles You mean the scene that is better then the previous one people complain about? Yes. Open with that scene instead of her bending as a toddler.
@@KaiserShounen only took her 13 years to master her third element. So much better than aang who mastered air by 12 and the other 3 elements in a day lol
Avatar:lok summarized
Book 1: Not good not bad
Book 2: THAT'S NOT HOW THAT WORKS
Book 3: Finally we're cooking
Book 4: That's some good fanfic, but can we get the real show now?
Book 2: That’s how not that what works?
Spirits and whatnot I assume, honestly, a lot can apply
Legend of Korra Season 1 was originally meant to be a stand-alone epilogue miniseries sequel to The Last Airbender. Honestly, it would leave a sour taste in my mouth if they really ended with Korra getting all of her bending back because of Aang suddenly rather than learning how to deal with it, and getting together with Mako after the obnoxious love triangle subplot.
But if it stayed as a standalone we would have far less continuity mistakes as it went on.
@@robchuk4136 Regardless, it still would be either annoying at best with its horrible romance or frustrating at worst when Korra didn't learn her lesson after all the experience she had been through. Instead of having Korra deal with the loss of her 3 bendings, Aang suddenly appears and gives her powers back because... magic. I even have problems with Sozin's Comet finale where instead of having Aang figure out whether or not he should kill Ozai to end the war even if it goes against his beliefs, he suddenly gets Energy Bending from Lion Turtle to solve his problem.
I refuse to believe Aang wouldn’t be itching to take his kids (all of them) to see the world and the different kingdoms as well as the air nomad temples. I could see Katara being the one to be hesitant maybe saying to wait until they are of a certain age.
Metal bending is just different in Korra, then it is in Atla. You dont need seismic sensing at all... you just bend the metal itself. You can't bend the mechas because they smelt the iron to be 99.99 pure. No, there is a special metal called platinum (the soft metal) that kinda juat negates earth bending for some reason. Earth benders can bend mercury though, which is strange if you're using the Atla rules. Mercury in a liquid state is too dense, and the impurities would just float to the top. It really seems like you can just bend the metal itself in Korra because it seemed cool to the writers. The reason why I came to this conclusion was my suspension of disbelief. The information Atla gave me doesn't mix up well with what Korra is showing me.
The more you look into it the less sense it makes lmao
It makes as much sense as toph being able to bend a space rock as if it were mud or water
I guess Nickelodeon thought it would be to gruesome for the mercury to be injected in her or something
Yeah it really feels like korra is just a by-product of the writers wanting to jump ahead with the elements rather than deal with it
@@KaiserShounen almost like as time moves, things change and get easier, or are you gonna complain that we use steel instead of bronze
Feel like anyone who gets the cockiness beat out of them 2 separate times can't be called a mary sue
You know, it's kinda weird how we don't call Katara a Mary Sue where she went from novice to boxing with azula in less than a year from being mostly self taught
I honestly think when creators say mature they mean in it the Riverdale is mature sense
16:00 I hate how sequels usually do character assassination on characters from the previous series to elevate the newer character(s)😮💨
Just like they did with Boruto
Absolutely agree, I think it's because they want to make the old characters less likable so you're forced to go, "Well, at least the new characters aren't total pieces of garbage." In my mind it's a fail safe in case they make unlikable characters and have to make sure the others are just even less likable.
What was so bad about Boruto?
This is anotha example of fans who have tunnel vision. The moment u critique their fav character. They comin for you. Well done, great vid. It ain’t against the law to point out flaws in a character. Just subscribed notifications bell on!!!
A lot of Tokyo Ghoul fans, Fire Emblem fans, Dragon Age fans, Final Fantasy fans, Tales of fans, Family Guy fans, South Park fans, Chainsaw Man fans, Your Lie in April fans, Naruto fans and both Marvel and DC fans have the same tunnel vision problem which causes them to completely hate on a certain character without fully understanding the situation.
@@samflood5631 very well said
Almost like people don't like people telling them their favorite things are shit
Seismic sense is to sense what is around you with the earth, not to sense the earth itself.
I don’t care how you feel about this show or Korra as a character, but actually believing she’s a Mary Sue with all of her flaws and after all the shit that she went through is genuinely brain-dead behavior.
She has some Mary Sue qualities about her but isn't a full Mary Sue herself,
@@ForteMagalaso does everyone else. It's a kids show
@@AyamesChronicles maybe it should be a better kid show just saying
@@heavyweaponsguy9000 Katara is more of a Mary Sue than anyone else but we all like her
The thing about Korra being proficient at three elements at the beginning of the show was that Nickelodeon had only given the writers 1 season. The writers didn‘t know they would get more time and episodes, which is why they were forced to rush that part of hers.
Korra was actually 21 by the end
The "point" of Korra's introduction is that it's cute and funny to have a little kid doing mini-Avatar stuff and you're all acting like Comic Book Guy over a 30 second long scene with a cartoon toddler...when did atla fans become so miserable and humourless?
cute should not ruin your character
@@peterondrus7065 th-cam.com/video/0WFv2E69FSA/w-d-xo.html
They probably didn't learn metal bending because metal is rare. How often would a earth bending master come across metal 200 years before the series started?
A lot considering how the fire nation operated.
@@spidervenom25how many were taught by badger moles and then came into contact with metal?
@@AyamesChronicles Does it truly matter?
It's not like being taught by badgers is what allowed her to do so.
To be honest I do not remember what the original comment was addressing in the video lol.
Korra from "Avatar: The Legend of Korra" is generally not considered a "Mary Sue," although she does exhibit some traits that might superficially resemble this characterization. However, there are important differences that make Korra a more complex and well-developed character. Let's take a closer look.
Traits of a "Mary Sue":
Overly Perfect Character: A "Mary Sue" often has few to no weaknesses, acquires abilities without much effort, and is almost always viewed positively by other characters.
Lack of Character Development: A "Mary Sue" typically undergoes little to no personal growth or challenges and overcomes problems too easily.
Lack of Flaws: These characters rarely make mistakes and have few, if any, weaknesses that significantly impact them.
Why Korra Is Not a "Mary Sue":
Personal Challenges:
Korra has numerous weaknesses from the beginning. She struggles with her temper, her lack of understanding of the spiritual side of being the Avatar, and her often impulsive behavior.
She has significant difficulty mastering airbending, demonstrating that her abilities do not come without effort.
Korra experiences severe personal and physical challenges, including a near-death experience and a long period where she is physically and emotionally broken (for example, at the end of the third and during the fourth season).
Complex Character Development:
Korra undergoes significant character development throughout the series. She starts as a confident and often stubborn young woman who wants to forge her own path and evolves into a more mature person who learns humility and better understands her role as the Avatar.
Her journey is marked by self-doubt, identity crises, and deep personal conflicts, which she overcomes through hard work and self-reflection.
Mistakes and Consequences:
Korra makes many mistakes, which have serious consequences not only for herself but also for the world around her. Her decisions lead to conflicts and problems that she must then solve, often at great personal cost.
These mistakes and their consequences show that she is a realistic and fallible character who, despite her abilities, faces real challenges.
Conclusion:
Korra is not a "Mary Sue" character. She has numerous flaws, makes mistakes, and must confront them, often facing significant challenges. Her character development is deep and complex, making her a relatable and human figure. The series clearly portrays her journey from an impulsive and headstrong person to a more mature individual who understands and accepts her role as the Avatar. All these aspects make Korra a well-developed character who goes far beyond the typical traits of a "Mary Sue."
Thank you. Honestly these brain dead media critics really annoy me.
Being a Mary Sue would imply she has no faults whatsoever, but Korra had many faults. She was hot headed, stubborn, immature, impulsive, aggressive, impatient, and a little biased when it came to her fellow countrymen. If anyone was a Mary Sue in LOK, it was Asami.
@@annsh.6487 what? Korra got wrecked in multiple occasions. Sure some of it was solved in a kinda dumb way, especially by Aang, but she did get herself in trouble and she hit arguably a few of the lowest lows on either series. Like, Aang restored her bending, but the girl was arguably contemplating throwing herself off a cliff at the moment. She also failed on multiple occasions and had to rely on other people, which she also initially failed to do.
She's the protagonist and this is not a tragedy, so of course she bounced back, that doesn't make her a Marry Sue. And I don't buy that the narrative portrayed as being "in the right" regarding her flaws either, given the reaction Ive seen most people have to the series and her character.
@@annsh.6487she literally nearly died 3 times got crippled and lost the connection to the avatar because of those flaws and she grows out of it and stops showing those character traits
It's the literal plot point of the show and it's not like its ambiguous
The only flaw Asami has is that the writers don't know what to do with her outside of driving the characters somewhere or building something
being a mary sue has absolutely nothing to do with being flawless. A Mary Sue has a ton of flaws. None of them matter, because they never come up. They never hinder or stop or hurt the mary sue in any way.
she's a downright awful person, but everyone still loves her and adores her and does everything for her anyway. In reality she'd be in prison 5 minutes after going to Republic city for 10-20 years.
@@acrab6527 "They never hinder or stop or hurt the mary sue in any way." Yeah, good point. Korra walked right out of that conflict with Zaheer. Oh....right...she didn't. She was crippled and spent years recovering after nearly dying from mercury poisoning by a man who would've still been locked up if she hadn't indirectly granted him airbending.
Perfect explanation of the suspension of desbelief, I lost count of how many times I have dropped a book, show or whatever because I started to get annoyed at the author decisions, I have make this analogy before myself, just never had a chance to discuss it with someone else.
all i see is unnecessary hate to a show that suffered alot due to management
No one taught you how to listen? also, a critic typically criticizes the end product in spite of the development.
These videos are so entertaining to me seeing someone critique a show I watched and they point out the flaws that I don’t notice or just breeze over on my first watch
It's really not hard to believe that metal benders can use seismic sense after Toph metal bended 100 years ago. She started the metal bending police academy. During ATLA very few fire benders were able to shoot and/or redirect lightning and the LoK there are factory workers who do for pay.
Ok here's the thing with korra. I think her introductory scene was to set up the reveal she is stated to be a progity at fighting as stated after the flashback, keep in mind what they said "she mastered the physical side of bending, but has trouble with the spiritual side." As the avatar, she has to learn both. That flashback does not contradict this statement. As for the "bending not being based on martial arts anymore" arguments i keep seeing thrown around. It still is, but what they did with it was actually set up in avatar, they show benders who start to learn from each other and combine aspects of other bending. It makes sense that in the time frame between avatar and korra, bending would change and evolve. Also keep in mind as for her social issues, she was not allowed to interact with the outside world, she doesn't know how the world works, especially in republic city.
How can Korra be a Mary Sue when she gets bodied all the time and makes the problems she causes worse? (This is a joke lol)
Because these people don't look up the buzzwords they shout
If they did they would know that the creator of the Mary Sue term disowned it and says it shouldn't be used because of people like this
I agree with most of this because a lot of what went on with Korra was extremely unearned, but there are some inaccuracies:
Seismic sense doesn’t seem to be required to metalbend. In the comics Toph opens a metalbending school and her students aren’t shown to use that skill when they finally metalbend.
Korra is not 18 by the end of the series; she’s around 21 because a year goes by on screen, and there’s a 3 year time skip for season 4.
Unlike other Avatars, Korra was aware that she was the Avatar before she was discovered. She started training with Katara in waterbending then.
Aang was told that he was the Avatar when he was 12 due to extenuating circumstances, and he did not master all of the elements by the end of ATLA. We don’t know when Aang finished mastering everything. Roku wasn’t informed until he was 16, as tradition dictated. It took Roku 12 years to master air, water, and earth (4 years of training for each element). He was of course already a firebending master by the time he leaves to be the Avatar, so we can assume that took him anywhere from 4-12 years for that too. So Roku mastered everything in something like 16-24 years.
If Korra actually started training at age 4, and she mastered water, earth, and fire by age 17, it took her 13 years to master them. She hadn’t airbended at all at that point, and if she did master it by the end of LoK, it took her another 4 years. So really it took Korra 17 years to master the elements.
Katara became a mother figure at the age of 8, when her mom died. That’s why Sokka only sees her face when he tries to remember Kya (the elder).
And they always wonder why people prefer Aang over Korra.
Nostalgia and watching ATLA less critically.
@@AyamesChronicles baited noone award
@@OmniDan26 truth shouldn't be bait
I think the metal bending thing could've been extremely easily explained by saying they developed a metal alloy with whatever would count as a "rock" blended finely enough into its structure that even non seismic sensers could feel the rock in the metal. Then they could build off of that feeling onto harder to feel substances until they could properly metal bend. If they didn’t give at least that much of an explanation... that's on them for being dumber than someone just spitballing.
I can maybe see why they would feel the need to have an origin story, especially if there's going to be many more stories from that world. But I feel like it could have used a lot more time to cook, personally I liked this one rewrite where Raava and Vaatu helped the Wan learn all four elements then merged with him. (Don't remember if it was Future me or Unicorn of war) Or they could have come up with something else, honestly I didn't like that Korra's spirits ended up being more Western, I prefered ATLA's more Eastern approach.
Also although parents play a big part in your growth and who you are as an adult, there's other factors that come into play. Aang could have been a good dad, maybe with a packed schedule because he's the Avatar but still a dad who wants to be there for his kids. Bumi and Kya could have still felt insecure about not being air benders while Tenzin works hard to live up to being an air nomad despite Aang telling all three of them that it's okay.
Plus I can only imagine how famous all of Team Avatar was after the war, their kids probably had a lot of eyes on them and that alone sounds pretty stressful. Imagine overhearing that a bunch of random strangers were disappointed that you weren't born an air bender.
@krys9463 I kinda see adult Aang like Reed Richards. Both of them care alot about their families but might seem like they neglect them do to how much attention they place on their responsibilities
( on a side note theirs quite a lot in common between the dynamic of the fantastic four the gaang the more I think about it
I honestly could never explain why I didn’t like TLOK. I watched the first episode and saw how she acted and conducted herself when she arrived in Republic City. The amount of chaos and property damage she caused and acting like it was no big deal because she’s the Avatar seemed weird. Being the Avatar always seemed like a solemn duty, Roku seemed like a humble man and took his duties seriously, and even Aang, even though he ran away from his duties, understood the importance of his role and conducted himself most of the time with composure when it came to learning the elements and the ways of the world. Meanwhile Korra treated being the Avatar like a toy. Also the “I’m the Avatar and you have to deal with it” line seemed more directed at the audience and unnecessarily antagonistic towards the audience.
She’s not a Mary Sue, Mary Sue can’t do no wrong, is considered perfect, Korea messed up multiple times, she’s made many mistakes, not really her fault but she still makes bad choices and that’s what I love about her she was the perfect bender, but her actions were not perfect, if she was a marry sue she would’ve been perfect that everything
5:48 It's been seventy-five years since Metalbending was invented. That's plenty of time for people to build on Toph's original work or find their own paths to the same result. 7:34 She had more time to learn them than Aang did, which was less than a year.
ok few points I wanna make .
1. your bringing the comics in with aang starting the acolytes so I have to bring up tophs school were we see that you dont need seismic sense to use metal bending as her students are never shown to use it and none of her training involved teaching them that. (and that came out before season 3 before korra learned metal bending so even if you wanna say its a retcon its not a korra one so cant be used to call her a merry sue)
2. Toph was the first and no one else thought to do it before because no one knew it was possible, a similar real world example is the "four-minute mile" once one person figures it out and shows its possible other people start taking it seriously and putting their mind to it.
3. the metal that they use, that easily could have come from better metallurgical understanding that came from the fire and earth nation working together (as seen in the comics) + advancement in scientific knowledge to make better metals and is probably metal with high level of impurities that is made to help metal bender learn. could even be metal that was made from meteoric iron witch we know is a thing in the avatar world since space sword and "space earth"is more easily bended.
4. Korra learning the elements faster is easily explained by the fact that 1, she did not need to travel the world looking for masters to teach her like Aang and previous avatars since the white lotus took her in and brought in multiple masters to train her and she was not limited to learning one at a time from a single master+traveling the world looking for the others. and 2 having her entire life be nothing but training under multiple masters unlike other avatars who had to deal with stuff while learning like aang getting in adventures and fighting a war not leaving him that much time to practice and having to rush it or having duties .
the rest of the points are valid tho
She trained under the White Lotus for around 15 years, it'd be silly if she didn't learn to tap in to the avatar state.
How would Korra have been trained to access the Avatar State when she explicitly couldn't until the end of Book 1? I suppose it's *possible* the White Lotus could have taught her some useful meditation techniques that would expedite her learning the Avatar State, but would it not have been more satisfying to see her learn that mastery through the show?
@@dismaltenedor3979 Oh wait, you right, I'm wrong. I for some reason thought that scene where she used the avatar state to win the race was in season 1 without thinking.
I'll still defend her over-competence and over-confidence is the point of the series.
@@SaltyCalhoun If the avatar got 13 years of Katara level training directly from the whtie lotus while walking outside their house, they're allowed to be a little broken.
@@AyamesChronicles Absolutely, and that's a thing I think a lot of people miss. But even with the 13 years of training, Korra constantly runs into problems she can't solve by punching them. But I won't deny, that idea falters even in season 1.
TLoK is flawed but awesome, and Korra's progression is a major reason why it's awesome.
Dang. I didn't know TLOK gave Aang the DBS Gohan treatment, that sucks
they didn’t. avatars fan always blow stuff out of proportion
@@animationcentral.3799 ...the guy just showed a clip of Aang's children talking about how one of them was morr favored than the rest. Which, to me, had similarities of Gohan choosing to research in his study instead of going to pick Pan up from school. It makes no sense for Aang and Gohan to act like this. Aang. Who who the last of his people. Aang. Who was excluded from activitied with other Air Nomands because of being the Avatar. Gohan. Who spent a good portion of his life away from his father. Gohan. Who lost his father to Cell due to over confidence. They should both want to be a part of their children's lives. Aang should not put one of his kids on a pedestal above the others. Gohan should want to be in Pan's life as much as he can be because anything can come to or be made on Earth to ruin those good times.
That is what i meant by the comparisson
@@VantasticJackson thank you
@@VantasticJackson his children feel that way but that doesn't make it true. Aang loved them equally but he had a lot of pressure on him finally having an Airbender kid after 2 tries and needing to teach him everything about Airbender culture and history. In that, he did end up being somewhat absent at times, but he was never a bad dad. He was not perfect, Which was the point
@@toasterowens8916 Aang literally deprived two of his children from learning his culture because they weren't Airbenders like him. When Aang took Tenzin to ride the elephant koi or visit the air temples to learn about Airbender traditions/ games, he simply refused to take Bumi and Kya. He took Katar and Sokka to do those exact things, but he couldn't bother to continue the tradition with two of his kids.
It's not like Aang couldn't fit the whole family on Appa to travel to these Airbender pilgrimages. He was willing to show Airbending culture with his friends, the mechanists tribe, and the air acolytes; but not his own kids apparently. He simply didn't want two of his kids to join because they didn't have the right genetic makeup. This is textbook discrimination against non-airbenders.
Imagine if you were a kid and your dad only invited your brother to go on the traditional family road trip. That sounds like a pretty bad and neglectful father to me.
Korra has many flaws from the start:
She is a hothead, always thinking with her fists.
Even with the best possible teacher, she struggled very much to learn airbend.
She lacks a spiritual side.
Yet she managed to easily use all elements and avatar state and the other power.
You see how stupid your arguments are?
No, she has flaws and was punished.
Biut her "character development" basically got reset, a lot.
She always got saved by the plot, and defeated by her flaws.
What Wonderful subtlety thematic use of the "Fight the Power" song (from Gurren Lagann) while discussing Toph figuring out Metal Bending!
Let's go more korra disrespect 🎉🎉
Love to see it ngl
@@GuyInASuit1653so do i
While I don't have the same kind of issue with 4yr old Korra bending other elements, I do dislike it. Metaphorically speaking, it was Babe Ruth pointing to the stands and saying "I'm going to hit a home run THERE."... then hitting a single. And when you fail that hard, everything else gets magnified.
"Korra gets love and admiration when she doesn't deserve it!" like with Bolin, and... well, no, not really. Korra is beautiful, Bolin is effectively a jumped-up street urchin, so a beautiful woman being nice to him is going to have an outsized effect on him. Other people aren't nearly as taken with Korra as Bolin is, not even Mako. But because of that Entrance scene and how badly the show failed at living up to that promise, we look back on Korra and Bolin and use that as evidence of her being a Mary Sue. Korra gets her powers back at the end of season 1 just... cuz? Mary Sue. Korra takes up more of Tenzin's time and effort than anyone else? Again, Mary Sue. Etc.
But was Korra a Mary Sue? Well... yeah - a badly written one. An unintentional one, but identified by the writers as being one. It was as if the writers knew that she was straying into that territory, tried to steer away from it... but then had to steer back into it out of necessity. "We need Korra to get all her powers back because we need to be able to pitch a lot more storylines for a hypothetical Season 2, so... "Energy Bending" from Aang and she's back to normal - but now with Air Bending!" So Korra is verred back into Mary Sue territory because the show needs it so they can pitch to Nickelodeon the kind of plotlines that MIGHT get them a Season 2. (Remember, Seasons 2 - 4 were ad hoc and not guaranteed before the end of the current season) Then they toss out other BS to try to negate or dilute the Korra BS (Bolin becoming a Lava Bender is the biggest example) which just goes to highlight the Korra BS that they've been forced into in order to be able to continue to pitch the show. Etc.
So she ended up being a Mary Sue because of Network interference (ie: they didn't greenlight the show long enough in advance to plot out more than a single season at a time), the need to undue too much of the story so they could deal with the Network Interference, and setting expectations way, way, WAY too high from that first scene. Korra is a metaphorical single. Each season is a single - it got on base. But then in each season, they tried to "steal" a base - Raava, Lava Bender Bolin, Grandma Toph (she was so very close to working for me, but... just ... fell short, like instead of learning from her mistakes as an adult, she just decided to be 12yr old Toph in a Grandmothers body) - and ended up getting thrown out, setting the team back. So Season 4 ended with 1 person on base and a running getting thrown out for stealing, and that was the end of the game. It started off with a promise of a Home Run, ended up with nada.
It wouldn't hurt to give her seasons the 26 episode count of ATLA rather than 13 and rushing them.
Korra has a crap ton of flaws. A Mary Sue has none. Mary Sue's are liked by all, Korra certainly was not.
They hate korra and the show so they result to calling her a mary sue which is crazy
@@regularpotato I hate Korra and the show was alright but I don't think she was a Mary sue.
Nice cope, but Mary Sues have flaws and are not loved by everyone. Mary Sues have forced poorly resolved or not resolved at all flaws that are often seen more as quircks than flaws and those that don't like a Mary sue are either evil or misguided.
@@TYR1139 Aang is more of a mary sue than Korra. No matter how badly he fumbles, everything just worked out.
And what are those other flaws?
I'm grown so tired of the certain types of people defending this show. Like you can enjoy Korra all you want, but don't stand there proclaiming it's best show ever and is perfect sequel to Airbender, then go after those who give it legit criticisms of it.
No one claimed it was the best. But plenty do claim it's trash which isn't true
Haven't heard people claiming that
Thoughts before watching the video: Title is immediately wrong almost everything Korra does is flawed or has some negative repercussions for it even when it’s the right choice, she loses and has to get back up constantly which is the antithesis of a Mary Sue.
Also seeing lots of things about "making aang a bad dad", he wasn't they never paint him to be he loved all his kids but with Tenzin he had an opportunity to pass on the ways of his dead people, It wasn't favoritism it was an attempt to keep his culture alive
The worst part of her becoming less a mary sue in season 3 and 4
is that they instead replaced her mary sue powers with torture porn and bondage streaks
Biggest Mary sue moment is getting with Asami no question.
I found it weird that Mako had a hard time choosing between Korra and Asami. Korra was always so brash and rude and angry, whereas Asami was kind and loving and supportive. Korra and Mako even BROKE UP, Mako started dating Asami, and he feels BAD about telling Korra because she lost her memory and thus FORGOT that they broke up...😑 And THEN, rude, abrasive Korra gets with Asami on top of it all. Yeah, ALL of that was strange.
@@theroyalmediator2658 Only reason they are still together is because of the backlash they would get if Korea and Asami broke up
@@Conimon
>korea
Freudian slip or typo?
@@OmniDan26 am confuse. Elaborate pls
@@Conimon you literally said "if Korea and Asami broke up" .
also 2 other mary sue-ish aspects of korra's character:
1. how she kissed mako in season 1 while he was dating asami yet the series frames it as if mako is at fault for this--yeah she apologizes (to bolin) but the series uses it as 1 of many examples of mako being a bad boyfriend. like yeah he prolly should've told asami but korra kissed him by surprise, dude, he didn't initiate so I don't think he rlly should've felt bad.
and 2. the book 2 finale where korra leaves the spirit portals open, then at the start of the next season is telling all the rightfully upset ppl to just deal w/ it. I was so baffled; vaatu, the spirit of evil and chaos, is the one who originally opened the portals--this led to spirits terrorizing humanity and forcing them to live on lion turtles. wan, the 1st avatar, shoved the spirits back into their own world and closed the portals. unalaq, the villain of book 2, wants to re-open the spirit portals. they clearly establish the spirit portals being open as a terrible thing. but then korra decides to leave them open "bc humans and spirits need to learn to live together" but she does nothing to help them co-exist and acts like everyone should just have to live w/ the consequences of her actions. ig when korra does it, letting the spirits roam free is suddenly a great plan lol
Mary Sue or not, Korra is such a deeply flawed and insufferable character in general. The one thing I will ALWAYS point out is her hesitation to rescue Tenzin and his family and all the airbenders from the Red Lotus in season 3. She spent like two episodes moping around and whining about how unfair it was that she was expected to turn herself over to be tortured to death in the place of the family who took her in and literally gave her everything. She struggles to do the right thing, the heroic thing which would save dozens of lives INCLUDING the lives of at least 4 young children (2 kids, 1 toddler, 1 infant), and again, it's a family who welcomed her into their home, gave her shelter and support, training, food, EVERYTHING and she almost refused to rescue them. Aang wouldn't have needed to know them personally, he would have done it without hesitation because that's what heroes do. Korra cannot even be called a hero because most everything she does in the show, she does for her OWN benefit. I like the show as a whole, but as far as main protagonists go, Korra is one of the WORST and most vile I've ever seen.
tbf I may be misremembering (and idk why I'm even trying to play devil's advocate when I don't even like korra lol) but didn't she know at that point that the red lotus was planning to kill her in the avatar state so they could end the cycle? at that point it's abt more than just her, she wouldn't just be worrying abt herself but the world being deprived of the avatar forever. but again, I could be totally off
And give me few examples of Korra doing things for her own benefits.
If she's flawed, does that make her not a mary sue?
@@prestonlogan3808 a mary sue can have flaws, what makes that a problem is that the narrative doesn't treat them as such
@@tiablue9106 like toph?
Wow a Getter reference with Wing music 5 seconds in, we in for a time
I see you know the vision
I couldn't watch past season 1 because the characters were infuriating and people are surprised when i tell them that 😭 why is there a love triangle and then just Bolin, that's a horrible team
Legend of korra should have been a series about non-benders vs benders. They made it seem like a big issue in the first season that nonbenders are being discriminated against by protestors and amon but never go out there way to show it. They could've korra say powerless through season 2 that way she can see what nonbenders have to go through and tries to fix the issue and make things worse which is when they should introduce Zaheer so they can starts a civil war. And when harmonic convergence happens korra gets her bending back and only korra because she's the avatar. And season 3 could be korra tryna to stop Zaheer and the nonbenders from starting a new world order.
The Incel smell reeks
Aang= a fantastic example of writing a good character
Korra= a horrible example of how to write a character
I clicked on the video not remembering Korra as a Mary Sue, because one thing I remember about Korra is her LOSING ALL THE TIME. Unlike Shonen protagonists who cant stop winning my memories of Korra is her getting her butt kicked sos forgive us if we don't consider her a Gary Stu
A big point of avatar:tla was for Aang having to take responsibility as the avatar and not abandoning the world for a second time. Making Aang an absent father is as bad as Disney making an apathetic Luke
I don't love LoK, but you're way off here. Half your arguments aren't even about Korra, they are about the worldbuilding.
Korra is not a mary sue by the generally understood definition.
Ripped from Wikipedia:
The Mary Sue is a character archetype in fiction, usually a young woman, who is often portrayed as inexplicably competent across all domains, gifted with unique talents or powers, liked or respected by most other characters, unrealistically free of weaknesses, extremely attractive, innately virtuous, and generally lacking meaningful character flaws.
Korra is naturally more gifted than other avatars. But that gift is her undoing. Her ability to be a great fighter without much effort (though she is shown having been in training for over 12 years) is her undoing. She is a better fighter but a worse person and, importantly, completely out of touch with the mental space necessary to airbend or communicate with her spiritual side.
She's not a mary Sue because she is shown to have numerous flaws and to fail constantly. Sure, she is an unbelievably good fighter. But she's also naive, having been raised in isolation dedicated only to mastering the elements. She is literally "stupid" in that she is arrogant, inexperienced, headstrong, and stubborn. She is not beloved, and is actually disliked by many of the other characters, especially at first These are obvious flaws, and because of them, she loses and fails constantly. In order to win, she has to overcome these flaws, whereas a mary sue has no flaws, and the only adversity she overcomes is society trying to keep her from being the strong character that she already was.
In short, korra is a flawed person who happens to be very powerful, and whose power is often a crutch. That's almost an inversion of the Mary Sue trope
I don't understand why people think she is a Mary Sue. She is a good fighter but during the first season we learn that her fighting style is outdated and she was flat footed. She also struggle against expert benders and sometimes lost badly.
I agree 100%
You brought up some good points, but it just reinforces my opinion that "Mary Sue" is thrown around casually with the actual meaning being glossed over to fuel engagement. It's easy enough to explain how all these issues are possible, but that's something the writers should have done. I wonder if the expansion from one season to a full series had something to do with those inconsistencies, but that's speculation and doesn't change what's on screen.
I do take issue with the idea that someone can be "kind of" a Mary Sue. When you broaden what a Sue is you can easily fit most protagonists into the mould.
Good video. I really liked it. :)
I dont disagree with the fact that Korra just does shit without much effort, but I have to disagree with the Mary Sue thing. She SEEMS like one, but in season 1 alone there are many things that are the complete opposite of being a Mary Sue Character, which are defined by having zero flaws and are made to be "perfect":
1. Getting arrested after beating the Triad and needing to be bailed out by Tenzin (a Mary Sue wouldnt have been arrested)
2. Not being able to learn Air Bending movement until she found her own way of doing it at the arena (a Mary Sue would have no problem with it)
3. Her temper (Mary Sues only have a temper when the plot demands them to be angry for a final fight or something)
4. Being afraid of Amon (a Mary Sue isnt afraid of anything)
5. Getting her bending taken away in general (a Mary Sue would have kicked Amon's ass without him being able to take her bending away)
6. Korra actually has a personality that makes people like her (most Mary Sue characters are bland, boring, and just about always emotionless or only have a single emotion and often have a personality that makes you wonder why anyone likes them, yet everyone loves them anyway)
@@Ryou_Sensei if you want my definition of a Mary sue, watch my other video on the topic. Link is in the description
@@KaiserShounen making up your own definition to suit you does not change what it actually is supposed to mean. Criticize her character without saying bullshit
@@regularpotato Im not making up a definition. The one I use is what majority of other content creators use AND its the most practical. If you want to contest why my definition is wrong or didn't apply to Korra in seasons 1-2, watch my video on the topic and come back to me.
@@KaiserShounen "The one I use", buddy, there is only ONE definition of a Mary Sue, wtf are you talking about? A Mary Sue is a someone who is COMPLETELY FLAWLESS, PERFECT, AND IS VOID OF MISTAKES. Korra is OBJECTIVELY none of those things, as she herself has made MANY mistakes, is NOT flawless, and she is most definitely NOT perfect. Other content creators (and yourself) twisting the definition to suit your narrative doesn't change the fact yall are objectively WRONG in terms of the definition.
He could have been a good father that still had strife with his kids from time to time.
the worst type of main character: is a Mary Sue, seriously how is that supposed to speak to the audience. growing up loved a main character who had to earn their position in life.
Korra worked for what she accomplished, unlike Aang who got the easiest path possible and still nearly died.
@@AyamesChronicles I partially agree with that somethings I understand but other I still think we’re cop outs
@@sydryi3086 Its a kid show where every adult is incompetent unless they're your BBEG. There's always a cop out
@@AyamesChronicles yeah true, I do feel also the writers where harsh on Korra as well
@@sydryi3086 started her on prestige runs
At the end of Season 1, I kinda get why they wrote that Korra got her powers back, since they've only been greenlit for only ONE season.
Nickelodeon only greenlit the other seasons AFTER Season 1 wrapped up productions and stuff.
I personally don't see Korra as a sue or partial sue. Instead I see her as a victim of unfortunate circumstance. The first was that Nick was screwing over the show from the start and continued to do so as the seasons went on. The second were the questionable decisions on the part of the writers, namely the first two seasons. Book 1, however, I am much more willing to downplay the negatives of though I still wouldn't call it good. They were only given one season and instead of cutting planned content it became, well, what it is. A jumbled speed run. They could've just cut out the love triange entirely and had more time to properly develop the story, but I digress. Then comes Book 2 and it becomes a matter of trying to find a new plot through chaos, and not the fun type of chaos either. The response to how do we get ourselves out of the corner we wrote ourselves into should not have been to set the established lore on fire. That said Books 3 and 4 were mostly fine despite inconsistencies.
i think what they should've done rather than the raava thing was explore what the world used to look like before bending, with the avatars still existing as sort of spirit mediums
Seeing Korra get shit on even today warms my heart , keep it on Korra haters , you are absolutely justified in hating this miserable example of a mary sue , her existence is an insult to the masterpiece that is the last Airbender , the writers shitting on their own rules for just that introduction of her really showed what type of story they were about to tell , this is just sad
@darklordofthesithpitou3360 Gotta agree with you on this one since strong women of color don't work as the protagonist
@@noahalcantar2431 exactly 💯 glad somone finally gets it
She isn't a mary sue though? We literally see her get beaten so much to the point we want to advocate for her winning sometimes. A mary sue is a no flawed perfect character and Korra is the anti mary sue imo. If she was a mary sue why did she literally go on a adventure to rediscover herself after the poisoning on Season 4. There are actual flaws with her character but this is just objectively a wrong take.
@Sakura-Army alright let's go back in time , in her first fucking appearance as a toddler she was bending 3 elements at once water fire and earth and as far as we know being able to bend one element at that age is crazy even for avatars and she was doing it with 3 without having ever went through the proper training which goes against everything thst was special about bending from the previous series , she kept fucking up and creating issues from the first season and didn't really have to pay for shit or experience consequences like talking shit to poor tenzin in front of his kids and later barely apologized and the show forced the guy to apologize too even tho he Done nothing wrong , and at the finally she very conveniently didn't have her air bending blocked by amon even tho it makes no sense whatsoever how could that have happened as literally any argument Trying to explain it just creates more plot holes , and after that she can immidietly use air bending so well she beats up the guy that manhandled her with mako
These are all extremely mary sue stuff and no the fact she gets her ass handed to her dye to her own stupidity doesn't cancel any of them , also who the hell replies to a 4 month old comment ? Did you not consider i might not be capable of arguing because i didn't concern myself with anything whorra related in months and would forget details and therefore would be difficult for me to put up an argument ? So much for consideration
Oh Also, Aang from beyond that grave is capable of giving her her bending back even tho it doesn't make sense either since amon presumably blocks bending physically with blood bending and Aang uses energy bending , lucky for Korra that everything ultimately just works for her
@Sakura-Army first of all korra bending 3 elements as a toddler is world breaking because literally no avatar ever did that , the ones we know most about being roku and Aang didn't knew they were the avatar until told because them having bent an element other than the one they are in the nation of wouldn't make sense considering how tlab established bending works ( lok took the masterclass of world building that is avatar's world and reduced it to basic magic shit without any of the cultural stuff that influenced and made tla a great show )
And second you shouldn't un-classify Korra as a Mary sue just because she isn't the absolute Text book example , you are taking that too literally , she's a female character who's the center of the world and acts like it with nobody giving her shit for it despite her attitude and since i saw that post S4 comic i can tell its not solved , bitch called her parents narrow minded even tho their first reaction to knowing that she won't be continuing their lineage is immediat acceptance JUST BECAUSE they highlight the legitimate point that others may not accept it ,
also everybody does like her , the ones that don't are considered villians (even tho at least Raikou shouldn't , mf has some valid points , whorra literally destroed the city with vines thanks to her helping her uncle and later nuked it with kovera canon or whatever her name was , if she didn't help her uncle none of this would have happened and the Story doesn't even address that meaningfully )
I can kind of agree with you on some aspects but korra has negative traits that hurt the people around her.
7:59 I do not believe korra is a Mary Sue because I do think she’s got enough flaws and issues to circumvent it. But good lord that was a terrible introduction to her. If they started in media rez and just explained she’s been practicing the elements for a decade then it be good enough.
Personally I always preferred the Mr enter version where because of her inability to except change she struggles to water bend and accidentally channels fire in her anger for the whole she’s the avatar reveal
Here's the thing though. She DOESN'T struggle to accept change.
Korra is just Avatar: Riverdale
That would have been cool
@@vetarlittorf1807 she kinda does like her fears of the world not needing the avatar anymore when she banked so much of her identity on being the avatar.
@@skyslasher2297 That's not a fear of change. That's an existential fear of having no purpose. Being an adaptable person doesn't mean you automatically accept everything life throws at you or that you reject consistency in your life. In the very first episode, we see that Korra very much has the mentality of a true waterbender. She displays excitement for trying new things, she quickly embraces Republic City's way of life without any noticeable culture shock and remember the scene where she faced the triad? She immediately uses a very typical waterbending tactic; instead of drilling into her first opponent, she lets him go first and then redirects his attack, turning his own strength against him. In the next episode, she picks up the pro-bending styles rather quickly instead of continuing to use traditional styles.
Accepting change was never a problem for Korra. In fact, Tenzin was the one who had trouble with accepting change. That's the whole reason why Korra and Tenzin's mentor/student relationship is so interesting. They learn from each other.
This video got recommended to me. I remember you. You were commenting on ThatAnimeSnob's videos.
15:42 I believe Kotara was simular to Aang in wanting to preserve her culture to the point she fights with her dad and Soka about changes in the Southern tribe, i think if she Saw Aang doing that she'd have killed him herself.
My thoughts exactly
What's this about Katara fighting with her dad? Is this another comics thing I don't know about?
@@espurrseyes42 Yes, its a comic i can't remember the name off the top of my head.
@@joshthomasmoorenew The comic is called North And South. Katara and the others return to the South Pole to find it has changed radically after the Northern Water Tribe has stepped up to help rebuild the villages there. Only they've gone a bit overboard, and basically turned the the South Pole into the North Pole thus stripping it from its original identity. Or at least, that's sort of implied / what Katara thinks. Sokka at some point brings up a valid point, that the South Pole he and Katara knew was greatly diminished due to all the raids that had happened, and that neither of them actually really know what "real" Southern Water Tribe culture looked like.
@@BlueUncia Thank you for the title.
Season 3 & 4 makes Korra like an anti-sue. She just gets shat on and loses the whole time
You act like Korra is the only one who metalbend without seismic sense. it isn't required to metalbend no one ever said it was. Toph first 3 students learned it without using seismic sense. so no rule was broken her for there. L take
while i see your point about bending 3 elements. she still had train 13 years to master them. that's basically how long it took Roku to master the other 3 elements
1. The fact that metal bending without seismic sense being utilized is in itself a problem regardless of which character does it because it breaks the rules. Im focusing on Korra in this video because her ability to do so mainly gives her a skill she had no business learning without serving the prerequisites.
2. If they stuck with her just training with the White Lotus, then yeah I would have no issue with that. But Korra being able to *learn* the 3 elements on her own at the age of 4 is improbable. It contradicts the established rules for the sake of making Korra seem capable and for a dumb joke.
@@KaiserShounen when did they say seismic sense is required to metalbend? no one said that. so no rule was broken there.
so let me get straight they can rush Aang progression simply for the sake of the plot cuz had to beat the fire lord by summer's end. No he didn't master them. but he got pretty damn good in very short amount of time. while learning them at the same time. after saying mastering the elements takes years. We can overlook than, but Korra doing some elementary bending is where you draw line lol
@@dhollins Aang was consistently training throughout that time and he was established as being somewhat prodigious in nature. He still had to learn how to do the motions, channel his chi and maintain his mindset in order to bend those elements properly. And he didn't master the elements, by your admission. And he didn't win against Ozai with his bending skills alone (which granted the conflict wasn't just about the fight but whether or not Aang would kill Ozai to save the world). Nothing in the show is broken or made less compelling because of the rate he had to grow. The show fleshes out how this was a unique case for Aang as the avatar. But with Korra, all her first scene does is disregard the established rules of the show, for a dumb joke, and we never get an explanation for how she could do the basic bending for 3 elements at 4 years old. A slight change to this scene would have us avoid this problem altogether.
Secondly, remember what I said in the video. It was never stated, but it was implied by the scene it was introduced and it makes the most sense from a worldbuilding perspective. I explained how Korra and the show broke those rules so i won't repeat myself
@@dhollins
When did they say it didn't? The inherent assumption by virtue of Toph needing it to learn metalbending, teaching metalbending to others, and prominent pupils of hers like Aang and Chief Beifong, the leader of the metalbending police and one of Toph's daughters, knowing Seismic Sense.
Heck, let's take it further. Everything about Toph's character revolved around her blindness and Seismic Sense. It's the foundation of her "wait and react" fighting style that Bumi wanted Aang to learn to be a proper earthbending master, the reason for her strengths and weaknesses as a character, and again, the reason she was able to metalbend in the first place. It is the single most important thing about her as a bender and as a person. Nevermind that she learned it from the badger moles, the original earthbenders. And I don't think I need to explain how important original bender teachings are, be they actual techniques or experiences that change one's mentality about the element. So in what world is Toph NOT teaching this character defining and fighting style defining technique learned off the "founders" of earthbending to her pupils, regardless of if she's teaching you metalbending?
Based on what we know about the characters and metalbending, it's heavily implied that Seismic Sense is a necessity to metalbend. The reasonable assumption is that is, and it's on you to prove otherwise beyond a shadow of a doubt. The absence of her students being shown using it isn't evidence. Just because it wasn't shown doesn't mean they can't do it, and given how important of a technique this is to Toph and earthbending itself, it only makes sense that she taught them how to do it. If you're going to say SS isn't a requirement, then you're going to need a definitive statement by someone credible saying it isn't required, but makes learning it easier.
@@KaiserShounenyet there’s a entire city full of metal benders that don’t use seismic sense ok,only toph and her children ever use that technique, and it’s entirely possible for her to just use 3 elements as a child she didn’t master them she just used them we could argue angg could too if he wasn’t 1 trying to avoid being the avatar and 2 was exposed to these elements from a earlier age
I know I'm late to this video, but I'm still going to leave a few counter points about mental bending and Aang being a bad parent.
In regards to metal bending, seismic sense only reveals the impurities within metal. It doesn't mean that the that the impurities within metal are not there, or are not bendable prior to being able to sense that they're there. Tough being the first Earth bend happened as a result of her being aware of the impurities of medals with seismic sense. This would then mean that every person who can Earthbend should have the capability to bend earth without necessarily having to sense that it's there.
Book 4 also confirms that if a metal does not have enough impurities, it can't be metal bended as we saw with Kuvira's mech being made of platinum.
In essence, seismic sense was a prerequisite for metal bending (because past earthbenders wouldn't be able to know that metal can be bent because they lacked seismic sense to be able to sense the impurities in metal) to come into existence but is not a prerequisite for metal bending to be performed.
As for the point about Aang being a bad father. While I'll agree that is doesn't make sense that Aang would despite Kya and Bumi The opportunity to experience airbending culture with Tennzin, Aang spending specific time with does not mean he was completely neglectful towards his other two kids. The negative feelings Kyma and Bumi felt are towards the favouritism Tenzin received, not towards how they were treated by Aang him.
Also, to equate Tenzin to the mechanist, and the Air accolites is just silly because at the time, they were seem as Aang only means of preserving his culture, but Tenzin was the first, and at least during his life, the ONLY means of that culture actually being ressurrected and continued. So it really THAT hard to believe that even someone like Aang would give a little extra attention to the first child born since the genocide of his entire race?
As for Katara, as much as I agree she would never allow her children feel neglected, there is no way for her to understand what having Tenzin must have meant for Aang that she wouldn't antagonise him for doing what he thinks is best for his only Airbender child, even if it came at the expense of his other children.
Also remember that Aang and Katara barely had parental figures in their lives when they were kids, so these teaching points may seem obvious to us, but wouldn't be to these lot. Hell, we even see how Toph's parent teaching style drastically changes from one child to another, showing that none of the OG team Avatar had a clear idea of what to do as parents regardless of how they were as children.
Korra is the avatar, calling her a mary sue is ridiculous. Every avatar before her is technically a mary sue. Aang, roku, kyoshi, kuruk, yang chen, hell even wan. The avatar will always be a prodigy and a powerful bender because they've been doing it for 10,000 years.