Legend of Korra's 'Beginnings' | An Overdue Critique

I really don't like the beginnings episodes where we learn about the first avatar avatar one which may be surprising because not only do I like Legend of Korra I really do but among the people who viscerally dislike the series these are often pointed to as some of the few good episodes but they are some of my least favorite parts of the Legend of Korra and to explain why get yourself a drink maybe some snacks and let's sit down and talk through this thing this is beginnings a tale of the lists compelling and this video is brought to you by my magical patrons if your life support me especially my educational content then the link to that is all down below thank you again when people talk about why they love these episodes they usually point to the stunning art style meant to recall ancient Chinese literati and Japanese woodblock paintings that one and raba have clearly defined an interesting character arcs and that the story is tight with a strong beginning middle and end and they're right those are valid points to bring up I especially adore the art style it's okay to love these stories for how the story works on its own but that's the problem beginnings doesn't exist on its own it exists as part of a greater whole it's both part of the broader Avatar story and mythos and it's part of season 2 of Legend of Korra which it takes place in the middle of and not only does beginnings not fit in with either of these but it actively makes both of them worse part one blue-and-orange morality see a lot of the hem criticism of beginnings rests on it contradicting or retconning the law from The Last Airbender and that's not an illegitimate critique internal consistency matters in a story but that critique alone isn't enough to dismiss the episodes entirely nor does it get to the heart of their issues no the problem with beginnings is not that it adds to or changes the world building a law but that it makes the meaning behind the world building weaker and far less compelling and with that we need to talk about the blue and orange morality of spirits in the last airbender you've probably heard of the terms black and white morality good and evil and what blue and orange morality means is that a character's morals or motivation just doesn't fit into this framework at all it can neither be described as good nor evil nor anywhere in between it's on an entirely different unfathomable scale see spirits we know they're truly good nor truly evil in the original series but no were they even really a mix hei Bai is the spirit of Ceylon forest and he only becomes corrupted and violent because humans destroyed this forest he protected but he's not evil nor is he concerned with the destruction elsewhere in the world he's vicious but pacified when shown that his forest will renew itself in an acorn even code the face steel about the best example of this not only devours the faces of animals and humans including children but has a personal feud with the avatar helps egg find the moon and ocean spirits his motives are unknowable and the ocean spirit itself is presented as proud and vengeful and beyond our understanding you genuinely get Cthulhu Lovecraftian vibes from the ocean spirit and the same Lovecraft's gods being defined by being so beyond our moral framework an important part of the spirit mortal dynamic is just how foreign the spirits are that we cannot communicate with them nor truly understand them humans might have concepts of good and evil but the universe at large in Avatar is a lot more strange there isn't an objective good and evil behind it all when I say blue and orange morality what I mean is that a spirit can't just be described as good or evil or even morally gray there's this impression that at any point we're only getting a glimpse of how the spirits think and work not only is this a unique facet of avatars fictional world but this unknowable blue and orange morality lends a depth and richness to the world building of the spirits making the world itself feel bigger and more complex by just how much we don't know you can play with this a lot narrative Li and the writers do they build tension around this unknowability in where their Co will help egg while at the same time wanting to devour him the writers don't just tell us that the spirits are different from humanity their world doesn't just look alien and otherworldly but the very way the spirits think and act is different if not incomprehensible to humans into the magic carpets raava and vaatu to primordial spirits in constant struggle against one another rather is supposedly the embodiment of peace and light while vaatu is chaos and darkness and allowing him to roam free in the world would destroy it and bring on an age of evil at the start of beginnings you might believe that raava and vaatu are both necessary and balanced forces in the world order and chaos light and dark and you'd be forgiven for thinking so I certainly did they're clearly designed to be akin to yin and yang has a mirror images of one another their introduction features this unsubtle imagery rather points out how a small part of our two lives on in her and she and him like we see in the yin-yang symbol and their final battle takes place here also laid out like a ties you to symbol the writers clearly intended something here and it wouldn't be a problem because the world does need to be a mix of peace order chaos destruction light and dark and that absolutely works within the framework of this blue and orange morality of the spirit world but the problem is the narrative our beginnings itself doesn't support this comparison to yang Gong at all vaatu gaining any ground whatsoever is seen as a bad thing rather being free to roam the world and do if she will is seen as a good thing while var2 roaming the world is portrayed as an objectively bad thing instead apparently the spirit of chaos and darkness should be locked away unable to do anything at all a balanced world isn't both of these forces at work equal and opposite to one another but all rather it's it's all rather up from here and no point in the story is chaos darkness or var2 ever shown to have either a good or even necessary role to play in the world nor is peace order or light or Rather's influence ever shown to be problematic or bad this is the writers telling us that they are equally important and opposite forces without ever showing us but as I said before the deeper problem here that it makes the world-building and themes previously established in The Last Airbender a lot less compelling by having raava and vaatu represents the very binary concepts of good and evil more akin to the Abrahamic Western God and Satan dynamic than anything else it undermines that alienness and unknown of the spirit world that made its world building so immersive before losing that blue and orange morality to replace it with something a lot less well less suddenly the Avatar world feels smaller more familiar less expansive and deep like there's less for us to explore in the world and with that you lose a lot of narrative opportunities because we feel we've seen and dealt to the greatest and most dangerous spirit it also somewhat westernizers the Avatar mythology when it's Asiatic influence is a defining feature that separates it from a lot of other Western created fiction not only this but a major part of beginnings is about how far to transform spirits into dark and violent creatures his chaotic influence taking over and causing more intense conflict between them and humans previously spirits became corrupted or violent because of their unique moralities because of hey byes forests being burned down during the war their transformation to aberrations of themselves was a thematically interesting way to reflect their spiritual state of being damaged and heartbroken telling the audience that harming the earth is humming themselves but now spirits transforming into perverted versions of themselves isn't just because their relationship with the world has damaged a manifestation of their rage and pain acting as their own mysteries and entities but because they're forced to become minions of an outside demonic power and that's just a lot less compelling I'm left asking why what does this mean why does this matter why add this part two the human heart in conflict with itself now in all of this a similar analysis can be applying to the character of the avatar William Faulkner once wrote that the only thing worth writing about is the human heart in conflict with itself the avatar was always the bridge between spirits and humans who had a duty to keep balance in the world but despite this they were always presented as fundamentally human and fallible Kyoshi created the Dai Li Roku's bias allowed the war to happen and Aang had bouts of violence and vengeance though they were a more powerful human the Avatar state came from the combined wisdom and experience of all the past mortal avatars and was more like a group of humans across the ages working together to solve human problems fundamentally the conflicts in the last airbender always came down to individual flawed people humans struggling to make the right decision the avatar included of course in beginnings we learned that the avatar was created when one merged with a rather this primordial spirit of peace and light the spirit of goodness by all indications in the narrative and suddenly the avatar spirit doesn't seem so human anymore and the real conflicts of the world aren't being resolved by fallible people struggling to make the right decision but by Dudley powers above and beyond humanity's comprehension divine intervention this is compounded by the role of the Avatar state in beginnings one gets a massive powerup when he enters the Avatar state and really fuses with raava despite having no avatars to draw upon before him the clear conclusion here is that rather is a source of power herself but what does the say on a deeper level that the real power of the avatar isn't in the collective human wisdom and skills of ages past but a godly power source not only this but in the last airbender the writers made a point to have the audience grapple with what is moral for avatars to do should and kill the Fire Lord that was really interesting and seeing Corus struggle with similar questions in season two itself which we'll get to soon is a truly fascinating source of tension that the writers can explore but this origin story really takes the teeth out of that question rather embodying peace light and goodness in the world makes the avatar feel distinctly less fallible of course we know that they are still fallible but are we really worried the core is going to make the wrong decision when she can ask the spirit of goodness itself once again beginnings doesn't really wreak on the law exactly but it makes the questions and themes behind the story just so much less compelling if the only thing worth writing about is the human heart and conferred with itself then none of this is worth writing part 3 how to shoot lasers with your mind towards the end of the battle with vaatu won and raava fused by tapping into the raw spiritual energy of this giant bending laser beam a question on a lot of critics Minds was why did this help what did it do but I want to be clear having a soft magic system where things like this happens somewhat unpredictably to support the narrative and character arcs of those in the story especially in such a fable istic story as one's is ok you don't need a hard magic explanation for everything no the problem is that it turns spiritual energy into a defined magical power source that you can tap into and use like electricity or a laser beam in the last airbender spiritual mg had a very soft magic the medical role to play in this story think of how guru batiti uses it with Aang in season two petit describes allowing spiritual energy to flow through Aang's chakras through his body letting go of grief guilt earthly attachment to that sort of thing but spiritual energy whatever was was a very ethereal and loose idea probably more metaphor than a real physical thing and it certainly wasn't a power source that could though spirituality may help you better understand and therefore been to the elements it never expressed itself as raw power instead the way Mike and Bryan wrote spiritual energy was to reflect how real spiritual strength comes in inner peace self-discipline patience and self-control the highly spiritual characters of guru batik Iroh and piandao are all fantastic examples of this and is something that fits directly and indirectly into the character acts of Zuko Aang and Katara in other words the writers used spiritual energy to take a nuanced look at what it truly means to be powerful and that's really creative and interesting and what is beginning to do with all of this once again these episodes don't explicitly reckon these things but they do muddy the waters around what being spiritually powerful means the Avatar isn't someone elevated because of their dedication wisdom and intimate understanding of the spiritual world and themselves but someone who tapped into a magical power source at the right time wouldn't it have been more meaningful for one to have merged with raava after attaining a kind of enlightenment allowing his spirit to live freely through reincarnation and when using literal blasts of spirit energy it begs the question what does this mean what does this add to the role of spirituality in Avatar even if you say it's projecting your inner strength outward the last airbender already did that it just did it in more subtle and more meaningful ways that built into the think of how I rose keen spiritual awareness allows him to see spirits in the real world to develop lightning redirection this is just so much shallower oddly enough they actually do this really well with zaheer gaining the ability to fly through enlightenment in season 3 the point is beginnings by writing the scene this way doesn't add anything meaningful to the narrative and it just makes what came before unnecessarily more convoluted and less interesting it adds more without adding any depth and finally ah this type of video is exhausting how do people go on like three hour long rants fuelled by only a sweaty mountain dew induced rage unlike an hour into this and I'm already exhausted beginnings also shows us that humans initially got the elements from The Lion Turtles now the last airbender told us that they learned the elements from the original benders sky bison drakensberg moles and the moon in ocean and this does still technically stay true though the Lion Turtles gave fire to one we see him training with a dragon to truly master it he's even doing the dancing dragon that we see in the episode two firebending masters but like with seemingly everything else in beginnings what does this addition meaningfully offer spirituality was always deeply linked to bending and where the elements came from was perhaps the core example of this the implication from the story of Omar and Shu whether they're historical figures or not and with you a story and how they learned the push and pull of the tides from the moon and the ocean spirits was that people works to be deeply in tune with the environment around them that they studied to listen to and emulated the original benders to understand what the elements represented and mean and that with this great self-discipline and spiritual work benders were born fundamentally it tells a story of humans learning and evolving as people and underpins the consistent theme of the power of spirituality in the series it's also a very organic relationship to be had in beginnings though spirituality is just an add-on and upgrade while unenlightened children are born with the elements in Avatar having a soft and mysterious foundation to the magic system can be better and this is one example of that giving depth without interfering with the story it's a hard magic explanation that just doesn't really add anything once again the episodes don't technically reckon this but they make it unnecessarily more complex and weaker by taking away the thematic meaning baked into the heart of avatars world building which is just so much less compelling part four where did the Wizards go see all of this in the end comes down to the forgotten role of mystery in both storytelling and world building when toki was asked about what happened to the two blue wizards of middle-earth he responded saying I really do not know anything clearly about the other two wizards since they do not concern the history of the Northwest I think they wind as emissaries to distant regions what success they had I do not know but I fear that they failed Tolkien the author the world builder doesn't even know and his works never provide an answer to this perplexing mystery intentionally so there is value in readers not knowing things or even the author not having a definitive answer JK Rowling sorry Freudian slip allowing readers to imagine to speculate to infer from what information they're given creates an interactive experience with a work so that they engage with it on a level that only a value will but mystery can also make the world-building more immersive giving the reader a totalizing answer for everything that goes on in your fictional world can ironically make the world feel smaller and more simplistic because there's no room for things unknown for things beyond us the relationship between humans and spirits no longer feels like a complex labyrinthian history of mistakes and fall outs that we will never truly grasp the vastness of instead it can all be traced back to one moment avatar one the over-familiarity they gave to the spirits and beginnings undermines how wide and deep the world can be that spark that makes it a joy to explore and if dispelling the mystery is done badly it can feel like the world isn't any more complex than what the reader is explicitly told and sometimes the reader imagine things better than you will ever tell them sometimes it's good to allow them to do that see the mystery surrounding the origins of the avatar and the nature of the spirits wasn't just the writers not getting around to giving the audience answers the mystery intentionally helped define the character that tone and feel of the role their characters played as otherworldly and genuinely unknowable beings in the case of spirits and the ancient ever-present power in the case of the avatar much of the magic in Avatar is very soft and not knowing its exact origins and how it works underpins the soft magic role that plays in the narrative primarily there to support the arcs of the characters or and wonder at the fantastical is just as integral to the experience of a work as is the explained law itself it's not just what you tell them but what you don't tell them this is the reason the midi-chlorians and Star Wars are criticized so heavily fundamentally to give an answer to a mystery the answer has to be more compelling than having the question and sometimes it isn't this is the sin of beginnings part one in two of Legend of Korra part five Korra well we're barely halfway done here but we're getting there and I hope you're doing well remember to drink your fluids Wow this kind of video will not be a regular occurrence okay I should hope so beginnings undermines much of the broader Avatar story but don't worry it gets worse let's talk about the context of beginnings in season two beginnings takes up Episode seven and eight out of 14 and season two of Legend of Korra a seventh of the series but what I want to focus on first is the narrative set up beforehand and episodes one to six that's actually pretty interesting see corrupted spirits have begun to show up and attack the Southern Water Tribe as a result of them neglecting the area's spiritual needs during and after the hundred year war Oona Locke remarks on how they may have rebuilt them physically but not spiritually part of this is because the two tribes have been split from one another for so long and they need to be unified like they used to be to remedy this Oona lock not only takes Korra to help heal the spiritually important site of the South Pole but brings in northern forces to unify the tribes and protect this vitally important spiritual place sure enough the dark spirits stop attacking but to the south this is a military occupation they weren't asked if they wanted and sure enough a civil war breaks out between them that threatens to corrupt more spirits in the midst of this chaos Korra also learns that her father was banished for destroying a spiritual region in the north and as the civil war ramps up we learned that Varrick a hyper capitalist possibly on cocaine inventor is using both sides for his own gain and war profiteering by the end of this corridor know where her allegiances should be with her Southern Water Tribe home with unalaq Rivera the spirits or somewhere else see Korra has been under the impression for a long time that there's always going to be a right side for her to be on to fight for because that's what she's good at doing there's gonna be a clear place for the avatar and of course doing something is better than nothing but the story directly challenges this idea in two ways firstly by not only having Korra conflicted over what she should do as the avatar but questioning whether the avatar should do anything at all the problems between the North and the South started long before you were born you can't expect to undo them in a day so I should just sit back and let the water tribes go to war No but this situation might be out of your control that the Civil War might be beyond Cora's control beyond her role as the Avatar secondly season two critiques the role of the avatar itself the avatar is often painted as a neutral mediator but the writers make a point of how neutrality under tyranny is the same as siding with the tyrant Oona like insists that Korra has to stay neutral that she cannot show favoritism and we get this scene you're taking their side we thought you were one of us I'm not taking anyone's side you're the worst avatar ever saying I'm not on anyone's side isn't good enough here what we're seeing is that season two before beginnings has a really interesting set up to explore cultural unification war profiteering propaganda self-governance and the role of the avatar in an even more complex world that there aren't necessarily bad guys or good guys that she can side with or against and more importantly that sometimes the avatar isn't the solution the world needs instead offering that these are more deeply rooted sociological and geopolitical problems that maybe can't be solved by someone having the biggest nuke by the avatar stepping into the middle of it these are instead deeply human problems that require humans resolving their differences so where does the set up leave beginnings well yeah beginning starts off because Corrin nearly drowns and loses her memory of who she is and supposedly to regain her memory she needs to reconnect with her avatar spirit raava the problem right from the start is that beginnings totally interrupts the narrative that's been set up so far there's no real causal connection between core and needing to learn this information and the source of narrative conflict and tension in the Water Tribes civil war it's entirely an accident this will be very different if say the spirits are taking the Southern Water Tribe reveals something about an ancient pax that they had with the first avatar and so Korra needs to go find out what that was but the writers didn't do this nothing in the narrative either asks these questions nor demands the answers that these episodes give the pacing of season two takes an arrow to the knee here it's the equivalent of me being in the middle of a sentence and but the real problems yeah I know we're finally getting to them start after these two episodes first with how it totally derails Cora's character arc for the season the narrative set up for Korra to grapple with what her role is in this evolving world with the fact that some things may be out of her control and that sometimes the avatar is not the solution world needs but this is totally dropped with it all coming down to chorus standing up against the great objective evil of the universe so no need to worry about that anymore the world's most complex problems can be solved by throwing lasers out of your chest neither the audience nor Quora are ever forced to question what the role of the avatar should be in a world of ever more complex to your politics in fact in the remainder of the season Korra only even returns to the Southern Water Tribe for one episode into motivation for doing so has nothing to do with the difficult Civil War questions and everything to do with rather vaatu and harmonic convergence there is no resolution to this arc it is wholly discarded and secondly what is beginning say about the really interesting narrative setup of war profiteering the conflict between cultural unity and self-governance and interventionism it says nothing as hears nothing and reveals what's really going on behind the scenes here know every problem can instead be boiled down to gods of good and evil battling it out for the sake of the universe that's where the real evil is and that's where our problems get solved defeating Oona Votto is narrative Lee equated with solving those quote problems between the North and South that started long before you were born the Northmen leave and the relationship becomes friendly again beginnings so jarring Lee changes the stakes of the story there are characters can be artificially justified in not worrying about these more complex and interesting issues I'm left asking why beginnings is happening why it was needed and what is the point of any of it really all of this is guess what and you've heard it before just so much less compelling part 6 smoke and mirrors by the end of beginnings all I'm left with is the question of why why do they give this to us what did it add build on develop or give deeper meaning to nothing it's just extra information that makes everything around it even weaker both in the wider avatar mythos and season 2 itself it's very pretty but it's all smoke and mirrors there's nothing actually there and the most disappointing thing in all of this is how much better it could have been with just a few small tweaks I wouldn't have written these episodes at all but let's say that they happen the writers were looking for a way to bring the air nomads back into the story Aang and Katara can't repopulate with them alone unless they really got to it so the writers created harmonic convergence in beginnings a great spiritual and cosmic event that supposedly increases the spiritual energy in the world to the point that it turns people into new airbenders we mostly see this in season 3 not only is this horrific Li contrived but it ignores the long struggle of reviving a culture after genocide miraculously wiping away the scars of the hundred year war the thing is beginnings could have been the perfect place to set up a natural and more meaningful way for the airbenders to return by showing how the humans first studied followed and learned from sky bison to get airbending in the past beginnings could have set up that same thing to happen in Korra's time imagine them finding a small group of disciplined people who wholly dedicate themselves to the ways of the air nomads learning from sky bison in some isolated area and then just at the end of the season one of them air beans this better reflects the struggle of reviving a dying culture that requires dedicated people making an effort to bring it back to keep it alive not that oh the universe will provide it would also fit perfectly with Tenzin's arc for season two struggling with the living up to Aang and the legacy of the air nomads pressed onto his shoulders alone and you know what's even stupider the islands that Cora finds herself at the start of beginnings on is an isolated community of very spiritual people in charge of a herd of sky bison not even kidding it's like they knew what I wanted and just snatched it out of my hands this would also allow the writers to establish so here the airbender antagonist of season 3 as a character early on as one of these new air nomads much like they did with kuvira in season 3 the opportunity was right there and they didn't take it secondly if the writers were determined to have the avatar merged with a spirit then why not both raava and vaatu show that robbers orderly and peaceful presence creates passivity or even cowardice relevant to how doing nothing can be taking the side of tyranny something vital to Korra's arc in the Civil War while var to scout a presence is needed for forests to grow the way they do by having one fuse with both of them the Avatar now has chaos and peace light and dark inside of them equal but opposite forces this at least keeps with the moral role of the avatar and the last airbender and doesn't too badly damaged the blue and orange morality that is so important to there were building these two changes though simple would markedly improve the impact these two episodes have on the broader mythos and Season 2 itself but no I wish for too much and so here we are at the end I don't like making negative content I prefer to focus on good examples of writing and what we can learn from them rather than negative ones I do not know how people make three-hour-long takedowns of Star Wars movies on this site and I wanna be clear this is just my opinion these are just my thoughts this is the angle and lens that I look at the story through and it's okay if you liked it a lot of people liked how season 2 ended up that's all for you I need a drink a drink of milk because I don't solve my problems with alcohol if you want to see more of this content support me then the links are down below come follow me on Twitter Instagram and stay nerdy and I will see you in the future you

Channel: Hello Future Me

Views: 694,572

Rating: 4.8672376 out of 5

Keywords: explained, theory, lore, analysis, how to, legend of korra, the last airbender, avatar, korra, season 2, critique, criticism, review, bending, elements, southern water tribe, magic system, mystery, to

Id: G1_SDy1nlbM

Length: 34min 7sec (2047 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 06 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/kassilon]

I generally like this channel, but I'll have to just say "I disagree" on this take on Beginnings.

I don't think "the human heart in conflict with itself" is diminished at all by Raava as the Avatar Spirit. Wan never comes across as "godlike" to me. The channel lists the consequences that previous Avatars made from poor actions such as Kyoshi creating the Dai Li, but the episode by no means presents Wan as perfect. In the final shot, we see him lamenting that he couldn't keep peace between people as he dies... he hardly seems like an unconflicted person. And Korra's decision to keep the portals open was very much: "What if Wan was wrong?" or at least, "What if Wan's decision 10,000 years ago isn't the best thing for the present day?"

The point about Korra having access to Raava doesn't really strike me as true, either. She provides some innate goodness of the Avatar spirit, but I don't think a great primordial spirit Raava will have all the answers to how Korra can best handle democracy in the Earth Kingdom. This just isn't how Raava functions either, she's mostly there to represent Korra being content with herself and moving past her own uncertainties.

In terms of how Beginnings relates to the rest of Book 2: I don't really like early Book 2 much myself, which is why it works for me as sitting the audience down and telling us what the real enemy is, and how it starts to pick up the pacing. It doesn't rectify a lot of the earlier clumsiness, but really gets the ball rolling as it were.

I would also say that Wan's arc is a pretty good thematic parallel to Korra, as the first Avatar of the "reset cycle." Korra, like Wan, is set to square one and has to navigate the world on her own. She becomes spiritually enlightened and is more in touch with Raava than all recent Avatars but at the cost of losing her past lives, and is on her own as she forges a new destiny. And to me that ultimately leads to some of the best moments of the "human heart in conflict with itself."

Some other points I'd disagree on, like how I don't think that blue and orange morality really is upended in the broader picture (the spirits refused to fight against Kuvira in Book 4 and I think Raava and Vaatu are "exceptions" as great cosmic spirits), and how I don't think this took away mystery - there's 10,000 years of potential interactions we can see with Kyoshi and Yangchen's interactions with spirits, or even the mystery of what the world like before Wan, before Vaatu broke into the material world. If anything, knowing some but not all details provides even more scope for theories, etc.

All due respect to Hello Future Me, though -- do love his channel, I just definitely land on a completely other side on this.

[u/Khaos_Zand3r]

Hey I was just coming to see if anyone had posted already.

Now, what I was going to say about it: I've always been a supporter of Legend of Korra. Was it as good as ATLA? Of course not. Was it wholly necessary? No. But it did do a lot to look at the more grey morality and it matured with Avatar's audience.

Season 2 always stood out to me as being the weakest of them but I could never place why. This video really puts it into words. It had such a strong set up for a great moral conflict and societal analysis, but throws it away on a contrived "good vs evil in universal forces" with frikken laser beams. LoK as a whole indeed would have been stronger without the second half of this season, though I recognize a LOT would have needed to be rewritten to not be so dependent on the results of S2. What with Vaatu being instrumental in Korra losing her connection to her past lives, and as addressed in the video, the universal "balance" forcing people to become airbenders (which he provides a good solution for). But of course, the series capitalizes on the struggle of people having power thrust upon them and the conflicts/issues that can arise out of that, so making said change may have completely changed the following seasons...

[u/ConceptZoey]

I'm surprised this didn't get the clout/discussion it deserves on the sub, unless I missed another thread with this video. I absolutely agree with everything, and I couldn't put together why when I first watched S2. I could gather bits and pieces but Tim really puts everything into perspective. Some people like the episodes on their own at the very least, but I'm vehemently against them and what they did to Avatar lore tbh. But hey, the effects were decent 🤷

[u/Kronenburg_Korra]

I definitely see Hello Future Me's broad point about the deviation from what he terms orange and blue morality. I think its the biggest obvious narrative flaw in LOK, but I think more due lot's of sloppiness than a decision to fully frame Raava and Vaatu as 'good' and 'evil'.

A cosmic 'good' and 'evil' clearly does not fit the themes that were developed in ATLA, or the rest of LOK for that matter. It's what I think makes Book 2 so jarring for most people.

That said, I think there are elements of 'blue/orange' morality in the raava/vaatu dynamic. Vaatu mentions that he is responsible for the spirit and physical worlds being in contact with one another to begin with for example.

Wan's failure to prevent conflict until his death all the way up to the conflicts that lead to Vaatu's escape I think are the writer's trying to say that merely attempting to lock 'chaos' away and keeping the spirit and physical worlds as separate from each other as possible was a flawed and wrong-headed. In other words, the human fusing with the order/light spirit and locking up the chaos/dark spirit isn't an unquestionable 'good'. It's a band-aid applied onto the initial fuck-up Wan made. Korra ends the season actively taking up the decision to re-fuse with Raava and fix her mistakes releasing Vaatu as well. In contrast to Wan, she leaves the worlds joined and doesn't lock Vaatu away again, showing some blue/orange morality in not walking back Vaatu's action. Pure order (the separate worlds as they've been for 10,00 years) isn't unquestionably better than chaos (the drastic change in re-uniting the worlds fully). In fact, a positive effect of chaos is shown the next season though the awakening of airbending in people.

However in 'pacifying'? 'purifying'? Vaatu it leaves the theme of both order and chaos being important really muddled. He wasn't just locked back away and he hasn't been destroyed once and for all either, but he was still 'defeated'. That just doesn't jive with order and chaos being both forces that must balance each other out.

Really, Hello Future Me's suggestion that Korra *also* fuse with Vaatu would've been a much better choice along if there was also some re-writing a good bit of dialog to more heavily emphasize that both chaos and order being necessary (with a clear and concrete example of order/stasis being bad) and really de-emphasizing the 'good' and 'evil' connotations/framing.

[u/ryanznock]

This is some great critique with a fix.

Netflix, if it gets to Korra, should do this.