The time Legend of Korra was better than the Last Airbender

you read the title right I'll not stand for Cora slander anyone who says every part of Cora's awful is either lying or trying to sell you something speaking of selling you something this video is sponsored by campfire use my code and link to try the program designed by and for writers and World builders for free season three of Korra equals and surpasses The Last Airbender at times with arguably Avatar's best antagonists fight scenes and a tightly written story that culminates in a powerful evocative spectacle of an ending again I'll ask for a quora good in the comments but no story is perfect and this is all just a fun thought experiment alright so we've been rewriting it season by season and we've already fixed seasons one and two and normally would have these rules right but I don't really want to change season three it's already amazing so instead we're going to talk about what makes the season so great and the five minor changes needed to fit it in with how we wrote seasons one and two so previously on Legend of Korra after Ramon took almost all of her bending away Cora was left searching for a way to restore her powers a water tribe Civil War forced Korra to look into the past for help and answers which he saw how people first learned bending from the original Benders tenzen and his family find a hidden island of non-binders living alongside Sky bison and in the final moment of the season a young child there begins to airbend change number one the most important change all right Zakia keeps the beard he doesn't shave his head I get why they did it all right yeah I know you're no Med culture blah blah blah but come on which would you pick for reasons Zahir and KO are easily some of the best villains we've ever had in Avatar they bantered they're funny they're really human and it's so cool see someone with an amputation in a role like this with Ming Hua who is voiced by the same actress as Azula by the way so here being in love with Pali is another great touch you genuinely feel kind of awful when she dies in episode 12 it is for me Avatar's one true ship perlier or zaplee I don't know what what should it be this this real look of horror on zahir's face one that only would have looked even better if he had a beard what I love about these guys is that they have all of the traits we associate with that of a hero team right they work together they complement each other's strengths they negate each other's weaknesses and if you really get down to it the Red Lotus has some good points to make you know not like the the murder points but the other points they don't feel like robots but living breathing humans unlike unalak from season 2 or vatu who were just evil for the sake of being evil Amon was also a really human and compelling and threatening villain and but the writing around Zahir in season three is a lot better on average than in season one so it gives the here a more potent role overall one problem with writing villains is of course that you can't have them lose too much or they don't feel like a threat anymore so I went through the series and I counted there are roughly 10 fight scenes with Zahir of which he outright wins six even against people like Zuko you know the fire lord and all that and he only loses four and the times that he does lose he was nearly always in control of the scene anyway like he tactically Retreats the exception to this is him versus Tenzin a fully trained Airbender and him versus Korra in the Avatar state which you know fear I think a fire wind up against Cora in the Avatar State I wouldn't do much better narratively the Red Lotus repeatedly demonstrates how capable they are by besting all of our main characters at least once and they're not just speeding up say faceless goons that's kind of a cheap way to demonstrate how dangerous your villain is this is one reason why Azula always felt more like a thread than Zuko you know she repeatedly demonstrated herself against the heroes to be their equal or even more competent now do I need to mention how season three has easily several of the best fight scenes not just in Korra but in Avatar as a whole tenzen vs zakira is only surpassed in my opinion by the agony Kai because there's so much more between Zuko and Azula you know in this emotional relational way the fight between Korra and Zahir in the finale is and here's what's really cool designed to be a mirror of the Aang vs ozai fight in the last airbending it's got these huge pillars of stone with an airbender fleeing the very embodiment of Rage the parallels contrast their characters Aang and Korra and it better than any other moment in the series exemplifies how determined and unshakable chorus she at this point is dying there is mercury flowing through her veins with some of the most powerful Benders ever seen fighting her and she still manages to best all of them she will give up her life but she will never give up leaving the bad guy win across the series we see how she learns to direct her anger her self-righteousness her power which have been occasionally flaws in the past into real strengths that come out in these moments I think that it and she and the series is a complicated mess and I love it one thing that people seem to complain about is that Cora doesn't grow she doesn't change or learn and that's just not true not at all across season three we see her learning self-control and learning the difference between anger and righteous anger we see her recognize her flaws and learn to rely more on others not do everything on her own by herself we also see her refine her strengths raw power rarely gets her anywhere in the season she has to learn to trust and stop thinking in ways that once upon a time mean people like Amman outsmarted her she recklessly if you'll remember challenged him onto a fight one-on-one the moment she could basically in season one that's the sort of person she was at the beginning but here here we see she waits and plans before stepping up to face sahir and all of this change I think is really facilitated by these fantastic antagonists who prompt her to think and consider herself change number two Kora Sami Nickelodeon were naturally terrified of letting Cora and Asami get together on screen because it would immediately turn every single child who watched the show into a lesbian we're gonna change that season three is gonna be a lot more Cora and asami-centric now in Ari right she was originally an equalist before turning to help keep the peace in Republic City so at this point she and Cora respect each other but it's more of an alliance than a friendship so this season we want that to be the coronasami becoming real friends Cora is allowed back into a public city just like she is in episode one to fix the spirit Vines and we're gonna see Asami and Maya Cora as she helps the spirits resettle in a new location outside the city with the promise that they will plant a spirit Tree in a Grove in the middle of the city park they'll take care of it a pact similar to the one that she saw with the southern water tribe last season and as they look out over the spirit's new home Cora will say something like you know everyone keeps telling me that the Avatar needs to be this so can't be that but I think I think this is what I was meant to be Asami says it's beautiful and most of the world just sees it as inconvenient you know I heard some Spirits have taken up living in the catacombs under bassing say but um I suppose this is us we we both have places to be Cora says yeah I do but we can take a moment longer when she's frustrated she's gonna turn more and more to Asami this other person who has so much anger and rage at trying to find their place in the world and trying to help but not necessarily knowing how to right and so she's going to find that empathy in this person she didn't necessarily expect and we actually see her turning more to Asami in the season anyway you know there's this episode where they're trapped in the desert and it's gonna be a bonding moment where they learn to really rely and trust and rely on each other and it's going to go beyond admiration and into mutual respect and that into friendship before Cora realizes that um you know what she's kind of hot too just a little moment here or there you know with a dash of flirting at the end of the series when Zahir demands Korra turn herself over to the inner mans everyone is going to be like no Cora you can't do that except Asami and matenzan captured and with Marco and Bolin not really listening to her she's gonna confide in Asami again I don't really know what Zahir wants to do to me but I can't keep running away just because I other people are scared I won't Asami says I know you have to do this for yourself and I know how strong you are too I fought you do it you'll find a way out so that's really the Crux of this Arc we gotta show one mutual respect when they're dealing with Spirit stuff in a public city to show they can trust and rely on each other in the desert and three show Korra can be vulnerable with her fears and hopes at the end of the series plus a dash of flirting as I said they're not fully in love yet but they are gonna come out of this trusting each other as friends it's that story of people with very different backgrounds both seeing issues in the world wanting to help but having to learn how to help that's a very different thing you know where Asami is emotionally insecure quora is very sure of herself and where Cora is very often impulsive Asami is a lot more cautious tending to plan ahead we're gonna see them complement each other's strengths and negate each other's flaws which is what we see in the villains as well and these are gonna naturally come out in the story beats that are already in the series series change number three new Airbenders so in every right season 3 starts in virtually the same place practically the southern Spirit portal has opened the spirits are moving into the physical mortal world and new Airbenders have appeared the only difference is the reason it's still a magical moment in its own right but it doesn't come from the vague magical space kite energy from space with planets it's because Tenzin finds this group of people who we're gonna call the Bison Nation who have been living among Sky bison kind of learning their own spiritual and philosophical ways for generations and this is actually kind of drawn from season two where we find this isolated tribe of people who are super Spiritual Living along Sky bison uh and we're taking that and just changing a little bit it's not just genetics and I think it reflects the deeper themes of the show better just like in the show Tenzin is going to try and recruit these people to join his new ear Nomads but most of them aren't gonna want to I mean they have their own lives their own Traditions their own culture that they don't just want to uproot a new group of Airbenders you know inspired to go and find out who they are will even set sail with their Newfound powers to go see barsing save for themselves believing that they can make it on their own that they want to see the world that's when Tenzin will get wind that Zahir has escaped and the village Elder's face will go dark At The Mention of his name so here was one of our greatest spiritual leaders he kept the histories like few others but when he took a dark path he was exiled if he has developed ear bending as some of ours just have and he will be extremely dangerous so this explains zaheer's knowledge of the ear Nomads his history and it gives him more of a grounding in the story at hand it's also how we're going to meet Kai and no I want to clarify this doesn't mean that anyone can become a bender so it's a common theme in fantasy for Magical things like this you know older Magics to fade as time goes on later on in the season when Cora meets iro you know he's going to explain to her that humanity is probably lost the ability to learn like that as they distance themselves from the spirits from nature it only happened with the Airbenders because one these guys have been living the spiritual lifestyle alongside Skye bison for generations and two it's only happened to a handful of them and three airbending was always the most spiritually connected and so it was probably the one most likely to this happen to maybe it could happen elsewhere but it would be so rare and difficult that it'd be dismissed as rumor or as someone who just already had bending right only someone likes Zahir or the Avatar could do it so Tenzin and team Avatar spend time learning about this community they're ways of life how similar they are to the nomads even though they branched off a long time ago but also that they're different they have their own culture and they stay there on this island to keep chorus safe to keep a secret while they learn exactly what's going on and Weeks Later Tenzin will get word that the other Airbenders who left verbasing say have vanished team Avatar will go to investigate just like they do in the show and rescue them change for zahir's philosophy one more small thing to change is how the show represents Anarchy in episode 9 Zakir gives Cora the spiel about how they need to overthrow tyrannical governments you know we've seen how sozan's autocracy led to the ear Nomad genocide then there's the Earth Queen who has the temperament of a 50 year old woman drunk on the power of a shift manager at a supermarket there was unalak who tried to do a colonialism and he is right but I don't think it quite articulates why the Lotus is doing what it's doing or what Anarchy really means like philosophically there's this line that he says he says the idea of having Nations and governments is foolish the natural order is disorder but like this isn't actually what anarchists believe it's not that Nations or governments are foolish or just dumb right but that the ones we don't consent to live under are that the natural order isn't disorder but it's whatever order people willingly choose to engage in it's that idea of consent that they really care about it feels a little bit like an infantile way of portraying Anarchy so I'd prefer that he says something like people are born into this world as slaves slaves to Queens and fire Lords and presidents even avatars who decide their place in life for them don't you think the world will be better off of leaders like them were eliminated true Freedom can only be achieved when oppressive governments are torn down government's people did not choose for themselves power should be freely given not taken by force of an army or bureaucracy or tradition this also sets up why they want to kill the Avatar which is never actually explicitly stated in the series it's all subtext because the Avatar is given power and authority simply because of how they were born not because people choose to give it up it's kind of like Power by tradition by lineage I love season three because it has the goal to explore these fascinating World building questions like it works really well with the overarching theme of Legend of Korra in this evolving modernizing world with Cora trying to figure out what her place is in it and even the place of the Avatar like what does it mean to exercise power justly to inherit Authority it interrogates the responsibilities she has in ways that we've never really seen and have real ramifications for how she approaches the problems and season and 4. this is why rescuing Airbenders from the earth Queen is also a really important plot Point tenzen starts out trying to force people to join him because he says you know you have a duty it's on your shoulders now as an airbender you should join me whether you want to or not the earthqueen's behavior forces tends in to confront that behavior and he says you know you are nobody's property your path forward is your own in both circumstances people were dictating the place of others without their consent but tencent evolves in the show to show how innomed culture is in this way the archetypical and epitome of anarchic society purely voluntary and there's a beauty in that airbending isn't just the element of spiritual freedom and Detachment but the element of societal Freedom a political structure without the oppression that we see throughout the rest of the world change Cinco astral prediction so this is a power Genera has since season three she gets it at the end of season two but um well at Ari right we didn't do because it was terrible so she never really got that power this season is about ear Nomad culture about rebuilding in the wake of genocide about the different ways that can happen Genora becoming a master at the end as a beautiful culmination of those themes because it's not just a celebration of her character but it's the very visceral resurrection of the ear Nomad Community it only happens because she invents a new airbending move the tornado we see in the finale which requires a community of Airbenders with a ceremony performed by that community in front of them astral projection plays a very small role in the actual plot which can easily be worked around so we're instead going to build up to it in this season because I think it fits better in season three anyway we're going to see Genora meditating several times across the series helping Cora get into the spirit world she's communing with the spirits teaching the others in nomad ways and we're going to see hints of this ability right glance is outside her own body and it's going to culminate in the ultimatum episode 12 when it's revealed that the new animates are actually being held in a hidden location somewhere else Genera is going to be able to astral project to tell Cora and the others where they are being held and that they're being played allowing Korra to break the truce like she does in the show this does two things one I think it gives more of an arc to Genora because initially tensin refuses to let her get her full inner mad Master tattoos and two it foreshadows zaheer's new airbending ability flight now I personally really like these two new abilities the momentous here loses Pelee and then recites the old inner mad proverb empty and become wind is just fantastic it totally makes sense within the series and it's set up really well he can finally let go of the one thing holding this man to the Earth his emotions and love play he can let go of them and it allows them to express air bending in this pure way likewise astral projection really reflects the spiritual roots of airbending and keys really well into Tibetan cultural influences in the show this is in contrast to Spirit bending which if you watch my season 2 video you'll know that I actually didn't include it felt cheap to me as a way to deal with Spirits like you just magically purify them rather than actually trying to understand the spiritual relationship between the physical world the spirits and The Mortals around them it just didn't really align also with what I felt water bending was about or should be capable of it also LED on to the spirit lasers which is a whole thing we'll get to in season four but either way this leaves us in relatively same way well Cora doesn't have access to Earth bending or firebending yet she's still gonna get those back in the future but she ends up after a fight with Zahir in the finale she ends up crippled broken and exhausted it with being the Avatar now I try to only take sponsors that I feel you guys will like will be helpful and you know what you can go and check it out for yourself for free and my link down below if you want campfire is a writing and World building software designed for and by writers and World Builders it's got a word processor built into it timelines met building for DND of your own fictional world whole pages dedicated to Magic systems and character profiles which are just beautiful by the way so can't keep track of your own world building bam campfire need to plan out your My Little Pony erotic fanfic bam campfire wrestling with the existential dread that everything you have ever loved will come to dust um I don't know if campfire can help with that but um but to give it a shot the thing that really stood out to me about campfire is that you only pay for what you want to use right if you want the map designing features you only pay for that I hate Adobe because they make you pay for everything even though I only want two programs campfire doesn't do that campfire good link below stay nerdy and I will see you for season four in the future foreign foreign thank you

Channel: Hello Future Me

Views: 544,680

Keywords: explained, theory, lore, analysis, how to, korra, avatar, legend of, asami, korrasami, zaheer, video essay, philosophy, film, shyamalan, varrick, bolin, mako, tenzin, white lotus, iroh, zuko, aang, katara, toph, sokka, team avatar, azula, ozai

Id: JhCMlNR8pLA

Length: 22min 10sec (1330 seconds)

Published: Sat Aug 13 2022