So, The Last Airbender is good. Korra is also good, in a lot of ways. Animation? Brilliant. Choreography? Yes. Anything beyond a surface deep reading of its representation as politics? Well....

Its so weird, how did they go from AtLA, to this show where every good guy is either a cop or a CEO or literal royalty and every single villain is some caricature of a leftist? In the last season, theres a king whos demonstrably dumb, vain, and in no way should be in charge but hes just still played as the good guy and anyone who doesn't want him to be king is evil???

The Avatar, protector of the people, seeker of balance, coming in just to restore the status quo leaders every single time. Its the definition of liberal politics. Just made this thread to bitch, but lets all complain about how many times the heroes in these stories blindly return everything to how it was because "any change = bad"

  • GenderIsOpSec [she/her]
    ·
    4 years ago

    For real though, I'd have preferred if they just ditched the childish political lib-shit and just made it into 4 seasons of Pro-Bending tournaments. Or try to understand how the ideologies they're portraying actually work.

    But honestly pro-bending was so good, I think I finally understood the appeal of sports animes.

    • grey_wolf_whenever [he/him]
      ·
      4 years ago

      pro bending was sick, the way they used mixed martial arts for it as a base? Looks cool. In season 1, after Amon attacks the pro benders and Korra goes after him as an avatar and not a pro bender, her whole fighting style changes. Suddenly the moves are all classic asian martial arts, and its very cool. Its not like the show has zero redeeming elements, and even the bad guys could be better with some more thought. The existence of benders does suck for non benders, some people can just shoot a boulder, or a fireball at your head. That would cause societal issues! Its like the x man problem, or true blood: metaphors of oppressed minorities don't work as well if the oppressed minority actually can kill a ton of people in their immediate surroundings.

      • GenderIsOpSec [she/her]
        ·
        4 years ago

        My favourite bit was seeing this whole industrial city, with rich assholes making people work hard jobs for shit pay and....no unions anywhere. Apparentely everyone is just fine with eating shit and licking boot all day.

        Also fucking Nickelodeon removing the Korrasami kiss from the end the goddamn cowards. Oh but don't worry they'll rainbow their logo come Pride-month again.

          • GenderIsOpSec [she/her]
            ·
            4 years ago

            In a post made in 2014 on his personal Tumblr account, creator Bryan Konietzko explained the plan was always to have Asami and Korra fall in love. Still, they also were aware of the unwritten rules about showing same-sex relationships in shows for kids, and thus, only alluded to the character’s feelings for each other. When the time came to animate the ending of The Legend of Korra, they got confirmation from Nickelodeon that there was a limit to how much they could portray. Apparently, at that time, two women kissing would cross the line. Konietzko admits that the scene where they hold hands falls short of a victory for queer representation but might inch things forward.