I genuinely think the show writes might have been SO railroaded in the Korra storyline that they desperately wanted to go the opposite direction with the prequels. Like from war profiteer who gets to hang around because he’s rich and funny and aligns himself with the protags, to a book with entire story arcs directed by working class politics. It was very jarring because I definitely see where you’re coming from. I probably wouldn’t have read them at all because of the sour taste Korra’s liberalism left in my mouth had I not been given a copy for free

such as the war profiteer grifter sort of just being allowed to keep doing whatever.

hey that's just realism