I knew almost nothing about this show going in, but I enjoyed The Last Airbender so I decided to check it out. I heard it had problems, but no one told me it was straight-up fascist propaganda.
What I'm about to rant about isn't me reading too much into it, because the points they're trying to make are about as subtle as a horse pissing, and this is a popular franchise that all ages watch and are influenced by.
Republic City is clearly supposed to be America.
The Equalists are clearly supposed to stand-in in for a leftist group fighting against oppression. Their posters are even designed like leftist posters.
The Equalists are disadvantaged minorities, similar to MLKs civil rights movement or the woman's suffrage movement. Except in this show, these people have harder lives because they are born without superpowers, and because of this they are jealous and bitter of those who do have superpowers and want to take everyone's powers away because of jealousy.
This is akin to saying minorities aren't really oppressed, they're just genetically inferior and not 'special'. Korra straight up tells an equalist that they want to be whiny and oppressed. Our Hero, everyone.
Can't wait for the episode where Korra tells someone who can't afford cancer treatment that they're just jealous of healthy people. Hell, considering how hamfisted the Equalists as an expy for leftists is, this is like saying that leftists are jealous of healthy people and want to make everyone sick.
This isn't subtle, the way this show misrepresents the left is straight out of the Nazi propaganda playbook.
Even if you can look past the pro-fascist morals, the show is just boring. Gone is the adventure and unique fantasy setting of The Last Airbender. The show now spends most of the time focusing on a boring love triangle and an uninteresting sport. It was actually this that made me stop watching because it was so slow-paced and the characters were so unrelatable/unlikable.
I mean, The Last Airbender could be lib as shit sometimes (the Ba Sing Se episode comes to mind) but it at least was a fun adventure about defeating a fascist empire. In The Last Airbender, the hero wins by taking away the superpowers of the leader of the evil empire. Making the pro-power, pro-empire morals that The Legend of Korra is trying to put forward seem even more hypocritical and hollow.
Another thing that sucks is that I've seen most criticisms of this show are hand-waved away as people just not liking it because Korra is a "strong female lead".
Neo-Liberals hiding fascism behind progressivism, name a more iconic duo.
Anyway, that was me shitting on a show about 10 years too late, but fuck it. I had no idea it was that bad.
I'm also watching it currently and I also just have to say even the characters aren't that fun?
I'd take any of the main cast of ATLA over the people from Korra any day IMO.
bolin is the only person on the avatar team i think is really likable, the rest of the characters i liked were either direct descendants of the gaang or like literally the gaang like seeing zuko and katara or like older sokka on the flashback really carried that whole show than the new characters, like tenzin or bumi are objectivelly more fun to watch than korra being sad about the responsabilities of her choices and they even made a an avatar ancestor for this series and learning his story is the better part of season 2, like wan is the reason i didn't give up on season 2, i could not care less about the kaiju battle that ends that season
Bolin rocks and JK Simmons as tenzin is cool. Everyone else on team avatar sucks
It takes a lot for a show to make me dislike John Michael Higgins, and these fuckers pulled it off.
I think Korra is the strongest character in the show, seeing her go from so headstrong and whiny to traumatised to a lot more wise and mature is my favourite part of the show. I feel like Bolin doesn't come into his own until season 3, he's kind of just replacement Sokka for the first two seasons. Mako is pretty dry and boring, but I think Asami is far and away the worst, most boring and under used character in the entire show. Korra and Asami's romance would have a lot more impact on me if Asami wasn't so generic