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"
the thing that makes me frustrated is that like there are some real good things in there but it is as a whole just such a mess like for example zaheer is a great villain but like i think that he would be a better foil to aang or tenzin like because of his whole air nomad nerd stuff like i feel that the scene where tenzin is just dominating zaheer which is like pretty much a reverse of the trope of zaheer dominating everyone with air bending because tenzin is a master and probably one of the few persons with proper training against a air bender and that confront is probably a more interesting fight than korra vs zaheer like because i feel both are made to be subversions on Aang like korra is bad at air bending and the spiritual stuff and zaheer has aang same spiritual and philosophical but they disagree on the moral of killing zaheer thinks that if the reason is just it is fine and aang did not kill the firelord even though there was a justified and moral reason to do so.
Also Aang is not against change like his interpretation of balance is diferent so he could probably find a more interesting common ground with zaheer because like aang wants to change stuff the world is in a bad place and korra seems to want things to be the same so people don't complain and the world just refuses to not change
The animation, fighting, character design, all incredible. A lot of it is good, and thats why the stuff they don't nail is so jarring. Zaheer is a very cool, interesting villain, our first bad airbender, theres honestly a lot to like (and hes Henry Rollins! How cool is that?), but you're right on all accounts.
like the animation early is kinda not great but they do pick up after the wan part and there was production hell on this which is kinda why it has so many weird stuff like they did for at least a time during the production think that they were going to do only one season and then only two seasons which is probably why both of these seem to be just closed like amon does not affect anything in any way and mr gundam from season 2 does not do shit the world convergence is a choice that korra makes it would have happened by then anyway while zaheer killing the queen is directly causes kuvira whole deal it feels like more conected
idk I thought the animation was the one thing that Korra consistently kicked ATLA's ass with
like it is fine but it gets better after book 2 like korra production was a mess nickledeon is not a good company who knew
I agree with your - somewhat poorly structured - point to a large extent. However, I would like to point out two things:
1.: Aang was not fully justified in killing Ozai.
All right, hear me out, before you call me a lib. Killing Ozai would have been justified in any scenario in which there is no other method of rendering Ozai powerless and therefore eliminating the threat he posed. Because, however, Aang attained the means of doing just that, he would have no longer been justified in killing him without at least making an attempt to even neutralise hin through less drastic means. Us Communists have to remember to exhaust all means before resorting to deadly violence. (Also, justice is a subjective concept and if Aang could not justify killing Ozai under any circumstance, he couldn’t ever be.)
2.: Zaheer is portrayed as entirely correct in his standpoints.
Zaheer is fully correct in his analysis of power and structural abuse as well as potential of freedom within the world of Avatar. His methods are portrayed as unjustified (which they, to a certain degree, are) but his competence as a charismatic leader and his selflessness and determination are on full display. Especially the latter is portrayed through him not holding a grudge when imprisoned and actually being a valuable ally to Korra. It is, however, very much correct to point out that him toppling the earth-government without i) a mandate of the people ii) an organised force that can fully realise the revolution should he individually fail iii) him failing subsequently would create a power vacuum with dire consequences. What I found most objectionable was the display of him as a powerhungry lunatic after being stopped and literally grounded. The sock in mouth scene was fucking horrid and completely out of character.
i am not complaining about zaheer i think he is probably the best thing on the third season i just don't think he is a good foil to korra and like i can see your point on ozai and i personally don't mind that aang did not kill him but i think that there was a absolute justified reason to do so like it makes sense that aang as the last air nomad does not want to break one of the most basic fundamentals of their philosophy so i don't blame him for not killing him but like even roku who could not bring himself to do it sees that he should have like it does not matter because aang found a way to remove his power deus ex lion turtle so he does not have to answer the question