My biggest complaint at the time was how Korra just...recovered from having her bending removed. I remember thinking at the time that it would have been a fantastic subplot for a season to have her existing with only windbending, forcing her to examine exactly what it meant to be the Avatar - even if the Avatar could no longer bend all elements. This thought wound up tying well into S2, since it was often about the Avatar's duty as a spiritual leader.

I enjoyed Amon. A lot. I especially liked how, even though he wasn't what he seemed to be, his motives actually were - he thought bending should be eliminated, even if he had to use it to accomplish that goal. I felt cheated a little that the manner of removing bending was never explained, or why only the avatar could undo it - if the power was based in bloodbending, then Katara should have been able to heal it. Likewise, Korra shouldn't have been able to, since she can't bloodbend. It's a weird little plothole that serves to foreshadow S2.

The season overall was great, though. Great setting, great fights, great characters. Lin is an amazing unit, with probably the best scene in the season.

And then we have this.

jfc

The only two good things to come out of this season, as I've mentioned on Skype a couple times now, are the Avatar origin story and Jinora. I need to amend that and add the Varrick/Zhu Li combo, who were also amazing. That's it. Everything else had such bad writing that I had to take a long break in the middle of the season to convince myself to keep going.

Character assassination everywhere. Tenzin went from being a fairly level-headed individual to a complete idiot (though the stuff with his brother and sister generally wasn't too bad), who acted like a twelve year old more often than not. Lin became some kind of brainless cop who cracked on Mako because the plot needed stupid, artificial obstacles. Bolin...jfc, Bolin.

They even character assassinated their new characters. At the start of the season, I figured they were trying to push Unalaq as the antagonist (solely because of Tenzin's weird opposition to him for no reason), but he still intrigued me, because he seemed like he had good intentions. Then, nope, power hungry, doesn't need any more character than that. That's enough to warrant destroying the world like some terrible JRPG villain.

Varrick showing up as a (somewhat) antagonist legitimately surprised me. I'm interested to see how they'll develop him, since he could be a great gray character. Jinora, also, surprised me with how good her parts were, despite Tenzin being a raging douche at every opportunity.

The origin story, though... Man, that was the highlight of the season, by far. It had all the great elements of a myth, but being grounded in Wan let it explore the myth from the inside, rather than at a distance, and it made it so much more interesting. And the art style! Two episodes were not enough.

The climax started off alright. Korra vs Unalaq was a pretty great throwback to Aang vs Ozai, in my opinion, but after that it got pretty dumb. Eleventh-hour powers kind of suck, which applies to both Korra and Jinora, particularly when they don't really make sense. Rava is implied to be the core of not only the Avatar's ability to bend all elements, but also the sheer power of the Avatar State. If Rava was no longer in Korra, how exactly is she able to match Vaatu in strength during Attack on Korra?

The end of the season made me regret, again, how they decided not to have Korra's bending crippled for longer. Tying that into the season and forcing her to examine her and the Avatar's identities would have made a much better lead-up to the development of her and Tenzin's identity issues. It also would have allowed Korra to spend time examining lessons/events/whatever from past Avatars (which could have also led into the Wan episodes) in order to make the loss of that access at the end more significant (assuming she doesn't get it back).

The giant spirit!Korra is, I believe, actually tied back in some form to the end of ATLA. "Before we bent the elements, we bent energy" or whatever it was.

Yeah, basically it was implied that before bending elements the cosmic energy was the big thing, eventually it must have fell out of practice/stopped being done because loliVaatu was sealed inside preventing people from accessing the tree. Aang himself tried to access the same cosmic energy in his own show albeit Korra was more successful.

Jinora's powers are completely out of the blue though.

It seemed to me to be really, really...anticlimatic. The hallucinations of Ursa had been haunting Azula for at least several months to a year now, and then when she finally meets her mother, what does Ursa have to offer? "Sorry." I think it could have been much more nuanced and been given a lot more room.

Yes, The Search was more about the brother-sister relationship between Zuko and Azula, but the much of the plot was also driven by Azula's notions of her mother. Too much to only be wrapped up by literally 2 panels and 1 line of dialogue.

I think having the ending be only Zuko and Ursa trying to reconcile is, for lack of a better word, bullshit. All that talk about family and whatnot and then one of its most developed characters is left out to hang? wat. I don't think a happily ever after story with the entire fire nation royal family is ever going to happen (hell, it'd be pretty bullshit to try), but imo showing Ursa at least trying to reach out to Azula would have made for a much better ending rather than just "Sorry hon now let me dote on zuzu more thx."

I knew it was coming, and while I don't think it necessarily came out of nowhere, at the same time it did.

Like, there's a clear deep relationship between Korra and Asami, especially in S4, but there's no real indication that it's romantic instead of platonic. That scene is the first indication of any specific romantic interest between them. So, in that aspect, yeah, you've got a bunch of material that leads up into it - and also none.

I found that to work well, though, given how much of Korra's relationship development is her exploring herself and others. It didn't come out with "OH MY GOD I LOVE YOU SO MUCH", which would have been ridiculous, but rather as the clear start of a potential relationship.

Now that I think about it, yes, it fits her theme of knowing who I am and exploring myself. I am not a huge fan of this pairing, but it doesn;t bother me at all, I only wish that love triangle never happenes though.

Also, isn't it weird that Asami was kinda into Korra as well? She knew who she was and what she wants, Korra explored herself yes, but Asami was ready in this aspect...

giraffes