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Avatar: The Last Airbender and She-Ra and the Princesses of Power have many complex, nuanced and multilayered relationships but it's interesting how both have a relationship that is, let's be honest, rather dull and uninteresting at the center of the show that being between the main protagonist and big bad of the series. With Avatar that relationship is Aang and Ozai while in She-Ra that relationship with Adora and Horde Prime.

In both series it's rare for fans to talk about either relationship with more essays, fics and fan art focusing more on every relationship BUT the one with the lead villain and hero. Take Adora and Catra's relationship along with Aang and Zuko's, it would honestly be easier to count the number of fans who DON'T talk about these relationships as there's so much to unpack due to just how complex said relationship is. Even though these characters spend most of their time as enemies there is a connection between them. With Aang and Zuko it's the sense that the two could be friends if not for the war and their personal issues while Catra and Adora are clearly in love and WANT to be together but a combination of their personal issues and their duty as basically generals of a war means that can't be together no matter how much they want to be.

This is a major factor in why Adora and Aang's relationship with Prime and Ozai feels rather hollow, because there's not much of a connection here. In the context of the show Prime and Ozai are just the final obstacle to the heroes paths to victory and what's that compared to the friendship or romance of a couple of dumb teenagers. But still, I do feel there is a right way to write this sort of relationship and a wrong way which is why I'm bringing in both series to compare and contrast both series to see how both handle a shallow relationship between hero and villain.

Between the two I feel that She-Ra does a better job with the rivalry between Adora and Horde Prime and there's a simply reason for why I think that which is that Prime makes things person with Adora while Ozai rarely gets involved in Aang's affairs. Oh sure, Ozai is the fire lord and therefore is the one most chiefly responsible for most of the world's problems BUT Ozai isn't the one who killed all other Air Nomads. He isn't the one who has been hunting Aang all over the world to regain his honor, or the one who nearly killed him or even the one who thwarted the invasion of the Day of Black Sun. Sure, his family has caused Aang no end of grief but Ozai himself doesn't really do anything to Aang throughout the series. The most he does is send banish Zuko to find him and promote Zhao to try and deal with Aang and... that's it.

Now the battle between Aang and Ozai is great and the dilemma Aang faces during his fight with Ozai is an interesting one but it's likely not a surprise to anyone that the final four part final put more emphases on Zuko's conflict with Azula then it did with Aang and Ozai's.

By contrast Prime makes things as personal for Adora as possible by doing one simple thing. He hurts the girl she loves. Long story short Catra makes a heel-face turn and Adora goes to rescue her but learns in the time it took for her to get here Prime had tortured and mind controlled her and then, briefly, killed her. By doing this Horde Prime goes from Evil Overlord Adora must defeat to save the universe to the one and only person Adora will ever Truly HATE.

And the same thing goes for the villains. For Ozai, Aang is the final obstacle on his path to taking over the world and nothing else. He has more of a rivalry with Iroh, (whom he never even has any screen time with) and his own Son. Even his daughter has more reason to hate him due to how she turned out but Aang is just some kid he has to fight to finish he's world conquest plan.

Prime's relationship with Adora is similar but with one key difference, Adora keeps proving that he is not all knowing and all powerful. Leading a rebellion against him is one thing as he's gone up against many who have defied him and he has always proven to be there better simply because he could just throw his forces against them and win through that but Adora made it personal when she saved Catra from his ship and not only got away but utterly curb-stomped his minions and through them, him.

And then Adora kept inspiring people to stand up against him, and proved that he was no god regardless of what he said and that he could be fought and he could be defeated and Prime HATES Adora for that because he can't stand the idea of looking weak.

Again, I do want to note that nether relationship is really all that interesting but I always feel that if you're going to make something a major part of the series you really need to emphasis why hero and villain hate each other. Aang and Ozai don't really hate each other and really don't seem to have much of an opinion of each other on any level while Adora and Prime Despise each other, one because he hurt someone she loved and the other because she proves he's not all powerful.

But still that final fight between Aang and Ozai is awesome and it's still so satisfying to see both these villains brought to their knees by someone who shows them what real power is.

Winter wrote: ↑Wed Dec 08, 2021 5:14 am Avatar: The Last Airbender and She-Ra and the Princesses of Power have many complex, nuanced and multilayered relationships but it's interesting how both have a relationship that is, let's be honest, rather dull and uninteresting at the center of the show that being between the main protagonist and big bad of the series. With Avatar that relationship is Aang and Ozai while in She-Ra that relationship with Adora and Horde Prime.

This gets into a discussion on the role of a villain within a given story. Catra and Zuko are both villains, at least in the beginning, but they are still characters with nuanced personalities and complex motivations for what they do. They are complex enough and that the audience can actually sympathize with them and we can see how and why they turn good in the end.

Horde Prime and Ozai are less like characters and more like plot devices. I think you could argue that the real conflict in the ATL final is not between Aang and Ozai so much as Aang and the world he is trying to protect. The main focus through most of the four parts is Aang dealing with the fact that he might have to break his people's most deeply held belief in order to save everyone else. Ozai is just the mechanism that forces Aang to make the decision. She-Ra's final has a similar element to it as the focus is on Catra and Adora finally admitting their true feelings for each other. Horde Prime is the crisis that forces them together so that they can't just go their separate ways which might have happened if Prime had somehow been defeated when Adora rescued Catra.

I think both approaches can work for a villain in a story but its important to know what the villain really is, character or plot device, because its the villains that try to compromise that tend to fall flat, in my opinion at least.

A big difference is that Horde Prime actually seems like a threat. He's so powerful and overwhelming that he's more of a force of nature, and up until the finale every victory against him amounts to little more than "escaped with their lives". If Adora loses the whole universe is at stake, and he knows she's all that stands in his way. Meanwhile Ozai's only win in the entire series was burning a crying child in the face. His wife put him in power and all his other successes amounted to "was sitting on the trone while Azula accomplished things". The only reason he can put up a fight against Aang at all is the comet boosting his attacks; of the four members of the royal family he's probably the weakest, and Aang taking him out instead of Zuko or Iroh is explicitly a matter of political optics.

hammerofglass wrote: ↑Thu Dec 09, 2021 4:27 pm A big difference is that Horde Prime actually seems like a threat. He's so powerful and overwhelming that he's more of a force of nature, and up until the finale every victory against him amounts to little more than "escaped with their lives". If Adora loses the whole universe is at stake, and he knows she's all that stands in his way. Meanwhile Ozai's only win in the entire series was burning a crying child in the face. His wife put him in power and all his other successes amounted to "was sitting on the trone while Azula accomplished things". The only reason he can put up a fight against Aang at all is the comet boosting his attacks; of the four members of the royal family he's probably the weakest, and Aang taking him out instead of Zuko or Iroh is explicitly a matter of political optics.

Actually according to both Bryke and Iroh Ozai is the most powerful Firebender in the family. Iroh flat out states that if he had to fight Ozai he's not certain he could win and during the time he is given a power boast by Sozin's Comet he's shown to be the most powerful. Hell, during the Day of Black Sun, Ozai was able to FEEL when the Eclipse was over while Zuko, the other Fire Nation members and even Azula needed to realize they had their bending back.

However, the other point you made is also a good one as he doesn't really do much in the series, at least as far as Team Avatar goes. There's honestly more conflict between him and his family which IS fascinating but completely disconnected to Aang. Again, the issue isn't that he's a bad villain but rather that he has no actual relationship with Aang. The two are nothing to each other while Adora and Prime HATE each other for what they've done and are doing to one another.

Aang isn't fighting Ozai on Zuko's behalf (which I think would be a LOT more interesting then what we got) or for anything Ozai has done because he hasn't actually done anything to anyone but his family but because it's Aang's duty as the Avatar to stop Ozai and Ozai is trying to kill Aang because he's in his way.

phantom000 wrote: ↑Thu Dec 09, 2021 2:23 amI think you could argue that the real conflict in the ATL final is not between Aang and Ozai so much as Aang and the world he is trying to protect.

Hell I'd go further and say it's entirely a very personal story about Aang and his own fears and ethics with Ozai just being the guy who gives that internal strife an external face and a name. That ol' human heart in conflict with itself theme as beloved of Song of Ice and Fire analysts. As such Ozai isn't really a character in himself but as the show has never been about him in the slightest, and was all about Aang that's entirely okay. Sure he's a lot of a cipher, and a case can be made that Aang gets a late 'get out of jail' card out of pretty much nowhere to let him resolve both internal and external conflicts. For the story they're telling though it still mostly works. Good satisfying endings are bloody hard to pull off and that Avatar does as well as they did is rather impressive. Just look at Korra for one where if it wasn't a last second ship setting sail it would have been a lot less kindly remembered.

stryke wrote: ↑Sun Mar 12, 2023 3:02 pm Just look at Korra for one where if it wasn't a last second ship setting sail it would have been a lot less kindly remembered.

Korra is not just remembered for Korrasami, (which again, was not as out of nowhere or as rushed as many think). To look at the Last Stand itself there's a lot working for it and gives Korra's arc a lot of resolution, arguably more so then Aang's.

Part of my problem with Aang's conflict with Ozai is the last minute edition of Aang not wanting to kill when he has killed before or are we assuming that the Fire Nation Navy all got out with no issues and he DID kill that Buzzard wasp in The Desert. Korra sparing Kuvira and convincing her to stand down and surrender DOES fit Korra's arc as her learning to become more compassionate is part of her journey.

Further more Aang kinda got the short end of the stick when it came to focus episodes in Fire. In teh final season Aang is only the focus for 5 episodes (keeping in mind that I'm counting Sozen's Comet as a single episode) and even in the finale he has less screen time, dialogue and development as Zuko. I think his struggle or whether or not to kill Ozai was more a result of the writers realizing that for all the buildup they had been putting into the fight between Aang and Ozai they hadn't given Aang anything to actually give him conflict.

Korra and Kuvira have a more complex relationship which is made rather obvious by the show's not so subtle point of saying their the same but I was more invested in Korra vs. Kuvira then I ever was in Aang vs. Ozai. Hell I felt that Korra did a LOT better when it came to showing Korra's Trauma then it did with Aang. Aang usually needed one or two episodes to get over his issues while Korra showed a more realistic portrayal of PTSD that she never really gets over but is ready to live with it.

Same with with Adora, her martyr complex, her guilt complex, hero complex and her feeling that she must never think of herself aren't brought up and dealt with in one or two episodes but a major focus of the series as a whole. They may look like they are but take a step back and we see that she's just avoiding her issues. And neither she nor Korra are a case of "Well maybe they were just dealing with it internally and therefore just aren't talking about it" which I DON'T like. I don't like it when shows just ignore trauma which often happened with Aang as he almost never talks about the Airbenders and most of his feelings of guilt are almost never brought up and when they are their usually resolved in a few minutes.

The Southern Air Temple
The Northern Air Temple
The Desert
The Serpent's Pass
The Guru
The Awakening
Nightmares and Daydreams

These are the only episodes that directly deal with Aang's trauma. Three of them are about his feeling of lose of the Air Nation, two of them are dealing with the loss of Appa, one of them is his feeling of guilt for DYING and his fears of facing Ozai. The one with the Air Nomads are spread apart by almost entire SEASONS and all hit the same point "Aang misses his people" and each resolve this issue in the same way "Some part of them remain and you have a new family". The Desert STARTS Aang's arc about his trauma of losing Appa and The Serpent's Past resolves it and then it's barely focused on until Lake Laogai which isn't even about Aang it's about Jet and Zuko.

And Nightmares and Daydreams is a comedy episode! Yeah, they're treating Aang's fears of facing Ozai as a joke which I just find annoying and comes off, to me, as the writers not really having any interest in Aang's journey at this point and given that this plot is dropped until the finale that doesn't help.

Korra's trauma at what has been done to her is a major plot and character point throughout the series and espisically the last season.

To compare Korra's trauma and PTSD as a result of her conflict with Zaheer is at the center of or a major part of

After All These Years
Korra Alone
The Coronation
The Calling
Enemy at the Gates
The Battle of Zaofu
Reunion
Remembrances
Beyond the Wilds
Kuvira's Gambit
Day of the Colossus
The Last Stand

That's almost all of the final season and we see the trauma of past battles also having an effect on her in

(Actually I when I was typing this I realized that I would just be listing most of the series and it would just be easier to post the episodes where it isn't a major part of Korra's arc of the series' plot)

Welcome to Republic City
A Leaf in the Wind
Original Airbenders
Operation Beifong

And at no point is it ever treated as a gag. Later shows would follow Korra's example when it came to how to present trauma.

Korra's struggle with her trauma is, IMMHO, a lot stronger then Aang's final, last minute, struggle of whether or not to kill. IT'S STILL GOOD, but I would argue that it it's weaker then Korra's struggle because the show rarely focused on it.

Korra has more going for her then JUST her romance with Asami and even if it wasn't included I still think The Legend of Korra would still be as well regarded as it ended up being.

Winter wrote: ↑Sun Mar 12, 2023 8:53 pmKorra is not just remembered for Korrasami, (which again, was not as out of nowhere or as rushed as many think)

Not what I was saying. My point was that the last episode is a really bad twenty two and a half minutes and it's just that significantly better last 30 seconds where they confirm the ship i.e letting it sail. Sure there's foreshadowing a plenty to lead up to it over the course of the season, and even some before, but that's the moment where it gets to be actually a thing, and all that building romantic tension pays off in spades.

If that episode had aired without that last 30 seconds though I do think the resolution would have been treated a lot more critically. Without that you've got what? A fun reprise of "Do the thing!" and that's about it in terms of positive things I can say.

A big mecha rampaging through a city should be awe inspiring, even terrifying, but it's neutered so badly in the laughable lengths they go to show it can't even hurt a fly. There's also that 'big thing menacing the city' has already been done as a season finale on the show, and it sucked then too compared to the much better finales of s1 and s3. I entirely agree Korra has a hell of a lot more actual dramatic conflict with Kuvira, but the final fight just had no impact for me whatsoever and did not serve as a satifying resolution to that conflict in the slightest.

stryke wrote: ↑Mon Mar 13, 2023 12:09 am

Winter wrote: ↑Sun Mar 12, 2023 8:53 pmKorra is not just remembered for Korrasami, (which again, was not as out of nowhere or as rushed as many think)

Not what I was saying. My point was that the last episode is a really bad twenty two and a half minutes and it's just that significantly better last 30 seconds where they confirm the ship i.e letting it sail. Sure there's foreshadowing a plenty to lead up to it over the course of the season, and even some before, but that's the moment where it gets to be actually a thing, and all that building romantic tension pays off in spades.

If that episode had aired without that last 30 seconds though I do think the resolution would have been treated a lot more critically. Without that you've got what? A fun reprise of "Do the thing!" and that's about it in terms of positive things I can say.

A big mecha rampaging through a city should be awe inspiring, even terrifying, but it's neutered so badly in the laughable lengths they go to show it can't even hurt a fly. There's also that 'big thing menacing the city' has already been done as a season finale on the show, and it sucked then too compared to the much better finales of s1 and s3. I entirely agree Korra has a hell of a lot more actual dramatic conflict with Kuvira, but the final fight just had no impact for me whatsoever and did not serve as a satifying resolution to that conflict in the slightest.

I can understand that but for me the final fight left a greater impact on me then the one between Aang and Ozai and there are other reasons for that.

There was no less then 2 Deus Ex Machinas in the final of TLA with the Lion Turtle and the back punch that reactivated the Avatar State, combined with the last minute and very rushed conflict of Aang's moral dilemma and the lackluster relationship between hero and villain and the lack of resolution in regards to the arguments between Aang and Katara and I felt that ATLA, at least in regards to Aang and his personal journey, felt weak.

The finale of Korra is a little more complex as it's not really two episodes but all of Balance. Korra's Trauma, her relationship with Asami and Kuvira along with her is the focus for the entire season. I will admit that how Korra dealt with Kuvira in the end was a bit rushed but, again, so was the Aang's Kill or Not To Kill arc, which only lasted for 4 episodes and wasn't even the main focus (Zuko's journey is given more attention).

To use reactions of the finale At The Time of Release most fans and casual viewers were satisfied with the final two episodes. Korrasami may have domminated the conversations moving forward but most of the reception AROUND that pairing was often regarded in a positive light. In fact looking at many older reviews and reactions the general reception of the finale of Korra was about as well received as Airbender's.

On the whole I personally think that Korra has an overall stronger final season then Airbender for 4 reasons.

1: Korra remains the focus while Aang was relugated to a more minor role
2: The relationship between Korra and Kuvira is better fleshed out
3: The final romance of the series is, IMO, stronger then Kataang
4: The finale season resolved most of the major arcs before the finale rather then cramming most of them in the second half.

That's just how I see and more power to you if you don't agree.

I'm tempted to say Korra is disqualified from having a stronger final season just because of that sodding clip show

It's about even for me as the last book of Avatar has some issues to put it lightly though I'm tempted to give Aang the edge just because when it's good, it's exceptional, while Korra's last season is way more consistent in quality it never hits the emotional heights of Katara breaking out bloodbending, the comedy of the Ember Island Players, or I'd even argue an individual moment for Kataang with their dance which is up there for me with Moon Dance from Frasier it was that good.

I'd certainly agree with 1, 2, and 3 of your list though as the problems I had were Korra were most of the letdown I felt in regard to how it ended (not counting the handhold of course) rather than the last season as a whole.

Then that's Korra in general for me. Whole bunch of stuff to love, and there really is a lot, but I find there's always a but that I just can't let go of and it made the whole show profoundly frustrating. Avatar has it's faults too of course. I find though they tend to be mostly confined to the rare individual episode while Korra they tend to be a lot more endemic.

stryke wrote: ↑Mon Mar 13, 2023 10:24 am I'm tempted to say Korra is disqualified from having a stronger final season just because of that sodding clip show

It's about even for me as the last book of Avatar has some issues to put it lightly though I'm tempted to give Aang the edge just because when it's good, it's exceptional, while Korra's last season is way more consistent in quality it never hits the emotional heights of Katara breaking out bloodbending, the comedy of the Ember Island Players, or I'd even argue an individual moment for Kataang with their dance which is up there for me with Moon Dance from Frasier it was that good.

I'd certainly agree with 1, 2, and 3 of your list though as the problems I had were Korra were most of the letdown I felt in regard to how it ended (not counting the handhold of course) rather than the last season as a whole.

Then that's Korra in general for me. Whole bunch of stuff to love, and there really is a lot, but I find there's always a but that I just can't let go of and it made the whole show profoundly frustrating. Avatar has it's faults too of course. I find though they tend to be mostly confined to the rare individual episode while Korra they tend to be a lot more endemic.

One thing to keep in mind is the Clip Show wasn't the show runners fault. They didn't plan on it and didn't WANT to do it Nick just cut their budge and they couldn't just skip over the episode because of their contract with the studio meaning they either had to fire half the staff or make a clip show so I give them a pass because they were in a no win scenario.

I must again disagree as I feel many episodes reach the heights of Fire and in some cases surpass it. Korra Alone is AMAZING and not just for its amazing handling of PTSD but for Korra's journey in the episode, the solid drama, the Korrasami moments and the reintroduction of Toph. Korra removing the mercury from her body in The Calling, Asami entire arc with her father is, I think, MUCH Stronger then Katara's (which I felt was VERY poorly handled due to her sudden and kinda out of nowhere resentment towards him which is resolve in the episode it's brought up in). Mako's Near Sacrifice, Bolin choosing to go back to save the Prisoners, Hiroshi's sacrifice and of course the Korrasami ending.

And that's Korra for me. I feel that The Last Airbender is as flawed as The Legend of Korra and that in many ways Korra Surpasses Airbender with an overall stronger Rogues Gallery, better romances starting in Change and I find Korra's arc to be more compelling then Aang's. Are there somethings I wish was done better and are there things I would say are bad, YEAH but there are many parts of Airbender where I feel the same. The only difference between the two is the larger cast which makes the show a little overstuffed but honestly just about every complaint and complement are shared I have are shared between the shows.