Korra Season 2 Part 4

[Winter]

In regards to how Korra herself was written in the first half of Spirits I wonder if she was written that way in order to make Mako look better by comparison? At that point in the series the writers were still convinced that Mako was a great character who the fans just didn't understand and felt that he could do no wrong and wanted everyone to see the greatness that was Zuko 2.0.

And to make sure that everyone would like Mako they made Korra into an abusive partner, dumbed down Lin, tried to turn Asami into a Damsel in Distress for him to rescue and introduced two new cops who's soul purpose was to belittle Mako to show that how anyone who doesn't like Mako is either a horrible person or an idiot. I honestly think that was why Korra was written the way she was in the first half of this season to make us like Mako by making Korra someone who is impossible to please so he looks good by comparison.

Then came The Sting were the writers finally got the chance to make Mako the real hero of the show and let him show off why he was such a great character now that Korra wasn't around to over shadow him. And his day in the spot light was seen as okay at best and only really showed just boring he was when paired up with Asami and Varrick who completely over shadowed him at every turn despite having less screen time then Mako.

It's telling that after The Sting Mako begins to get pushed more into the back ground and his plot is resolved by Bolin just stumbling onto the kidnapping attempt as it's happening rending Mako's entire subplot completely pointless. And then came the moment where Mako lied to Korra about their breakup in order to get back together with her with no real concern about Asami's feelings or the fact that he was basically taking advantage of someone he cared about for his own happiness and that was likely the last clue for the writers themselves to turn on Mako.

Not only does Karma finally start catching up with Mako but after this the show stops treating him like Zuko 2.0 and instead starts calling him out on his poor treatment of both Korra and Asami. I think the overall mixed reception of The Sting and Mako's stupid choice in A Night of a Thousand Stars are what pushed Mako from creators pet to the Universal Butt Monkey while also getting pretty much demoted to extra.

Starting from now Asami is going to be given a lot more attention as her relationship with Korra is given more attention while also getting a number of major plots focused on her that focus on things like her relationship with her father and her rebuilding Republic City. In contrast Mako will be basically turned into the generic guy of the team and have no real impact on the plot or any of the major characters.

[kaingerc]

Yeah, this season was uneven to say the least.
It had a lot of great moments: Varrick, Asami, Nuktuk, Tenzin's family and even the twins were entertaining enough.
But the poorly structured overall plot and mishandled main characters really hurts it: Korra is downright obnoxious at points in this season (even more so than in the first one) and you could probably replace Mako with a block of wood and I doubt anyone would notice.

[rickgriffin]

I think season 2 had a lot of really good moments in isolation. But...yeah they clearly needed another year to work on the scripts. I think it does largely come down to the dumbass conclusion that wasn't explained--another few passes and maybe they'd have realized "wait a second, we need to actually set this up, not just vaguely gesture in that direction"

If the intent was that everyone should have a connection to the spirit world, then yeah, there needed to be SOMETHING that would justify the potential benefits of joining the two outweighs the downsides. But despite spending a lot of time in the spirit world, they never actually got around to that--spirits are still depicted as pernicious and tempestuous despite the lip service made toward softening them. Reintroducing them to man's world would just make a lot MORE problems that nobody needs.

So the question would need to be asked: why the hell would anybody want this? And I cannot come up with ANY good reason, and I'm usually pretty good at this!

The alternative I would think (in order to go with the season 3 stuff of airbending returning) would be to come up with a way not to re-merge the two worlds, but to leave open a doorway. this is a lot more easily justified because a doorway implies meeting, learning, diplomacy, order, and not instant chaos. You can have sages and scholars go out to the doorway to the spirit world, a pilgrimage if you will, for ordinary people to explore AT THEIR OWN PACE and BY THEIR OWN CHOOSING. Thematically, the dark spirit stuff would make more sense if it was a natural consequence of this separation and Korra recognizes that man and spirit need more than she can offer by herself. The villain's plan then would be to unleash the wrath of the spirits, but Korra's solution would be to not close the door, but leave it open just enough that healing can begin. And you can still have complications from there because leaving the door open, even a little, implies a major risk, which may be necessary for the harmony of man and spirit. And hey...Tenzin could actually be useful if it turns out he's really bad at the spiritual connection stuff, but he actually learned enough that he's an excellent face-to-face diplomat.

BUT IT NEEDS TO BE SET UP LIKE THAT. In order to do this you need to show the rift between spirit and man. The villain should play this up--the spirits hate us and we deserve their wrath. You can even make it be about increasing faithlessness in the industrial age. Show spirits' dismay at what's happening to the world, foreshadow the potential for a better resolution, even though all the time everyone's telling Korra: it's your job to be the mediator, but make sure you shut that gate. Do this right and it's actually make SENSE that Korra would want to throw that burden on other people because HER JOB should not be high priestess to absolve the sins of the entire world, especially when the world is getting so much more complex.

[Winter]

I think one of the biggest issues with the first two seasons of Korra is that there's way to much going on. With Air there were I think 5 plots and none of them could really be called the "Main" plot of the series as they all had pretty even screen time and in the end, most of them really matter. The Equalist, Pro-bending, Tarrlok's attempt to take power and the love triangle are all irreverent to the series overall plot.

Korra's development and Asami's conflict with her father are the only major plot points of that season that have ANY long lasting consequences and I honestly think that you could alter the story enough to fit Asami into the series while removing Mako and Bolin by just giving the two a shared history before the series starts. Something similar to this fan AU.

https://www.deviantart.com/plastic-pipe ... -567282262

[Draco Dracul]

What I find funny about Unalaq is that he manages to be the most one dimensional major villain in the Avatar franchise while debuting in the same season as the Vatuu who is the manifestation of evil itself.

[TrueMetis]

What I find funny about Unalaq is that he manages to be the most one dimensional major villain in the Avatar franchise while debuting in the same season as the Vatuu who is the manifestation of evil itself.

What I find funny is that he had the potential to be the most nuanced villain in the franchise, until they swerved into "lets Christianize the fuck out the spirits, make the avatar's the messiah message way too literal and add an actual Satan analogue into the mix".

Korra showed to me that for all the creators paid a lot of attention to eastern architecture and martial arts while designing the show (at least in Avatar, Korra decided to go with the boring as fuck "1920's steam punk America" setting for most of the show) they didn't really pay any attention to eastern spirituality and how spirits work. Apparently them appearing to get it with Hei Bai, the Painted Lady, and Koh was just luck.

Hey, by the way, and maybe I missed this, if portals are needed to connect the spirit world and physical world, how exactly did Hei Bai manifest himself in our world?

[Darmani]

It also helps that Korra and Asami's relationship was actually healthy and avoided a lot of romance cliches which is in direct contrast to Korra and Mako's relationship which was VERY unhealthy and full of romantic cliches. At no point throughout all of the first two seasons did Mako and Korra have anything even closely reassembling a healthy relationship.

Amusingly, it did this by having them spend almost no screen time together, so it was healthier largely by virtue of Korra having almost no opportunities to be her usual self and wreck it.

Honestly this describes the entire appeal of Asami. Even Chuck seems unimmune to this instant projection fill in the blank fille. actually saying lines like mako's a heal to her for her hanging in for mako but in fact you get the exact opposite. Actually believing the frame-up and refusing to visit makko in prison
But that doesn't matter she's the Normie who's really cool and Batman and apparently there's all this subtle stuff I'm just not paying attention and believing in. I didn't like the last relationship because I never liked that character and she was always something everyone kept projecting on

Of course they're the fan preferred couple none of the shity writing actually is abundant with her and they get to write whatever they want however they want. And of course as it's been mentioned if you've got an axe to grind with heteronormative romance s depiction in fiction then just by virtue of you inserting the standard lesbian plot line none of the problems are going to be there

[Fuzzy Necromancer]

What the yiff are you talking about?

[Winter]

Personally I think Korra and Asami's relationship was very well written and they easily rank as one of my favorite couples of all time. They have fantastic chemistry, I find both to be great characters and they're just so cute together.

[Sir Will]

It also helps that Korra and Asami's relationship was actually healthy and avoided a lot of romance cliches which is in direct contrast to Korra and Mako's relationship which was VERY unhealthy and full of romantic cliches. At no point throughout all of the first two seasons did Mako and Korra have anything even closely reassembling a healthy relationship.

Amusingly, it did this by having them spend almost no screen time together, so it was healthier largely by virtue of Korra having almost no opportunities to be her usual self and wreck it.

Honestly this describes the entire appeal of a Sami. Even Chuck seems an immune to this actually saying lines like this is fight us on he's hanging in for mako but in fact you get the exact opposite. Actually believing the frame-up and refusing to visit makko in prison
But that doesn't matter she's the Normie who's really cool and Batman and apparently there's all this subtle stuff I'm just not paying attention and believing in. I didn't like the last relationship because I never liked that character and she was always something everyone kept projecting on

Of course they're the fan preferred couple none of the shity writing actually is abundant with her and they get to write whatever they want however they want. And of course as it's been mentioned if you've got an axe to grind with heteronormative romance s picked it in fiction then just by virtue of you inserting be standard lesbian plot line none of the problems are going to be there

What the fuck are babbling about? A few of those lines are coherent.