Why is Korra's Final Relationship so Popular? (Spoilers Allowed))

[CharlesPhipps]

In large part because they're the two most popular characters in the show.

Mako had made himself the Scrappy Doo of the series. Bluntly, the guy not only cheated on both of his girlfriends that he should have been crawling through broken glass to date (Bolin certainly would have--and why Bolin is awesome), but he constantly was on the other side of the Avatar on every conflict. He was a crappy friend and not a particularly good brother.

Honestly, if not for the fact they made it clear Korra had no interest in him (ditto Asami), Bolin might have been a lot better romantic option for either were they so inclined. Dude was immature but so was Sokka and he grew out of it...ish.

[Worffan101]

In large part because they're the two most popular characters in the show.

Mako had made himself the Scrappy Doo of the series. Bluntly, the guy not only cheated on both of his girlfriends that he should have been crawling through broken glass to date (Bolin certainly would have--and why Bolin is awesome), but he constantly was on the other side of the Avatar on every conflict. He was a crappy friend and not a particularly good brother.

Honestly, if not for the fact they made it clear Korra had no interest in him (ditto Asami), Bolin might have been a lot better romantic option for either were they so inclined. Dude was immature but so was Sokka and he grew out of it...ish.

Sokka was a goofball but he was also extremely aware of himself and his limits and had a kind of "sit down and think it out" attitude the rest of Team Avatar NEVER quite got, not even Aang.

Anyway, yeah. Korra is the protagonist so once she stopped acting like the biggest fucking douchelord ever to douche, people were going to root for her in a relationship. Asami is just straight-up nice, as well as Batman, and the best girlfriend ever, and a genius engineer, AND she looks like Lena Luthor in a '20s suit, AND the only times she gets really angry is in righteous fury at someone who hurt her or her friends on a deeply personal level and hasn't yet shown enough remorse. She's basically the most innately likable character on the show and so all the fans love her, especially the teenage lesbians who're most likely to ship her with Korra.

So you have the protagonist and the most likable person on the show, where the other main characters are the stuffy mentor figure, the goofy idiot who's largely doing his own thing, Mako (who's a raging dick who fucks with Korra and Asami both emotionally, which is not OK, and hurts Asami's feelings, which is unforgivable to the fans because Asami is basically perfect in the fans' eyes and even her flaws just make her more likable so Mako looks like even MORE of an asshole for leading her on), and eventually Jinora who's annoyingly pure and perfect.

No wonder people love Korra and Asami. They're both characters we're predisposed to root for and Asami is the dark-horse fan favorite, so naturally people will take any sign of them liking each other and ship them.

Much like how no matter how many times "Supergirl" shoves handsome douchebag Manhell in the audience's face, the fandom thinks that Supergirl should be boning Lena Luthor six times over her desk before dinnertime, with a little heavy petting for desert and some tongue kisses before bed. Nobody likes Manhell, everybody likes Lena because she's basically Asami but in live-action and is played by a gorgeous Irish actress who can't quite hide her accent (nothing sexier to a teenage lesbian than a hint of an Irish brogue from a woman in heels and cleavage, according to my friends), and Lena does shit like filling Kara's office with flowers (literally), double-crossing her mother for Kara, and putting her company at risk of collapse for Kara's pet causes, while Kara does things like carrying Lena bridal-style to save her (multiple times), defending Lena's integrity in her articles, and eating kale for Lena at lunch not-dates.

...OK, when I put it like that, it's kind of hard to see why the Supergirl writers haven't yet figured out that Kara and Lena are having a torrid affair, but I think I got my point across.

[CharlesPhipps]

They do have incredible chemistry and the resemblance to Asami is uncanny.



Or vice versa!

[Worffan101]

They do have incredible chemistry and the resemblance to Asami is uncanny.



Or vice versa!

The weirdest part? Asami's voice actress is the woman who played Yue in the Shyamalan ATLA film. Yes, the woman who had the unfortunately phallic hairdo.

Lena's actress also once got eaten by a mosasaur in that shitty Jurassic Park sequel because Colin Trevorrow is a garbage human and modern action-adventure movies are made all out of order. So...yeah.

Good that they've ended up getting better work, at least.

[Winter]

Another advantage in Korra and Asami's relationship over Mako and Korra's, and honestly most of the other relationships in the show, is that it was built up over time. With every other relationship in the series everyone pretty much fell for each other and started a relationship the moment they met. Kataang, Sokyue, Marroka, Bople and Jetara were all the Love at First Sight Trope while Sokui and Maizuko were ones who knew each other for a few days before starting a relationship.

Korrasami is the one couple who actually take the time to become friends first before they even begin to develop romantic feelings for each other which, at this time, makes them unique among the couples of Avatar. FTR I'm not against the Love at First Sight Trope it's just that I think the fact that it happened with pretty much every character in the series I think many fans found how Korra and Asami fell for each other rather refreshing.

Turf Wars explores this a bit by having Korra and Asami talk about when they started to realize they were in love with each other and they both reveal it was either during the time Korra was recovering from her poisoning/PTSD. Asami came to realize her feelings while Korra was away and Korra realized how she felt after she was poisoned.

There is no other couple in this series who does this as most of them just meet and that's the beginning and end of it. They're found each other's soulmate and all is right with the world but that's not what happened with Korra and Asami as the two took they're time to get to know each other and figured out how they felt and worked it out over time.

[Worffan101]

I ship Sokka and Suki /hard/ if only because of the "Sokka got lei'd" joke in "The Southern Raiders", which is one of my favorite episodes of the show.

Anyway, yeah, as disappointing as I found a lot of Turf Wars (the non-romance plot was meh at best, and the exposition about the way LGBT people are treated in the Avatar world didn't jive with ANYTHING about the various cultures that we already knew), I still enjoyed the bits that focused on the romance.

Still. They could've done SO much better. I mean, imagine waterbending-assisted gender-reassignment surgery! The Fire Nation having a massive undercover gay culture. The Air Nomads (there has to be a civilian population along with the monks, right?) being polyandrous like Tibet, and therefore OK with gay and bi men (since they don't affect the control of inheritance) but hardline against gay women (since that fucks with societal control of population and inheritance), etc.

Like, these are MASSIVELY different cultures, covering staggering amounts of land. Surely there must be some diversity in how they approach LGBT folks, right?

IDK, that's just a pet peeve of mine since I love building societies.

[Winter]

For me personally I didn't mind the LGBT world building bits though I do admit that it was rather poorly executed and lackluster. But honestly I was here solely for more Korrasami and that itch was Very Much Scratched.

On that point, I do like how Mike write the couple as he really seemed to have learned from his mistakes in the Makorra relationship. Korra and Asami have their arguments but managed to resolve them in ways that actually feel believable and are born more from worry and care instead of just being a total twat like Korra was to Mako back in Spirits.

And in regards to Asami getting kidnapped in all fairness the Original Team Avatar would almost always get captured at least once a episode (Sokka even makes a joke about at one point) and Asami still proves to be as awesome as she was in the show proper.