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Korra Season 4 - "They did the Thing!"

Ford Prefect said:
Part way through Book 3 I felt like they were angling for Korra/Asami, but attributed it to yuri goggles.
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At that point the shipping really started (though i'd seen some fics with Asami running Korra over instead of Mako before). But most people read it as 'Thise ridiculously close friends/hetero-life-partners'. When the creators confirmed that post Book 4 they were actually together... Then things made sense. I bet the creators used Book 3 as a way to make it feel like a natural conclusion.
 
I'll be honest, given how many other problems I saw in LoK, I'm not sure I'm willing to credit them with thinking ahead that far and sticking to a plan. I can certainly see the signs, I'm just not sure I believe they were part of a deliberate character arc.

It would not surprise me if the writers stumbled backwards into Korrasami after one season of trying to push Makorra, one season of 'oh crap the fans aren't buying it, abort abort', one season of 'so I guess we're not doing a romance arc now?' and a final season of 'actually, the leading ladies do seem to have some chemistry, let's run with that'.

Mind you, I still count that as a win. It ends up in the same place, it means the writers improved along the way, and on a Doylist level it means they felt they could 'run with' a canon lesbian pairing in the end.
 
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I still think Bolin could have handled the getting away from Eska better. Granted he would need to fake his own death, and create a new identity, I'm sure Varrik could help there.
 
Khaos said:
Interesting, The article makes several insightful points but I would argue that Korra's being representative of queer identified brown women makes as much sense as Bolin being representative of bi-racial Asian men. That is, I can see how someone would interpret the character in such a fashion, but I don't think the show operates this way unless you're looking for it.
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overall i liked many things this analysis pointed out. But yes korra as brown girl does not make sense. Its projecting modern american sensibilities into very different fantasy world. The avatar people remind me of south asia where people vary from brown to fair to asian. While people are aware of regional and tribal differences race is different concept from America. Analyzing a media featuring a diverse cast with an American lense when the location does not have similar chequered past is not correct.
 
The Avaterverse clearly draws heavily on eastern sources, but it's still a show made by Americans, with a lot of American sensibilities.

That said, there is a certain incongruity to viewing Korra as a brown-skinned woman when, although she looks the part, that's pretty much all the overlap there is. She's quasi-royalty, she's the Avatar... Basically any perspective you look at her from, she occupies a position of power and influence. When people look down on her (which is rarely) it only ever seems to be because of her inexperience, not her background.

Which is kind of odd when you think about it, because Korra comes from the Northern Water Tribe, the beaten-down cousins of the Southern Tribe. It would have been relatively easy to have given her that resonance with the troubles of marginalised groups. Something of a missed opportunity.
 
Imrix said:
That said, there is a certain incongruity to viewing Korra as a brown-skinned woman when, although she looks the part, that's pretty much all the overlap there is. She's quasi-royalty, she's the Avatar... Basically any perspective you look at her from, she occupies a position of power and influence. When people look down on her (which is rarely) it only ever seems to be because of her inexperience, not her background.
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IIRC, Eska and Desna view her as a Southern Tribe rube, but that could just be viewed as intra-family conflict.
 
SpacePaladin said:
IIRC, Eska and Desna view her as a Southern Tribe rube, but that could just be viewed as intra-family conflict.
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Yeah; I don't remember any of the NWT troops treating the Southerners like they're somehow inferior; the closest is ordering them back into their homes when there was about to be a firefight (well, water fight). In fact the NWT troops seemed to mostly be going along with Unalaq's plans 'cause he's the chief rather than any real personal loyalty (even bitching about the Dark Spirits)

Though considering the whole Nuktuk mover, I wouldn't be surprised if there was serious bias against the Water Tribes in the more quote "civilized" unquote regions or at least stereotypes that Varrick wanted to play to.
 
I'm a bit curious who would people say was their most disliked character in Legend Of Korra if you had to choose one or several?

I watched the show with my nephews recently and they asked me that once we were done watching Book 4.

For me I never liked President Raiko felt he was a self serving, weak politican reminded me a bit of Neville Chamberlain.

I also never liked Varrick much, felt he should have been a villain in later seasons and never found him funny.

Also didn't like Mako much cause of the whole love triangle thing.

And I felt Amon was a big hypocrite who simply wanted to get rid of bending so he'd be the only bender left in the world.
 
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Asami. A walking plot device I resented because people audience and show kept "subverting" or justifying or taking her side despite an abominable lack of character to deserve it.

I didn't hate Korra but I was not endeared to her and her issues

Oddly enough wanted to hate Mako but he was pilloried in narrative and in the audience I had sympathy pains just for being hot brown haired bad boy #147 but played.. like a human as to a romantic tool. So more liked him for his flaws and issues.

Asami's entire appeal was "what if she dated Korra" and honestly it HURT seeing a wasted femme fatale out of cowardice and redeemed by 'yuri goggles' I dislike her because she's the emblem of fanon like Zuko was with not 1000th of his characterwork or purpose to justify. AND no one will own up to it.
 
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I loved Asami and Korra and think they are both excellent characters and am glad they subverted the "Evil femme fatale, seduces the lead woman's man away and is the enemy" trope and actually, eventually, looked into the realities of dating someone you always fight with and let Korra and Asami develop a healthy friendship that blossomed into a romantic relationship.
 
Zam said:
I loved Asami and Korra and think they are both excellent characters and am glad they subverted the "Evil femme fatale, seduces the lead woman's man away and is the enemy" trope and actually, eventually, looked into the realities of dating someone you always fight with and let Korra and Asami develop a healthy friendship that blossomed into a romantic relationship.
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Agreed. I like the Korrasami relationship in the show as it developed from friendship into a romance.
 
There's really no member of the recurring cast that I actually disliked, and in general the only character that I didn't like was Unalaq, and even then I didn't really dislike him, I just thought he was very extremely middling (I don't even think he's a major part of season 2's overall issues).
 
Ford Prefect said:
There's really no member of the recurring cast that I actually disliked, and in general the only character that I didn't like was Unalaq, and even then I didn't really dislike him, I just thought he was very extremely middling (I don't even think he's a major part of season 2's overall issues).
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Well what do you think were the overall issues in season 2? I'm betting the love triangle with Mako, Korra and Asami was one as that was a big problem with Book 2.
 
Ant221 said:
Well what do you think were the overall issues in season 2? I'm betting the love triangle with Mako, Korra and Asami was one as that was a big problem with Book 2.
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There was that, but the decision to elaborate on the original Avatar was a mistake, as was the decision to give the world a Manichean style dualistic cosmology. Beyond that, there was a pretty interesting idea in the initial conflict - the cultural clash between the North and South Water Tribes and how it related to a traditional religious perspective and the more modern, materialist view, which neatly ties in to Korra effectively the god of that religion while simultaneously a member of the more materialist culture - which was basically totally lost in a fucking amnesia plot reeeeeee
 
Ford Prefect said:
There was that, but the decision to elaborate on the original Avatar was a mistake, as was the decision to give the world a Manichean style dualistic cosmology. Beyond that, there was a pretty interesting idea in the initial conflict - the cultural clash between the North and South Water Tribes and how it related to a traditional religious perspective and the more modern, materialist view, which neatly ties in to Korra effectively the god of that religion while simultaneously a member of the more materialist culture - which was basically totally lost in a fucking amnesia plot reeeeeee
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For me it was the baffling decision to outsource the animation of the first half of the season, IIRC.

 
Darmani said:
Asami. A walking plot device I resented because people audience and show kept "subverting" or justifying or taking her side despite an abominable lack of character to deserve it.

I didn't hate Korra but I was not endeared to her and her issues

Oddly enough wanted to hate Mako but he was pilloried in narrative and in the audience I had sympathy pains just for being hot brown haired bad boy #147 but played.. like a human as to a romantic tool. So more liked him for his flaws and issues.

Asami's entire appeal was "what if she dated Korra" and honestly it HURT seeing a wasted femme fatale out of cowardice and redeemed by 'yuri goggles' I dislike her because she's the emblem of fanon like Zuko was with not 1000th of his characterwork or purpose to justify. AND no one will own up to it.
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Pretty much, Asami is the quintessential wasted character.
 
Darmani said:
Asami. A walking plot device I resented because people audience and show kept "subverting" or justifying or taking her side despite an abominable lack of character to deserve it.

I didn't hate Korra but I was not endeared to her and her issues

Oddly enough wanted to hate Mako but he was pilloried in narrative and in the audience I had sympathy pains just for being hot brown haired bad boy #147 but played.. like a human as to a romantic tool. So more liked him for his flaws and issues.

Asami's entire appeal was "what if she dated Korra" and honestly it HURT seeing a wasted femme fatale out of cowardice and redeemed by 'yuri goggles' I dislike her because she's the emblem of fanon like Zuko was with not 1000th of his characterwork or purpose to justify. AND no one will own up to it.
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It's actually impressive how I disagree with every single point in that post.

Other than that, while Varrick had his moments, I'm not a fan of his karma-houdini-ing everything.
 
Vaermina said:
Pretty much, Asami is the quintessential wasted character.
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How is becoming one of the main heroes wasted compared to being a throw away sexist stereotype villain?

And yes, femme fatale is frequently sexist and it is a stereotype and "This girl who showed up and stole Korra's man with her devilish whiles is evil and needs a beat down" pretty much sounds like an example of everything wrong with it without going complete Madonna Whore, which it probably would be doing a bit anyway given the context.
Vaermina said:
There's a pretty good limits test for whether a secondary character is wasted or not.

If they were removed would the story be noticeably different?
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Are you...

Are you trying to suggest that the story would be the same without Asami despite her being closely tied to pretty much every arc, from the Equalist regime, to the civil war and Varrick, to helping the team travel around the world seeking Air Benders, to rebuilding Republic City, helping find a way to defeat the mech and being Korra's closest confidant during seasons 3 and 4?
 
Renu said:
It's actually impressive how I disagree with every single point in that post.

Other than that, while Varrick had his moments, I'm not a fan of his karma-houdini-ing everything.
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I disagree with that post as well. So your not alone in that regard.

I never liked Varrick myself, not once.
 
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