It was horrifying to behold. She was a perfectly nice girl whose world was fallen apart in front of her while her new friend and boyfriend try to get in each other's pants.
I'll give Korra her due cause she put the brakes on it when shit started falling apart around Asami, but Mako was despicable. He didn't need to stick with her out of some sense of duty, just be fucking honest with both himself and her about not knowing what the fuck he wants.
Asami comes out looking like a naive idiot, Korra, like an insensitive idiot more than willing to betray her friend for a douche, and Mako, like a fucking douche.
Tenzin's wife takes the prize for horrifying life advice that prioritises 'getting yours' over any sort of respect for common decency or boundaries. Who the fuck even wrote those lines!?
Jace Edwards
For how much pandering they gave to make her good it would have been such a better character moment for her to be evil and have to win back the groups trust over season 2. I guess that was to much like Zuko though.
Alexander Wright
But it gets even worse than the removing of any sort of spiritual elements from a series that was entirely about spirituality. The writers decided that modernization, for some reason, had to be a problem in Korra's world. In a world where magic kung fu can sculpt, build, create, and destroy more effectively and efficiently than any machine, someone decided that machines were necessary. Probably that Varak guy. Did you all think he was gay? I was pretty sure he was gay. Still think he is, just a little bit. See when you sit down to write a story, you have to keep in mind that the conflict has to encourage characters to change. It can't only be a physical change, neither. A story about a kid who turns blue by the end isn't exciting. The conflict has to mirror an existing condition or struggle that characters have to either overcome or adapt to and accept. The writers of Korra basically portrayed the modernization of the world as a fundamentally good thing. Bending was bad now, for some reason. I think some guy said it was. Some guy in a mask. Looked kind of like the Guy Fawkes mask, too come to think of it. Like he was upset that benders weren't equal to everyone else? But benders were shown to exist at all levels of a society, from simple laborers to all powerful emperors. It sounded like the writers were trying to parallel real world social movements, but it doesn't really work with magic kung fu.
Any way, the writers decided that bending was bad because everyone couldn't do it. So the way to fix it would be to find a way to unlock everyone's potential for bending, right? It had already been established that people can learn bending from magic ground sloths and other things. Wouldn't it be cool if Korra, a non-spiritual character, was forced to become spiritual, and in that way parallel the marriage of progress and culture? The writers didn't think so. They wanted a big robot fight.
Strong Female Villain Character = Ho Shi Min + Bruce Lee + tits and Elsa hair
Jackson White
Avatar was never deeply spiritual, no matter how hard it pretended to be both. Talking about spirituality doesn't make shit spiritual.
Jason Watson
They fucked up the Anti-Avatar concept so much that it's not even funny.
Why?
Well, here's how I would have done it:
A long time ago, one Avatar got it in their mind that in order to bring peace to the world, they had to rule with an iron fist. They where almost successful in taking over the entire world, but a group of powerful benders barley managed to seal this evil avatar away by turning them into glass/jade/rock/whatever. The avatar abilities reincarnated, and the cycle continued. However, in Korra's age, this evil avatar has been awakened, and wants to unite the world once again and reclaim their throne.
What we got: I guess Korra's uncle wanted to be the evil avatar because... reasons... oh, also, here are some earth shattering retcons that dont even make sense if you are a long time viewer, but hey you got to see the first avatar right? Oh, also, erm... now Korra is alone and isolated... because she got hit like... super duper hard... like, really hard guys. Oh, also, um... evolution apparently exists in the Avatar Universe... in a world with souls and spirits, evolution exists... don't worry, the next season is way worse.
