The Legend of Korra (potential spoilers within)

[Mirby]

They won't pull the plug, don't worry. They've already paid for Book 4 and it's basically done anyways, too late for them now.

[Abadoss]

True. There's still ways that Nick could screw them if they wanted to be malevolent.

Anyway, I also had a thought. Between Aang and Korra, Korra gets beaten and bloodied up way way more in her three seasons than Aang ever did in his three seasons.

[Pavos]

Wow, I didn't expect such an emotional ending. This season felt a lot like TLA in my opinion, but more mature - more emotional. Great season

[Mirby]

so the series finale is out in the wild. I rather enjoyed it.

also korrasami is canon now so yay. though a lot of makorra shippers are quite furious about it haha

[AngelCityOutlaw]

So I finally got around to watching the remainder of book 4 and my god....I loved the series - it was fun. But the ending sucked miserably and the motivation of the villain was stupid as was a problem in all but book 3. I love the series but....just some things I can't get over.

Breakdown rant/thoughts on each season.

1: Amon was a fantastic villain. Up until they gave him a ridiculous backstory. Basically "I hate my father who just wants me to be a tool of revenge!" So you ran away to republic city and....did what he wanted anyway? You also didn't realize Tarrlok was your own damn brother!? You didn't realize this councilman was your own brother despite having the same name, clearly being of water-tribe origin and you seemed like a guy who knew what was going on politically in republic city. What!? The idea that he was an angry non-bender whose family was murdered by a fire-bender was an infinitely more interesting and convincing story.

2. By far the weakest of the series and the only really good thing to come of it was Varrick, who was easily the most entertaining character of the series. Unalaq...dude wtf? I get that the theme here is religious fundamentalism and he felt like bringing the human and spirit worlds together was the thing that needed to happen, but I still don't get his reasons for merging with a spirit he full well knew was evil. He really came across as one of those "I'm evil for the sake of being nefariously evil" type of cookie-cutter villains rather than "I'm just misunderstood, but my cause is just and whether or not it's bad depends on your perspective". After Korra defeats him...she sticks with the genius idea of leaving the spirit portals open (like her uncle wanted) which does nothing but cause massive problems for humanity for the remainder of the series which could have been avoided if she would've just closed the damn portals. Don't get me started on the utter nonsense that was the final showdown of book 2 either, I still don't get just wtf happened there.

3. Easily the absolute best of the series. Immaculate work all around. It is also the only book in which the villain's motivation is clear and somewhat logically sound. Zaheer hates the fact that people have to live under authority and wants them to be free of that. In short, anarchy. He sticks with this belief throughout the series. The pacing here was perfect, the character development of Korra and Bolin was great as was the relationship strengthening between Lin and Su. Not to mention it was much more intense than any of the other seasons and touched on seriously dark subject matter. It also utilized bending in logical ways that the Avatar series previously neglected. Like, holy crap, we FINALLY realized that airbending could be used to kill a person by removing the air from their lungs etc. All around, epic season and the way the whole series should have been.

4. Much like 1 and 2, starts out strong and just botches the landing toward the end. Not to mention the pacing was utter garbage once again. We spend literally half the season on the Avatar getting her mojo back, Toph shows up just for the sake of having Toph and we never get anything close to a clear resolution on what was up with the evil Korra spirit. First it's implied it's all in her head, but the spirit dog acknowledges its existence. After that, it's never explained as just what it was. A reflection of Kuvira in Korra? Maybe, but was it a separate entity, in Korra's mind or just...just what the hell was going on here? Kuvira's motivation was terrible as well. "I'm an orphan and mad that I don't get the love and attention I want, plus I hate monarchy so I'm going to form an empire with concentration camps and take over everything!" Yeah...that makes a ton of sense. Also, the ending with Korra and Asami is the hot topic of debate and I'm personally not convinced that it was anything else than caving to the shippers. You know who would've been better for her to wind up with in the end? How about nobody? How about, she remains this super strong, "I walk to my own beat" independent badass that she was supposed to be? Not to mention that Korrasami becoming official just generates controversy to distract that the villain's motivation was totally stupid, a spirit portal was opened because reasons and Wu decides not to be King anymore.

So here is the punchline to the series. Wu decides not to be king and instead form a democracy, because that's as we all know "better" inherently. Yeah, way to spit in the face of "there can be no utopia", it's only the theme of the whole damn series. Also, what's your plan, Wu? Just walk into what is still the Earth Empire which is logically under the rule of someone to take Kuvira's place and the large remnants of the empire are still in control and no doubt at war with rebel factions still and say "Wait guys, no. We're gonna be a republic now!" Way to keep feeding the war machine. Where is the Avatar to prevent all of this you ask? Why, the same place the plot went - taking a vacation in spirit land with her new girlfriend while shippers argue on the internet about who is or isn't homophobic based on their thoughts on Korra being paired with Asami.

The Earth Empire remains in power with rebels still scattered about and boy-king has the genius idea to overthrow it and install democracy. It's complete anarchy and discord and the red lotus is still out there.

Zaheer has won.

Edited December 28, 2014 by AngelCityOutlaw