Category: Avatar / Airbender / Korra

So I’ve been whining about the sequel to Nick’s “Avatar: The Last Airbender” for as long as there have been rumors of it. AtLA was such an incredibly fine animated series that it seemed impossible that, even reuniting the same creating team, a sequel could possibly work, or live up to the original.

And, having now watched the first two episodes of said sequel … I’m not sure it will reach that level of success. But I’m overall liking what I’m seeing.

The creators — creators Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko — have wisely not simply recycled the original, or simply picked up after the original story finished.  While that robs them of a full cast of (mostly) beloved characters, it also gives them a chance to shake things up.

Instead, it’s now 70 years later, and the world is at peace — more or less.  Avatar Aang and Fire Lord Zuko founded Republic City as a place where all the peoples of the world could join together. Peace, prosperity, and a fair amount of technical advancement ensue.

But all is not well in Republic City.  Amidst its Roaring ’20s Chinatown atmosphere, crime stalks the citizenry. Non-bending citizens (folks who can’t wield one of the four elemental magics) have a growing movement to seek equality.  Bureaucracy, rules, and regulations have grown. “Balance” has been lost, Aang is passed, and the next Avatar …

… is an impulsive, impatient, talented, un-nuanced late-teens girl who is tired of sitting down with the Southern Water Tribe in protective seclusion, learning the bending magic needed to become the next Avatar.

Korra’s narrative path is very different from Aang in a variety of ways. While he started off as a kid (12 going on 9) with air-bending powers, running from the responsibility of being the Avatar, Korra is 17 and embraces (without really understanding) her new role; she’s also skilled in all bending except using air.

And while Aang started from Day 1 as “The Fugitive,” fleeing the Fire Nation while desperately seeking training, Korra starts from Day 1 as “The Princess in Waiting,” impatiently wanting the chance to fulfill her destiny and make things right, while starting from an apparent position of power.  Apparent, because within the first episode she’s already ticked off the local police and the local crime gangs in Republic City, while the whole social structure  that has always revered benders (especially the Avatar) is frayed and coming undone.

And while Aang was busy looking for teachers in the different types of bending, Korra figures she’s already gotten things figured out, air bending or no, and is instead getting involved in professional bending sports, much to the chagrin of her current teacher, the stodgy Air Master Tenzin (the son of Aang and Katara).  In this new world, the magic of bending is becoming mundane, which may be another reason it’s losing its respect among some of the populace.

The sports aspect raises another interesting contrast between the first series and this.  Aang hooked up with Katara and Sokka from the first episode, giving him (and the viewers) a variety of characters to relate to, favor, and watch the interplay of.  So far in LoK, Korra is the sole star of the show, and while she’s obtained some backup peers among her sports team mates (including a likely love interest), there’s not yet a lot of chemistry or interesting interrelationships.  That’s a potential weakness that I hope will get ironed out, since Korra is not always the most sympathetic or intriguing individual in the world (“stubborn teen who means well but tends to blunt-force her way into trouble” can lead to as many eye-rolls as cheers).

Some personal ties back to the original series have already been laid out, and doubtless we’ll get more (perhaps straining the sense of credulity, but a sequel demands such).  We see Katara, elderly but still alive, living among the Southern Water Tribe. Tenzin, as mentioned, is one of her children with Aang.  Toph’s daughter is the chief of police in Republic City.  And, of course, a massive statue of Aang stands in the city’s bay, watching over things with an uncharacteristic stolidness.

(There’s also a brief tease reference to the Big Mystery at the end of the original series, the fate of Zuko’s mother. [Shakes fist.])

The animation in the first two episodes is lovely, surpassing even that of the original.  The setting is also rich and clearly thought out — the lands (esp. Republic City) have gone from largely rural / medieval with low-tech conventional (Asian-themed) cities, to something more early Twentieth Century, complete with automobiles and airships, radios and cameras with flash bulbs. Bending comes off, in that setting, less as magic and more as a super-power — and as technology advances and bending both engenders resentment and becomes less “special,” to what degree does being the Avatar (master of all four elements) start to be come irrelevant?

(The resentment against benders lording their status over the general populace is clearly a major plotline, complete with a protest movement led by a masked figure who clearly has Ulterior Motives.  Speculation as to who that person might be or might be related to abounds in our household.)

The shift of the series from tween to teen protagonists is both clever and telling.  It allows the creators to tell more sophisticated stories, and it parallels the aging of the original Nick audience from the first series.  Unlike the “Village/City of the Week” motif of AtLA, there’s plenty for Korra to do and explore just in Republic City (though I assume we’ll see more of the world eventually); one challenge will be striking a similar balance of stand-alone vs. “arc” episodes in that situation.

Though Korra is a very different character than Aang, starting in a very different place, there are some fundamental similarities between them (aside from the occasional desire to punch them in the face) that bring the two series together. Both characters are faced with a need to figure out what being the Avatar means, beyond simple magical mastery, and how they will make the role (not just the title) their own.  In some ways, Aang had the advantage over Korra — coming (fleeing) from a meditative tradition, he had some sense of “balance” as a goal.  Korra seems to have no such sense (and the thought of her in the Avatar state is as horrifying as it seems currently improbable).

As well, like Aang, Korra faces a world that needs that “balance” restored — but not in an “easy” external war of the Fire Nation against everyone else, but in internal war of social harmony, and of coexistence between benders and non-benders alike.  In some ways it’s a much greater challenge, since there’s not an obvious bogey-man to fight against, a clear threat wearing distinctive costumes (Ulterior Motive Guy notwithstanding).  The world has changed more in the last 70 years than, it seems, for thousands of years before it, and Korra’s job has become that much more complex than Aang’s (even if she understood what it meant).

And that’s all after just two episodes. There’s room for a lot of growth in different directions — other companions / friends / peers, enemies both sympathetic and un-, nuances to the current world that aren’t yet obvious, and ties to characters and magic from the past.  If the series isn’t quite “there” yet, it’s also only two episodes old, with a lot of prospects for the rest of the season and beyond.  I would be a lot more critical and concerned if DiMartino and Konietzko weren’t leading up this effort; as they are, I’m pretty optimistic about its future.