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There comes a time in everyone’s life when they must leave the comfort of home and face the world on their own, armed with only the beliefs they’ve built up over the years. It’s an exciting opportunity to gain new experiences and meet different people, however, they soon discover that this next stage of life is not what they expected it to be. Suddenly, the values they hold dearly are wrong, some lifestyles are considered unthinkable, and the lengths strangers will go to to get their view across is frightening. It’s overwhelming for anyone to grow up, even if that person is the almighty avatar. Luckily, Korra’s journey to maturity is the perfect guide to thriving in this stage of life.
Who Exactly Is Korra?
Nickelodeon’s The Legend of Korra takes place 70 years after the events (( Nick Animation )) of Avatar: The Last Airbender, following Korra, Aang’s successor in the avatar cycle. Her whole life, Korra had been obsessed with the idea of being the avatar, training hard to master the elements at her isolated home in the Southern Water Tribe.
At just 17 years old, Korra felt ready to introduce herself to Republic City and do whatever she could to protect the people living there. However, the people weren’t ready for an avatar as bold and reckless as herself, and that was only the first of many challenging obstacles Korra would have to overcome.
Over the course of the series, Korra faces a variety of ideas that oppose the ones she formed while training in isolation. But through strenuous trial and error, Korra provides a great example for how others her age can handle new ideas and incorporate them into their lives without compromising their core beliefs.
Lesson One: The Dangers Of Ignoring Ideas
Ever since she was a little girl, the idea of becoming the most powerful bender in the world has excited Korra. The ability to bend all four elements was how she defined the avatar. Since she excelled at water, earth, and firebending, she already assumed that she was great as the avatar. When she entered Republic City, she couldn’t wait to lock up criminals and show off her physical prowess, but she soon learned that not everyone was as fond of bending as she was.
The Legend of Korra displayed its ability to challenge mindsets as early as the first episode when Korra came across a supporter of a group called the Equalists. Led by the masked man Amon, the Equalists believed in making non-benders as respected and powerful as benders by ending their glorification and restraining their abilities. But for someone whose greatest love was bending, Korra didn’t know how to handle an idea that invalidated so much of her life.
The avatar spent the majority of the season taking down this threat, and while she was successful, she lumped the defeat of their beliefs into the defeat of Amon. Korra was so afraid of her identity and outlook being “wrong” that she refused to listen to his ideas, or rather the ideas of many citizens in Republic City. This leads to her perspective remaining stagnant as her physical strength continues growing.
While Korra’s reaction to the Equalists was poor at handling new ideas, her reaction was all too real. When people are faced with any form of a threat, their natural responses are fear and aggression. However, this type of reaction can earn pushback from outsiders as it did for Korra, as her continuous and brash attacks at Amon and his ideas caused the citizens of Republic City to see her as a tyrant. Through this first season, Legend of Korra illustrates how blatantly rejecting ideas only paints one as the bad guy and prevents them from succeeding in the world.
Lesson Two: Opening Up To New Ideas
Aside from fighting villains threatening the safety of the world, another part of the avatar’s duty is to master all four elements. At the start of The Legend of Korra, Korra had water, earth, and fire bending down with only air to go. Her hopes for mastering it quickly were high, but it proved to be more difficult than she had thought. The element of air focuses on evasion and defense, and it clashes with Korra’s headstrong attitude.
When Korra punched her way through any situation possible, the nature of the airbending directly contradicted that approach, leaving her unsure of what to do. Unlike the issue with the Equalists, this wasn’t an idea she could ignore due to a lack of understanding. The more Korra tried to force her way through basic airbending lessons, the further she got from achieving the peaceful state of mind required to use the element.
By setting her expectations too high for herself, she set herself up for failure and closed herself off from airbending altogether when those expectations were not met. It wasn’t until Amon takes her bending away and places her at her lowest moment. There, she finally opens herself up to the idea of airbending, recognizing its importance and the success it could have given her with the Equalists had she been patient.
Korra began the series stuck in her way, only seeing bending worthy as an offensive asset. But as the season goes on, she slowly begins to realize its value as an evasive strategy to help her in pro-bending matches and eventually uses it to defeat Amon. Looking back, she saw that being closed off was more detrimental than it was an admirable show of strength. As difficult as it was to swallow her pride, this was the first step to her growth as the series continued. All it took for this stubborn avatar was the desire to change in the first place.
Lesson Three: Being Open And Grounded
Season two of The Legend of Korra begins with troubles between spirits and humans as Harmonic Convergence approaches and brings their worlds closer together. The most in touch Korra had ever been with her spiritual side was when she spoke to her past life, Aang, at the end of the first season. But now the spirits were causing unrest, she saw it as the perfect time to fulfill her role as the bridge between the physical and spirit worlds. In the previous season, Korra opened herself up to airbending and saw how valuable it was to listen to new ideas. Now officially on her journey of growth, she’s more eager than ever to learn–perhaps too eager.
One fortune Korra had that Aang never did was the plethora of bending masters willing to mentor her so she could be a great avatar. After learning that her uncle and chief of the Northern Water Tribe, Unalaq, had an understanding of the spirit like no other, she saw him as the perfect candidate to teach her. Despite warnings from her father and her airbending master about his character, Korra was fixated on doing what she could to speed up her growth as an avatar. Unalaq gladly took her under his wing, but not for the reason Korra thought. The chief had plans of his own and it involved bringing an end to the avatar. Luckily, Korra was able to get herself out of that situation, but not without being used as his pawn and disappoints herself for being so naive.
As harmful as it was for Korra to be closed off to new ideas in the first season, the total of 180 her outlook took in this season was just as harmful. Where Korra opposed Amon and therefore his ideas, she now accepted Unalaq’s ideas and Unalaq himself as a result. Her failure to separate the ideas from the individual led to her continuously being hurt. However, The Legend of Korra used those growing pains to communicate the vital balance she must have between being open to new ideas and grounding herself in existing beliefs to succeed.
Lesson Four: Finding Personal Takeaways
After his betrayal, Korra began treating Unalaq as the villain he was, vowing to never allow his plan of freeing Vaatu, the spirit of darkness, come to fruition. Knowing the consequences of her past approaches to villains, it was time to switch her mindset. Rather than viewing the villains and their ideas as a singular entity to either be defeated or accepted, she would view the two as separate and salvage what good she could from their beliefs.
The world Unalaq fought for was one where the physical and spirit worlds are merged together by opening the portals located at the North and South poles. When Korra took some trips of her own into the spiritual realm, she was able to learn about the origins of the avatar cycle. Wan, the first avatar, lived in a world where spirits and humans roamed the same lands, but he ended up closing the portals since the two refused to get along.
However, when Korra later saw the spirit world for herself, she saw its beauty and people such as Iroh living peacefully with the spirits and saw the special connection they share. While Unalaq was indeed an evil man, beneath the malice Korra recognized an idea that could change the world for the better and redefine the role of the avatar. Rather than acting as a bridge between the physical and spiritual worlds, Korra decides that both worlds would be better off as ones like they originally were.
It can be difficult to separate ideas from the people who have them, but once you look past the biases about a specific person, you are free to do whatever you want with that person’s ideas. The Legend of Korra shows viewers how limiting it is to never learn from others, even if that person is the enemy, and that combining personal beliefs with opposing ones can lead to so many new possibilities.
Lesson Five: Being The Radical
So far, Korra’s struggles have stemmed from new points of view, largely coming from villains that challenged her beliefs. Now, in The Legend of Korra‘s third season, it was her turn to play the part of radical. Because of her decision to keep the spirit portals open, spirits overran the world and mysterious vines overtook Republic City, invading citizens’ homes and destroying property. The people of the city were not happy about this development and even less happy with Korra herself.
Korra is far from the stubborn girl she once was, and it was time for her to share the lessons that helped shape her with the rest of the world. However, her 8% approval rating made it difficult to get people to listen to her. With the people of Republic City forced to cope with a change they never asked for, they reacted with the same closed-off attitude Korra held towards the Equalists when she entered Republic City. But Korra knew that her duty to help the world as the avatar was not the same as merely pleasing the world, and sometimes things had to change to get better.
There are times when more than a few people turn against an individual, and that can be quite overwhelming. However, if that individual is certain that their beliefs are genuine, the opposition will eventually come around. Korra knew her decision to keep the portals open was the right one and she refused to exhaust herself by compromising her beliefs when other matters needed her attention. While it may look like she is still the same stubborn girl, Korra better understood the people who were against her this time around and wanted to help them process this sudden change in life.
Lesson Six: When Not To Listen
While Korra was busy being treated as a villain, the true villain of the season, Zaheer, gathered his allies in the background. Halfway through the season, Korra had her first encounter with him, but instead of preparing to fight him head-on, she decides on a new approach to deal with her opponent. Understanding what it was like to be misunderstood, she approaches Zaheer for a talk to see if she could resolve the matter peacefully. Though through that talk, she came to the conclusion that this was a villain who didn’t deserve to be listened to.
When she talked with Zaheer, Korra quickly learned that the two shared some common ground; they both believed that the Earth Kingdom’s government was corrupt and that the physical and spirit worlds needed to remain combined. However, that was as far as their likeness went. Zaheer kicks these ideas up a notch, explaining that a perfect world didn’t need any rulers or nations and was best left in its original state of disorder, where humans and spirits fend for themselves. Any good that could have been taken from Zaheer’s ideas was already realized by Korra. Her goal now was to make sure his ideal world–one where the avatar didn’t exist–would never see the light of day, and standing her ground in this matter proves to be her toughest battle yet.
Thanks to previous events in The Legend of Korra, Korra knew better than anyone how important it was to listen to the ideas of people who opposed her. But when it came to this specific villain, more harm than good would have come if she listened. Hearing someone out is not the same as accepting their ideas, and hearing too much of someone can begin to intoxicate one’s own beliefs. By knowing which ideas are truly harmful, they can be shut out before they have the chance to take effect, as Korra did with Zaheer.
Lesson Seven: Empathizing With Opponents
Fighting both poison and a powerful villain, Korra spent her entire fight against Zaheer on the verge of death. The strain she was under was so intense, she was still struggling with the impact three years after her fight. In Korra’s absence from her avatar duties, villains from her past haunted her as a new one she had yet to face gained power. Though she had grown so much, Korra still had more to learn from her past foes and she was determined not to let anyone hurt her like that again.
For the three years Korra was recovering, Kuvira was busy uniting the Earth Kingdom after the brief yet devastating chaos Zaheer created by killing the Earth Queen. She managed to do what even the monarchs failed to do, but did so with an authoritarian approach driven by an intense sense of duty to her nation. Though it was a place where all nations could unite, Republic City was built on Earth Kingdom land and Kuvira had it last on her list of cities to overtake. Unfortunately for her, Korra had now learned all she could from the villains of her past. After accepting her failures in confronting them, she was ready to end Kuvira’s tyrannical rampage.
Korra did her best to try and reason with Kuvira, but the tyrant wouldn’t have it and preferred to use force. It wasn’t the option she wanted to take, but Korra was willing to do whatever it took to get her closer to talking matters through with Kuvira, even if that had to be when they were bruised and barely conscious. According to The Legend of Korra‘s series finale, that was the exact state they were in thanks to their stubborn personalities. But it was the realization that they had many shared qualities that helped Korra finally understand her enemy.
Kuvira came to their battle armed with a highly destructive spirit cannon that ended up going haywire and nearly killed her. If it wasn’t for Korra’s avatar state, she would have died then and there, but the empathy Korra had for Kuvira wouldn’t allow that to happen. Korra recognized Kuvira for what she was at her core: a headstrong girl who desperately wanted to better the world, the same kind of girl Korra was back in the first episode.
A Rewarding End
Legend of Korra introduces viewers to a deeply flawed protagonist who would have to suffer through so much turmoil if she ever wanted to change. Most people walk into the real world as rash and naive, just as Korra did upon entering Republic City. She was at a stage in her life where she needed to accept that not everyone was going to think the same way as her, and being the avatar only stressed the importance of learning how to handle these people even more. Through a long process of trial and error, Korra faced ideas that opposed her own in whatever way she saw best, her tactics constantly maturing as she overcame each obstacle.
By the series’ end, Korra realizes that the only way she could peacefully exist with everyone around her was by improving upon the good in their ideas and empathizing with the flaws in their character. The process was painful, but Korra’s transformation to becoming a great avatar serves as the perfect guide to any teen or young adult working to achieve the same growth in their own lives.
