#except they explicitly avoid blaming or framing them negatively

[likeadragonfruit]

Linking these previous discussions because they’re really good, but what I wanted to say doesn’t quite fit a reblog.

I do have to say a major issue with Korra is the lack of interiority afforded her. Back in book 1 of ATLA when Zuko is treating his crew like shit, rather than just leaving at that, we get backstory explaining why he’s acting like that and what’s driving him. (He’s desperate to go home and between his trauma and his father’s awful lessons, he lashes out and tries to intimidate them like Ozai would). 

But I feel like Korra in book 2 was a prime opportunity to dig deeper, especially with the early part of the season focused on Korra in the Southern Water Tribe, and added the conflict with her parents (primarily Tonraq) and Tenzin.

But during that time, do we get someone who could give insight into Korra’s past? No. When Korra vents about why she’s upset to other characters, do we get a chance to dig at what’s really behind it? No.

I think the most telling exchange, and maybe even most consequential, is the one between Korra and Senna in “Civil Wars, Part 1.”

Korra: You want to know what's been going on? I found out Dad's been lying to me my whole life. Unalaq told me everything; how Dad and Tenzin kept me trapped down here while I trained; how Dad got banished from the North.

Senna: So, the truth is out.

Korra: You knew? And you never said anything.

Senna: We were trying to keep our family together, to give you a normal childhood.

Korra: I never wanted a normal childhood. All I ever wanted to be was the Avatar. But everyone keeps holding me back, even my own parents! Unalaq's the only one who believes in me.

Senna: That's not true, Korra.

The takeaways I got from this are:

Before the Red Lotus retcon, the decision to have Korra kept and largely restricted to the White Lotus compound was supposed to be an attempt at giving Korra an ordinary life. (To let her train but still be close to home?) 

But Korra insists she that all she ever wanted to be was the Avatar.

For the whole White Lotus compound thing, if the goal was to “give Korra an ordinary life,” then not only did it fail, but it was doomed to failure. Aang’s flashback in “The Storm” showed how being known as the Avatar as a child can negatively affect their relationships. But taking her away from other kids and her family for most of the time to train under distant coaches (there’s no warmth in Korra and the Lotus’ relationships there was with like Aang and Gyatso) was never going to help. (And this before getting into the reading of Korra as the OWL’s living weapon in training.)

As for Korra always wanting to be the Avatar, that makes sense for 4-5 year-old Korra, for whom finding out she was the Avatar would be like finding out you’re a superhero. But for 17 year-old Korra, why is that “all she ever wanted?” 

A natural follow up question is “what exactly does being the Avatar mean to her?” 

But then there’s a third question to ask: “what were the intended answers for the previous two questions?” And I’m not sure what the official, intended answers to those questions was.

It’s hard to say when Korra quickly forgives her parents and Tenzin and all of this gets swept under the rug in favor of opposing Unalaq and the Water Tribe Civil War.