thinking about how korra is the last avatar of wan's era and the first avatar of her era
and thinking about how the southern air temple sanctuary avatar statue spiral always would've been completed with korra in the center of it, the 183rd avatar
and thinking about how the temple signals as though it was always destined to be this way, that korra was always meant to be the inflection point of eras, and how she heralded the world down this path forged all by herself through her sheer power and spirit, bridging the worlds and forever changing its landscape. she did that! she both opened the old portals and created a new portal in the first 21 years of her life, in opposite of her predecessor 10,000 years ago, and she brought back the air nation despite her tumultuous heart, and she sacrificed so much of herself to ensure their survival. she is so full of love and compassion and care and she has given so much of herself to the world. and she is the starting point for the the new avatars after her and there is so much that she alone can give them
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sorry sometimes i think about mako and my heart hurts so much. this kid raised himself and his brother on the streets in homelessness and utter poverty from eight through fifteen, promptly after seeing the violent death of his mother and father. he turned to the triple threats because they couldn't survive as a pair of wretched kids without any adult support, and the environment forced him to turn into the exact character that killed his parents in a terrible twist of irony. and after sheer-fucking-luck hits and they aren't homeless anymore, their livelihood wavers on the outcome of what's a literally game to everyone but them; and after things are finally starting to look up and their team is going places and things just might be okay, his gradually stabilizing world unceremoniously expands and everything goes to shit.
and the city that chewed him up and spat him back out, ruined him as a child and took away his ability to stay afloat in a true sense of normalcy as an adult — when it's on the verge of destruction and falling to pieces before his eyes, he gives himself to save it with the full expectation to die. he went from the kid who didn't and couldn't care about anything outside of himself and his brother, to finding redemption for his younger self in his police work despite its injustice against him, to willingly sacrificing himself to a world that had never loved him.
he's a desperate people pleaser, socially and emotionally stunted for the adult he had to be as a kid, unable to navigate interpersonal relationships easily yet still trying his damned hardest. he's intensely and entirely devoted to the things that matter to him and for so long it was only him, bolin, and ensuring their survival — yet by the end, that devotion has expanded to protecting the rest of the world. he starts out entirely self-reliant and ends in trusting the people he cares about to know their own needs, to be able to take care of themselves, to be okay without him despite having spent so much of his life defined by his role in others' well-being.
just. what the fuck i'm such a big fan of this fictional guy and i'm unashamed about it at this point. also let him cry please (if you won't i'll do it i'll let him cry)
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fics where the gaang kids have emotional maturity is so fucking ew
like youre telling me that the senior citizens drama that carried the show (lin and tenzin, lin and suyin, bumi tenzin and kya) is all comprised of people who went "ah yes all of us suffer in our unique way and forms, and our issues with each other are a consequence of expectations and a weird childhood" ????
absolutely no sir
i need bumi at age 68 going like "wow tenzin youre so fucking lucky" while tenzin is still reeling with how his childhood being sacrificed was for nothing, and lin, suyin and tenzin being jealous of bumi and kya for stepping out of their family's shadow while bumi and kya literally have their dad's literal followers not know they existed (and they're tenzins ELDER siblings)
all of them are fucking idiots with 0 ounce of emotional maturity (yes, even lin and kya. they can have 0.1 emotional maturity as a treat) and dont understand each other
izumi can watch on with a smoothie in hand while she's like "goddammit iroh leave the UF already my son"
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Sure we can rag on Bolin for not realising he joined the Earth Kingdom equivalent of the Nazi party and call him an idiot for it (deserved) but honestly I can't really fault him for it?
Like the ostrich effect is a thing and we are watching it in full effect here. We've seen that Bolin is a character that deals very poorly with conflict. Like it's super obvious he'd avoid standing up to Kuvira as much as he could.
One of Bolin's biggest hurdles as a character is that he is looking for a purpose, the rest of team Avatar having 'found themselves'. So it's not out of character for him to join Kuvira.
I feel like he's also compensating for the loss of Korra, who was in recovery at the time by following Kuvira.
It's very obvious that Korra had a huge impact on Bolin's life, as she did with all of Team Avatar. But Bolin had definetly attached himself very strongly to her. He's been following Mako around his entire life, been a follower for most of his life. And then his first real friendship outside of family follows a similar pattern.
Korra is like the perfect character for Bolin to project his weird codependency thing onto. She's an effortless leader, very forceful, decisive and straightforward. Someone who he can easily listen to and carve out a path he can follow. And following the Avatar around allows him to do something worthwile and good. To actually help. With the added benefit that it gets him people's approval, something he so clearly desperately needs and craves.
Then Korra becomes so injured that she has to be placed in physical therapy for an indeterminate ampunt of time.
So Bolin projects that need and codependency on someone else. Kuvira. In his argument with Mako he states it clear as day: 'I mean, Kuvira is basically just like Korra. She might seem hard to deal with, but just because she's so passionate and believes in what she's doing.'
He gets to continue doing good and making people like him while under very clear orders he can follow.
I mean, this boy is traumatised. Clearly, Mako took the brunt of the horrors of their childhood, but it would be incredibly stupid to say that Bolin isn't fucked up as well. Clearly in a different way but fucked up nonetheless. I think this codependency thing is something both brothers benefitted from as kids but that's a conversation for another day.
And the events of the first three books are also traumatic?
Like he's just been part of a civil war/end of the world so excuse him for hoping to catch a break. I will once again refer you to the ostrich effect. Another war breaking out is probably like worst case scenario in his mind.
I feel like for him, if he opens his eyes to what Kuvira is doing is accepting that there is once again a 'big conflict' in his life. And that his loved ones are once again in danger. And worse, that he's contributed to it.
I can also see it all being a case of 'well ive waded neck deep into this swamp, now i gotta see this through'. Like he's sunk so much time and energy into this cause, it can't be all wrong, right?
Sure, ego is probably a big part of his behaviour. Everyone is telling him that Kuvira is bad and that automatically puts up the defences. Bit I can see how these warnings feel like a direct personal attack at Bolin himself. He was also incredibly isolated from most of his friends when serving Kuvira. Other than Zhu Li and Varrick, who aren't exactly peers.
So he's lonely on a train most of his time and when he does reuinte with his loved ones they start criticising his life choices . I can see him getting defensive and automatically resistant to critisism.
And Kuvira is also shown to be very good at emotuonal manipulation and threats and stuff. And Bolin, a chronic people pleaser whith a lot of trauma is, like, the perfect victim for those shenanigans. Bolin is canonically bad at reading situations that are detrimental to him (look at the entirety of his relationship with Eska)
You know, sure, he's an idiot for staying with her as long as he did. But it's not as black and white as a lot of people make it out to be?
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