AVATAR: UNPOPULAR OPINIONS THREAD.

A thread where Unpopular/personal opinions on the Avatar: The last airbender/ Legend of korra franchise can be shared and discussed.

I'll start, kuvira was an anti-climatic villain and unalaq was better.

I’m only now getting into TLOK so majority of my opinions only apply to A:TLA.

- Mai is the worst Avatar: TLA character (at least for the amount of screen time she got).

- The only good “ships” are Aang/Katara and Sokka/Suki. I don't despise Katara/Zuko, but I don’t prefer it to Aang/Katara.

- Katara is arguably the best female character in the show. I could only see her possibly behind Azula.

As I think of more I’ll add them.

Nahh, a lot of people just don't understand her, I still find her more interesting than Suki even though I like both of them

Book 1 of ATLA is my second least favorite season overall despite having some of my favorite episodes and having an awesome finale. I think I like the episodes in Book 1 ATLA better (The Storm, The Blue Spirit, The Siege of the North Parts 1-2) than Book 4 of Korra, but I think if I were to binge a whole season straight, I would choose Book 4 of Korra instead. I still love it though so don't get me wrong.

I also always related to Korra way more than I related to Aang. She's one of my favorite characters.

The only two couples I really ship are Sokka/Suki and Korrasami. Although the latter I only like so much b/c I think they're both hot .

Hmm... I'll start with:

• Kuvira and Azula are the 2 best villains in the whole Avatar franchise.
• LoK Book 4 is second only to ATLA Book 3.
• LoK Book 2 is the worst in the franchise.
• Korra is the least likeable character in her iteration of Team Avatar.

I think that's it for the moment.

That’s cool. It’s not that I don’t understand her, I just don’t really like her. I don‘t really care for her as character on her own, and I practically despise Zuko and Mai’s relationship. I think most of my resentment towards her comes from my (almost) hatred of Zuko/Mai.

I would have liked to see Asami as a villain. I believe it was how the creators originally intended her to be. It would have been really neat to see the dynamic in the group change with her as a Catwoman type. Like someone who walks on the line, not fully evil but not perfectly good. I think we would have gotten more out of her character. She is still great, this would have just been really fun too see imo.

Lol, yeah, that's always the case for Mai Haters, maiko came out of the blue but they worked their way to solidify and give meaning to the relationship. I think The dislike just comes from people opinions On the Type of relationship zuko should be in.

@chloros said:

I would have liked to see Asami as a villain. I believe it was how the creators originally intended her to be. It would have been really neat to see the dynamic in the group change with her as a Catwoman type. Like someone who walks on the line, not fully evil but not perfectly good. I think we would have gotten more out of her character. She is still great, this would have just been really fun too see imo.

Say it louder!!!!, seconded.

@indomitableregal:

Korra is the least likeable character in her iteration of Team Avatar.

I agree with this but she's also the best, I feel it's because she got so much more development than the others so it's hard to dislike her more than the rest. Even The only person who had little personality which is Bolin IMO Was above her for me, tenzin too if we're counting all members.

@bigdreamer48:

The only two couples I really ship are Sokka/Suki and Korrasami. Although the latter I only like so much b/c I think they're both hot .

Sukka was nice, and doesn't everyone like korrasami bcoz they are good looking?, lol, cuz they barely got any development ( excluding the comics), I don't think the latter is unpopular, lol.

I wish the second season of Avatar was when the ATLA characters were older instead of flashbacks in LOK.

@chloros:

Asami as an anti-hero could be quite interesting.

I don't think that's an unpopular opinion.

• ATLA is overrated to all hell and is not better than Korra
• ATLA have worse characters than Korra with a few exception (Zuko, Toph, Azula)
• Iroh is worse than people give him credit for
• Korra would beat Kyoshi in a fight
• Mako would beat Zuko in a fight

I wouldn't want to turn this thread into a VS debate, but I have to say I find the non-benders' ability in combat to be very underappreciated compared to that of benders. I always thought the show tried to push the idea that a handful of these fighters were world class threats themselves, and had quite a few advantages themselves over these innately gifted individuals, but that's just me I guess, heh.

Yeah, for me, Zuko simply should have not been in a relationship at that point. He left his chance for a normal life in Back Sing Se.

Would smash Azula before Ty Lee

Not sure which opinions are popular or not, but here we go:

-Katara is my favorite Team Avatar character from the OG series (and favorite female character overall) and Mako’s my favorite for TLOK Team Avatar so far.

-Aang is more talented than Korra but she’s got better training.

-Zuko wasn’t as interesting as Toph.

-Bolin is the worst Team Avatar character.

Here are mine:

- Korra had to deal with more dangerous and more nuanced threats than Aang. Imo she’s a more accomplished and powerful Avatar

- I really dislike bolin and asami

- Toph is majorly hindered by her blindness. I couldn’t imagine her beating an air bender, competent water bender, or earth bender like Kuivra

This is factually wrong. Korra is more talented. Especially in the elements that isn't air.

The Last Airbender

• Toph is the least good main character.
• Katara should have apologized to Sokka on-screen for the Southern Raiders insult
• Maiko was introduced badly, but out of all the canon ships, it served its narrative purpose the best.
• Iroh did have character development, from a passive old man who only truly cares about his nephew being happy to an active participant in the war who cares about defeating the Fire Nation.
• Ozai's a pretty good supporting character. It's just that he's supporting everyone else's narrative excellently but has none of his own. He's exactly what the story and the other characters need him to be, and nothing else.
• Roku's the worst Avatar, actually.
• The show would not have benefited from the Book 4 ideas Aaron Ehasz has shared. I don't know how unpopular this is, but I see it pop up every so often, so I'm including it.

Legend of Korra

• Book 4 was the best one.
• Korrasami was adequately built up in the background. Not choreographed the way, say, Kataang was, but given Bryke had consistently shown themselves in both ATLA and LOK to be mostly incapable of writing a good romance story, it being in the background was a good thing.
• Mako started out a mediocre character and became good in the last book, Bolin started out a good character and became bad in Book 2, with no later season managing to turn him good again.
• Varrick should have stayed in Book 2. His complete lack of atonance, and the lack of acknowledgement from the other characters of his actions past the first time they saw him in Zhaofu, seriously hurt the show.
• As always, portraying Good vs Evil as something that needs Balance is completely ridiculous and also a misunderstanding of what the Yin-Yang symbolism means.
• Korra stopping the Spirit Beam from killing Kuvira was a far more satisfying conclusion to her character arc than Aang's fight with Ozai.

Comics

• Both "The Promise" and "The Search" are terrible and in no way would an adaptation of them have been better than LOK. Even Book 2 and its Dark Avatar nonsense were better than them.

• Roku and Kuruk both get a lot of undeserving hatred from the fandom. I'm glad Kuruk's life history was clarified in the novels.
• This generally isn't unpopular, but looking at this thread, I'd put it here. LoK Season 3 is the best(my favorite at least) among the four seasons.
• As @chloros already mentioned, Asami as an anti-hero would have been very good development for her character.

@aystarr: Eh, I've just seen a lot of people that don't like Korrasami as of late.

Edit: Also, I think the controversial part is that those are two of the few canon ships that I really like. (I also like Varrick and Zhu Li). Only other ship that I like that I can think of rn is Azula/Ty Lee.

This is a complete ATLA ship tier-list:

I found the LOK team avatar boring. Not the individual members per say but the team dynamic. They spend a lot of time apart and when they are together i just don’t find the connects all that interesting. I think this stems off of the early love triangle where every member of team avatar has dated another member. Mako is just boring as a character for most of the show and is given the most on screen interaction between other team avatar characters. Bolin has a lot of natural charisma and is around a lot but I feel like just can’t carry the team enough. Korra is a great character but part of her character was a pampered childhood and that means she’s not exactly the most charismatic which is fine, but the team is sorely lacking that connection imo. Asami was a cool character but other people have touched on how she became a side character (especially in book 3, I just don’t really remember her doing much beside the final scene with korra).

Speaking of asami, korrasami was fine. Just fine though, I love her and korra in the comics but I was just like meh at the final scene which felt like it was supposed to be huge.

(Sorry for the long rambling rant)

One that’s far less critical of the show is the opening scene of korra using earth and fire when she was young. Like how the hell did she even figure that stuff out? Do they get a lot of firebenders and earth benders in the South Pole who actually use their bending? She even does an earthbending stance like where the hell did she learn that? I don’t know why it bothers me so much but it does.

ATLA

• Ozai worked better narratively than all of the LOK villains bar Kuvira.
• This one isn't necessarily unpopular but Aang should've killed the Fire Lord. Not only was it better from a character standpoint but it would've saved us from the Lion Turtle bs.
• Hama deserved better
• I've never understood how Katara was "selfish" in The Painted Lady. Azula already knew about the invasion so it being potentially delayed by Katara wanting to help innocents didn't really matter.

LOK

• Korra should've never been a "coddled avatar". The only reason Bryke did it was to skip over the Avatar journey because they only had one season. Notice how the show actually gets better once she starts travelling around rather than being stuck in the mess that is Republic City.
• Tenzin was a far more compelling character than Korra until she actually gets her act together in Book 4.
• Amon and all the bloodbending hijinx of Season 1 were terrible.
• Season 2 should've stuck with the civil war plot. Korra being caught between the two tribes would've been a far more interesting conflict than fighting the personification of evil.
• We never should've gotten the backstory of the Avatar. Lowkey, part of the reason why people liked these episodes so much was because Korra wasn't in them.
• Korra leaving the spirit portals open makes no sense based on the Wan story to be quite honest. The Spirits were terrorising people.
• Katara should've had a bigger role in LOK. The first two seasons especially could've benefitted a lot with more of her presence.
• The Red Lotus (esp Zaheer) are incredibly overrated villains. Zaheer spouted crap and people ate it up.
• Book 4 was definitely the best book because it features best LOK villain Kuvira and developed Korra/Bolin.
• I didn't like Zaheer helping Korra through the trauma that he inflicted on her.
• The Avatar State felt pretty meaningless in this show. Practically every time Korra used it she still got her ass beat somehow.
• Nickelodeon gets too much of the blame for this show's flaws.

Also, ATLA's villain, Ozai, was way too gimmicky, uninspired, and lacked any nuance or depth. He also seemed like such a trivial threat. A really good fire bender whose fire gets bigger under Sozin's comet?

@byondeon: For you it may be.

As said in that image, it's impossible to argue against the list...

@byondeon: Except, it is possible to argue against. I’m not going to though, because, I like letting others have their opinions.

Edit: Punctuation error. :)

@indomitableregal: I can see Kuvira, but is Azula being the best villain really unpopular?

@quinlan58:

- in terms of character development, yes, personality wise it's zuko IMO.

Both "The Promise" and "The Search" are terrible and in no way would an adaptation of them have been better than LOK. Even Book 2 and its Dark Avatar nonsense were better than them.

you spoke volumes here. Like fr, I'm happy where the series ended , I think an animated movie or a trilogy would've been better.

- Bolin didn't become bad, he just became flat and lacked dimensions, he made jokes at the wrong time and they tried to make him funny everytime which didn't work , mako suffers the same thing , just broody till the end, They had so much potential and it still hurts me till this day. Even Lin and characters like varrick had far better development than them.

- katara didn't need to apologize lol, even though it hurt she said nothing but the truth and he had it coming lol.

@nathanthecynic:

She wasn't being selfish, ignore the stupid comments, people are just looking for something to hate on to join the bandwagon.

@co-boss: Nothing you said was unpopular, they're widely-acknowledge facts.

You mean the wan origin-story right?

1) I wish Asami got airbending during harmonic convergence

2) Katara and Toph are the most prodigious benders in the series due to mastering their elements in such a short time

3) Aang is the most overrated character in the verse and he often annoys me

Yes and no. He's broody until the end, but the way that's framed in the series changes, from being played completely straight to transforming him into the straight man of Wu's and his grandma's antics. That, and him addressing just how badly he handled everything in Books 1 and 2, made him far more likeable by the end of LOK than he was at any other point really.

@nathanthecynic:

The Red Lotus (esp Zaheer) are incredibly overrated villains. Zaheer spouted crap and people ate it up.

FACTS!!!!, I LITERALLY SCREAMED WHEN I SAW THIS!!!, I THOUGHT I WAS THE ONLY ONE, PEOPLE OVERRATED HIM BECAUSE OF HIS ACT/ATTITUDE AND DIDN'T REALIZE HIS "IDEOLOGY" WAS SOOO STUPID.

Like how stupid could you be especially being a man of philosophy to not see that the freedom you're fighting for would lead to chaos when everyone can do as they please which would lead back to the oppression/authority you want to stop?, especially in a world where people can take advantage of their "superpower" and use it to oppress weaker/non benders.

OK, so I'm calliing everyone out on this, anyone who thinks zaheer is up there should please explain to me why, maybe I'm missing something or didn't understand , cuz I don't know why y'all hyped his ass so much:

It isn't, Azula and Amon are up there. The best.

@byondeon:

• ATLA is overrated to all hell and is not better than Korra
• ATLA have worse characters than Korra with a few exception (Zuko, Toph, Azula)
• Iroh is worse than people give him credit for
• Korra would beat Kyoshi in a fight
• Mako would beat Zuko in a fight

Lol, you win this, cuz everything you said is sure as hell unpopular, I don't see anyone supporting this anytime soon

- I do agree about the iroh part tho, he is not "worse" but he is very very very overrated.

- I could also see korra winning kyoshi but I don't have a solid standing on that.

@aystarr: Ehh, I always thought Zaheer was better than Amon.

@straight-fire: Why tho?, what's special about zaheer.

I know. The nonsensical Katara hate makes no sense to me.

He even said himself that he didn't anticipate that killing the Earth Queen would allow someone else to come in and take over. He's the biggest idiot in the whole series and only gets praise for being "badass".

@nathanthecynic:

He even said himself that he didn't anticipate that killing the Earth Queen would allow someone else to come in and take over. He's the biggest idiot in the whole series and only gets praise for being "badass".

Where's the lie tho?, cuz I don't see one here.

I... Think you people are actually unaware what Anarchy really is all about. The villains all took their ideology too far, but the ideologies in and of themselves are actually all valid and would work if you implemented them...

@byondeon: Whether real-world anarchy is like that or not doesn't change Zaheer's idiocy from not expecting the Earth Kingdom to collapse and authoritarianism to rise after killing the monarch.

Which, now that I think about it, there should be some precedent for in-universe, considering Qin the Conqueror.