Aang should have killed Ozai. Not only was it the only rational solution, it was an actual conclusion to his internal ethical conflict. But the sudden introduction of energybending, a deus ex machina with no proper narrative setup, was clearly Nickelodeon interfering with whatever the writers' originally intended. Nickelodeon imposed a lot of sanctions on what could and couldn't be tackled in the series, especially with regards to mortality and killing. Still, Avatar: The Last Airbender was superior to Avatar: The Legend of Korra because in Legend of Korra the writers were tackling themes they aren't well-informed enough to tackle. It led to Amon being right and raising a lot of important ethical implications that Korra never addressed, she just swept it under the rug. Granted, Amon was a charlatan but the points he raised were still valid.
It led to a very good first half of Book 2 with Unalaq because the civil war arc between the Northern and Southern Water Tribes was very interesting because war arcs usually complicate the traditional dichotomous morality of black and white by having no clear "good" or "bad" side in the conflict, forcing the audience to reflect on their own ethical standards as they pick a side. But then the second half of Book 2 was horrible because it ruined a lot of the lore that made the Avatar series' interesting. The Vaatu/Raava nonsense was just stupid. Then we got Book 3 where we got the Red Lotus who, while cool, were led by Zaheer, an idiot, which was okay but that culminated in one of the major issues of Korra's characterization (or lack there of) that we'd been exposed to again and again, that the show failed to make her a compelling character and instead used tragedy to draw sympathy from the audience in order to compensate for her poor character writing. Then we get Book 4 where Kuvira did almost everything right and basically made Korra useless but because it's still a Nickelodeon show, they needed Korra to win at the end so the kids would be happy.
Log in to comment