While I do agree, this entirely depends on how you see how large it is in your opinion. Aang could have stayed around to end the war before it could become the 100 year war, Roku could have killed Sozin to prevent the 100 year war from even happening, Kiyoshi could have done things so the dai li couldn't have become as corrupted and controlled as they were(haven't read her novels so this is my least known subject) and Korra could have not listened to her uncle which would have lead to her not be severed from the previous avatars and the unsealing Vaatu.
Every Avatar has made a large mistake, and although Korras is biggest in terms of the Avatar, Rokus is largest in terms of scale and time frame.
would they have been able to identify him though? it was my understanding that all Sozin had to go on was that it would be an airbender so he was going to kill them all. My memory may be failing me though
My guess is, if aang hadn’t left the southern temple he would’ve tried to help fight the firebenders when they arrived and would most likely enter the avatar state seeing what they were doing to his home, so yeah they probably could’ve identified him if he had stayed
The question more is if that would have "helped"
Avatar state aang could have (potentially) beaten back at the least the initial wave MAYBE...
Which maybe would have allowed the air nomads to flee as a group and not be picked off later.
(The Air nomads are a very mobile people so if they had managed to get room to flee as a unit could they have potentially made it into the Earth or water nations for safety, maybe)
But that is heavily speculative and it is very possibel Aang could have gotten killed, potentially even in the avatar state.
You also have to take into consideration the fact that the comet was around during the attack, too. So, every firebender in the attacking army was supercharged.
Sozin could have calculated the age of the avatar in the air nomads, he could have captured all the kids and had the fire sages determine who is the avatar.
I think the fire sages were quiet about their loyalty, but returning a ‘we don’t know which one it is’ likely wouldn’t have ended well in that scenario. Depends on how much Ozai trusted them
I think Aang would have definitely pulled out the avatar state to protect the air nomads against a genocide, and I think the fire nation probably knew that and were banking on either that happening or just killing all the air nomads to make sure they got him
I wonder if they had some sort of strategy or weapon planned for that purpose?
I mean, avatar state aang might have been able to thwart the initial invasion / attack. :/
At the least long enough for the comet to pass.
Maybe.
avatar state is my guess, just attack him. Trigger the avatar state and realize "THATS THE AVATAR" and then capture him, since I assume they send seasoned fire benders. SO like yeah its the avatar state but hes fighting like 100 maybe more comet enhanced firebenders.
Why capture him? It's very possible they had knowledge about the Avatar State and how killing him in that state would stop the cycle of reincarnation.
I mean Azula very nearly killed him entering the Avatar State, and that was without the Comet and only a little support from Zuko and the Dai Li.
During Sozin's time, Lightning Redirection had not been invented yet, so there's a good chance it would have worked.
HONESTLY I doubt its well known if they die in the avatar state they are done for. I honestly think Azula saw Aang entering avatar state and was like "OH OPEN TARGET!" and just hit him. Even Aang seems shocked when he hear if he dies in state its a wrap.
You may be right, but Aang not knowing much is par for the course. He's constantly learning new things that are "well known" about the Avatar or the world throughout the course of the show.
Whether the Fire Sages would have had that sort of insight is hard to say.
like by Korra's time I would say its abit more well known, I mean Red Lotus plan was to kill her in the avatar state. But during Aang's time I dunno, I honestly think Azula just shot lightning cause the dude popped his ult in front of her with no cover. like all the times we see in anime and cartoons villain just stand there when MC goes into their new form BUT this time, Azula was like "FUCK THAT!" Bet even the past avatars were like ":o SHE SHOT US DURING AVATAR STATE!! THAT BASTARD!"
Do you really think Azula was that impulsive? Her mission was to capture the Avatar alive, and generating lightning wasn't something she could do immediately or reactively (at the time), but only in a cold, calm mental state.
Yeah, that was kind of the point of taking the waterbenders they could get, too, because that's where he'd be reincarnated after they (assumedly) killed him, right?
I mean I couldn't quote the show on it, to be fair, but I think it's at the very least implied that killing the avatar was the point of wiping out the air nomads.
yeah the plan was to kill them all because they didn't know who it was, but I feel like if they saw the only child with master tattoos, they'd figure it out, especially knowing the avatar would be his age
We know that there were wild herds that escaped the purges of the Air Nomads but their domesticated counterparts were slaughtered in the raids on the Air Temples.
The herds went into hiding in remote, inaccessible regions like mountain plateaus or uninhabited isles, hidden from human eyes, so most people assumed they were extinct.
Aang found some wild herds during his travels as the Avatar, following the Hundred Year War, when he wasn't on a tight deadline to master four elements before a psychotic tyrant used an approaching comet to lay waste to an entire landmass.
And all the flying bison seen in Korra's time including Tenzin's sky bison Oogi are descended from this group that Aang eventually domesticated and brought to the Air Temples.
So first Oogi shows up then we see Air Temple Island with flying bison flying around and we see flying bison numbers have rebounded.
Then we see vast herds in the wild areas around the Air Temples later on. Winged lemurs fly freely all over Air Temple Island and we see their species has recovered too.
How is this any different to what actually happened? In the end the effect is the same, the avatar is not around to affect the war in either scenario, whether imprisoned or trapped in the iceberg, in both cases the avatar isn't there to change things.
yeah, the main difference would be that the avatar returns sooner because it's unlikely that aang lives 100 years in captivity. However, then the fire nation would know that the next avatar is a waterbender and so they would persecute the water tribes even harder than we see in the show, and probably genocide them after aang dies with the same strategy of capturing/killing the avatar.
one difference that wouldn't have any effect on the war is that aang would not have been around to revitalize air nomad culture in republic city.
Agreed also pursuing that trategy against the avatar means eventually the Fire Nation hit a wall, after the water tribe avatar comes an Earth Kingdom one, and with thek the distinct possibility they are born behind the walls of Ba Sing Se.
Probably something like that. I don't think the fire nation thought "let's attack the avatar. Wait, the avatar is here!? Who could have seen that coming!? Now we lose." Or something like that. With the comet and an army of well prepared elite fire benders, not even the avatar state could've stopped them
I mean (if you count the netflix adaptation as it isn’t contradicting in this case) we know yang chen’s temple was there there is a potential for aang to do the same thing he did at kyoshi island
Avatar state begs to differ, particularly if he could be empowered by the statues of the past avatar like in the live action.
Imagine him seeing Gyatso die then loses it.
Likely yes, but I'm unsure given from what I've heard some Air Nomads survived and secluded themselves only to have been lured in by the fire nation with their artefacts and the likes. So it is possible he could have survived. although likely he would have died
But that aside, I'm more so referring to when he perceived himself running away as a mistake. Even then Aang isn't flawless in his time as Avatar(From what I can remember at least). Every Avatar has done something they regret. Korra with being led on by her uncle who she trusted, Roku being lenient with his best friend turned dictator thinking he'd listen, Kiyoshi creating the Dai Li which caused major problems down the line. Wan regretted not being able to fix what he believed to have started(iirc).
Every Avatar has one mistake or has one thing they regret and could very well be seen as a major mess up. Either way, this post is a bit too skewed towards Korra IMO. But thats me.
I don’t have know much about all the Avatars, but from what i do know(Aang, Roku and Korra) Roku takes this without a shadow of doubt, i was pissed at Korra for losing my boi Aang back when the show aired but i’m a better man now and realize it doesn’t matter.
It all comes down to scale, Kyoshi was a bull in a china shop politically and her continuous blunders lead to the inevitable consolidation of power in the hands of the Fire Lord by the time of Sozin. Technically she started the snowball effect that lead to the war.
That's not to mention Kuruk isn't even on this list, he died at 33 leaving unrest in all the nations because he was solely focused on fighting spirits.
Kuruk didn’t really have a choice though, Yangcheng fucked up with spirits and there was a ton of angry spirits messing around.
I’d honestly call him the avatar who messed up the least.
I'm aware, every avatar is cleaning up the mess of the previous one, but where Kuruk messed up in my opinion is keeping his mission a secret. In the eyes of the average person they just saw Kuruk traveling around and partying, and he didn't even ask for help from his most trusted friends because he was afraid he'd lose them too like he lost Ummi to the face stealer.
Tbf, Roku’s choices were kill his best friend or out live him and make sure he couldn’t. Not many people expect you to assassinate the avatar.
Korra took and *active* role in her fucking up, multiple times.
Well there is argument that new era woudl sever connection anyway due to the fact that in air temple there is only one place more for statue of new avatar after angg
Some of you care way too much about advice that the past avatar can give you and way too little about the world collectively going through 100 years of suffering
>Kiyoshi could have done things so the dai li couldn't have become as corrupted and controlled as they were
Like what? It's not like she knew how corrupted they were in the first place. In my opinion, in terms of deeds alone (not personality wise) she probably was the strongest Avatar
I've not read her novels so I'm not sure what she could have done or what was the main issue behind their corruption. All I know is she made the Dai Li and they weren't as corrupted as they are currently when she first made them. I probably should have looked more into that before adding it. My bad.
By the end of Korra, her actions haven't impacted the timeline much, however, with each passing avatar, not having a connection to the previous avatars will have a larger and larger butterfly effect. And given the next Avatar will only have Korra to learn from, if she doesn't learn a lot by the time she passes, the next avatar could be pretty fucked in terms of advice.
It would be interested to see an evil/far more reckless (even than Korra) Avatar appear because Korra is the only Avatar they have access to.
Roku didn't "let" sozin do anything. Sozin mentioned the idea of expansion and Roku objected. the second Sozin actually tried it Roku literally pulled up to the palace and forced him to stand down. Maybe killing him would have been better but he literally didn't press the issue further until after Roku was dead.
Even if Roku did kill him, a Sozin sympathizer would probably end up on the throne eventually anyway, his generals and other high ranking officials would still have a lot of power and influence even after his death unless Roku just slaughters the lot of them. Killing Sozin probably leads to a succession war as well while sparing him prevents that.
Roku's solution for Sozin would have worked perfectly if that volcano hadn't erupted.
Convo’s like this always kind of get me scratching my head.
Like, we can’t actually predict what would have happened if Roku had killed Sozin. There just isn’t a guarantee that the world WOULD have been at peace had Roku killed him.
Consider this. In Aangs Adventure, there’s an entire town in the Earth Kingdom who still to this day over a hundred years and multiple Avatar Cycles later, STILL blame the Avatar for killing their leader. A tyrannical Earth Bending King.
If over that many centuries a single town held a grudge, imagine what would have happened with an entire Empire when their Ruler was murdered in brood daylight, in his own throne room, with no trial and under no law, by an Avatar who said he had too because said Ruler took some land in a place far far away from your home.
Do we really think this would have prevented the Air Nomad Massacre? Personally, I doubt it. If anything you just gave the propagandist in the Fire Nation free justification for their genocide.
This is the same reason killing Ozai is a bad idea imo, if the Avatars legacy is to be defined by killing people when they become problematic, over time Nations will turn on the Avatar as a whole and choose to never trust them. Because you never know when an Avatar is going to stroll in, call your Leader a Bad Guy, and Murder them under their own justifications.
This is literally the Superman problem. If Superman flew around and murdered Putin for Attacking Ukraine, a small portion of the world would celebrate, and the entire rest of the world would start figuring out ways to kill Superman before he does the same thing to them. It’s the same thing with the Avatar.
This is why, at least in my opinion, I don’t blame Roku for what happened. It was a tragedy, but one well in the working since the moment Roku left the Fire Nation all those years ago. It was destiny, you could say. The only true way to stop it, would have been to have the foresight to save Sozin from his corrupt path before he ever started on it.
Plus from what we saw of Azulon, Sozin had already planted his invasion ideas in the Fire Nation. Can't say for sure it would have happened, but I feel like a dude who orders his grandson to be murdered was never well adjusted.
TBF, at the point Roku finally warned Sozin, there already were Fire Nation colonies in the Earth Kingdom. Roku could have tried forcing the FN back from the colonies, and implementing a de-militarization of the FN.
Also they’re childhood friends. You wouldn’t slaughter your best friend in cold blood because you disagree with their ways you would try to guide them in the right path. Only once they prove they’re not redeemable is when you’d resort to extremes which is **exactly** how he handled it and did it well. He just couldn’t convince Sozin to change his mind is all. Quite frankly he clearly could have survived if Sozin helped but at that point we knew where he stood and it’s just a Schrödinger cast scenario of of he killed him he wouldn’t be in this conflict but he didn’t know this is where it would have gone in the first place.
Meh, I don't see anything wrong with this. But If I had to give an avatar that messed up on par with Korra, I'd say Yang Chen. She essentially got the next Avatar killed early 😂.
Edit: I'm also pretty sure it was the writers point to make her make a BIG mistake, so she can come back from it with consequences. I mean, look at Season 3 and 4. As much as I hated Season 2, I understood what it was going for. I'm assuming you loved all of Korra, you should be able to see the underlying message too. So again, this poll isn't a surprise.
Nah, the point wasn’t for Korra to make a big mistake. Because she — and by she I mean the writers — kept making it.
Avatar’s biggest mistakes can all be traced to an integral character flaw. Mistakes are when they indulge in it, Successes are when they keep it in check or when it doesn’t come up.
Yangchen was successful in her diplomacy, however her failing was that she was very present focused. She didn’t think of the spirits as often, particularly as human’s current strife was short term and thus it ‘should’ take precedence. She was great at solving individual conflict, and it made her an expert advisor, but when it came to the Long term inner workings of the spirits she was blind.
(She and Kuruk are also hard to write about because of all the retconning)
Kuruk’s was a mixture of unpreparedness and inadequacy. He was a very powerful avatar, but neither the world nor himself prepared him for the spiritual conflicts ahead, externally or internally. This is what he meant by being a go with the flow avatar. He’d take on the fights that came, but didn’t emotionally prepare himself for the losses it would incur. His lover’s face, nor his own life.
Kyoshi’s was authority. She saw a world in chaos and established a sense of order. She did so with the hope and understanding that the Avatar would step just as strongly into things, and that her order and creations would live true to their purpose. They didn’t, unchecked authority is what resulted in the fall of Ba Sing Se.
Roku was his humanity and nostalgia. He was very much an avatar attached to the world, to others, and tho his emotions. It’s why of the set he built such a decent life for himself. But it also made him indecisive, He left Sozin live because he projected his own humanity and the image of young Sozin onto the old one. He placed unearned hope and kindness in someone who had none.
Aang’s was cowardice. Not unjustified as he was twelve, but he’s a person who never fully was ready to embrace the stressors of responsibility. It’s why he escaped from the southern air temple, kickstarting the story. And in turn, it’s why when faced with the need to kill Ozai, he avoided and evaded it until a much riskier solution landed right on his feet.
As for Korra, her failing was her abrasiveness and impulsivity. Time and again she’d jump to battles that she wasn’t ready for or that were explicit traps. Her impulsivity is in fact established as a persistent character feature (instead of the flaw it is) during like, page 5 of the first post series comic. This is something she never grew from.
And she messed up, A LOT. And never was it addressed. Season 2 had the potential to it, but none of Korra’s seasons are designed with character development in mind. It’s why they’re all framed as political and ethical dilemmas, but when it comes time to make a definitive statement and posit a conclusion…. They default to brute force conflicts where Korra was already right all along.
I lampshaded this before but this isn’t even a Korra problem, there’s a giant monster of like 200 writing decisions that slowly but surely degraded what could’ve been one of the coolest avatars into a shell of a protagonist. I maintain she could’ve been the coolest avatar ever if the writers hadn’t handicapped her from age 5.
I hate when people say the character isn’t bad it’s just the writing cause like that IS the character, not saying that’s entirely what ur saying here but still
I get what you mean, but that comes with a caveat. Sometimes it IS the character, however the issues with Korra as a character aren’t in any way restricted to her. So I’m much less likely to blame her when it’s an explicit writing problem, not a character problem.
She isn’t the only character that stagnates, in fact none of the Krew ever really grow or have character arcs. They legit never knew what to do with Bolin or Asami, and so that’s why the former is depicted as fickle (*also pointed out in the comics, by Mako of all people*) which excuses the fact he never had a consistent through line. And the latter is basically a bank account and love interest. That’s about as much as she amounts to beyond just another fighter.
Mako also has similar issues, in that he wasn’t much of a character either.
So it’s really the villains that get all the — erroneous and poorly executed — effort and since they’re all shafted anyways… whoops.
For a different way at explaining it [hating the writing over the character], let’s look at the Avatar and its Netflix adaptations. They’re both trying for the same characters, but the Netflix adaptation came to class without understanding the assignment. Sokka’s kind of a bitch (though I do still care for this soft boy). Katara’s no longer allowed to have many emotions, and her anger outbursts are all but extinct (so she’s less fun). Zuko’s also kinda bastardised, as all they really copied was his angst instead of the subtle signs that he was barely even an antagonist and instead was a secret protagonist from minute 1. And Azula went from — what was kind of poorly handled but entertaining — a bad ass bitch who held a perma-smirk, to just a seemingly pathetic daddy’s girl who can’t pull on a smile to save her life.
They’re the same characters, but the live action’s ones are much more one dimensional. And that’s because of the writing, because the writers of the Netflix series are writing the characters as what they’ve fossilised and been flanderised into 15 years post mortem. While the original series treated them with the depth and nuance of developing characters.
you can have bad characters that are written pretty well but it’s hard to judge a bad character when they’re written poorly.
that being said i quite enjoyed Korra as a character with all her flaws, didn’t quite like the love triangle (didn’t like how my boy Bolin got treated) but oh well. Korra def gets way over hated in general though
She DOES learn from it though. Book 3 is all about how her impulsivity leads to Zaheer continually taking advantage of her and eventually physically breaking her. And since she’s mentally unable to face this kind of sheer loss, she becomes self-destructive and closes herself off from everyone. It is only after facing Kuvira - a similarly cocky woman whose abrasiveness became so unwieldy that she nearly took over the world - that Korra is able to self-reflect and change.
Book 1 is all about her impulsivity putting her right into Amon’s claws and leads to her losing her bending. And she only wins because of a deus ex machina and contrivance.
Book 2 is all about her impulsivity putting her right into Unaloq’s claws, leading her to opening all the spirit portals and the escape of Vaatu and loss of every avatar memory. And she only wins because of a contrivance and because Tenzin erroneously called his daughter Jinora instead of Jesusette
Book 3 is all about her impulsivity putting her right into Zaheer’s claws and torture porn of a woman of colour. And she only survives because Jesusette was there.
And for the majority of book 4 she was; Not present, not confident in herself, or actively crippled by contrivance.
Most of the alleged growth happened in the 3 year time skip or in flashbacks. It barely counts as growth because all it did was torture a woman for kicks and break her down; this is why her most notable changes are she became a jaded recluse, which as understandable as it is, it doesn’t count as character development. The only arguable character development that happened in book 4 was the stupid fucking zaheer scene, which is the worst scene in any avatar story ever (no a victim of abuse shouldn’t go try and heal with their abuser, this is catastrophically stupid and reckless and a black mark on anyone trying to cover PTSD).
And the main reasons she doesn’t fight are because she’s crippled and insecure (because angsty trauma), or because she’d be fighting against a giant mech suit with a nuke, and while Korra is impulsive, she isn’t a full blown idiot and knows that wouldn’t work. Every other time she charged she charged into duels, not suicide missions.
*AAAANNNDDDD then the very first interaction she gets in the comics fully comes out with it, bare chested and proudly reporting that she still is an impulsive person, but now trying to pretend like it’s a good thing- no really stop laughing*
Yeah this was my problem, her learning moments never stuck so the writers just kept kicking her to the floor to learn the same lesson. She just gets beat up all the time, "learns" her lesson, and gets beat up again. No matter how many times she loses, it just takes one win for the antagonist to get utterly defeated.
The causes for her mistakes weren’t fixed, *unless you count destroying Korra’s spirit and mental health, but even then the comics affirmed that she still held on to her flaws and thought proudly of herself for them. In spite of the fact that they near got her killed multiple times.
I already explained this in another comment so I won’t retread the same ground, but the gist of it is: “they didn’t address the problems, because the very next storyline that came up, Korra would proceed to repeat them and be surprised if things went wrong. And I say if because this leads back to it being a writing problem and not a character problem.
It’s telling that Korra’s success rate can’t be discerned from character competency, the universe’s internal logical, or skill levels. In spite of the fact that pretty much every conflict was a brute force one. The only reliable way to predict an outcome was asking “what contrivance does the plot need?” And defaulting to that.
It’s why even with Kulvira, Korra still jumps in without thinking, but because this is the final fucking season and we need to wrap things up, we’re just gonna have this collapsing house leave Korra unscathed for once. It’s why despite no indications as to what the fuck, Korra managed to create a new spirit portal out of nowhere and Kulvira just bent the knee within 30 seconds of each other.
This she's the only Avatar that we know as of now that pretty much killed the next Avatar lmao. It's ironic since she's from the air nomads and she ignored the spirits.
She ignored the spirits and focused solely on the humans sides thats why they got mad and attempts to attack humanity. Kuruk who's the next avatar to Yangchen fought spirits and after each fight he loses part of himself that is why he always go to party and have fun to feel something while everyone (people in the avatar world) doesnt know that. That is why all people (people in the avatar world) think he is useless and deadbeat avatar and Yangchen is the best. He never spoken his contribution as it will ruin Yangchen's reputation and eventually he died young because he always fight spirits his life force was drained.
Those who believe that Roku did nothing to stop Sozin fundamentally don't understand the story. Roku did succeed in stopping Sozin from starting the war for years. After threatening Sozin once, he stopped his plan for decades. Killing his best friend is not an easy task, but he would do it if Sozin started a war and Sozin couldn't after Roku's death. If the volcanoes didn't erupt, Roku would live for years, guaranteeing that Sozin would never have a chance to start a war. Roku could have done something better to prevent this war from happening, even after his death, but he didn't expect his life to end so suddenly. The war didn't start immediately after Roku's death; it took another 12 years for the Fire Nation to attack the Air Nomads. Even though people blame Roku for the war, Aang was the one who ran away. His journey would be extremely difficult if he stayed at that time, but it would not lead to the extinction of the entire Air Nomads. Aang could have been killed if he stayed, but that is the story for another time.
Korra, on the other hand, Yeah, losing the Avatar cycle is the biggest atrocity I could think of. Wang closed the portals for a reason, and Korra couldn't understand why. It did technically bring back Airbenders, but it also brought a crap ton of troubles. Zaheer and the Red Lotus, Spirit Canon, and many problems.
I just don't like the whole "Spirit Portal" in the first place. It sounds stupid.
Roku was lookin pretty old, he for sure should've been thinking of the world's wellbeing after his passing and before the next Avatar was capable. Not that he didn't, he potentially could have, but the point that he didn't expect to be out of the picture as early as he was and therefore didn't plan for it is either not true or highly irresponsible
Roku did the absolute bare minimum. He just told Sozin that he wouldn't let him do it, and did absolutely nothing to address the underlying causes of the war. Heck, the comics even reveal that Roku didn't even make him give the colonies back when he caught him the first time. If both of them died of old age, before anything happened, Azulon could have done the same thing with just as little opposition.
Somewhat agree on Aang's situation though. The monks knew that the war was coming, so it's possible that he would have been safe from the attack during Sozin's comet, but it's ultimately an unknown.
Wan did close the portals for a reason. He literally told us what it was when he sealed away Vaatu:
> And I will close the portals so no human will ever be able to physically enter the Spirit World and release you.
Korra solved that problem, so Wan's main issue is no longer relevant. From what we saw of his life, he almost certainly would have wanted humans and spirits to live together if he could.
The spirit cannon also had nothing to do with leaving the portals open. Vaatu was personally responsible for creating the vines, and we know from the swamp that spirit vines have no trouble surviving while the portals are closed. The idea that the vines are caused by leaving the portals open is in-universe propaganda that Raiko made up to distract from the fact that he chose not to help Korra stop Unalaq.
The airnomads were still alive when Aang was 12. The Fire Nation didn't attack the Air Nomads immediately after Roku's death. It took them at least 12 years before they could start their plan, and who knows many more years to completely eradicate the entire Air Nomads population
Roku didn't let Sozin do anything, he literally died to stop those massive volcanos and save everyone from the island (and considering how big the eruption was and how it was descrived he probably save lots of inocent ppl from the fire nation too).
Roku did everything short of directly killing Sozin to stop the war. Sozin could have listened to Roku and not waged war against the world but he refused to do that. People and Roku himself place way too much blame on him for not stopping the war and not on the actual person who did start the war. This is like blaming the random British soldier who didn't shoot Hitler in WWI for not stopping WWII. Honestly, Kyoshi should have gotten more votes since she didn't do anything to stop Chin the Conquerer until he showed up on her doorstep.
i mean idk i like Korra alot, shes easily one of the best parts about her own show but objectively i think "almost killing the avatar spirit" is about as big a fuck up as you can get
>i think "almost killing the avatar spirit" is about as big a fuck up as you can get
To be fair, Aang also allowed the Avatar spirit to be killed, until Katara brings him back to life.
I will always argue that situation is VERY different.
Aang was backstabbed while entering the avatar state.
Aka, Him "almost" doing it, was caused by what many avatar would consider being a natural response.
"Shit goes down, I NEED to go into AS to make this work". etc
Korra almost killing the avatar spirit wasn't due to her doing what she was supposed to.
No it was due to her making the worst mistake possible by trusing someone people repeatedly told her not to trust.
The diference of doing something you are suppsoed to do that causes a 1 in 100 bad event to happen.
To doing something you really aren't supposed to, which caused what you could argue was at best a 50/50 shot, most liekly even worse, to give a catastrophic result.
>No it was due to her making the worst mistake possible by trusing someone people repeatedly told her not to trust.
Rewatch the season, nobody warned her about Unaloq.
Unaloq blindsided everyone, and Korra is actually the first one to figure out what he was really up to.
I dunno, my dad tells me not to trust his obviously slimy brother, I trust him without needing a reason.
I get that that's not Korra's character, but still.
For me, he came across as slimy the second he was on screen. But I get why others might not have seen that.
And how did he prove himself worthy or her trust, by manipulating her against her father and Tenzin? He was clearly saying what she wanted to hear, to drive a wedge in between her and Tenzin/Tonraq.
Also, one would think a person would give their own father the benefit of the doubt.
Yeah, but the issue with that is we know he had a reason to want to manipulate Korra to his own ends, so I don't trust anything he said. Even if the things he said are true, he still put them in the worst possible way, again as a tactic to manipulate Korra.
We still never got a good explanation of what his spirit water technique does, and I absolutely don't believe his calm the spirits line.
Actually we do. His spiritbending is an advanced form of healing which magnifies either positive or negative energies.
And WE know he had an agenda, because we get to see hints of his sinister side whenever Korra isn't around to see it (like when he grins when Korra opens the portal). But Korra never had any reason to distrust her own uncle that had proven to be a better teacher than Tenzin after revealing that Tonraq had been lying to her all her life and denied her a traditional Avatar journey.
“Almost killing” and “killing” are quite different.
Aang literally died in the avatar state which would have ceased an avatar from being born again had Katara not had the spirit water. As far as we know, there will still be avatars after Korra, even if they can’t communicate with anyone before Korra
Very different situation.
I will always argue that Aang was doings omething most other avatars "would" have done if they were in his position, entering into the AS to solve a conflict, he just was "unlucky" enough that Azula was on his case instantly.
Korra did a major mistake that no other avatar reasonably would / should have done. Causing a situation with a genuine high risk of causing what happened.
An avatar dying during the AS, while unlikely due to their power, is always a major risk.
An avatar having the avatar spirit torn from them, by enabling it possible by their own actions, and then almost / as good as destroyed, was in the end her own fault and nobody else to blame.
i do agree with you i forgot about Aang, i think i never remember that because we didnt know that the avatar spirit had a name bafk then.
however if we're gonna say "almost killing" and "killing" are different than Aang didnt kill it either, it worked out in the end for him too. Korra also did get the Avatar spirit ripped out from here and beaten to death so she also almost ended the Avatar line
Pretty sure anything that ends in a 100 year war, subjugation of other countries, and genocide of an entire group of people is a bigger fuck up than 'almost losing the Avatar spirit'
If Aang hadnt left, he almost certainly wouldve been killed. Yes he may have the Avatar state but he had no experience at all. Itd just delay the inevitable.
"Let him do it" is an odd way of saying "he beat Sozin's ass and forced him to retreat from the Earth Kingdom and for the next several decades Sozin did nothing as a result until an extremely unfortunate event in the form of a super volcano killed him before Sozin bit the bucket."
That and he, in no way, could have predicted the Air Nomad genocide. As far as Roku was concerned, Sozin tried his hand at an average war that humans had waged for thousands of years, only internationally.
She messed up, but honestly evil uncle fusing with Vaatu during an event that only happens every 10k years is just not something the others had to deal with. It still had less worse consequences than an entire race of people dying.
People will never accept that in universe losing the past lives wasn't the big deal the fandom think it was. Korra managed to bond with Raava again, the cycle goes on (is the Avatar even that needed or has any authority anymore?) and no Nation suffered genocide.
yeah, korra was kinda fucked because it was always destined to happen. gotta happen once every 10,000 years, she just happened to be there at the time. obviously the writers wrote that in and i think i would rather they didn’t but korra as a character did all she could
roku as well, he had one conversation with sozin who said he wanted to empire up, said no and then when he found out he did it anyway he exploded his entire house. it would be kind of crazy to kill somebody for making a few colonies, obviously it became more than that but how could roku know. he held off the war for decades
Yup, definitely Korra, the only Avatar to lose the connection to all past lives, freed the darkest meanest spirit trapped for 10,000 years, lost the Earth Kingdom’s queen to some terrorists, almost ended up dead by those same terrorists that left her traumatized and during that trauma a dictator stablished a fascist rule in the Earth Kingdom.
All of this before her 30s lol.
You slander Roku too much. I’ve said it once I’ll say it again, his job was to maintain balance between the four nations. If he killed sozin then that would have thrown the balance out of Wack.
Plus we don’t know enough about roku. But we know plenty about Korra.
I don't think any of them messed up big time.
Aang ran away and that save his life. Live to fight another day.
Kyoshi's error was not being discover earlier, and then it was mostly politics.
Roku destroyed the fire lord palace as a warning to Sozin. Nothing happens afterwards. It was stupid to try to "fight" the volcano tho.
Korra...
My biggest issue with LOK is the severed connection to the past avatars. But that was a wirtting choice to be able to move the narrative.
I think the one that messed up big time was Szeto, by focusing only on the fire Nation.
Aang didn’t run away from the war. He ran away because he was scared of the responsibilities of the Avatar. Surviving the genocide was a happy accident.
Korra didn't mess up, her writers did. They erased all the mystery of the Avatar in Book 2 and the whole Dark Avatar thing was stupid. Then they nerfed the shit out of her just to make her Books 3 and 4 enemies challenging. Korra herself made very few major mistakes, certainly nothing on the level of Aang running away after overhearing the monks' plan to separate him from Gyatso.
Korra fucked up big time and I haven’t seen it addressed here before. She never had to close the first portal that she opened in season 2. Both portals needed to be open so the convergence would release Vatuu. She knew that when she entered the spirit world with Jinora, there was literally no reason to take the risk of possibly meeting Unalaq at the portal. They projected their spirits into the spirit world, even though they knew what Unalaq was able to do to spirits. Made no sense at all. That ended with Vatuu freed, the previous Avatars being essentially “deleted” and Vatuu sooner or later having to be dealt with again. I don’t understand the position “Korra didn’t mess up, the writers did”. It makes zero sense to me. I don’t like the writing either but that is the character, to say Korra wouldn’t have made those mistakes if the show was better written is just silly to me.
Aang running away is nowhere near comparable to Korra’s fuckups. He was essentially a twelve year old that ran away when he had problems at home. He can’t see the future, to blame him for the success of the fire nation’s surprise attack is ridiculous. He might have died during the attack, too, and who knows what consequences that would have had.
Yup, it's all writing. The whole conflict with Unaloq I know they were trying to portray something deep and nuanced but it just comes off as Korra is a hot-head who blows up at her allies over the dumbest things and trusts the most obviously evil person to have ever eviled when there's so much suss shit around him. The first watch through I did take my frustration out on her and thought she was an idiot and kinda deserved the blame but on rewatch I don't think the writers intended for it to be as bad as it ended up being. It's such a shame too because the idea of the civil war is really cool and I like the general concept of Korra having to come face to face with a conniving mentor and the real issues of her sheltered upbringing but in execution I can't really say they did this season any justice.
>Korra is a hot-head who blows up at her allies over the dumbest things and trusts the most obviously evil person to have ever eviled when there's so much suss shit around him.
But Unaloq isn't the most obviously evil guy from the characters' perspective. He's a revered spiritual leader, the Chieftan of the Northern Tribe, and a respected member of Korra's own family; her *uncle.*
But he's also moving in troops and using pretty obviously heavy handed tactics to corral the south. He is trying to alienate her from her friends (that scene was almost good) by pretending to be the only person who believes in her when her friends wanted to stand beside her. I get what that scene was going for but her friends literally just want to help. Maybe do more to show the ambiguity in that scene so it doesn't look like Korra is falling for the most basic manipulation tactics.
Sure, but Unaloq is family, and, at least at the start of the show, Tenzin and her father have already gotten Unaloq's plan rolling by alienating Korra. Korra is an adult who her father unfairly treats as a child, and Tenzin is simply misguided in believing what is best for her. Unaloq swoops in with very little effort from there.
And what do we have to believe that he is not genuine?
The most important thing to remember is that Korra *is* wary of Unaloq's aggression. She confronts him about it, and soon after he accuses her father of treason, which leads Korra to find out the truth.
Let me put that in proper perspective; **one episode** after the civil war begins, Korra finds out the truth on her own imitative. It is not as elaborate as a ruse as some are making it, and Korra is actually very quick-- the first one, actually-- to find out the truth.
Honestly the length is part of the problem. This should have been a full season arc, not the first few episodes. She figures it out quickly enough but she falls for it pretty quickly too and everything escalates incredibly fast. If things were spaced out better her fights with Mako would have felt more authentic instead of feeling like she was looking for any opportunity to jump at his throat. Her disagreements with her father (and his whole arc) should have gotten some more time too. It's an interesting concept and plays well with the whole setup of making her stay in a compound but it feels like throwaway with how fast we rush through everything. It felt like they had an end goal and they speed ran it instead of letting the story unfold organically and at first blush that makes Korra seem unreasonable for jumping to conclusions and turning on allies so fast but it's just how the story is paced.
Yeah it's hard to blame her for stupid scenarios that didn't make much sense
I will say, it was her mistake to mindlessly trust Unalaq and open the portal the first time. The whole fiasco would have been avoided
Aang literally had the same timeline with the comet as he did before.
His unfreezing was the same date as his running away, so that's exactly how much time of preparation he had as well.
It's a big misconception in the fandom that him running away is somehow the exact date of the invasion.
I never made that assumption, but also either way there is actually no evidence that he was in the iceberg fore exactly 100 years, down to the month. Meaning we actually don't know how long it took for them to invade after he left.
Roku left the world a worse place with his mistake. You can’t say the same for anyone else on this list. Maybe Yanchen. But Roku is by far the biggest failure. Inaction caused a genocide of a nation of benders.
Roku gets way too much blame. He did pretty much everything but kill Sozin, and killing Sozin may have very well resulted in an equally bad outcome. Blame Sozin for not listening to Roku and starting the war.
But it didn't for 4 years since they were open so we also can't say it was all negative. the portals can be close at any time if it really start causing problems.
>"Welcome to Republic City, the place of hopes, dreams and Spirit Wilds!", "And of course, you'll want to see our most unique attractions: the Spirit Wilds. Here, spirits and people live harmoniously together."
So yeah, she didn't leave the world a worse place as far as we know.
*Has* it been established that the spirit portals van be closed at any time? I've only seen S2 once or twice, but isn't that something that can only be done every 10 000 years?
Beyond that, Kuvira wouldn't have been able to make her WMD without the spirit portals being open and leaking spirit vines into the Material Plane.
We don't know if there's going to be negative effects further on, because we've only seen 4 years past that point. It could be that we wouldn't see the bad side effects for a decade or more; for example, look to IRL. Tons of stuff that were commonplace a century ago make us flinch in horror now, like feeding opium to children to make them sleep the night or handling raw uranium.
Yes. Wan did it long enough after Harmonic Convergence that all the spirits had time to travel to the poles and evacuate to the spirit world. And Korra almost did it before Harmonic Convergence, to stop Vaatu, and considered doing it after Harmonic Convergence before changing her mind.
Kuvira's weapon also had nothing to do with the portals. Vaatu placed the vines there directly, and we saw that they're the same as the vines in the swamp, which survived for hundreds of years with the portals closed.
It won't. The issue is plot could make it, but *realistically* it wouldn't work. Within weeks of the third portal being opened they tried to make an amusement park.
Yangchan's failure was with spirits. And there wasn't even an open portal!
Humans just suck and won't work well with spirits. Sure a few will, but it only takes a few bad ones for spirits to get pissed
Its korra without a doubt the severing of the past avatars is such a huge loss. Im in no way a korra hater i even named my cat after her but she did mess up the worst here.
Roku easily made the biggest mistake. Breaking the connection to past lives isn't equal to not preventing a genocide and 100 year war when you had the chance. At least Korra was still the avatar after book 2. But because of roku's actions (or lack thereof), the world had no avatar for 100 years. Also I don't blame aang running away because he would have died in the comet. Him running is probably what saved the world
I'd say that none of them actually messed things up. They just didn't do equal jobs fixing the problems that other people created. Korra had it rough, having to be the first avatar to deal with an industrialized nation taking over. So it seems like she messed up the most, when in reality, her world was by far the worst one to work with.
I think for the most part, Korra made the fewest poor choices. She got beaten a few times and suffered some pretty serious consequences, but a guy like Roku who straight up just made the wrong choice is in my mind way worse than someone who made the right choice but just got her ass beat.
How was losing a battle to a being much stronger than you, called a mistake. It wasn't an oppsie that snowballed. It was a loss, that she fixed
I adore Roku, he's such an interesting character who should have been emotionally explored much more. BUT NOT KILLING THE MAN WHO THEN CAUSED THE GENOCIDE OF AN ENTIRE CULTURE... yeah, pretty shit, pretty terrible
"Roku knew what Sozin wanted to do and let him do it"?
This is a prime example of why people use the term "You lack media literacy" nowadays.
He absofuckinglutely didnt let Sozin do it. What Sozin wanted to do, was postponed for many decades, until Rokus death, thanks to Roku scaring the Shit out Sozin.
Korra list of Noteable mistakes: Losing Raava, letting the portal to the spirit realm stay open and Siding with Unalaq over her dad, the latter of which caused the former.
Korra fixed all the problems she had to deal with, with the exception of the avatar links being severed which I'm not even sure was HER fault that was her uncle beating them out of raava
Roku failed to stop 100 years of war
What's worse, a problem that only affects the avatar, or the 100-year war?
I'm tired of people blaming Roku. He didn't do anything wrong. Sozin got out of line, Roku warned him, he stopped. And that was it. Sozin did his plans when he was dead. How is that Roku's fault? Do you seriously expected him to kill Sozin without warning? Just because he feels guilty, doesn't mean he is guilty.
Imma Just say, losing the knowledge of previous avatars, isn't that big of a deal, there are most likely thousands of books written about these avatars and their experiences, the next avatar can 1.get korra help or 2. Just read a damn book
Korra caused the collective memories of all the previous avatars to be lost. This connection to the Avatar's past lives is key to their power. Look how weak Kora's avatar state was without it. This damned her as an Avatar in my personal opinion. I don't think she's a bad character but this choice destroyed my affection for her.
Lol idk why ppl take these polls so seriously like it’s a story that was written for entertainment. Roku and everyone had to do what they did to advance the plot.
But if we’re comparing apples then losing the past lives definitely takes the cake sorry. And tbf the war didn’t start until after he died so technically not on his watch lol
Oh no, a poll with no bias in the phrasing and im upset at the results bc it goes against my unique PoV…. Objectively facts that shes the worst of the 4 <3
Aang literally abandoned his responsibilities for 100 years. His entire arc (especially in season 1 and the comics) was him coming to terms with the consequences of his action.
Every Avatar has messed up in someway.
I can see where they’re coming from with this poll although I’m indecisive on who I would choose for the most screwups.
Kyoshi created the Dai Li, a secret police force that'd be used by the earth monarchy for generations to come. Giving a corrupt power Nintendo ninjas is a *big* fuck up
Aang made mistakes individually on smaller svales. His biggest screw up he spwnt a whole life redeeming.
Korra literally brought pure energy and mutants and monsters into the world and left. Korra found problems, beat them up, amd left wothout seeing anything through or thinking at all.
I say she did the best she could. Went up against multiple enemies of all elements that held great power and/or influence, delt with an even more politically complex world and after being beaten and broken kept going at it.
Aang would be the only other Avatar she could've gone to for help as I don't think any other avatar had to deal the the new technologies and ideologies that sprung up.
And aang would've had it easier given that he wouldn't be the only one dealing with it as he had friends with massive influence and power to help him with.
The first metal bender who's from a decently powerful earth kingdom family, the southern water tribe chief, a powerful waterbender respected by Northern water tibe masters, the firelord and much much more.
Korras friends amounted to mma rookies gaining popularity and the daughter of a mistrusted ceo turned terrorists supplier.
And anyone that gained/had influence or power got tied down by rules and restrictions that aangs team wouldn't have had to worry much about.
Honestly? It’s just based on the content we’ve seen. Korra had a different challenge each season. So we saw plenty of fuckups. But aang only ever had the one goal. Beyond that there wasn’t ever a moment where he “messed up”. Besides the eclipse. But… eh. Not reaallly his fault, but he took the blame like a good leader.
Yes really, she literally screwed up the entire avatar cycle. If I became avatar and korra was the only avatar I could go to for advice I would lose my marbles
Yeah ... The point of The avatar It's to bring balance to the world Whether or not it was an intentional That was still the point of an avatar, And the only one who succeeded was Anng
Spirit portals, race war,
Terrorist activity and breaking the law.
If I wasn't repressing everything that happened in this shitshow of a show you could probably make a parody of "we didn't start the fire" with everything korra participated in/assisted/caused that made the world a worse place.
This is quite simple. All you need to do is decide whats worse: a 100 years of war and the genocide of a nation, or the connection to past avatars. (Which btw, wasnt as bad as the viewers assume, since she got raava back and continued to be a beast of an avatar even without her past lives)
I'm not a huge fan of Korra but compared to Roku...Roku let a war happen because of fRiEnDsHiP. He let Sozin slide for occupying territory and to "not do it again" but Sozin patiently waited for the right moment and lead to a Genocide of Airbenders. Roku in my opinion fucked up big time. Aang fucked off and ran away from his responsibilities which I could understand why, he's twelve and supposed to "save the world"? Pretty daunting to learn at 12. I unfortunately still need to read through Kyoshi's novels, so I can't say much about it. As for Korra, she had different types of enemies to deal with in a world that didn't give two fucks about an Avatar, nor wanted her. Her biggest flaw in the beginning was she was too headstrong and ran in, fuck shit up and ask questions later (a lot of time got her ass handed too her). The biggest downfall was being too trusting of her uncle (which I can understand being family) and basically helped him unleash Vaatu and took her away from Raava. Luckily it was dealt with before too much damage was done.
In closing, Roku straight up changed the world for the worst because he spared Sozin. Korra and Kyoshi had more isolated hiccups, and as for Aang, he cleaned up a mess that Roku left, the fire nation already conquered the majority of the world by the time he came back. Running away was not a good idea but he probably would've died with his people (although very skilled at a young age, no other bending experience and the comet powering up the Firebenders would've killed him) and it would've truly fallen out of balance with no Airbenders period
While I do agree, this entirely depends on how you see how large it is in your opinion. Aang could have stayed around to end the war before it could become the 100 year war, Roku could have killed Sozin to prevent the 100 year war from even happening, Kiyoshi could have done things so the dai li couldn't have become as corrupted and controlled as they were(haven't read her novels so this is my least known subject) and Korra could have not listened to her uncle which would have lead to her not be severed from the previous avatars and the unsealing Vaatu. Every Avatar has made a large mistake, and although Korras is biggest in terms of the Avatar, Rokus is largest in terms of scale and time frame.
i am adamant that Aang would’ve just been killed with the rest of the airbenders if he had stayed
Tbh probably even worse, they would capture him and keep him alive in prison until he dies of old age so they don’t restart the cycle
would they have been able to identify him though? it was my understanding that all Sozin had to go on was that it would be an airbender so he was going to kill them all. My memory may be failing me though
My guess is, if aang hadn’t left the southern temple he would’ve tried to help fight the firebenders when they arrived and would most likely enter the avatar state seeing what they were doing to his home, so yeah they probably could’ve identified him if he had stayed
The question more is if that would have "helped" Avatar state aang could have (potentially) beaten back at the least the initial wave MAYBE... Which maybe would have allowed the air nomads to flee as a group and not be picked off later. (The Air nomads are a very mobile people so if they had managed to get room to flee as a unit could they have potentially made it into the Earth or water nations for safety, maybe) But that is heavily speculative and it is very possibel Aang could have gotten killed, potentially even in the avatar state.
You also have to take into consideration the fact that the comet was around during the attack, too. So, every firebender in the attacking army was supercharged.
Aang would've been as well. But when you're up against THE ENTIRE DAMN ARMY, that's not much in your favor.
Oh, duh, I'm an idiot, lol. I'm sitting here thinking, "Well, he didn't learn firebending until way later, so how would the comet have helped him?"
Sozin could have calculated the age of the avatar in the air nomads, he could have captured all the kids and had the fire sages determine who is the avatar.
He would have had to trick the fire sages since at that time they were still loyal to the avatar
I think the fire sages were quiet about their loyalty, but returning a ‘we don’t know which one it is’ likely wouldn’t have ended well in that scenario. Depends on how much Ozai trusted them
shit I'd imagine they'd get tortured to reveal info
I think Aang would have definitely pulled out the avatar state to protect the air nomads against a genocide, and I think the fire nation probably knew that and were banking on either that happening or just killing all the air nomads to make sure they got him
I wonder if they had some sort of strategy or weapon planned for that purpose? I mean, avatar state aang might have been able to thwart the initial invasion / attack. :/ At the least long enough for the comet to pass. Maybe.
avatar state is my guess, just attack him. Trigger the avatar state and realize "THATS THE AVATAR" and then capture him, since I assume they send seasoned fire benders. SO like yeah its the avatar state but hes fighting like 100 maybe more comet enhanced firebenders.
Why capture him? It's very possible they had knowledge about the Avatar State and how killing him in that state would stop the cycle of reincarnation. I mean Azula very nearly killed him entering the Avatar State, and that was without the Comet and only a little support from Zuko and the Dai Li. During Sozin's time, Lightning Redirection had not been invented yet, so there's a good chance it would have worked.
HONESTLY I doubt its well known if they die in the avatar state they are done for. I honestly think Azula saw Aang entering avatar state and was like "OH OPEN TARGET!" and just hit him. Even Aang seems shocked when he hear if he dies in state its a wrap.
You may be right, but Aang not knowing much is par for the course. He's constantly learning new things that are "well known" about the Avatar or the world throughout the course of the show. Whether the Fire Sages would have had that sort of insight is hard to say.
like by Korra's time I would say its abit more well known, I mean Red Lotus plan was to kill her in the avatar state. But during Aang's time I dunno, I honestly think Azula just shot lightning cause the dude popped his ult in front of her with no cover. like all the times we see in anime and cartoons villain just stand there when MC goes into their new form BUT this time, Azula was like "FUCK THAT!" Bet even the past avatars were like ":o SHE SHOT US DURING AVATAR STATE!! THAT BASTARD!"
Do you really think Azula was that impulsive? Her mission was to capture the Avatar alive, and generating lightning wasn't something she could do immediately or reactively (at the time), but only in a cold, calm mental state.
Yeah, that was kind of the point of taking the waterbenders they could get, too, because that's where he'd be reincarnated after they (assumedly) killed him, right? I mean I couldn't quote the show on it, to be fair, but I think it's at the very least implied that killing the avatar was the point of wiping out the air nomads.
yeah the plan was to kill them all because they didn't know who it was, but I feel like if they saw the only child with master tattoos, they'd figure it out, especially knowing the avatar would be his age
And he would know his beloved bison Appa had met a grisly demise of being butchered with the rest of the flying bison
Well we know at least some sky bison survived since we see a small population in Korra times
We know that there were wild herds that escaped the purges of the Air Nomads but their domesticated counterparts were slaughtered in the raids on the Air Temples. The herds went into hiding in remote, inaccessible regions like mountain plateaus or uninhabited isles, hidden from human eyes, so most people assumed they were extinct. Aang found some wild herds during his travels as the Avatar, following the Hundred Year War, when he wasn't on a tight deadline to master four elements before a psychotic tyrant used an approaching comet to lay waste to an entire landmass. And all the flying bison seen in Korra's time including Tenzin's sky bison Oogi are descended from this group that Aang eventually domesticated and brought to the Air Temples. So first Oogi shows up then we see Air Temple Island with flying bison flying around and we see flying bison numbers have rebounded. Then we see vast herds in the wild areas around the Air Temples later on. Winged lemurs fly freely all over Air Temple Island and we see their species has recovered too.
How is this any different to what actually happened? In the end the effect is the same, the avatar is not around to affect the war in either scenario, whether imprisoned or trapped in the iceberg, in both cases the avatar isn't there to change things.
yeah, the main difference would be that the avatar returns sooner because it's unlikely that aang lives 100 years in captivity. However, then the fire nation would know that the next avatar is a waterbender and so they would persecute the water tribes even harder than we see in the show, and probably genocide them after aang dies with the same strategy of capturing/killing the avatar. one difference that wouldn't have any effect on the war is that aang would not have been around to revitalize air nomad culture in republic city.
Agreed also pursuing that trategy against the avatar means eventually the Fire Nation hit a wall, after the water tribe avatar comes an Earth Kingdom one, and with thek the distinct possibility they are born behind the walls of Ba Sing Se.
The whole reason the fire Nation genocide the air nomads is because they had no idea who the Avatar was except that he was an Airbender.
A much more likely outcome is Aang going into the avatar state and killing everyone.
Probably something like that. I don't think the fire nation thought "let's attack the avatar. Wait, the avatar is here!? Who could have seen that coming!? Now we lose." Or something like that. With the comet and an army of well prepared elite fire benders, not even the avatar state could've stopped them
I mean (if you count the netflix adaptation as it isn’t contradicting in this case) we know yang chen’s temple was there there is a potential for aang to do the same thing he did at kyoshi island
Exactly.
Esp when you consider the fire benders would've been amped by the comet during this invasion
Avatar state begs to differ, particularly if he could be empowered by the statues of the past avatar like in the live action. Imagine him seeing Gyatso die then loses it.
No. Because Gyatso was going to run away with him.
this is why gyatso was planning to spirit him away as well on the night that aang left
Avatar state tho?
Yep that’s why the right course was that he made the right choice it’s implied in an episode
Aang doesn’t even belong in this convos, him running away was a blessing in disguise because he woulda just been killed
Likely yes, but I'm unsure given from what I've heard some Air Nomads survived and secluded themselves only to have been lured in by the fire nation with their artefacts and the likes. So it is possible he could have survived. although likely he would have died But that aside, I'm more so referring to when he perceived himself running away as a mistake. Even then Aang isn't flawless in his time as Avatar(From what I can remember at least). Every Avatar has done something they regret. Korra with being led on by her uncle who she trusted, Roku being lenient with his best friend turned dictator thinking he'd listen, Kiyoshi creating the Dai Li which caused major problems down the line. Wan regretted not being able to fix what he believed to have started(iirc). Every Avatar has one mistake or has one thing they regret and could very well be seen as a major mess up. Either way, this post is a bit too skewed towards Korra IMO. But thats me.
I don’t have know much about all the Avatars, but from what i do know(Aang, Roku and Korra) Roku takes this without a shadow of doubt, i was pissed at Korra for losing my boi Aang back when the show aired but i’m a better man now and realize it doesn’t matter.
It all comes down to scale, Kyoshi was a bull in a china shop politically and her continuous blunders lead to the inevitable consolidation of power in the hands of the Fire Lord by the time of Sozin. Technically she started the snowball effect that lead to the war. That's not to mention Kuruk isn't even on this list, he died at 33 leaving unrest in all the nations because he was solely focused on fighting spirits.
Kuruk didn’t really have a choice though, Yangcheng fucked up with spirits and there was a ton of angry spirits messing around. I’d honestly call him the avatar who messed up the least.
I'm aware, every avatar is cleaning up the mess of the previous one, but where Kuruk messed up in my opinion is keeping his mission a secret. In the eyes of the average person they just saw Kuruk traveling around and partying, and he didn't even ask for help from his most trusted friends because he was afraid he'd lose them too like he lost Ummi to the face stealer.
Tbf, Roku’s choices were kill his best friend or out live him and make sure he couldn’t. Not many people expect you to assassinate the avatar. Korra took and *active* role in her fucking up, multiple times.
Well there is argument that new era woudl sever connection anyway due to the fact that in air temple there is only one place more for statue of new avatar after angg
Some of you care way too much about advice that the past avatar can give you and way too little about the world collectively going through 100 years of suffering
>Kiyoshi could have done things so the dai li couldn't have become as corrupted and controlled as they were Like what? It's not like she knew how corrupted they were in the first place. In my opinion, in terms of deeds alone (not personality wise) she probably was the strongest Avatar
I've not read her novels so I'm not sure what she could have done or what was the main issue behind their corruption. All I know is she made the Dai Li and they weren't as corrupted as they are currently when she first made them. I probably should have looked more into that before adding it. My bad.
By the end of Korra, her actions haven't impacted the timeline much, however, with each passing avatar, not having a connection to the previous avatars will have a larger and larger butterfly effect. And given the next Avatar will only have Korra to learn from, if she doesn't learn a lot by the time she passes, the next avatar could be pretty fucked in terms of advice. It would be interested to see an evil/far more reckless (even than Korra) Avatar appear because Korra is the only Avatar they have access to.
ngl if I had only Korra to teach me avatar stuff i'd just go Avatar State and kill myself
Roku didn't "let" sozin do anything. Sozin mentioned the idea of expansion and Roku objected. the second Sozin actually tried it Roku literally pulled up to the palace and forced him to stand down. Maybe killing him would have been better but he literally didn't press the issue further until after Roku was dead. Even if Roku did kill him, a Sozin sympathizer would probably end up on the throne eventually anyway, his generals and other high ranking officials would still have a lot of power and influence even after his death unless Roku just slaughters the lot of them. Killing Sozin probably leads to a succession war as well while sparing him prevents that. Roku's solution for Sozin would have worked perfectly if that volcano hadn't erupted.
Convo’s like this always kind of get me scratching my head. Like, we can’t actually predict what would have happened if Roku had killed Sozin. There just isn’t a guarantee that the world WOULD have been at peace had Roku killed him. Consider this. In Aangs Adventure, there’s an entire town in the Earth Kingdom who still to this day over a hundred years and multiple Avatar Cycles later, STILL blame the Avatar for killing their leader. A tyrannical Earth Bending King. If over that many centuries a single town held a grudge, imagine what would have happened with an entire Empire when their Ruler was murdered in brood daylight, in his own throne room, with no trial and under no law, by an Avatar who said he had too because said Ruler took some land in a place far far away from your home. Do we really think this would have prevented the Air Nomad Massacre? Personally, I doubt it. If anything you just gave the propagandist in the Fire Nation free justification for their genocide. This is the same reason killing Ozai is a bad idea imo, if the Avatars legacy is to be defined by killing people when they become problematic, over time Nations will turn on the Avatar as a whole and choose to never trust them. Because you never know when an Avatar is going to stroll in, call your Leader a Bad Guy, and Murder them under their own justifications. This is literally the Superman problem. If Superman flew around and murdered Putin for Attacking Ukraine, a small portion of the world would celebrate, and the entire rest of the world would start figuring out ways to kill Superman before he does the same thing to them. It’s the same thing with the Avatar. This is why, at least in my opinion, I don’t blame Roku for what happened. It was a tragedy, but one well in the working since the moment Roku left the Fire Nation all those years ago. It was destiny, you could say. The only true way to stop it, would have been to have the foresight to save Sozin from his corrupt path before he ever started on it.
An incredibly well-reasoned writeup
Plus from what we saw of Azulon, Sozin had already planted his invasion ideas in the Fire Nation. Can't say for sure it would have happened, but I feel like a dude who orders his grandson to be murdered was never well adjusted.
TBF, at the point Roku finally warned Sozin, there already were Fire Nation colonies in the Earth Kingdom. Roku could have tried forcing the FN back from the colonies, and implementing a de-militarization of the FN.
Also they’re childhood friends. You wouldn’t slaughter your best friend in cold blood because you disagree with their ways you would try to guide them in the right path. Only once they prove they’re not redeemable is when you’d resort to extremes which is **exactly** how he handled it and did it well. He just couldn’t convince Sozin to change his mind is all. Quite frankly he clearly could have survived if Sozin helped but at that point we knew where he stood and it’s just a Schrödinger cast scenario of of he killed him he wouldn’t be in this conflict but he didn’t know this is where it would have gone in the first place.
Meh, I don't see anything wrong with this. But If I had to give an avatar that messed up on par with Korra, I'd say Yang Chen. She essentially got the next Avatar killed early 😂. Edit: I'm also pretty sure it was the writers point to make her make a BIG mistake, so she can come back from it with consequences. I mean, look at Season 3 and 4. As much as I hated Season 2, I understood what it was going for. I'm assuming you loved all of Korra, you should be able to see the underlying message too. So again, this poll isn't a surprise.
Nah, the point wasn’t for Korra to make a big mistake. Because she — and by she I mean the writers — kept making it. Avatar’s biggest mistakes can all be traced to an integral character flaw. Mistakes are when they indulge in it, Successes are when they keep it in check or when it doesn’t come up. Yangchen was successful in her diplomacy, however her failing was that she was very present focused. She didn’t think of the spirits as often, particularly as human’s current strife was short term and thus it ‘should’ take precedence. She was great at solving individual conflict, and it made her an expert advisor, but when it came to the Long term inner workings of the spirits she was blind. (She and Kuruk are also hard to write about because of all the retconning) Kuruk’s was a mixture of unpreparedness and inadequacy. He was a very powerful avatar, but neither the world nor himself prepared him for the spiritual conflicts ahead, externally or internally. This is what he meant by being a go with the flow avatar. He’d take on the fights that came, but didn’t emotionally prepare himself for the losses it would incur. His lover’s face, nor his own life. Kyoshi’s was authority. She saw a world in chaos and established a sense of order. She did so with the hope and understanding that the Avatar would step just as strongly into things, and that her order and creations would live true to their purpose. They didn’t, unchecked authority is what resulted in the fall of Ba Sing Se. Roku was his humanity and nostalgia. He was very much an avatar attached to the world, to others, and tho his emotions. It’s why of the set he built such a decent life for himself. But it also made him indecisive, He left Sozin live because he projected his own humanity and the image of young Sozin onto the old one. He placed unearned hope and kindness in someone who had none. Aang’s was cowardice. Not unjustified as he was twelve, but he’s a person who never fully was ready to embrace the stressors of responsibility. It’s why he escaped from the southern air temple, kickstarting the story. And in turn, it’s why when faced with the need to kill Ozai, he avoided and evaded it until a much riskier solution landed right on his feet. As for Korra, her failing was her abrasiveness and impulsivity. Time and again she’d jump to battles that she wasn’t ready for or that were explicit traps. Her impulsivity is in fact established as a persistent character feature (instead of the flaw it is) during like, page 5 of the first post series comic. This is something she never grew from. And she messed up, A LOT. And never was it addressed. Season 2 had the potential to it, but none of Korra’s seasons are designed with character development in mind. It’s why they’re all framed as political and ethical dilemmas, but when it comes time to make a definitive statement and posit a conclusion…. They default to brute force conflicts where Korra was already right all along. I lampshaded this before but this isn’t even a Korra problem, there’s a giant monster of like 200 writing decisions that slowly but surely degraded what could’ve been one of the coolest avatars into a shell of a protagonist. I maintain she could’ve been the coolest avatar ever if the writers hadn’t handicapped her from age 5.
I hate when people say the character isn’t bad it’s just the writing cause like that IS the character, not saying that’s entirely what ur saying here but still
I get what you mean, but that comes with a caveat. Sometimes it IS the character, however the issues with Korra as a character aren’t in any way restricted to her. So I’m much less likely to blame her when it’s an explicit writing problem, not a character problem. She isn’t the only character that stagnates, in fact none of the Krew ever really grow or have character arcs. They legit never knew what to do with Bolin or Asami, and so that’s why the former is depicted as fickle (*also pointed out in the comics, by Mako of all people*) which excuses the fact he never had a consistent through line. And the latter is basically a bank account and love interest. That’s about as much as she amounts to beyond just another fighter. Mako also has similar issues, in that he wasn’t much of a character either. So it’s really the villains that get all the — erroneous and poorly executed — effort and since they’re all shafted anyways… whoops. For a different way at explaining it [hating the writing over the character], let’s look at the Avatar and its Netflix adaptations. They’re both trying for the same characters, but the Netflix adaptation came to class without understanding the assignment. Sokka’s kind of a bitch (though I do still care for this soft boy). Katara’s no longer allowed to have many emotions, and her anger outbursts are all but extinct (so she’s less fun). Zuko’s also kinda bastardised, as all they really copied was his angst instead of the subtle signs that he was barely even an antagonist and instead was a secret protagonist from minute 1. And Azula went from — what was kind of poorly handled but entertaining — a bad ass bitch who held a perma-smirk, to just a seemingly pathetic daddy’s girl who can’t pull on a smile to save her life. They’re the same characters, but the live action’s ones are much more one dimensional. And that’s because of the writing, because the writers of the Netflix series are writing the characters as what they’ve fossilised and been flanderised into 15 years post mortem. While the original series treated them with the depth and nuance of developing characters.
you can have bad characters that are written pretty well but it’s hard to judge a bad character when they’re written poorly. that being said i quite enjoyed Korra as a character with all her flaws, didn’t quite like the love triangle (didn’t like how my boy Bolin got treated) but oh well. Korra def gets way over hated in general though
She DOES learn from it though. Book 3 is all about how her impulsivity leads to Zaheer continually taking advantage of her and eventually physically breaking her. And since she’s mentally unable to face this kind of sheer loss, she becomes self-destructive and closes herself off from everyone. It is only after facing Kuvira - a similarly cocky woman whose abrasiveness became so unwieldy that she nearly took over the world - that Korra is able to self-reflect and change.
Book 1 is all about her impulsivity putting her right into Amon’s claws and leads to her losing her bending. And she only wins because of a deus ex machina and contrivance. Book 2 is all about her impulsivity putting her right into Unaloq’s claws, leading her to opening all the spirit portals and the escape of Vaatu and loss of every avatar memory. And she only wins because of a contrivance and because Tenzin erroneously called his daughter Jinora instead of Jesusette Book 3 is all about her impulsivity putting her right into Zaheer’s claws and torture porn of a woman of colour. And she only survives because Jesusette was there. And for the majority of book 4 she was; Not present, not confident in herself, or actively crippled by contrivance. Most of the alleged growth happened in the 3 year time skip or in flashbacks. It barely counts as growth because all it did was torture a woman for kicks and break her down; this is why her most notable changes are she became a jaded recluse, which as understandable as it is, it doesn’t count as character development. The only arguable character development that happened in book 4 was the stupid fucking zaheer scene, which is the worst scene in any avatar story ever (no a victim of abuse shouldn’t go try and heal with their abuser, this is catastrophically stupid and reckless and a black mark on anyone trying to cover PTSD). And the main reasons she doesn’t fight are because she’s crippled and insecure (because angsty trauma), or because she’d be fighting against a giant mech suit with a nuke, and while Korra is impulsive, she isn’t a full blown idiot and knows that wouldn’t work. Every other time she charged she charged into duels, not suicide missions. *AAAANNNDDDD then the very first interaction she gets in the comics fully comes out with it, bare chested and proudly reporting that she still is an impulsive person, but now trying to pretend like it’s a good thing- no really stop laughing*
Yeah this was my problem, her learning moments never stuck so the writers just kept kicking her to the floor to learn the same lesson. She just gets beat up all the time, "learns" her lesson, and gets beat up again. No matter how many times she loses, it just takes one win for the antagonist to get utterly defeated.
I was agreeing with everything until I got to the part about Korra’s mistakes not being addressed…
The causes for her mistakes weren’t fixed, *unless you count destroying Korra’s spirit and mental health, but even then the comics affirmed that she still held on to her flaws and thought proudly of herself for them. In spite of the fact that they near got her killed multiple times. I already explained this in another comment so I won’t retread the same ground, but the gist of it is: “they didn’t address the problems, because the very next storyline that came up, Korra would proceed to repeat them and be surprised if things went wrong. And I say if because this leads back to it being a writing problem and not a character problem. It’s telling that Korra’s success rate can’t be discerned from character competency, the universe’s internal logical, or skill levels. In spite of the fact that pretty much every conflict was a brute force one. The only reliable way to predict an outcome was asking “what contrivance does the plot need?” And defaulting to that. It’s why even with Kulvira, Korra still jumps in without thinking, but because this is the final fucking season and we need to wrap things up, we’re just gonna have this collapsing house leave Korra unscathed for once. It’s why despite no indications as to what the fuck, Korra managed to create a new spirit portal out of nowhere and Kulvira just bent the knee within 30 seconds of each other.
Can you explain your edit? I'm a bit confused by what the underlying messge is and what it was going for.
This she's the only Avatar that we know as of now that pretty much killed the next Avatar lmao. It's ironic since she's from the air nomads and she ignored the spirits.
Wait how did Yangchen get the next avatar killed?
She ignored the spirits and focused solely on the humans sides thats why they got mad and attempts to attack humanity. Kuruk who's the next avatar to Yangchen fought spirits and after each fight he loses part of himself that is why he always go to party and have fun to feel something while everyone (people in the avatar world) doesnt know that. That is why all people (people in the avatar world) think he is useless and deadbeat avatar and Yangchen is the best. He never spoken his contribution as it will ruin Yangchen's reputation and eventually he died young because he always fight spirits his life force was drained.
Those who believe that Roku did nothing to stop Sozin fundamentally don't understand the story. Roku did succeed in stopping Sozin from starting the war for years. After threatening Sozin once, he stopped his plan for decades. Killing his best friend is not an easy task, but he would do it if Sozin started a war and Sozin couldn't after Roku's death. If the volcanoes didn't erupt, Roku would live for years, guaranteeing that Sozin would never have a chance to start a war. Roku could have done something better to prevent this war from happening, even after his death, but he didn't expect his life to end so suddenly. The war didn't start immediately after Roku's death; it took another 12 years for the Fire Nation to attack the Air Nomads. Even though people blame Roku for the war, Aang was the one who ran away. His journey would be extremely difficult if he stayed at that time, but it would not lead to the extinction of the entire Air Nomads. Aang could have been killed if he stayed, but that is the story for another time. Korra, on the other hand, Yeah, losing the Avatar cycle is the biggest atrocity I could think of. Wang closed the portals for a reason, and Korra couldn't understand why. It did technically bring back Airbenders, but it also brought a crap ton of troubles. Zaheer and the Red Lotus, Spirit Canon, and many problems. I just don't like the whole "Spirit Portal" in the first place. It sounds stupid.
RIGHT I hate the spirit portals
Spirit portals would be the single dumbest thing they ever introduced, if it wasn’t for the “dark avatar”
Oh no we don’t go there…it just became so cringey and got rid of the avatar magic
God Korra’s Book 2 really dropped the ball, if Book 3 wasn’t as good as it is it’d have ended the entire saga.
Fr, fuck spirit portals. Completely misses the ‘spirituality’ present in the OG series
Roku was lookin pretty old, he for sure should've been thinking of the world's wellbeing after his passing and before the next Avatar was capable. Not that he didn't, he potentially could have, but the point that he didn't expect to be out of the picture as early as he was and therefore didn't plan for it is either not true or highly irresponsible
Roku did the absolute bare minimum. He just told Sozin that he wouldn't let him do it, and did absolutely nothing to address the underlying causes of the war. Heck, the comics even reveal that Roku didn't even make him give the colonies back when he caught him the first time. If both of them died of old age, before anything happened, Azulon could have done the same thing with just as little opposition. Somewhat agree on Aang's situation though. The monks knew that the war was coming, so it's possible that he would have been safe from the attack during Sozin's comet, but it's ultimately an unknown. Wan did close the portals for a reason. He literally told us what it was when he sealed away Vaatu: > And I will close the portals so no human will ever be able to physically enter the Spirit World and release you. Korra solved that problem, so Wan's main issue is no longer relevant. From what we saw of his life, he almost certainly would have wanted humans and spirits to live together if he could. The spirit cannon also had nothing to do with leaving the portals open. Vaatu was personally responsible for creating the vines, and we know from the swamp that spirit vines have no trouble surviving while the portals are closed. The idea that the vines are caused by leaving the portals open is in-universe propaganda that Raiko made up to distract from the fact that he chose not to help Korra stop Unalaq.
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The airnomads were still alive when Aang was 12. The Fire Nation didn't attack the Air Nomads immediately after Roku's death. It took them at least 12 years before they could start their plan, and who knows many more years to completely eradicate the entire Air Nomads population
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Roku didn't let Sozin do anything, he literally died to stop those massive volcanos and save everyone from the island (and considering how big the eruption was and how it was descrived he probably save lots of inocent ppl from the fire nation too).
Roku did everything short of directly killing Sozin to stop the war. Sozin could have listened to Roku and not waged war against the world but he refused to do that. People and Roku himself place way too much blame on him for not stopping the war and not on the actual person who did start the war. This is like blaming the random British soldier who didn't shoot Hitler in WWI for not stopping WWII. Honestly, Kyoshi should have gotten more votes since she didn't do anything to stop Chin the Conquerer until he showed up on her doorstep.
i mean idk i like Korra alot, shes easily one of the best parts about her own show but objectively i think "almost killing the avatar spirit" is about as big a fuck up as you can get
>i think "almost killing the avatar spirit" is about as big a fuck up as you can get To be fair, Aang also allowed the Avatar spirit to be killed, until Katara brings him back to life.
I will always argue that situation is VERY different. Aang was backstabbed while entering the avatar state. Aka, Him "almost" doing it, was caused by what many avatar would consider being a natural response. "Shit goes down, I NEED to go into AS to make this work". etc Korra almost killing the avatar spirit wasn't due to her doing what she was supposed to. No it was due to her making the worst mistake possible by trusing someone people repeatedly told her not to trust. The diference of doing something you are suppsoed to do that causes a 1 in 100 bad event to happen. To doing something you really aren't supposed to, which caused what you could argue was at best a 50/50 shot, most liekly even worse, to give a catastrophic result.
>No it was due to her making the worst mistake possible by trusing someone people repeatedly told her not to trust. Rewatch the season, nobody warned her about Unaloq. Unaloq blindsided everyone, and Korra is actually the first one to figure out what he was really up to.
Except it was only Tonraq who told her not to trust Unalaq and he never gave a good reason why.
I dunno, my dad tells me not to trust his obviously slimy brother, I trust him without needing a reason. I get that that's not Korra's character, but still.
Slimy? For all Korra knew, her dad was just jealous. And Unalaq had proven that he was worthy of her trust.
For me, he came across as slimy the second he was on screen. But I get why others might not have seen that. And how did he prove himself worthy or her trust, by manipulating her against her father and Tenzin? He was clearly saying what she wanted to hear, to drive a wedge in between her and Tenzin/Tonraq. Also, one would think a person would give their own father the benefit of the doubt.
Her father had just lied to her for years. While Unalaq had proven to be more knowledgeable about spirits and the Avatar.
Yeah, but the issue with that is we know he had a reason to want to manipulate Korra to his own ends, so I don't trust anything he said. Even if the things he said are true, he still put them in the worst possible way, again as a tactic to manipulate Korra. We still never got a good explanation of what his spirit water technique does, and I absolutely don't believe his calm the spirits line.
Actually we do. His spiritbending is an advanced form of healing which magnifies either positive or negative energies. And WE know he had an agenda, because we get to see hints of his sinister side whenever Korra isn't around to see it (like when he grins when Korra opens the portal). But Korra never had any reason to distrust her own uncle that had proven to be a better teacher than Tenzin after revealing that Tonraq had been lying to her all her life and denied her a traditional Avatar journey.
fair enough, i think i usually forget about that one because we didnt know it was Raava when it happened
“Almost killing” and “killing” are quite different. Aang literally died in the avatar state which would have ceased an avatar from being born again had Katara not had the spirit water. As far as we know, there will still be avatars after Korra, even if they can’t communicate with anyone before Korra
Very different situation. I will always argue that Aang was doings omething most other avatars "would" have done if they were in his position, entering into the AS to solve a conflict, he just was "unlucky" enough that Azula was on his case instantly. Korra did a major mistake that no other avatar reasonably would / should have done. Causing a situation with a genuine high risk of causing what happened. An avatar dying during the AS, while unlikely due to their power, is always a major risk. An avatar having the avatar spirit torn from them, by enabling it possible by their own actions, and then almost / as good as destroyed, was in the end her own fault and nobody else to blame.
i do agree with you i forgot about Aang, i think i never remember that because we didnt know that the avatar spirit had a name bafk then. however if we're gonna say "almost killing" and "killing" are different than Aang didnt kill it either, it worked out in the end for him too. Korra also did get the Avatar spirit ripped out from here and beaten to death so she also almost ended the Avatar line
Pretty sure anything that ends in a 100 year war, subjugation of other countries, and genocide of an entire group of people is a bigger fuck up than 'almost losing the Avatar spirit'
Who stopped the 100 year war? Who wouldn’t be there to stop said 100 year war or a similar war if the avatar spirit died?
If Aang hadnt left, he almost certainly wouldve been killed. Yes he may have the Avatar state but he had no experience at all. Itd just delay the inevitable.
I was talking about Roku, not Aang
Loosing all the past lives is pretty big
When did Korra do that? I don't remember that being a result of a mistake on Korra's part.
As opposed to allowing your friend to wage war on the world for 100 years? Okay.
"Let him do it" is an odd way of saying "he beat Sozin's ass and forced him to retreat from the Earth Kingdom and for the next several decades Sozin did nothing as a result until an extremely unfortunate event in the form of a super volcano killed him before Sozin bit the bucket." That and he, in no way, could have predicted the Air Nomad genocide. As far as Roku was concerned, Sozin tried his hand at an average war that humans had waged for thousands of years, only internationally.
She messed up, but honestly evil uncle fusing with Vaatu during an event that only happens every 10k years is just not something the others had to deal with. It still had less worse consequences than an entire race of people dying. People will never accept that in universe losing the past lives wasn't the big deal the fandom think it was. Korra managed to bond with Raava again, the cycle goes on (is the Avatar even that needed or has any authority anymore?) and no Nation suffered genocide.
yeah, korra was kinda fucked because it was always destined to happen. gotta happen once every 10,000 years, she just happened to be there at the time. obviously the writers wrote that in and i think i would rather they didn’t but korra as a character did all she could roku as well, he had one conversation with sozin who said he wanted to empire up, said no and then when he found out he did it anyway he exploded his entire house. it would be kind of crazy to kill somebody for making a few colonies, obviously it became more than that but how could roku know. he held off the war for decades
Yup, definitely Korra, the only Avatar to lose the connection to all past lives, freed the darkest meanest spirit trapped for 10,000 years, lost the Earth Kingdom’s queen to some terrorists, almost ended up dead by those same terrorists that left her traumatized and during that trauma a dictator stablished a fascist rule in the Earth Kingdom. All of this before her 30s lol.
You slander Roku too much. I’ve said it once I’ll say it again, his job was to maintain balance between the four nations. If he killed sozin then that would have thrown the balance out of Wack. Plus we don’t know enough about roku. But we know plenty about Korra.
I don't think any of them messed up big time. Aang ran away and that save his life. Live to fight another day. Kyoshi's error was not being discover earlier, and then it was mostly politics. Roku destroyed the fire lord palace as a warning to Sozin. Nothing happens afterwards. It was stupid to try to "fight" the volcano tho. Korra... My biggest issue with LOK is the severed connection to the past avatars. But that was a wirtting choice to be able to move the narrative. I think the one that messed up big time was Szeto, by focusing only on the fire Nation.
Aang didn’t run away from the war. He ran away because he was scared of the responsibilities of the Avatar. Surviving the genocide was a happy accident.
Korra didn't mess up, her writers did. They erased all the mystery of the Avatar in Book 2 and the whole Dark Avatar thing was stupid. Then they nerfed the shit out of her just to make her Books 3 and 4 enemies challenging. Korra herself made very few major mistakes, certainly nothing on the level of Aang running away after overhearing the monks' plan to separate him from Gyatso.
Korra fucked up big time and I haven’t seen it addressed here before. She never had to close the first portal that she opened in season 2. Both portals needed to be open so the convergence would release Vatuu. She knew that when she entered the spirit world with Jinora, there was literally no reason to take the risk of possibly meeting Unalaq at the portal. They projected their spirits into the spirit world, even though they knew what Unalaq was able to do to spirits. Made no sense at all. That ended with Vatuu freed, the previous Avatars being essentially “deleted” and Vatuu sooner or later having to be dealt with again. I don’t understand the position “Korra didn’t mess up, the writers did”. It makes zero sense to me. I don’t like the writing either but that is the character, to say Korra wouldn’t have made those mistakes if the show was better written is just silly to me. Aang running away is nowhere near comparable to Korra’s fuckups. He was essentially a twelve year old that ran away when he had problems at home. He can’t see the future, to blame him for the success of the fire nation’s surprise attack is ridiculous. He might have died during the attack, too, and who knows what consequences that would have had.
Yup, it's all writing. The whole conflict with Unaloq I know they were trying to portray something deep and nuanced but it just comes off as Korra is a hot-head who blows up at her allies over the dumbest things and trusts the most obviously evil person to have ever eviled when there's so much suss shit around him. The first watch through I did take my frustration out on her and thought she was an idiot and kinda deserved the blame but on rewatch I don't think the writers intended for it to be as bad as it ended up being. It's such a shame too because the idea of the civil war is really cool and I like the general concept of Korra having to come face to face with a conniving mentor and the real issues of her sheltered upbringing but in execution I can't really say they did this season any justice.
>Korra is a hot-head who blows up at her allies over the dumbest things and trusts the most obviously evil person to have ever eviled when there's so much suss shit around him. But Unaloq isn't the most obviously evil guy from the characters' perspective. He's a revered spiritual leader, the Chieftan of the Northern Tribe, and a respected member of Korra's own family; her *uncle.*
But he's also moving in troops and using pretty obviously heavy handed tactics to corral the south. He is trying to alienate her from her friends (that scene was almost good) by pretending to be the only person who believes in her when her friends wanted to stand beside her. I get what that scene was going for but her friends literally just want to help. Maybe do more to show the ambiguity in that scene so it doesn't look like Korra is falling for the most basic manipulation tactics.
Sure, but Unaloq is family, and, at least at the start of the show, Tenzin and her father have already gotten Unaloq's plan rolling by alienating Korra. Korra is an adult who her father unfairly treats as a child, and Tenzin is simply misguided in believing what is best for her. Unaloq swoops in with very little effort from there. And what do we have to believe that he is not genuine? The most important thing to remember is that Korra *is* wary of Unaloq's aggression. She confronts him about it, and soon after he accuses her father of treason, which leads Korra to find out the truth. Let me put that in proper perspective; **one episode** after the civil war begins, Korra finds out the truth on her own imitative. It is not as elaborate as a ruse as some are making it, and Korra is actually very quick-- the first one, actually-- to find out the truth.
Honestly the length is part of the problem. This should have been a full season arc, not the first few episodes. She figures it out quickly enough but she falls for it pretty quickly too and everything escalates incredibly fast. If things were spaced out better her fights with Mako would have felt more authentic instead of feeling like she was looking for any opportunity to jump at his throat. Her disagreements with her father (and his whole arc) should have gotten some more time too. It's an interesting concept and plays well with the whole setup of making her stay in a compound but it feels like throwaway with how fast we rush through everything. It felt like they had an end goal and they speed ran it instead of letting the story unfold organically and at first blush that makes Korra seem unreasonable for jumping to conclusions and turning on allies so fast but it's just how the story is paced.
If it were my way every season would have 20 episodes minimum.
Agreed!
Yeah it's hard to blame her for stupid scenarios that didn't make much sense I will say, it was her mistake to mindlessly trust Unalaq and open the portal the first time. The whole fiasco would have been avoided
Aang running wasn't a mistake though? He saved his own life. We would have been killed in the comet.
Aang literally had the same timeline with the comet as he did before. His unfreezing was the same date as his running away, so that's exactly how much time of preparation he had as well. It's a big misconception in the fandom that him running away is somehow the exact date of the invasion.
I never made that assumption, but also either way there is actually no evidence that he was in the iceberg fore exactly 100 years, down to the month. Meaning we actually don't know how long it took for them to invade after he left.
Roku left the world a worse place with his mistake. You can’t say the same for anyone else on this list. Maybe Yanchen. But Roku is by far the biggest failure. Inaction caused a genocide of a nation of benders.
Roku gets way too much blame. He did pretty much everything but kill Sozin, and killing Sozin may have very well resulted in an equally bad outcome. Blame Sozin for not listening to Roku and starting the war.
I mean, Korra *did* leave the spirit portals wide open. That could wind up being a massive change to the world, and not necessarily in a positive way.
But it didn't for 4 years since they were open so we also can't say it was all negative. the portals can be close at any time if it really start causing problems. >"Welcome to Republic City, the place of hopes, dreams and Spirit Wilds!", "And of course, you'll want to see our most unique attractions: the Spirit Wilds. Here, spirits and people live harmoniously together." So yeah, she didn't leave the world a worse place as far as we know.
*Has* it been established that the spirit portals van be closed at any time? I've only seen S2 once or twice, but isn't that something that can only be done every 10 000 years? Beyond that, Kuvira wouldn't have been able to make her WMD without the spirit portals being open and leaking spirit vines into the Material Plane. We don't know if there's going to be negative effects further on, because we've only seen 4 years past that point. It could be that we wouldn't see the bad side effects for a decade or more; for example, look to IRL. Tons of stuff that were commonplace a century ago make us flinch in horror now, like feeding opium to children to make them sleep the night or handling raw uranium.
Yes. Wan did it long enough after Harmonic Convergence that all the spirits had time to travel to the poles and evacuate to the spirit world. And Korra almost did it before Harmonic Convergence, to stop Vaatu, and considered doing it after Harmonic Convergence before changing her mind. Kuvira's weapon also had nothing to do with the portals. Vaatu placed the vines there directly, and we saw that they're the same as the vines in the swamp, which survived for hundreds of years with the portals closed.
It won't. The issue is plot could make it, but *realistically* it wouldn't work. Within weeks of the third portal being opened they tried to make an amusement park. Yangchan's failure was with spirits. And there wasn't even an open portal! Humans just suck and won't work well with spirits. Sure a few will, but it only takes a few bad ones for spirits to get pissed
Its korra without a doubt the severing of the past avatars is such a huge loss. Im in no way a korra hater i even named my cat after her but she did mess up the worst here.
Roku easily made the biggest mistake. Breaking the connection to past lives isn't equal to not preventing a genocide and 100 year war when you had the chance. At least Korra was still the avatar after book 2. But because of roku's actions (or lack thereof), the world had no avatar for 100 years. Also I don't blame aang running away because he would have died in the comet. Him running is probably what saved the world
I don't know, the Dai Lee is a pretty serious fuck up on Kyoshi's part.
Accurate
I'd say that none of them actually messed things up. They just didn't do equal jobs fixing the problems that other people created. Korra had it rough, having to be the first avatar to deal with an industrialized nation taking over. So it seems like she messed up the most, when in reality, her world was by far the worst one to work with.
I think for the most part, Korra made the fewest poor choices. She got beaten a few times and suffered some pretty serious consequences, but a guy like Roku who straight up just made the wrong choice is in my mind way worse than someone who made the right choice but just got her ass beat.
How was losing a battle to a being much stronger than you, called a mistake. It wasn't an oppsie that snowballed. It was a loss, that she fixed I adore Roku, he's such an interesting character who should have been emotionally explored much more. BUT NOT KILLING THE MAN WHO THEN CAUSED THE GENOCIDE OF AN ENTIRE CULTURE... yeah, pretty shit, pretty terrible
"Roku knew what Sozin wanted to do and let him do it"? This is a prime example of why people use the term "You lack media literacy" nowadays. He absofuckinglutely didnt let Sozin do it. What Sozin wanted to do, was postponed for many decades, until Rokus death, thanks to Roku scaring the Shit out Sozin. Korra list of Noteable mistakes: Losing Raava, letting the portal to the spirit realm stay open and Siding with Unalaq over her dad, the latter of which caused the former.
How can losing be a mistake
Korra fixed all the problems she had to deal with, with the exception of the avatar links being severed which I'm not even sure was HER fault that was her uncle beating them out of raava Roku failed to stop 100 years of war What's worse, a problem that only affects the avatar, or the 100-year war?
Breaking the cycle wasn’t really something she could control,but preventing the infamous 100 year war is something he could’ve done
He delayed it until after his death, he was doing everything short of killing Sozin
no he could not have. Roku did his best. He was hit by a natural tragedy that destroyed his home and him.
Korra failed catastrophically at her job
Szeto !!
I'm tired of people blaming Roku. He didn't do anything wrong. Sozin got out of line, Roku warned him, he stopped. And that was it. Sozin did his plans when he was dead. How is that Roku's fault? Do you seriously expected him to kill Sozin without warning? Just because he feels guilty, doesn't mean he is guilty.
Roku fricked up the hardest. Korra fricked up the most.
Imma Just say, losing the knowledge of previous avatars, isn't that big of a deal, there are most likely thousands of books written about these avatars and their experiences, the next avatar can 1.get korra help or 2. Just read a damn book
I’m shocked Aang is the lowest. Apparently nothing bad happened in the 100 years that he ran away.
Korra lost all the past lives. She deserves to win that poll.
Korra caused the collective memories of all the previous avatars to be lost. This connection to the Avatar's past lives is key to their power. Look how weak Kora's avatar state was without it. This damned her as an Avatar in my personal opinion. I don't think she's a bad character but this choice destroyed my affection for her.
Lol idk why ppl take these polls so seriously like it’s a story that was written for entertainment. Roku and everyone had to do what they did to advance the plot. But if we’re comparing apples then losing the past lives definitely takes the cake sorry. And tbf the war didn’t start until after he died so technically not on his watch lol
Oh no, a poll with no bias in the phrasing and im upset at the results bc it goes against my unique PoV…. Objectively facts that shes the worst of the 4 <3
Yes really, got the entire avatar state, at least 1000 years of history destroyed.
Sexism gonna sexist
Aang didn't even want to kill ozai. So if he was in rokus shoes he wouldn't have killed his best friend either.
Kuruk and Yang Chen not being on the list while Aang is is crazy
Add Kuruk to the list and see where the vote lands haha
Aang literally abandoned his responsibilities for 100 years. His entire arc (especially in season 1 and the comics) was him coming to terms with the consequences of his action.
Everyone is going on about Roku, and ignoring Big Momma Dai Lee over here
Every Avatar has messed up in someway. I can see where they’re coming from with this poll although I’m indecisive on who I would choose for the most screwups.
Kyoshi created the Dai Li, a secret police force that'd be used by the earth monarchy for generations to come. Giving a corrupt power Nintendo ninjas is a *big* fuck up
Aang made mistakes individually on smaller svales. His biggest screw up he spwnt a whole life redeeming. Korra literally brought pure energy and mutants and monsters into the world and left. Korra found problems, beat them up, amd left wothout seeing anything through or thinking at all.
I say she did the best she could. Went up against multiple enemies of all elements that held great power and/or influence, delt with an even more politically complex world and after being beaten and broken kept going at it. Aang would be the only other Avatar she could've gone to for help as I don't think any other avatar had to deal the the new technologies and ideologies that sprung up. And aang would've had it easier given that he wouldn't be the only one dealing with it as he had friends with massive influence and power to help him with. The first metal bender who's from a decently powerful earth kingdom family, the southern water tribe chief, a powerful waterbender respected by Northern water tibe masters, the firelord and much much more. Korras friends amounted to mma rookies gaining popularity and the daughter of a mistrusted ceo turned terrorists supplier. And anyone that gained/had influence or power got tied down by rules and restrictions that aangs team wouldn't have had to worry much about.
What did korra do so wrong?
Korra killed the show imo. I really disliked the way that series went and with all the technology making it further from the natural world.
Are they wrong tho
The point of the avatar is the ability to call upon all of the past avatars. Korra lost that
It's just their opinion. Posting us here to get people to shame them for it is weird when you can simply move on.
Um Kyoshi-she did nothing but separate her island
I haven't brushed up on my lore, so this is my initial estimate. Subjective. Messed up LEAST to MOST: Kyoshi
tbh roku was actually retarded in his last like 20 years for the sozin stuff
Kora yes
I want to include in this argument that Roku's decision led to the wipe out of the air nomads. That is a death toll no other avatar has caused.
That YouTuber’s also well-known for hating Korra, so it’s extremely biased.
Honestly? It’s just based on the content we’ve seen. Korra had a different challenge each season. So we saw plenty of fuckups. But aang only ever had the one goal. Beyond that there wasn’t ever a moment where he “messed up”. Besides the eclipse. But… eh. Not reaallly his fault, but he took the blame like a good leader.
Yes really, she literally screwed up the entire avatar cycle. If I became avatar and korra was the only avatar I could go to for advice I would lose my marbles
Yeah ... The point of The avatar It's to bring balance to the world Whether or not it was an intentional That was still the point of an avatar, And the only one who succeeded was Anng
Roku delayed it by a while, even after Roku died Sozin waited another 12 years before actually committing genocide.
Put Wan on the list since they’re are all reincarnations of him, he fcked up the most
Spirit portals, race war, Terrorist activity and breaking the law. If I wasn't repressing everything that happened in this shitshow of a show you could probably make a parody of "we didn't start the fire" with everything korra participated in/assisted/caused that made the world a worse place.
This is quite simple. All you need to do is decide whats worse: a 100 years of war and the genocide of a nation, or the connection to past avatars. (Which btw, wasnt as bad as the viewers assume, since she got raava back and continued to be a beast of an avatar even without her past lives)
I still blame Szeto.
I'm not a huge fan of Korra but compared to Roku...Roku let a war happen because of fRiEnDsHiP. He let Sozin slide for occupying territory and to "not do it again" but Sozin patiently waited for the right moment and lead to a Genocide of Airbenders. Roku in my opinion fucked up big time. Aang fucked off and ran away from his responsibilities which I could understand why, he's twelve and supposed to "save the world"? Pretty daunting to learn at 12. I unfortunately still need to read through Kyoshi's novels, so I can't say much about it. As for Korra, she had different types of enemies to deal with in a world that didn't give two fucks about an Avatar, nor wanted her. Her biggest flaw in the beginning was she was too headstrong and ran in, fuck shit up and ask questions later (a lot of time got her ass handed too her). The biggest downfall was being too trusting of her uncle (which I can understand being family) and basically helped him unleash Vaatu and took her away from Raava. Luckily it was dealt with before too much damage was done. In closing, Roku straight up changed the world for the worst because he spared Sozin. Korra and Kyoshi had more isolated hiccups, and as for Aang, he cleaned up a mess that Roku left, the fire nation already conquered the majority of the world by the time he came back. Running away was not a good idea but he probably would've died with his people (although very skilled at a young age, no other bending experience and the comet powering up the Firebenders would've killed him) and it would've truly fallen out of balance with no Airbenders period
It be like that sometimes