The Legend of Korra

As a huge Avatar: the Last Airbender fan, I feel like I should probably put forth some opinions on the new series, The Legend of Korra.  First of all, the artwork is beautiful.  I feel like we're really in for another visual treat with the new series.  With a bigger budget, I think that Bryan and Mike will really be able to make The Legend of Korra a showpiece for Nickelodeon.  If you haven't already, it's worth your time to head over to Korra Nation and take a look at some of the concept artwork that has been produced for the show.

Korra Nation

Concept art for Republic City at night

       

Beyond that, one of the things that really has me excited about The Legend of Korra is the way that the character of the Avatar is being evolved.  Think about this: Aang's most pressing task was to learn to bend all four elements so that he could become more physically powerful than Fire Lord Ozai, enabling him to defeat the Fire Lord in battle and put the Fire Nation in its place.  Everyone looked to the Avatar to end the Hundred-Years War with his might.

Well, Korra has might.  She's got it in spades.  But what is that going to do for her?  What is the public expecting the Avatar to be in the new age?  I feel like one of the statements that the first two episodes made is that there's no place for bending violence in this new world outside of an MMA-style sport.  Korra is going to find that the technical aspects of learning to bend all four elements, and the physical result of using them, are not going to be that useful outside of Pro Bending.  What will be useful (and I think the series is foreshadowing this) is the insight into each of the bending nations (which comprise the population of Republic City) that her studies will give her.

I think the show is going to be much more interested in the Avatar as a political figure, whose primary task is to unify the people with a positive message (contrasting with Amon), rather than as a highly-skilled fighter.  That's why we haven't seen her do any really complicated bending moves, like the Octopus Form, or the Rockalanche (oh, The Boulder...*sigh*), or those cool fire whips that Zuko pulls out at the end of the second season.  I doubt if moves like those were even taught to Korra, because they're just not that important anymore.

In a side-note, on one hand, I'm glad that they made Korra naturally adept at the three styles of bending that Aang had to learn (though I am curious about why it took her twelve years to learn them, given that she was a capable water-, fire-, and earthbender when she was about five), so that we don't have to sit through them again, but on the other hand, I would have been interested to see how Korra reacted differently to the training than Aang did.  It might have helped us to contrast the two Avatars.

Side note #2: I really hope the show ventures beyond Republic City at least a couple of times, so that we get to see whether the rest of the world (Ba Sing Se, the Fire Nation Capital, etc.) has also progressed and is as multicultural and bend-less as Republic City.