Anghraine

My best friend and I were talking about the ways that Legend of Korra does and doesn't work for us, and particularly about the way it feels very erratic on a craft level where ATLA is pretty consistently good to great, yet ultimately LOK engages us both more. Inevitably, we wound around to a point of firm agreement: excepting Unalaq and Vaatu in B2, we consider the main villains of LOK a lot more personally and thematically interesting than Ozai and this has a weird effect on LOK's politics.

I drafted a far longer post about this [ETA: lmao], but anyway: there are many obviously progressive elements to ATLA. Ozai as a villain is fundamentally aligned with things antithetical to progressive ideals. He is a hereditary autocrat carrying on a multi-generational campaign of imperialism that historically (in the show) has been justified by familiar bigoted, reactionary rationales about civilizing and bringing prosperity to other cultures. He's overwhelmingly authoritarian in every aspect of life—as a ruler, as a conqueror, as a father, as a husband. He's less a person than an embodiment of domination, imperialism, autocracy. And the ultimate solution that ATLA provides for the problem of Ozai is 1) a greater power defeating him in combat and 2) replacing him with a good autocrat.

That's not a charitable characterization of a beautifully executed and emotionally satisfying conclusion. And I think the underlying rationale for that resolution owes more to ATLA's mythic and fantastic structure than to any serious commitment to the "what we really need is a good dictator" form of political discourse that has unfortunately become increasingly common. But solving the problem of imperialism with a Chosen One and a kinder and softer absolute ruler over the imperialists is not ... exactly a radical solution, let's say. It's not that different from, say, Lord of the Rings.

It works for ATLA's story! I just don't feel that this resolution is particularly daring or transgressive in the way that it is sometimes represented as being. Other aspects of ATLA are much more daring and revolutionary than this, but the core politics just don't feel that way to me.

LOK, by contrast, has a lot of centrist-at-best baggage. It would take awhile to detail all of this (the fantasy copaganda is probably the most obvious), but it's especially apparent with the villains. LOK essentially has a revolving door of major villains who are each very different in personality, goals, motives, politics, and symbolic alignments, but thematically unified by one very familiar concept that is obvious even before it's explicitly spelled out in B4.

I've talked about this before in relation to LOK and had plenty of criticism of it (here and here), but the basic idea is this: What if the villain actually has the right idea, but just goes too far?

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diocletianscabbagefarm replied to this post:

LoK suffers in places from having the “seperate every season” syndrome. Books 3 and 4 were ordered at the same time, but all they decided to do with it is have Kuvira exist in book 3, rather than use that opportunity to lay connection and emotional groundwork

I replied:

Yeah—it’s not necessary to have an overarching plot, strictly speaking, but I think there are places where it would have helped to be building towards something the whole time, even if it wasn’t apparent what that thing was until we got there/in retrospect. I do love Korra’s overall character arc, but it bears a lot of weight as pretty much the only thing holding the series together as a whole.

I do think books 3 and 4 flow together a lot better than 1 and 2 or even 2 and 3 (not to argue that they’re individually better, just that B3 very clearly leads into B4 across multiple levels), but as far as Kuvira specifically goes, I agree. Her descent would be much more powerful if we actually knew her in some capacity, as would her ultimate surrender, but there’s no real connection to her until B4.

I was talking the other day about a LOK AU where Amon is the final boss, and mentioned that it’s a variant on a much older idea I had for rearranging the order of the seasons. And now I’m thinking of that one again.

I have a few pretty long posts about it, but in summary, this other AU reorders the seasons by the threat posed by the villains and their forces (in my judgment): Zaheer, Amon, Kuvira, and Vaatu. It always seemed a bit odd to me to have the most high-stakes battle (against Vaatu) in the middle of the series and then to follow it right up with a handful of anarchists, while the most truly menacing villain starts out the series, and the last has a very abrupt and incomplete arc.

It’s not … entirely motivated by Kuvira/Korvira feelings. I do think that, while complicated to carry off in details, it could help with a lot of the pacing issues, and though it’s a coincidence, I like the idea of the seasons continuing to follow the elemental cycle (the Air season would have an airbender villain fighting for freedom, who would be followed by a waterbender villain fighting for change, who would be followed by an earthbender fighting for stability).

Buuuut can’t lie, giving Kuvira’s arc more space is a major motivator. She’d first show up in Book One, if briefly, be an occasional presence in Book Two as she reports her progress in consolidating control of the Earth Kingdom while Korra is trying to deal with Amon … but with Zaheer coming first, Korra would be in a mental state to deal with Kuvira much earlier in the timeline, preventing some of her later excesses (*cough*and making it easier to accept a redemption arc*cough*).

Anyway, I’m still really attached to the scenario where—although Kuvira’s exploits as the Great Uniter weren’t on the same scale as canon—the non-Korra members of Team Avatar are pretty understandably suspicious of her (esp Mako), and she and Korra amplify each other’s best and worst tendencies so much that she’s definitely disruptive, but they all end up fighting Team Unavaatu together.

(After Korra and Kuvira have shippy adventures in the Spirit World, that is.)

Tagged: #i love korvira and i also love frenemies kuvira and mako and this au gives me both #and also just... things i like #i don't really have the will to write the full thing and i'm not sure how to write a piece of it /without/ writing the full thing #but it's dear to my heart

I reblogged a gifset of Korra shouting "You and I are NOTHING alike!" at Tarrlok back in B1, and Kuvira shouting "We are NOTHING alike!" at Korra in B4. My tags:

#lmao i remember how people were 'how dare!!!' at the idea that 'when extremes meet' was about extremes meeting #and then it carried all the way through to the end of b4 and people were still 'how dare!!!'

I obviously have Korvira feelings anyway, but I’m listening to TSO and it’s…
*collapses onto my fainting couch*

#i remembered thinking it was korvira-y years ago and listened again #and damn #my memory did not mislead me!!

I reblogged a gif of Korra and Kuvira metalbending at each other in the S4 finale and just tagged it:

#this is gay culture

Korvira… they…

I reblogged a gifset of Book 4 Korra's short hair blowing in the wind, and added:

#c'est magnifique

I reblogged a post from the justkuvirathings blog, which was a screenshot of the new spirit portal created in the finale, with the text "The chemistry between you and the Avatar literally ripped open a portal to another dimension."

I tagged it:

#;)

I reblogged a gifset from callmekuvira of Korra and Kuvira being cool and powerful that separates the gifs into paralleling pairs by setting the words from Tenzin's description of Korra between the pairs of gifs: strong, unyielding, fearless.

I tagged it: #look i just need some of this quality korvira material in my life