#lok rant

OK friends, I have a Legend of Korra rant for you.

I just finished re-watching Avatar, and now I’m on Legend of Korra. I’m so close to finishing Book 2 and I have some thoughts about everyone’s favorite parent to the Avatar, Senna.

First off, I love the whole family. I love Korra, Tonraq and Senna and their whole relationship. The pride that Senna had when she said “Your search is over” to the White Lotus, and calling Korra in the room? Amazing. She was so proud that her daughter was the Avatar, even when, in Book 2, we learned that Senna and Tonraq just wanted a simple, normal life in the Southern Water Tribe.

Well, like Senna said, when they found out Korra was the Avatar, “simple was over.”

Anyway, so we’ve got Senna, this amazing character that basically gets no air time.

She’s essentially invisible in Book 1, except for that first scene at her and Tonraq’s house. Then, in Book 2, the majority of the season is based in the Southern Water Tribe. Do we get more Senna? Sure, but just a little bit.

First, she’s the supportive wife when Tonraq is visibly annoyed at the fact that Unalaq is in the Southern Water Tribe, then she is at the feast sitting at the head of the table with her family. The next notable time you see Senna isn’t even in the hut during the meeting (where Varrick praises the cookies and slams many plates), but when she has a heart-to-heart with Korra, trying to be the mediator between her daughter and husband.

Korra and Senna honestly have a really beautiful conversation. When Senna tells her daughter, “It breaks my heart to see our family being torn apart like this,” the heartstrings definitely tug. This is a woman that just wants her family to be happy, on the same page and enjoy the time they have together. Keep in mind, Senna didn’t see her daughter at all during Book 1, when she went to Republic City. Now, her family is reunited, but they’re at odds with each other.

Side note, I get it, Senna is this gentle, caring woman. Her husband and her daughter, and I say this as nicely as I can, are hotheads. They’re very much alike. Passionate, strong and stubborn. That’s Tonraq and Korra to a T.

Senna kind of has to be the mediator between the two. The glue that holds the family together, if you will.

So then, after the heart-to-heart with Korra, the scene where Unalaq is kidnapped plays out. Then, Korra heads back home after the attack to find Tonraq and Senna cooking breakfast. And another beautiful scene ensues, where the family shares a hug and Korra tells them that she will always need her parents.

I mean, whose heart didn’t burst at this big family hug?

So, Senna’s family is all on good terms again -- and then she and Tonraq get arrested. There’s a trial. Senna is let go, free of all charges. Tonraq gets sentenced to death, but then the judge, scripted by Unalaq, let’s him just spend the rest of his life in prison.

There’s a small scene with Senna and Korra visiting Tonraq, but it’s mainly Tonraq telling Korra to remain calm and “don’t do anything rash.” Good one,  Tonraq. 

Finally, there’s a scene where Senna is standing in her house crying, and then she’s comforted by her daughter. Senna tells Korra she just feels so helpless. And that’s when Korra loses it and hunts down the judge.

You really don’t see Senna until Harmonic Convergence, when she greets Korra and tells her about the state of Jinora, and about Tonraq and the rebels getting beat. Then, once again, we revert back to no Senna in sight until Jinora wakes up and says that “Korra saved the world.” You see Senna and a very beat up Tonraq beaming with pride, but that’s it.

In Book 3, there’s basically no Senna at all, until the very end. After Korra defeats the Red Lotus and takes down Zaheer, she’s confined to a wheelchair due to her injuries and the poison effects. There’s a really beautiful moment where Senna tries to comfort her daughter, who is wracked with despair. She tells Korra that she’s worried about her, and that she should go see Katara. It’s a really sweet moment of a mom and daughter, and how much Senna cares and loves Korra.

Fast forward to Book 4, when Senna and Tonraq are eating with Korra and Korra asks to go back to Republic City. After objecting at first, Senna realizes it’s what her daughter needs. You don’t see Senna again until, well, does this even count, the wedding of Varrick and Zhu Li. You see a very far shot of her sitting at a table.

I mean, look at this next picture... At the wedding, she’s not even seated next to Tonraq!?!?!?!

It’s odd that Opal is seated next to Tonraq and not Senna. That’s a different story for another day.

I’ll admit, I’m not caught up on the comics, but from what I’ve seen, Senna is shown offering support and love for Korra and Asami’s relationship. There’s also a comic scene where she helps Katara when Korra is young and learning waterbending. She also attends Zhu Li Moon’s first speech as president of Republic City.

So, now that we talked about what scenes Senna was in, you’re probably wonder, “where are you getting at with this?”

Listen friends, there’s two things: Senna deserved more air-time on the show and we should have gotten one scene of her waterbending, even if it’s just healing and not fighting. 

Senna is a confirmed waterbender, that’s canon. But do we see it once? Nope! I’m not mad that we get a lot of Tonraq. Obviously, he had a big storyline in Book 2, being the brother of Unalaq who was trying to take over the south. There was a lot of character development there. However, we got nothing in regard to Senna and her backstory. It would’ve even been nice to hear about how she and Tonraq met.

Back to the waterbending... Senna is a confirmed waterbender but we don’t see it. Senna doesn’t need to be this rough and tough fighter. That’s Tonraq and Korra. But even seeing a scene where Senna heals the rebels, or does something to help them with waterbending, would have been nice. Even in the comics, there is no actual scene or showing of Senna waterbending.

Why go out of your way to make sure people know she’s a waterbender and  then not show her waterbending!?

As for the air-time, she’s basically nonexistent in the show. I’m not a fan of that. Yes, Book 2 was nice to get some scenes with her, but for the most part, Senna is just kind of invisible. And, the thing that made the Legend of Korra so special, in my eyes, is that we actually see an Avatar with parents. In ATLA, Aang was raised by the monks. The only time you saw his parents was when he flashbacked with Roku to his birth. And that was like, .2 seconds of seeing Aang’s parents.

Korra has her parents in her life. They’re not murdered. They’re not absent. Tonraq and Senna are in their daughter’s life, and on this incredible journey with her. It’s great that we see this incredible relationship with Korra and her dad, but where’s the love for Senna!

OK, I think I’ve ranted enough. Let me know what you think about Senna and what you wanted to see the creators do with her. Show some love to this awesome mom of a great avatar! 

I leave you now with more Water Tribe hugs, because hugs are the best.

Case in point, Season 4. I've seen countless posts stating our current villain Kuvira should be representing fascism and while I see the parallels...

((INSERT A CROWD SHOUTING "ALL HAIL THE GREAT UNITER" HERE))

...it's not enough. Until the last fight, Kuvira never gets a chance to truly follow through any of her threats, truly show how she takes her ideology to the extreme.

Zaofu joins the Earth Empire rather peacefully. With the civilians pledging allegiance to Kuvira, they seemingly are integrated as normal citizens of said empire. The Beifong family who refused to bow down are simply imprisoned.

There are several mentions of "re-education camps" that... mean prison camps. We never see the places, but we're supposed to believe they're really, really bad.

While Kuvira brings peace and prosperity to the Earth territories, after her train moves on, life stops looking so rosy. How? We don't learn about it firsthand, Opal just brings it up and Bolin tries to get the information from Kuvira. Neither of these instances gives us any details as to how life under this particular dictator is terrible.

There's the thing about the Empire purging its land from people without pure Earth Kingdom ancestry... Or maybe it was with inherited bending that isn't earth? Because otherwise Bolin should've been taken care of, honestly, as he has a fire nation mother. We see it through several people running away from the "re-education camps" and saying they were persecuted for their ancestry.

This bugs me so much, especially considering that it could've been written better. The narrative could've pushed in such a direction, so that we could explore these issues with more showing and less telling. Imagine an episode of the Korra team (or some members of it, Bryke honestly had a habit of splitting that team up) stumbling upon a miscellaneous Earth Empire village. Maybe that could've been Varrick and Bolin who already betrayed Kuvira and were on the run. They try to blend in, maybe put on disguises, resupply. In the background you could see the discrimination against non-Earth Kingdom natives. A firebender could try to defend himself against the regime by fighting back, his waterbender and non-bender friends with distinctly not earth characteristics join in. One messy fight later, Kuvira's soldiers sent them to the re-education camp to cure them from their bad bending habits. At this point Bolin might decide to get them out of it. However, when he succeeds, one of the new characters says they have family over in that camp. The fight was a rouse so they could reunite with their closed ones and pull them out of that sticky situation. And the mission changes and this newly formed squad storms a highly secured re-education camp...

...

Noatak & Tarrlok's ending was like so crazy and honestly sad but like poetic and fitting, season 1 is a wild ride, narratively feels a little rushed maybe? but pretty good!

(1.2 bc this was meant to be part of this post but it got very very long)

Bryke brought Aang back in LOK and back again in this weird new thing called legacy or smth idk. They mostly used him as fanservice and a very badly written plot device, but it also feels like they genuinely wanted to explore his character and his culture in a very post-mortem Dumbledore-esque way. (They did say they were inspired by Harry potter and ATLA came out just when HP7 did, its a strong possibility.)

If they wanted a sequel about Aang they should’ve made a sequel about Aang. Except they were smart and knew that successful sequels require new material, so they used Korra. They weren’t smart enough of course to actually like their new protagonist. Really did they like Korra? Did they make any effort to really make her likeable or relatable? She’s so annoying, it makes my eyeballs hurt. I want to like her because she has so much potential and ATLA had a number of decent female characters but she just falls so flat.

They were so half-assed with her characterisation that they just totally distracted themselves with other characters like Tenzin, Tarlokk (i forgot how to spell it!!!), Aang himself, Lin, MAKO, etc. Most of what they did do with her was constantly compare her to Aang. Yes he was important in recent lok-world history so we can’t really gauge how much Aang would be compared to Roku who died over a century before his lifetime, but it’s overshadowing her own character.

Do they know how to make compelling female characters who don’t fight? Azula was my all time favourite antagonist, she was such a great character (and would still be if it weren’t for the comics, the implied ableism, and Amy Dunne but she’s definitely top 10). But it’s like they can’t understand female characters who don’t exhibit some kind of familiar traits associated with maleness (ie fighting).

Maybe Korra can’t get over her obsession with bending because the very male very white and privileged creators can’t get over a fixation on fighting. Maybe Korra couldn’t develop as a character because Bryke really don’t understand women.

1. The Makorra break-up, which I find to be unnecessary since it was a perfectly good ship with lots of potential for story telling on what it takes to make a relationship work which it not often seen in shows on kid's networks that I have at least seen and just continues the common cliché of a good couple breaking up for stupid reason of two characters with good romantic chemistry regardless if they end up back together in the end. (Big Bang Theory seems to back off of that overused trope by making their female characters funny and interesting and not focusing on just one couple)

Stop shoving that undeveloped-pairing-that-never-should-be-cannon-and-only-is-because-you-guys-want-to-make-lots-of-money, Korrasami, in everyone's faces. It not funny anymore.

I may have made a silent promise to myself to buy any material relating to the wonderful world of element bending nations and animal hybrids that you both have created as well as those other projects you're each working on by yourselves, but if you're going to continue selling out on ship between an awesome female protagonist, who you have ruined in that horrible last book that I have nicknamed 'how the either the first two Star Wars prequels could have been worse even if they had better acting and dialogue', and a character, you have done nothing really special with about after the first book, with making it the first comic relating to Legend of Korra, I'm afraid there's going to be a limit to how much I can support you.