Streaming Rewatch: The Legend of Korra and 2020’s Collective United States Trauma

If you are anything like me, you pay for a Netflix subscription, among other streaming services, and this socially-distant year, you’re getting your money’s worth.

In a slow-burn marketing plot to garner hype for the upcoming, live-action Avatar: The Last Airbender series by the streaming giant, or maybe just a treat for quarantined millennials, Netflix released the original Nickelodeon series earlier this year.

I was one of many 2000s kids who religiously watched new ATLA episodes, like a Game of Thrones for young teenagers with an enthralling universe, characters, and lore. The premise, for those who have yet to see (umm, also where have you been?), takes place in a world where people have the ability to “bend” or control the elements of water, earth, fire, or air, with the Avatar as a figure who can bend all four elements.

The spin-off series, The Legend of Korra, popped onto Netflix in August a few months later. Far less people watched this series when it aired. Not only did it end it’s four-season run on Nick.com, and the network notoriously neglected to promote the series, but I, for one, was 14 when ATLA ended and 21 as Korra concluded in 2014. I watched it all as the initial run wrapped; I bought the series and watched it last year, and with the show streaming, I decided, “Screw it,” and watched it again during the hellscape that is 2020.

As fun and nostalgic it is to revisit Avatar as an adult, diving into Korra, it’s easy to forget that this was a show on a network for children. Even more so, watching as a leftist, queer person during a pandemic, election year fully fumbled by a fascist and oppressive administration, I found myself viewing the universe a little differently, as I re-entered during such a tumultuous period.

Note: Minor spoilers ahead

By nature, the Avatar universe is political. The first series establishes the main aim of taking down Fire Lord Ozai, a corrupt, power-hungry imperialist. The heroes assist refugees, purposely get captured by their enemy to free war prisoners, and grapple with the genocide of a whole nation of people (and this is all in the first handful of episodes of the series).

Korra takes the political concepts a step further. Set 79 years after the original, the story takes place in more “modern” setting, alarmingly industrialized—almost steampunk, covertly corrupt under the shiny surfaces.

What feels unique about some of the villains of Korra is how you do not innately think they are bad. Some it’s easier to sympathize with than you might want to admit. In fact, it’s only after the show allows you to look more intimately at their past and their motives until you realize some of the initially pleasant characters are far more sinister than initial impressions let on, or that some of the most evil characters were warped by their circumstances and the opportunities given in their life.ana

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Two early examples in the show are of the Water Tribe, a mostly benevolent group in the initial series. The figures are political and spiritual leaders who ultimately end up using their knowledge and ties for personal gain, with no regard to the harm done to those they were initially supposed to be serving.

In the third season, a militant, anarchist organization called The Red Lotus takes center stage. As I watched this go-around, I had a lot more compassion for this group on screen, a group which the main city capitol, Republic City, deems a terrorist group.

The merciless, violent actions against the protagonists make it easy to root against the Red Lotus, though I empathize with their intentions the more the show dives into their background. The group is initially formed to help open portals to the Spirit World to fully “bring balance” to the world (a theme often explored in both series) and to do away with the corrupt power structures in place among the nations, which, by this point in the series, have already been shown in full form.

Now, following this introduction, you witness the group violently lash out to support their aims, but you learn how heavily the few, free members of the group got to this point, feeling as if there were no other option to try to bring about substantial change to the world and others like them, exploited, and left behind.

It’s even something the heroes of the story recognize, how members of the Red Lotus were driven to this point, becoming aggressive, violent, forceful as the only way left to overcome the destruction and violence they faced from the power structures that developed between the events of the first series and Korra.

Not to mention, one of the harder-hitting villains of the series for me personally during my 2020 watch begins with an aim to rebuild her kingdom, which quickly turns into a quest for domination and conquest, the initially personable character shifting into a straight-up fascist as the arc progresses. Sometimes, as a viewer, you don’t even realize how little you and the characters were paying attention to the details until it’s too late, and you’re watching an untouchable tyrant on screen.

It was a unique experience to watch this show alone, in my apartment, during a divisive and pivotal time for politics in the country. The series had a rocky initial run on Nickelodeon, often considered too risky for a children’s network and significantly darker than the predecessor (I haven’t even mentioned the multiple, on-screen deaths).

Don’t get me wrong; it’s not a flawless follow-up. In fact, compared to the near-perfection of Avatar: The Last Airbender, it is far from it.

The setting is very Americanized in comparison to that of the first show. It can at once feel like a warped embrace of colonial, white, industrialized ideas in comparison to prominent East Asian traditions of the first series, but it also fits into Korra’s ongoing conversation around power structures, corruption, and class struggle surrounding rapid societal shifts amidst the multiple villains who are less often plainly evil and more so swimming in a morally grey area.

Korra as a main character, along with the side characters, are often not seen in the high regard that the original Team Avatar is. And yes, the mech suits were a strange choice, and I didn’t care for them. There are arcs that dwindle and take more time to get “into” than others.

Regardless, it’s a mistake to dismiss Korra, especially in today’s world.

As someone who grew up with ATLA, I’ll admit I’m borderline defensive over the much-needed follow-up that at once embraces and expands on the original concepts of the Avatar universe and how time, power, and politics can warp, for the better and far worse, something so enchanting, like the world I first witnessed on Nickelodeon through the mid-2000s.

Personally, the third was the charm, and The Legend of Korra hits harder than ever this year. It’s easy to find some solace seeing a group of other young people, even in this fictional, fantastical, animated universe, navigating the hardships of their circumstances, as I and millions of others wade in the general, dischoradant trauma that is the United States in 2020.

Art courtesy of Neflix