Summary
Legend of Korrais the somewhat controversial followup toAvatar: The Last Airbender. Trying to follow up one of the most beloved shows of all time was always going to invite its fair share of criticism. The series has a number of accepted high points, including more compelling villains, more creative bending powers, and superior animation. It has, however, been criticized in turn for inferior writing, a weaker main cast, and questionable decisions as for how to expand onThe Last Airbender’sestablished lore.
That last point is most relevant here, asLegend of Korrahandled one ofThe Last Airbender’smost unique attributes, its spirits, quite poorly. While attempting to give further detail on the history and mechanics of the Spirit World,Legend of Korramisunderstood what exactly made them so intriguing in the first place.
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Spirits in The Last Airbender
InAvatar: The Last Airbender, spirits were otherworldly beings, impossible for humans to truly comprehend. They lacked the sense of right and wrong possessed by humanity, and instead acted primarily on instinct, in an almost animalistic fashion. Each one behaved in a drastically different fashion. Hei Bai, the panda forest spirit, acted almost purely instinctively. He lashed out in a rage when his forest was destroyed and could not be reasoned with, only calming down when Aang presented him with acorns from the forest. The Painted Lady was capable of speech, but was far more passive, retreating from the Jang Hui River until it was cleaned by other forces. Koh the Face Stealer seems more capable of evil than many other spirits, but when Aang manages to avoid expressing himself, Koh respects his victory and gives him guidance rather than taking his face by force. Koh seems to be less villainous, more chaotic and mischievous with motivations that humans cannot understand.
The spirits shown inAvatarwere impossible to categorize.They acted completely distinctly from each other, and yet each one behaved in ways that the human characters around them could not relate to. Whether they were animalistic or bizarrely sentient, they functioned on a different wavelength. Possibly the only trait they had in common with was that they could not be reasoned with as a human could. Appeals to logic and emotion consistently failed against spirits. The only way to sway them was to purify the body of nature they watched over or to meet them on their terms. As true nature spirits, they are neither good nor bad. Such human notions of morality held no meaning to them. They simply are what they are.
Just as the spirits were nebulous inAvatar, the Spirit World was also hard to pin down what exactly it was. It existed as a sort of parallel to the physical world, which the two serving as distorted reflections of one another. Their paths would cross directly in rare instances, but the two existed alongside each other for the most part. Two worlds which needed each other, but were mostly distinct and best left running concurrently.
Even the Avatar, meant to act as a bridge between the two worlds, was not an equal in the Spirit World. Stripped of their ability to bend in the alternate realmand not automatically respectedby most spirits, the Avatar was portrayed as a guest in the land of the spirits, still incapable of fully comprehending them. Spirits were a mysterious, almost spooky presence inAvatar. They had beautiful designs and betrayed a limitless amount of potential, which is what led audiences to fall so in love with them. They made the world ofAvatarfeel rich and untapped, full of tantalizing secrets still yet to be discovered.
Spirits in Legend of Korra
Legend of Korraexpanded upon the ideas and world-building introduced inAvatar, and this included giving more detail to the mechanics of spirits and the Avatar.Korragoes back to then era of the first Avatar and reveals that the world was once dominated by Spirit Wilds, leaving humans forced to live on the backs of Lion Turtles for their own protection. The first Avatar, Wan, eventually rules that humans and spirits cannot directly coexist and closes the Spirit Portals, tearing apart most of the Spirit Wilds and sending the spirits away from the mortal realm. Thisdecision deals a lot of damageto the idea of spirits and humans living in parallel harmony, chaos and order. Spirits now come across more as otherworldly invaders, conquerors who took over a realm that was not theirs to take. This removes a great deal of the mysticism of spirits. Their connection to the living world no longer feels like a natural occurrence.
Much of the nuance has been removed from the spirits themselves. Spirits in the original series are unpredictable deities, unchained from Western ideals about morality and beholden only to their individual inclinations. Spirits are now shown to be inherently good, or light, and are capable of being turned into dark spirits when under distress or under the influence of the spirit of darkness. Dark spirits take on a stereotypically villainous appearance, with glowing eyes and dark, writhing bodies. As a result of this change, spirits are no longer otherworldly enigmas with mystery moral compasses. They are now naturally good according to a human moral code and have an evil mode which must be reversed by the Avatar.
A central concept inAvataris balance. It’s so important, in fact, that the climax of the first series is based around it, as Aang grapples to find a middle ground between standing by the pacifist principles of the Air Nomads and ending the war by killing the Fire Lord.The Last Airbendershows enormous respect to spirits by giving them charge over the very nature of balance.The ocean and moon spirits, Tui and La, take the form of black and white koi fish, swimming together in an endless loop. The pair draw an obvious visual comparison to the symbol for yin and yang, and indeed the spirits maintain balance over the world ofAvatar. What matters most about Tui and La is that in their constant rhythm of push and pull, both are necessary and equal. Neither one is the “good” or “bad” one. They are simply two halves of a whole. Without one, the whole does not exist.
Korramostly does away with this concept with the introduction of the spirit of light, Raava, and the spirit of darkness, Vaatu. It is revealed that the two have been in combat since ten thousand years before humans existed, battling for the fate of existence. Raava is actually what allows the Avatar to exist, as bending all four elements would not be possible without her. Raava fused with Wan, the first Avatar, in order to seal away Vaatu in the Tree of time, ushering forth an era of peace. The issue with this is that there is no actual balance between the pair. They are not two halves of a whole. Raava alone is responsible for the preservation of balance, andVaatu seeks only to destroy it.His presence is also unnecessary, it is downright destructive. Gone is the push and pull ofThe Last Airbender, where there is no light without darkness. Now, there is only an evil villain who the hero must defeat.
The worst part of this treatment of spirits is thatLegend of Korrafailed to follow through on their inclusion satisfyingly. Korra reopening the Spirit Portals sparked excitement for the direction the show would take that decision. Unfortunately, the show wound up moving in a different direction with the spirits existing mostly in the background. The only spirits to appear after this point mostly are small and friendly, making for some cute additions to the cast but not much in terms of conflict and plot relevancy. The most pivotal plot point to come from the spirit’s return to the mortal realm is the infestation of spirit vines in Republic City, a pretty dull problem which the story forgets about rather quickly. A disappointing sendoff for one of the most interesting concepts of theAvataruniverse.
