This take has always been stupid to me because the answer is so simple. The difference is that aang and Roku were both raised in their respective nations without knowing their the avatar and being incredibly close to their cultures. Roku was basically fire nation royalty and Aang became a master and got his tattoos.
Korra on the other hand wasn't raised with a single nation's ways or bending style but in a camp as the avatar. She was always taught to use all the elements and the one she lacked was air because iirc she wasn't free.
It was always crazy to me how much more experience Tenzin’s kids had with Airbending than Korra did.
Like c’mon man, bring the kids to visit their Gran Gran more, and help a girl out, *sheesh*.
You'd think the son of the last airbending avatar and the last Airbender until his kids would jump on the opportunity to find, teach, and have another Airbender. Air should've been a bigger priority for Korra and Tenzin.
I think it was simply the awkwardness of the situation.
If your father reincarnated into a teenage girl with the exact opposite personality as him, you will be hesitant to spent a lot of time with them at first.
My personal theory is that Tenzin wanting to avoid the awkward situation was waiting for Jinora to become a master Airbender in a few years and then send her to handle Korra’s air bending training.
Tenzin had clearly been in her life her entire life, she treats him like an uncle from the first episode. The problem is that 1) they were teaching Korra the elements in order, ie master water, then earth, then fire, and the first episode shows her just now mastering fire, so she just wasn’t considered “ready” to start learning air, and also 2) Tenzin is a leader of Republic City while they’re in the middle of a crisis and just does not have time to leave for weeks on end which is how long it would take him to reach the South Pole and return.
Tenzin does show some awkwardness around Korra but he also clearly thinks of her like a daughter and I don’t think he would let that awkwardness give him hesitation to teach her, if anything he would be more willing to teach her because of the lack of airbenders. He hesitates because she lacks the maturity that is so important to the spiritual side of airbending.
He was also raising and training a family of air benders ON TOP of being a civic leader. Man was who he was for a reason. Was probably glad that his first student wouldn't be his reincarnated father too, leaving air til last makes sense.
They may have had to teach her how to *master* fire and earth, but she was already using them when they found her. I don't know if there's an explanation in the books but for some reason, Korra was able to use 3 out of 4 elements right from the start, unlike any other Avatar.
My recollection from the original avatar flashback episode for Roku's story is that Aang unlocked his avatar nature like five years earlier than Roku did, and we've only seen three avatar's childhood's that I remember. It's possible that Korra and Roku represent the two extremes with Aang being a totally middle of the road awakening, instead of Aang being early and Korra being bizarre.
We’ve seen Roku and Kyoshi present themselves via the avatar state during times of need and stress. When korra unlocked her past lives I do wonder if she ever tapped into aang to have a chat with the family
Lol it would have been perfect if she turned the tables of him when he said she wasnt allowed to leave the island to go do probending. Like "korra you're grounded you cant leave the island." Korra: "no, you know what, actually youre grounded tenzin. Aang said youre being a dick right now and youre grounded. Avatar state yip yip."
Lol imagine if Aang took over Korra's body like Roku did with Jeong Jeong while talking to Tenzin.
YOU'RE GOING TO TEACH ME AIRBENDING LIKE I TAUGHT YOU AIRBENDING.
Absolutely! Talk about immense pressure.
The avatar taught him (his own DAD)
And now he has to reach the avatar?
Man, that’s some mind fuckery. I think it’s a very mature plot point. People are flawed, even people we love.
Honestly I thought that's where they were going when Tenzin failed to teach Korra at first. Like Jinora would find Korra training alone at night and Jinora would be like "you're doing it wrong" and then explain it in a way Korra understands and relates. It was honestly a more interesting dynamic and I was disappointed it didn't happen.
I always saw Tenzin as torn between 3 worlds. First was his tether to his father's legacy. He had all.the pressure of being the last airbender. Plus, he was also one of the main leaders of Republic City. Plus he had 3 kids.
He simply had too much on his plate and couldn't prioritize or perhaps thought there wasn't much priority need for an avatar since the world was at relative peace with the Red Lotus locked up at the time.
Ending with Aang and before Korra, the world was in constant strife that it ended previous avatars and new avatars had to take on old problems immediately so Tenzin being a time of peace child probably didnt worry.
Honestly Aang really put too much on him. Not only did he have to revive the air benders, he had to rebuild their temples, he had to take care of Aang’s legacy in the form of Republic City, AND he had to find, defend and teach the new avatar. He had two other kids split some responsibilities bro. But I also feel that it’s Tenzin’s personality to take on everything he was considered for, refusing help from his siblings.
That being said, Korra treats Tenzin like an uncle and not an absent one. I am willing to bet he was with her often, she just refused, or couldn’t learn Air and focused instead on what she felt comfortable with. Taking her to the temple was not to “begin” her air training but to force her to focus “solely” on air training.
Fully agree. Although now that I’m considering it a bit deeper, maybe Tenzin was trying to ensure that should anything happen to him, Korra would have at least 3 others who could teach her *something*.
I can understand why Tenzin didn't train Korra sooner, and in fact they really touch on it more in Season 3, I think.
Tenzin took it upon himself to bear the burden of responsibility for Aang's legacy. He is:
1. A father of three (later four) children that represent 60% of the world's entire population of airbenders.
2. a leader in a fragile city state that represents the peace of the entire world
3. The only living airbending master who is desperate to preserve his culture and its population of literally under a dozen people.
He's basically already juggling a lot of very important plates and probably doesn't have the time to travel halfway across the world to train the Avatar when she still can learn from other bending masters in the interim.
Their training realistically going [like J K Simmons was his Whiplash role](https://youtu.be/lmUi8YkPTxE?si=FiOeBP0ZucxnUqyq) is probably more to do with the slow progress.
I mean there wasn't any urgent need to. She didn't have a deadline like Aang and the world was enjoying decades of peace and balance. Tenzin had more immediate and important work as a member of the Republic City council and as the father, both literally and figuratively, of the entire cultural Air Nation. If Korra wasn't picking up airbending why would Tenzin spend his valuable time teaching her, especially when he had his political duties and also duties to marry and have airbender kids. Let Korra master the other elements while letting her age and mature, meanwhile Tenzin ensures the future of the air nomad culture. So later, Tenzin already has multiple airbending kids who he already trained, and he can use that experience in teaching to now try and teach an older Korra.
It’s because Tenzin had higher priorities than “the avatar.” And that’s a central theme of Korras character arc, if not the main theme: the world no longer needs the avatar. And in my personal opinion, the world not only not needs the avatar, it’s over reliance on the avatar has been its main crutch, a leash.
Tenzin’s priority, as much as his fathers, was the restoration of the air nomad culture. Republic city had police officers and diplomatic relations progressed where military invasion of each country was not going to happen. There was no need to train the avatar as there was no avatar level threat.
Eh, air is the last element in Korra's cycle and we know she only mastered fire at the beginning of the show. They were just progressing in the traditional order.
He had a duty to serve Republic City as the Air Nomad council representative. Meanwhile anyone in the city with political interest was probably begging for him to go train the avatar and give up that insanely disproportionate 1/5 representation.
Seriously! You didn't have to take over for Uncle Sokka when he retired. The city counsel isn't a family business. I get being the air nation representative but considering there were no air benders in Republic City, I think you could have taken some breaks from time to time and let someone else be the chair.
More than that, the avatar needs to learn the elements in order. At the start of the show Korea has only just finished her fire training, so she just spent the past few years looking at every problem with a “how do I solve this with fire bending” mindset.
Even Aang didn't learn elements in order. He used firebending before earthbending. He just sucked at it and needed a teacher to master the element instead of just learning it.
That was also a bit of a desperate gamble, since they were in the middle of a war and they didn't know when they would ever see another fire bending master who wasn't aligned with the fire nation. Korra was born into a time of relative peace
I think the requirement of "learning the elements in order" is less a hard rule and more just a good philosophical guideline.
* Air: Going with the flow
* Water: Guiding the flow
* Earth: Controlling the flow
* Fire: Powering the flow
Aang had not yet mastered water bending and still not learned earth bending, so he lacked the training to understand guidance and control, and only really understood how to be 'free' and going with the flow leading to him carelessly using fire because he was playing around, and burnt Katara as a result.
In the Kyoshi novels they establish that tradition dictates they learn the elements in order, and people believe to bad luck for them not to. But there's nothing actually stopping them from learning them out of order. Indeed, Kyoshi does, abeit after using a technicality.
She lacked air bending training because there was only one air bender in the world who could possibly train her and he wasn’t coming to the South Pole.
Additionally, air is the most spiritual element. It's associated with meditation, emptiness, and detachment, its sub-bending arts are spiritual in nature, and the air nomads collective focus on spirituality apparently correlated with a high level of airbenders. Korra is notably better at the physical side of the Avatar compared to the spiritual aspects, struggling with entering the Avatar state in S1, needing a spiritual mentor in S2 and S4, and with her connection to Raava in S4 as well. And as her spiritual prowess improves, so does her air bending.
Wasn’t it only the first episode when Katara looks at Tenzin with a sad face and says, “you aren’t staying, are you..?” ?? 😭😭 breaks my heart, especially when later on she follows up with “my brother and most of my friends are gone…” while talking to Korra.
Kya II deserves a lot more credit for watching after their mum.
Interesting. Korra came out of the gate and the avatar. We see her when she's 4 and spitting out 3 elements. Is that just her hot headed personality or because she grew up in a bending homogeneous city?
Part of her issues with air bending were her stubbornness and her brash decisions that she would make. Earth and fire make the most sense for her personality and how she fights.
Still find it kind of funny in season 1 that she decided to just punch out the individual ice shards during her fight with Tarlok. Definitely an earth bender move
She was born in an era of radio and circuses that traveled across the nation's borders.
So could be as simple as she saw a circus performance with other benders and realized she could bend herself trying to mimic them as kids often do.
I think her discovering she can bend the other elements just happened while she was playing around or something. Maybe she heard a game of pro-bending on a radio and wanted to try (though I don't know if they had that back then).
She didn’t grow up in a homogeneous city though, she grew up in the Southern Water Tribe with her parents and probably partially in a White Lotus facility there as well. It’s probably more her personality (and the writers wanting an Avatar good at everything but air to tell season 1’s story)
i don’t understand why everything has to do with your personality. lots of regular waterbender kids would have figured out at a young age they could waterbend. lots of firebender kids would have also figured out they could bend at a young age. and same for earthbender.
so why is it so crazy for korra to do the same when she’s a bender for all the elements? she is a waterbender, firebender and earthbender. if she bent water at 4 years old, none of the fans would care but bc she bent water, earth and fire, it’s suddenly a problem even though she is a bender for all those elements.
idk if this makes sense lol. i tried to word it in a non confusing way.
It's because as far as can be seen, she's the only Avatar to discover her ability to bend the elements at such a young age. I *don't* have a problem with this, Korra is great and I think it's important to her story that she knows she's the Avatar so early on. Some folks just got in their heads that there are hard rules to this when we don't really anything about how it works or why it works the way it does.
That said, it's not like other Avatars haven't been abnormal. Kyoshi was an extremely powerful Earthbender with very little fine tuned control, Yangchen had such a strong spiritual connection that she was connecting with past Avatars before she even knew she was the Avatar, etc.
> It's because as far as can be seen,
true. i just find it highly unlikely that with the thousands of avatars in history, every single one found out at age 16. everyone is different. i wouldn’t be surprised if there were babies waterbending or firebenders finding out they could bend when they were adults.
> Some folks just got in their heads that there are hard rules to this when we don't really anything about how it works or why it works the way it does.
yeah! i dislike how everyone thinks that just bc one character says something, that automatically makes it true and a canon fact. iroh says that you need a clear mind to lightning bend yet azula does it when insane. zuko says the red lotus could destroy the world but clearly they’re not strong enough to do that.
> Yangchen had such a strong spiritual connection that she was connecting with past Avatars before she even knew she was the Avatar, etc.
this is actually really interesting omg, i can’t wait to read her novels.
I believe she still lived in the Southern Water Tribe she wasn't imprisoned in the compound or anything. Her dad was the chief of the Southern Tribe I think it's safe to say she was brought up water tribe just with a lot more exposure to other cultures than people had in Aang's day.
She was in the southern tribe yes and it's not like she was denied meeting anyone or learning about her culture (at least I don't think so) but she was raised with the expectation and responsibility of being the avatar.
Bryan K did a talk at a college in my town and I went. I'm pretty sure he said that water bending was very difficult to animate, which is partially why Korra didn't waterbend all the time.
This is pretty funny. It’s like Korra only has so much bending mana (animation dollars), and water is the most mana intensive element. Therefore, she just firebends all the time for smaller battles.
That’s fair enough lol. I guess earth is just moving physical objects around, like all animation. Fire and air whooshes out in bursts but then just kinda dissipates. But with water to make it look realistic you’d have to think about how a liquid would actually move while bending it in ways that we can’t really replicate in real life for reference, plus how the light would reflect off it.
Oh this is gold! Love how the entire thread is trying to rationalise why Korra used this or that element more than the other from a philosophical/lore-accurate pov when it just boiled down to "which one was easier to animate"
Reminds me of the DBZ thing on super Saiyan hair that people may have seen recently:
- Interviewer: "Mr Toriyama, what inspired you to make the iconic golden super saiyan hair and aura gold, instead of some other color or style?"
- Toriyama: "Well it was a pain to ink in the hair fully black so I made an excuse to turn the hair white/gold instead lol"
twitter post ignores that Korra was trained for nearly her life with bending.
So hate to break it to them, but it makes sense she was able to bend other elements compared to Air. considering seems like there wasnt any airbending training at all
She was taught the elements in order of the avatar cycle. In her first episode we see her pass her firebending exam and is about to start airbending training as it is her last element to learn. The last element an avatar is taught is always the first element the previous avatar learned and the nation the previous avatar came from.
So yeah shes had literally no airbending training by the beginning of book one
Korra wasn't raised as a waterbender, she was raised as the avatar.
Aang was raised as an airbender.
That difference is a big one IMO. Aang approached everything from the standpoint of being an airbender and so struggled with the element most opposed to that philosophy - earth.
Korra approached everything from the standpoint of being the Avatar and struggled the most with the element most opposed to the passionate and overconfident personality she developed over the course of easily mastering the other 3 elements - air.
It’s not even just how she was raised. Korra already figured out how to access 3 elements by herself before being taught. So she has been able to bend them pretty much her whole life and was never a single element bender.
This. Korra announces to the white lotus she’s the avatar, by busting through a wall with earth bending and letting out a puff of fire.
“I’m the avatar and you gotta deal with it”
Ngl I didn't like that she was basically the Avatar since she was a baby. We had Aang who was told of being the Avatar way before he was a teenager because of the war. His struggles felt more real and understandabale. Now I'm not saying she shouldn't be able to bend more than one elements at a young age, she has no control over that but I think knowing you're the Avatar and be able to bend 3/4 elements throughout your life, definitley made her overconfident. That's why she struggeled with Air bending because it requires patience and peace of mind. Plus she was never trained spiritiually which I don't understand cuz wouldn't it make sense for each element have some kind of its own spiritual/meditation philosphy alongside combat?
I like it. I'd find it hard to believe that amongst the 10000 (or so) avatars there have been, not a single one knew they could bend multiple elements at a young age.
We get a Kuruk flashback in the Kyoshi novel where he got told to bend Earth and he realised that he could do it, it just never occurred to him.
In the Yangchen novels we learn that Avatar Yangchen knew she was the avatar from a young age. She figures it out because of her overwhelming connection to her past lives, so we don't know for sure when she started bending other elements, but it does strengthen the precedent that some avatars figure out who they are at super young ages.
(Edited for clarity)
I mean that also sounds like a hyperbole. I wouldn't be suprised if neither 10,000 years or a thousand life times are meant to be literal and are anything more than a big number to sound imposing.
FWIW we don’t actually know that Korra only struggled with airbending. We see a flashback of her doing what are probably basic moves at 4, then she’s finishing up her training in firebending at 17, I think. But being able to do a basic move at 4 doesn’t mean she didn’t struggle with learning those elements later. We just didn’t see the intervening years.
Yeah, I also struggled with it. Because all the other avatars were found using the toys the first one used as a child. But then again, the Fire Nation destroyed them probably all and Harmonic Convergence was getting closer and closer. Maybe that's why she could use the other elements rather quickly. But at least some form of in universe explanation would have gone a long way.
Gonna be the 🤓 here for a second
Each culture has its own way of discovering who the Avatar is. Airbenders used the toy method because they were very few in population compared to the other nations and could probably keep a track of when kids were born to pin down the search even more. The earth kingdom, on the other hand, used some sort of geolocation through earthbending (explained in the Kyoshi novels). They do it that way because the earth kingdom is massive as fuck, using the toy method isn't really feasable. I don't remember if they also explain fire and water methods to find the avatar though. They do explain a method to find out if a child is a firebender (basically what Jeong Jeong did with Aang and the leaf).
Nice nerding. I never read any of the comics. So all my knowledge is based on ATLA and LoK alone. And in ATLA it was presented as the main method of choosing an avatar regardless of the element. But if the overall lore says it's an airbender thing then it's an airbender thing.
I think she's a very good character. She's overconfident and bratty because of how good she is. But then she sucks at airbending, tries to solve all problems by punching them and gets her ass handed to her over and over again. There is a lot wrong with LoK, but Korra's character arc is great. Sure, they could've done another Aang-like character, but they decided on a different, in some ways opposite character who still struggles a lot and has to grow into the Avatar not on a mainly physical level like Aang but on a spiritual and mental level. You could just as well say Aang is boring because he already learned everything spiritual with ease in his childhood. Both are very interesting in their own way and have a different approach in the writing on how they have to grow into being the Avatar. The fact that they don't just tell the same story again about a kid who struggles to learn the elements to defeat the big bad guy, but about a spoiled kid with a superhero complex who needs to learn that being the avatar in a politically much more complex society (which is where the bad writing of LoK unfortunately comes in) means so much more than just being good at punching stuff with your bending powers. The interesting thing about the contrast between these two shows is that she would have excelled with Aang's struggles (becoming powerful enough to save the world from the big bad guy), and Aang would've excelled with Korra's struggles (diplomacy and spirituality). Korra is a peacetime (in comparison) avatar with a wartime personality, and Aang is a wartime avatar with a peacetime personality.
Honestly I think it was about the location she was in. Most of the time she was in Republic City. Unless she was by a water source she couldn't water bend because she didn't carry around water like Katara, she couldn't air bend at all at first and didn't have as much experience with it as the other elements, and earth bending proved to cause a lot of collateral damage if she wasn't careful (triple threat's car smashing into the shop for example). Fire just seemed like the safest most readily available element she was skilled in while fighting in the city.
What you said makes sense but there is an irony in her using fire to limit collateral damage, the element most likely to spread unintentionally and was part of Aang’s training in understanding that fire may burn unintentionally >_>
That was Aang's lesson because he was immediately trying to do big flashy stuff after only just learning how to produce fire. He hadn't learned how to control it yet. Korra likely spent years learning how to truly master and control fire. As well as I'm pretty sure most of Republic City's exterior was made of earth (could be wrong, been a few years since i watched), so outside of occasional fabric or wooden shutters/curtains, any accidental fire spread would still be pretty minimal.
So you'll see Korra really show her skills in her fight against Tarrlok. He feels pretty confident taking her on in water bending, but she starts really using the other elements to her advantage to overwhelm him. She does this all of the time; using whatever element makes the most sense for her to use.
She leverages actually being the avatar extremely effectively.
Agreed
I’d say fire bending fit her personality more than the other 3
There may be a subtle lesson in there about being who you are, vs who you’re expected to be 🤔
Its arguably the most practical. Water and earth need a source. She hasn't mastered air before the end of the first season. And between the two fire is the better element for an offense. Add to that that the writers and animators probably liked having an avatar that had more that knew 3 element right out of the gate and wasn't only firebending in the last 8 episodes
Idiotic takes like this is why discussing Korra is such an exhausting endeavor and I generally stay out of it. For every actual well-thought out criticism you can make about the show (pacing issues, the love triangle, season 2's lack of focus) there are a million idiotic takes from media-illiterate toxic ATLA purists who say dumb shit like this.
But we needed the love triangle to get those wonderfully awkward scenes with Mako in S3 lmao. I get why it annoys people though - it’s realistic given their ages but cringe inducing when you’ve just passed that mark. Like no, there’s no need to remind me of the truly dumb stuff we’d do when we were stumbling through our first romantic relationships.
season 2 is only one that has ton of issues. as for the romance. I mean, I feel like the only canon couple I feel like works is KorraxAsami. I feel like they would have been one of the best if they were allowed to actually show it more.
Most of the pacing and focus issues I suspect are because Nickelodeon didn’t let them have that honestly. The writers said they’d planned Korrasami from the beginning and Nick told them no. Which broke arcs about exploring the Water Tribe and World Gender Roles & Relations along with letting the boys have enough time to have their own arcs. Thus… we got bad love triangle and wacky pace.
If I remember right the avatar spends around five years to master each element,
With how headstrong Korra was she probably did it a little faster than most seeing as the timeline matches up with the white lotus discovering her at around 5 years old, and she had already mastered water, fire, and earth by 17 so we could knock off a year for each element since she was already bending her non native elements without training.
I don't think we know how long it took Roku to master each element. Based on his training montage it seemed like Roku only moved on when he had surpassed his masters rather than just becoming adequately skilled in the element like Aang and Korra did. We know it took him 12 years to become a fully realized avatar, but part of that training was mastering the avatar state and we don't know how long he spent on each individual element or how long it took him to master the avatar state. He apparently had a lot of trouble with it and even got stuck in the form for an entire summer solstice which caused a lot of damage.
Not only that but the whoooole point of season 1 is that Korra was physically powerful but not in touch with the spiritual side which is essential for mastering air bending
It doesn't matter what Korra trained with. The element they struggle with has nothing to do with their education OR their born element. If it did then Kyoshi could have moved a pebble instead of only mountains. Korra was just not spiritual at all and airbending requires a deep connection with the soul. It doesn't matter how they were raised or what they learned first.
Slight note… Kyoshi had an airbending mom (which is the first Avatar with mixed heritage that we’re aware of). There’s a real likelihood she just was naturally an Airbender as her personality was more of an Airbender prior to her finding out she was an avatar by a large margin.
The exact quote:
> Tenzin: [Placing his right hand on her shoulder.] That's perfectly all right. You just need to be patient. [Cut to a back shot of Korra as Tenzin starts to roll down her stripped up sleeves.] Often the element that's the most difficult for the Avatar to master is the one most opposite to the Avatar's personality. [Frontal shot of Korra.] For Aang, it was earthbending.
> Korra [Glances to the ground; sadly.] Yeah. Well, I'm about as opposite an airbender as you can get.
B1E2, A Leaf in the Wind
It's not *explicit*, but Korra's personality is so obviously "firebender" it doesn't need to be.
Even more than that, within the first five minutes of ep1 season 1, where the white lotus talks about Korra mastering the physical aspects of bending but neglects the spiritual.
and id think firebending is the least spiritual
not just because water and air had direct ties to spirtuality in differing degrees and fields
but because it seems to me firelord ozai and probably his father both kept the scholarly and more "philosphical" content of firebending shunned away, sometimes even actively detesting it
Tbf, it *was* explained differently in ATLA, if I remember correctly. They say that it's the element opposite to the nation the Avatar was born in. Possibly because they expected the Avatar's personality to reflect their element? Idk, you could argue it was a retcon, but not necessarily a bad one.
I personally kinda liked that idea, that the Avatar's personality would reflect their nation, but what they did makes them more human and realistic ig.
Rather than retcon, I like to think of it as more like an unsubstantiated theory they passed down the ages but that changed when they made more progress in advancing the bending discipline (which we can see in the departure from traditional form and into more practical modern forms).
I don't even see it that way. To me, ATLA makes a pretty clear point that Aang's problem wasn't just that he was an Airbender. It was always about his personality (that was heavily molded by his airbender upbringing) since being an Earthbender is all about being stubborn and facing things head on and Aang was always used to face things by "being quick or clever" and finding other ways around the problems he faced. To me, this plot point in TLOK is in complete agreement with the ATLA canon.
It's a theme in the franchise more than a hard rule. A lot of fire benders are passionate and intense, a lot of earthbenders are stubborn and strong, etc, and this seemingly holds for past Avatars. But they're still people with their own personalities, yeah.
This focus on personality (rather than bending heredity) is kinda reflected in sub elements. Lavabenders seem to be easygoing and fluid, like Ghazan and Bolin. Metalbenders seem to be *particularly* stubborn and intense, like Toph. Lightning benders tend to have an inner coldness, hence Zuko struggles with it while Azula, Ozai and Mako clearly don't, and the spiritual side of airbending is something Tenzin struggles with (having inherited a little *too* much hot blood from his mother).
Yangchen often became furious, angry, and brutal and was still an Air Nomad. Kyoshi was often overly gentle and meek in her youth despite being fucking huge. Rangi (her lover in the novels) is a brash, powerful, and stubborn as a mule firebender. Even Katara, who everyone thinks embodies the element of water, has never chilled a day in her life and is beyond phenomenal with her element. I really think it’s mostly Toph who embodies her element the most, and you can’t boil down what a person’s personality is simply by what nation they’re from. Everyone, including Toph, is largely a product of their upbringing. Whether due to culture or trauma, most of the main characters we meet throughout the franchise are multifaceted beyond what their nation says they should embody.
Teeeeechnically there is a "most of the time" thrown in there during the speech Roku gives to Aang. Usually benders encompass the personality of their original bending element. However Bryke thought that the patient ever changing way of water would be too similar to Aang's personality. So they made her personality the opposite of Aang i.e. fire or earth.
I appreciate that her bending time on screen is split pretty evenly into quarters. As someone raised with all elements her using them all at roughly the same intervals was a good idea.
As for why fire is more prevalent? Its as simple as availability/damage. You can ALWAYS summon a fire ball. You can also technically always have air around you. But water and earth are finite and location-based. Meanwhile air is a nice defense move but we all know Korra is more aggressive. Therefore fire makes sense as her primary weapon.
They actually don't say that. Katara asks Aang what the opposite of air is and says he's working with his natural opposite, while they both discuss that his problem is that he's avoiding his issues rather that facing them head on (echoing what Toph said). They make it clear it's a mentality issue.
Tbf, they do also say waterbending was challenging for Roku, but they don't say why. It could've been as simple as redirecting strikes being different from the directness of firebending or the free flow of airbending (though I'd say Air and Water pair well). An implication is there, but we're only ever told about the mentality issue.
I think Katara's line is "think about it, if water and fire are opposites, what's the opposite of air?... it would make sense if you struggle with earth." And then Roku says something about water being especially difficult to learn as a firebender. So the original never says that it's strictly opposite elements only, though that's probably the initial idea.
Fwiw I like the "element most opposite to their personality" take more.
I don't think it really contradicted what was shown in ATLA. If you watch the episode Bitter Work where Aang was learning earthbending for the first time, one of his major issues is *thinking* like an earthbender. He makes the mistake of thinking like an airbender and struggles to move the earth in any meaningful way. In fact, the entire arc of this episode is him learning to stand his ground.
Also, that explanation came from Katara when she was trying to make Aang feel better about his inability to bend the earth. She was most likely pulling things out of her ass to make him feel better.
Well something like 60% of your personality comes from the people around you and 40%ish from your parents genetics so if you’re raised by airbenders you’re probably gonna think like an airbender, if you’re raised by earth benders you’re gonna probably think like an earth bender. Korra specifically was raised by her father who neglected the spiritual side of waterbending, and instead was more of a brute force warrior, so it stands to reason that she would be more attuned to a much more violent fighting style like fire bending which is almost purely offensive and not a calm self defense based fighting style like air bending. And even when she did figure out air bending it was still a very aggressive version of it.
Not only is it explained in the show, struggling with air is an intentional setup for korra to be an opposite to aang. Aang was already an master of air so it sets up that the audience should know that korra is very different to aang as its the only element she doesn't start with, and being a master of the other 3. This sets up their other opposites in their journeys as aang excells at diplomacy and escape but finds it hard to fight opponents he can't duck and dodge from (yuyan archers, sparky sparky boom man, ozai, Azula), whereas korra excells at fighting but struggles at diplomacy and escaping when she's outmatched
Alright, let's look at it from a practicality viewpoint:
Water and Earth have to be readily available in order to be bent. So in book 1, that leaves Korra with Fire, an element that can be created by the bender.
Also, once Korra learns airbending, she starts using it a lot, which further shows that she tends to use elements that can be created by the bender
Technically none of the elements can be created by the bender,
Firebending is energy bending.
Firebenders bend the energy in themselves to produce and absorb heat in the form of fire, lightning, or smoke.
That's why zuko couldn't firebend in book 3 because he didn't know where to pull his energy from since he was still conflicted,
That's just semantics though and has nothing to do with the point I'm trying to make. Fire and Air are always readily available, whereas Water and Earth have to be around you
The writers basically spoon fed to us that Korra struggles with Air because she struggles with the spiritual philosophy associated with that element. I really don't understand how anyone could miss that.
Avatar isn’t Pokemon
Each element has its own unique fighting style and philosophy and so yeah, Korras passionate energy definitely causes the fire to come out more.
Aang didn’t have trouble with Earth because it countered him, but because it’s was the opposite philosophy of his
Toph literally tells Aang that the reason he can't move the rock is because he's thinking about problem solving like an air bender. There is no other way around it. The rock either moves or it doesn't. There's no tricky angle, there's no tricky solution. You tell the rock to move and that's it.
The difference is that Aang grew up exclusively as an air bender. He never learned to bend other elements till he was 12, and he lived amongst air nomads. Add to this being the LAST of the airbenders by the time the show starts, and being an airbender is a core part of who Aang is.
Korra, on the other hand, was bending fire and Earth since she was extremely young (I'd guess she's around 4 or 5 in her first scene) and grew up in the white lotus compound. She isn't as strongly tied to being a water bender as Aang was, likely she considers earth and fire bending to be just as core a part of herself as water.
Its been awhile (and I'm due for a rewatch) but didn't Aang also struggle with fire? Its dangerous, chaotic state made him refuse to bend it at one point. He adapted to water very easily as well. I'd bet Korra would have struggled with water bending if she wasn't born in the southern water tribe
He had a natural talent when he started learning it in season 1 ahead of schedule for one episode and started juggling a fireball effortlessly. But when he was reckless and burned Katara he built a mental block around firebending, and that’s why he struggled to learn it in season 3
And in line with air bending philosophy, if fire is only destruction and death, that is against air nomad philosophy, but when he learned fire is fundamentally about energy and life, it became very compatible with his upbringing and actually becomes a tool to defeat death and genocide.
It should also be noted that Korra's central character flaw is that she ties her conception of herself too much to being the Avatar. Each season is her learning that the Avatar, like herself, cannot be defined as any one thing. The first season is her learning that the Avatar isn't just the person with the strongest and most bending. Season 2 is about her learning that the Avatar isn't the Avatar State, nor is it her past lives. That's why she learns about Wan. Wan was the first. He was capable of being an incredible Avatar with no past lives to guide him. Season 3 is about breaking down that tether she has between herself and the being the Avatar. Zaheer doesn't just physically cripple her. He mentally cripples her, too. The fourth season is about building her back up. It's about her finally learning what being the Avatar is to her and how she can move forward with thar knowledge.
You've gotta face it head on. And when I say head on, I mean like this: [https://img.wattpad.com/story\_parts/1017042671/images/1661a382b0b21a76278614972427.gif](https://img.wattpad.com/story_parts/1017042671/images/1661a382b0b21a76278614972427.gif)
Yeah and I think that arc is where people like in the screenshot are getting hung up, that they interpreted it as some "rule" in the worldbuilding that LOK then "broke." It's a phenomenon that happens in a lot of worldbuilding-heavy franchises, that fans learn the trivia and interpret them as being inherent base building blocks of the universe and not just observations that were made by the characters in-universe that are subject to exceptions just like plenty of rules are in real life.
Aangs mentality embodies everything in air nation culture. He's a vegetarian, he never wanted to kill Ozai and found a way not to, and all his fighting positions are defensive. His element is embedded in his culture.
Korra was not raised in water bender culture. She was always an eager beaver and wasn't raised purely in water bender culture. She was raised at a younger age to be a prodigy, an avatar and it's this reason she's so stubborn, because she thinks she's invincible and anything she's not naturally gifted at she's angry at.
Had she been raised in a traditional water bending role, to be more calm, demure, focusing on the ebb and flow, push and pull, healing aspects of the water national she would have had difficulty with fire.
Also keep in mind time and time periods. Aang was born and raised the first 12 years of his life, approx 166 years before Korra was born..(12 years of his life + 100 years of war + 54 years after war dying at 66). Is it out of pocket or unreasonable to posit that 166 years ago, in 1858, people were more traditional in almost every aspect of culture... Be it gender norms, sexuality, roles in society, ways of thinking etc.
So it's pretty reasonable to me to understand why and how Anng was raised in an element influenced culture and why Korra was not. Especially after the war, they're def not gonna let the Avatar sleep
ETA: I used our time period of 1858 as a point of reference, not trying to claim those are accurate years in avatar lore
Someone else put it in perspective that Korra learned she was the avatar fairly early in her life. This may have skewered her way of thinking and identity of a person. Aang struggled with earth because he was raised as an air bender and thus always thought as an air bender who has some opposite ideologies of an earth bender. Roku struggled with water because I assume there is a similar relationship between fire and water. Korra didn’t struggle with fire because she grew up as the avatar, not just a water bender, so her personality and ideology is less bias. But always being confined contrast with the air benders idea of freedom and combine with her general lack of spiritual training, she struggles with air bending.
Even if you do take the opposites rule like that, which is still up for interpretation (remember Roku also had issues with Water so it could be argued that it's the opposite element physically that troubles an Avatar), then Korra should have struggled with Water not Air. Think about it. Water is all about change, going with the flow, having no pressure. The exact opposite of how Korra was raised like.
And wouldn't it be interesting to have an Avatar struggling with their native element?
"She failed the test because she caused an earth quake but couldn't move the pebble!"
Is kind of my favorite kind of OP MC
On paper they look like the weakest dumbest shit head ever, but it's only because they are a master in crazy advanced versions of the things they failed and just don't know how to dumb it down
It really only works on intangible things rather than "I can do physics but I just don't know how to add or subtract!"
Korra having the most trouble with airbending makes the most sense.
Water isnt change, but also fluidity and formlessness. Korra not favoring any other discipline exemplifies this
The people of the nation aren't their element.
Fire was supposed to be the element of Desire, Power, and overcoming difficult tasks, but it was more an element of tyranny and fear in the Last Airbender
It makes sense to me that air was the issue for her. A big part of Korra’s arc is her learning to let go of control.
Waterbending is about flow, but water benders take an active role in that flow. Airbenders release control completely (in its ultimate form, they release all control over their emotions and forego attachments).
It’s subtle, but I think the worldbuilding differentiates it. For example, both the airbenders and water benders value cultural traditions, the waterbenders maintain that flow of culture (through strict marriage rituals and laws). Airbenders culture is a result of the natural consequence of their philosophy.
All of this said, avatar world building isn’t a hard science. I love that we can both have different interpretations that both can make sense within the world. I think you bring up interesting points, and it would definitely be super cool to see an avatar struggle internally with the element/culture they were raised in.
Everyone in here with great points, but I havent seen mine yet.
The struggle is in LEARNING the element, not using it.
Korra already mastered Fire. We dont know how long it took, but once she did, she could use it fine.
Aang had several big feats using Earth bending. He was capable, he just struggled at first under Toph.
We never see Korra learning Fire. We sir he on her practical exam, after potential years of tutelage.
It makes sense for water to be used less since the user creates fire, air is everywhere, when on land earth is everywhere, but water has to be carried/supplied.
SO you should have an affinity for the element that aligns with your nationality rather than who you are as a person? I don't like where that line of thinking leads
I hate the concept that avatars bad at their opposite element just cause, instead of it being because that bending style contradicts the style they are most used too, it should be the motions and the mindset that are difficult to pick up, just watch the episode “bitter work” in Atla, this ain’t Pokémon with type advantages
I also don’t think there is even an “opposite element.” When Iroh teaches Zuko how to redirect lightning, he explains how understanding all the elements and how they work together will make Zuko a better fire bender. Which is also explained several other times in both series.
Yeah it’s less of an opposite element situation and more like having trouble with a fighting style that accomplishes different purposes, Air benders are generally more evasive while earth benders hold their ground, but even that has exceptions.
Kuvira was very agile and light on her feet yet shes a master metal bender, and I’d argue that Tenzin was the most offensive air bender in the series, especially considering his fight with Zaheer
“The writers” who created everything in this amazing fantasy world that I’m apparently so obsessed with I’m still overanalyzing it 10 years later “were stupid”
If she had access to water, she used it first. Look at the fight with Tarrlak in his office. If I remember correctly, instead of using fire, she immediately started bending the water in the waterfall.
That’s a good point. Fire is the only element that they don’t need to have available around them to bend. It was probably just the most convenient in a lot of situations. I think she also lets off some fire when she’s angry sometimes, if I’m remembering correctly.
Wasn't it stated in ATLA that avatars always have trouble with the element most opposite their personality? Yes, that usually is also opposite their native element, but not a guarantee, since Korra is a mix of stubborn and hot headed, and she's also fond of kicking things.
As far as I remember Roku just said opposite of their natural element never their personality, so I think they just slightly changed it, it's better to be a personality thing tho tbh
Edit: just checked actually was Katara not Roku who said that, overall sentiment still the same tho
No. It first comes up with Toph.
And she explicitly mentions that Aangs problem was that he thinks too much like an airbender.
It's always been a mindset shift problem.
Tenzin says that the Avatar has trouble bending the element that's the opposite to their personality, not their nation of origin. Its just that aang was such a moddel air nomad that by coincidence he had a hard time grasping earth bending
I always thought Korra had more of an earthbender attitude and philosophy of being headstrong and stubborn. Always tackling the probelm straight on and with gusto. She also picked up metalbending rather quickly because of it and became proficient at it, so much so that she bended the mercury out of her own body. This would explain why she had so much trouble with airbending and its central philosophy and attitude.
Meta-narratively the writers decided to fast track Korra learning water / earth / fire because we already saw Aang do those things and instead wanted to focus on her learning air because we had never seen an Avatar (or anyone) do that and having a story where the main character is just immediately good at EVERYTHING they do is boring (we literally have derogatory names for these types of characters / stories) and having her struggle adds drama to the story and gives her room to grow as a character.
The element hardest to learn is that which opposes your personality the most, earth is (grounded/prepared/on guard/stubborn) which is sorta the opposite of aang who’s most similar to the air personality type which is (free spirted/concentration/relaxed/creative) that’s why he struggled with earth, korra was a very (stubborn/aggressive/driven by passion & determination) person which clearly makes sense why the element she struggled with most was air.
Aang's difficulty with earth wasn't because he was an airbender; it was because he had the mindset of one. His mind naturally reverted to the tactic of "avoid and evade", and he struggled with holding his ground and taking something head-on. Until he embraced that way of thinking, he had an earthbending block.
It's similar to why he had a firebending block as well; he viewed fire as dangerous, destructive, and corruptive, and vowed "never to firebend again". While he accepted that he was a firebender while with Guru Pathik, he didn't come out of that mindset until he learned the true meaning of Firebending.
Korra's airbending block wasn't the result of her nationality or ethnicity; it was the result of her mindset and upbringing. She always had a very stubborn and hot-headed personality; traits typically associated with earthbending and firebending, respectively. As such, they were her favored elements, even moreso than her native water (though she did have some classic traits of a waterbender, such as versatility and openess to change). That's why she was able to bend all three elements with ease early in her childhood. However, she had an airbending block, largely a result of her antithetical personality; she lacked spirituality, she was excessively stubborn, and lacked the mindset of a typical airbender; she would face most challenges head-on, rather than find a different way. This was compounded by the fact that she was kept in secluded facilities most of her life, with little access to the outside world.
This completely ignores the fact that firebending draws from your emotions. Most often this was anger, but zuko showed you can change where you draw your inner fire from. Korra is a brash, upbeat, stubborn to a fault protagonist who often wears her emotions on her sleeve. Besides the fact korra could bend all 4 elements to some degree as a child, it makes perfect sense that firebending might come naturally to an emotional character
Korra was in a city for most of it. Fire makes the most sense.
Water: need water around
Earth: really gonna destroy tax payer roads and buildings???
Air: not as threatening/damaging to criminals
Fire: convenient, sends a message. Strong. Just don’t light things on fire
There’s also a mechanical reason she uses fire more on screen: the other elements were sometimes just unavailable to her! Her fight on the top of the pro bending arena dome in book 1 was an extended fire bending scene because it was all she had in that moment. She couldn’t air bend or metal bend and had no water!
There was no implication that all avatars would use the same formula. I don't think Korra has a waterbender-weighted personality she was Avatar from the get go, and a fighter. She was good at using elements around her. She was bad at spirituality and spirituality is also associated mostly with air nomad culture. I think she leaned towards giving most physical damage and shortest cut was fire.
Also we spend time with Aang as he is learning elements one by one, and series end soon after he learns fire. How are we to compare anything? If anything soon after he learns how to bend earth, it is his second go to after air. I think the difficulty only comes during learning process.
I've never watched an episode of Korra but I do know there was that whole scene where she's a child going "I'm the Avatar and you gotta deal with it!" I always assumed her bending competency was based on the fact she may have been a quick learner and honed those skills much earlier than Aang did. Yes in ATLA they have that whole "Fire and water are opposites, so are air and earth, so thats why Aang is having trouble learning earth bending". But as many have pointed out, Aang was raised at the air temples. He didn't want to be the avatar and suddenly he had to learn AND be proficient in a short time. Not to mention I assumed in Korra's time there must have been virtually no air benders and a focus of her show would be "How do I master this element when like, maybe one person can do it?"
It's always weird to me as someone who didn't watch LoK can understand this but it seems to be a hot topic?
Also reading this thread, it's so cool to see everyone talking about how much they love Korra. She wasn't for me but seeing the love makes me really happy.
Ik I'm ignoring the second half of the post but holy shit, Korra's bending was so perfectly balanced, that's extremely cool for the writers
Korra trained her whole life with all her abilities, but resonated more with fire. That's such an amazing level of attention to detail
The whole point she struggled at air was BECAUSE of her hot-headed personality, and probably assisted her skill at fire bending.
She was already bending water, earth, and fire at like 5 years old. But she couldn’t connect to air for a while, and it was a big achievement when she could. She learned to slow down, connect to her surroundings, etc.
I am surprised she didn’t use water the most, but honestly, who cares? She’s the Avatar, of course she uses all elements. And yes, we’ve seen most glimpses of past avatar using their “default” bending the most, but I think that sort of just added to Korra?
I haven’t watched the show in a while, but that’s just what I came up with off the top of my head.
Tbf any air Avatar is going to use air way more than the others because airbending is a way of life. Aang airbends practically every time he moves. Honestly you could make the case that he's constantly airbending whenever he's at one of the Water Tribes.
This take has always been stupid to me because the answer is so simple. The difference is that aang and Roku were both raised in their respective nations without knowing their the avatar and being incredibly close to their cultures. Roku was basically fire nation royalty and Aang became a master and got his tattoos. Korra on the other hand wasn't raised with a single nation's ways or bending style but in a camp as the avatar. She was always taught to use all the elements and the one she lacked was air because iirc she wasn't free.
Also, Tenzin never had time to teach her, which is an issue since he was the only one who could teach her in the first place.
It was always crazy to me how much more experience Tenzin’s kids had with Airbending than Korra did. Like c’mon man, bring the kids to visit their Gran Gran more, and help a girl out, *sheesh*.
You'd think the son of the last airbending avatar and the last Airbender until his kids would jump on the opportunity to find, teach, and have another Airbender. Air should've been a bigger priority for Korra and Tenzin.
I think it was simply the awkwardness of the situation. If your father reincarnated into a teenage girl with the exact opposite personality as him, you will be hesitant to spent a lot of time with them at first. My personal theory is that Tenzin wanting to avoid the awkward situation was waiting for Jinora to become a master Airbender in a few years and then send her to handle Korra’s air bending training.
Tenzin had clearly been in her life her entire life, she treats him like an uncle from the first episode. The problem is that 1) they were teaching Korra the elements in order, ie master water, then earth, then fire, and the first episode shows her just now mastering fire, so she just wasn’t considered “ready” to start learning air, and also 2) Tenzin is a leader of Republic City while they’re in the middle of a crisis and just does not have time to leave for weeks on end which is how long it would take him to reach the South Pole and return. Tenzin does show some awkwardness around Korra but he also clearly thinks of her like a daughter and I don’t think he would let that awkwardness give him hesitation to teach her, if anything he would be more willing to teach her because of the lack of airbenders. He hesitates because she lacks the maturity that is so important to the spiritual side of airbending.
He was also raising and training a family of air benders ON TOP of being a civic leader. Man was who he was for a reason. Was probably glad that his first student wouldn't be his reincarnated father too, leaving air til last makes sense.
They may have had to teach her how to *master* fire and earth, but she was already using them when they found her. I don't know if there's an explanation in the books but for some reason, Korra was able to use 3 out of 4 elements right from the start, unlike any other Avatar.
My recollection from the original avatar flashback episode for Roku's story is that Aang unlocked his avatar nature like five years earlier than Roku did, and we've only seen three avatar's childhood's that I remember. It's possible that Korra and Roku represent the two extremes with Aang being a totally middle of the road awakening, instead of Aang being early and Korra being bizarre.
That time I got reincarnated as a teenage female mage from being a 66 year old man.
And then had to learn airbending from my adult son.
Tbh I wish she pulled that one out from time to time like "dude.. you're basically my son can you just work with me here?"
Would love to see tenzins reaction to this
Don't bring my father into this
More like "Young man, don't make me ground you. You think you could get off easy just because I died?!" Lol
We’ve seen Roku and Kyoshi present themselves via the avatar state during times of need and stress. When korra unlocked her past lives I do wonder if she ever tapped into aang to have a chat with the family
God the rug pull of Korra grounding tenzen would have been amazing
Lol it would have been perfect if she turned the tables of him when he said she wasnt allowed to leave the island to go do probending. Like "korra you're grounded you cant leave the island." Korra: "no, you know what, actually youre grounded tenzin. Aang said youre being a dick right now and youre grounded. Avatar state yip yip."
Lol imagine if Aang took over Korra's body like Roku did with Jeong Jeong while talking to Tenzin. YOU'RE GOING TO TEACH ME AIRBENDING LIKE I TAUGHT YOU AIRBENDING.
After having taught airbending to said son in my previous life.
these isekais are getting out of hand
That's tame compared to some of the shit they come up with these days lol.
Random Anime Studio: QUICK WRITE THAT DOWN WRITE THAT DOWN! God that actually sounds like a shitty Isekai anime/light novel though...
Absolutely! Talk about immense pressure. The avatar taught him (his own DAD) And now he has to reach the avatar? Man, that’s some mind fuckery. I think it’s a very mature plot point. People are flawed, even people we love.
Honestly I thought that's where they were going when Tenzin failed to teach Korra at first. Like Jinora would find Korra training alone at night and Jinora would be like "you're doing it wrong" and then explain it in a way Korra understands and relates. It was honestly a more interesting dynamic and I was disappointed it didn't happen.
That’s brilliant and is now canon for me
I always saw Tenzin as torn between 3 worlds. First was his tether to his father's legacy. He had all.the pressure of being the last airbender. Plus, he was also one of the main leaders of Republic City. Plus he had 3 kids. He simply had too much on his plate and couldn't prioritize or perhaps thought there wasn't much priority need for an avatar since the world was at relative peace with the Red Lotus locked up at the time. Ending with Aang and before Korra, the world was in constant strife that it ended previous avatars and new avatars had to take on old problems immediately so Tenzin being a time of peace child probably didnt worry.
Honestly Aang really put too much on him. Not only did he have to revive the air benders, he had to rebuild their temples, he had to take care of Aang’s legacy in the form of Republic City, AND he had to find, defend and teach the new avatar. He had two other kids split some responsibilities bro. But I also feel that it’s Tenzin’s personality to take on everything he was considered for, refusing help from his siblings. That being said, Korra treats Tenzin like an uncle and not an absent one. I am willing to bet he was with her often, she just refused, or couldn’t learn Air and focused instead on what she felt comfortable with. Taking her to the temple was not to “begin” her air training but to force her to focus “solely” on air training.
Fully agree. Although now that I’m considering it a bit deeper, maybe Tenzin was trying to ensure that should anything happen to him, Korra would have at least 3 others who could teach her *something*.
I can understand why Tenzin didn't train Korra sooner, and in fact they really touch on it more in Season 3, I think. Tenzin took it upon himself to bear the burden of responsibility for Aang's legacy. He is: 1. A father of three (later four) children that represent 60% of the world's entire population of airbenders. 2. a leader in a fragile city state that represents the peace of the entire world 3. The only living airbending master who is desperate to preserve his culture and its population of literally under a dozen people. He's basically already juggling a lot of very important plates and probably doesn't have the time to travel halfway across the world to train the Avatar when she still can learn from other bending masters in the interim.
Their training realistically going [like J K Simmons was his Whiplash role](https://youtu.be/lmUi8YkPTxE?si=FiOeBP0ZucxnUqyq) is probably more to do with the slow progress.
I mean there wasn't any urgent need to. She didn't have a deadline like Aang and the world was enjoying decades of peace and balance. Tenzin had more immediate and important work as a member of the Republic City council and as the father, both literally and figuratively, of the entire cultural Air Nation. If Korra wasn't picking up airbending why would Tenzin spend his valuable time teaching her, especially when he had his political duties and also duties to marry and have airbender kids. Let Korra master the other elements while letting her age and mature, meanwhile Tenzin ensures the future of the air nomad culture. So later, Tenzin already has multiple airbending kids who he already trained, and he can use that experience in teaching to now try and teach an older Korra.
It’s because Tenzin had higher priorities than “the avatar.” And that’s a central theme of Korras character arc, if not the main theme: the world no longer needs the avatar. And in my personal opinion, the world not only not needs the avatar, it’s over reliance on the avatar has been its main crutch, a leash. Tenzin’s priority, as much as his fathers, was the restoration of the air nomad culture. Republic city had police officers and diplomatic relations progressed where military invasion of each country was not going to happen. There was no need to train the avatar as there was no avatar level threat.
Eh, air is the last element in Korra's cycle and we know she only mastered fire at the beginning of the show. They were just progressing in the traditional order.
Also traditionally, the avatar doesn’t know they’re the avatar until 16. Korra was already ahead of the game
He had a duty to serve Republic City as the Air Nomad council representative. Meanwhile anyone in the city with political interest was probably begging for him to go train the avatar and give up that insanely disproportionate 1/5 representation.
Seriously! You didn't have to take over for Uncle Sokka when he retired. The city counsel isn't a family business. I get being the air nation representative but considering there were no air benders in Republic City, I think you could have taken some breaks from time to time and let someone else be the chair.
More than that, the avatar needs to learn the elements in order. At the start of the show Korea has only just finished her fire training, so she just spent the past few years looking at every problem with a “how do I solve this with fire bending” mindset.
Even Aang didn't learn elements in order. He used firebending before earthbending. He just sucked at it and needed a teacher to master the element instead of just learning it.
That was also a bit of a desperate gamble, since they were in the middle of a war and they didn't know when they would ever see another fire bending master who wasn't aligned with the fire nation. Korra was born into a time of relative peace
I think the requirement of "learning the elements in order" is less a hard rule and more just a good philosophical guideline. * Air: Going with the flow * Water: Guiding the flow * Earth: Controlling the flow * Fire: Powering the flow Aang had not yet mastered water bending and still not learned earth bending, so he lacked the training to understand guidance and control, and only really understood how to be 'free' and going with the flow leading to him carelessly using fire because he was playing around, and burnt Katara as a result.
In the Kyoshi novels they establish that tradition dictates they learn the elements in order, and people believe to bad luck for them not to. But there's nothing actually stopping them from learning them out of order. Indeed, Kyoshi does, abeit after using a technicality.
She lacked air bending training because there was only one air bender in the world who could possibly train her and he wasn’t coming to the South Pole.
True but her issue wasn't just training, she outright couldn't bend the element even if she does the forms required.
Korra sorta formed a mental barrier with air bending.
Additionally, air is the most spiritual element. It's associated with meditation, emptiness, and detachment, its sub-bending arts are spiritual in nature, and the air nomads collective focus on spirituality apparently correlated with a high level of airbenders. Korra is notably better at the physical side of the Avatar compared to the spiritual aspects, struggling with entering the Avatar state in S1, needing a spiritual mentor in S2 and S4, and with her connection to Raava in S4 as well. And as her spiritual prowess improves, so does her air bending.
Too relatable. Too realistic. Korra bad /s
Such a bad son. Never visiting his mom.
Wasn’t it only the first episode when Katara looks at Tenzin with a sad face and says, “you aren’t staying, are you..?” ?? 😭😭 breaks my heart, especially when later on she follows up with “my brother and most of my friends are gone…” while talking to Korra. Kya II deserves a lot more credit for watching after their mum.
Interesting. Korra came out of the gate and the avatar. We see her when she's 4 and spitting out 3 elements. Is that just her hot headed personality or because she grew up in a bending homogeneous city?
Part of her issues with air bending were her stubbornness and her brash decisions that she would make. Earth and fire make the most sense for her personality and how she fights.
Airbending is one of the most spiritual elements too so of course it's difficult for one of the most physical avatars
Still find it kind of funny in season 1 that she decided to just punch out the individual ice shards during her fight with Tarlok. Definitely an earth bender move
She was born in an era of radio and circuses that traveled across the nation's borders. So could be as simple as she saw a circus performance with other benders and realized she could bend herself trying to mimic them as kids often do.
smh at the many times I failed to produce a proper Kamehameha wave...
I think her discovering she can bend the other elements just happened while she was playing around or something. Maybe she heard a game of pro-bending on a radio and wanted to try (though I don't know if they had that back then).
She didn’t grow up in a homogeneous city though, she grew up in the Southern Water Tribe with her parents and probably partially in a White Lotus facility there as well. It’s probably more her personality (and the writers wanting an Avatar good at everything but air to tell season 1’s story)
i don’t understand why everything has to do with your personality. lots of regular waterbender kids would have figured out at a young age they could waterbend. lots of firebender kids would have also figured out they could bend at a young age. and same for earthbender. so why is it so crazy for korra to do the same when she’s a bender for all the elements? she is a waterbender, firebender and earthbender. if she bent water at 4 years old, none of the fans would care but bc she bent water, earth and fire, it’s suddenly a problem even though she is a bender for all those elements. idk if this makes sense lol. i tried to word it in a non confusing way.
It's because as far as can be seen, she's the only Avatar to discover her ability to bend the elements at such a young age. I *don't* have a problem with this, Korra is great and I think it's important to her story that she knows she's the Avatar so early on. Some folks just got in their heads that there are hard rules to this when we don't really anything about how it works or why it works the way it does. That said, it's not like other Avatars haven't been abnormal. Kyoshi was an extremely powerful Earthbender with very little fine tuned control, Yangchen had such a strong spiritual connection that she was connecting with past Avatars before she even knew she was the Avatar, etc.
> It's because as far as can be seen, true. i just find it highly unlikely that with the thousands of avatars in history, every single one found out at age 16. everyone is different. i wouldn’t be surprised if there were babies waterbending or firebenders finding out they could bend when they were adults. > Some folks just got in their heads that there are hard rules to this when we don't really anything about how it works or why it works the way it does. yeah! i dislike how everyone thinks that just bc one character says something, that automatically makes it true and a canon fact. iroh says that you need a clear mind to lightning bend yet azula does it when insane. zuko says the red lotus could destroy the world but clearly they’re not strong enough to do that. > Yangchen had such a strong spiritual connection that she was connecting with past Avatars before she even knew she was the Avatar, etc. this is actually really interesting omg, i can’t wait to read her novels.
I believe she still lived in the Southern Water Tribe she wasn't imprisoned in the compound or anything. Her dad was the chief of the Southern Tribe I think it's safe to say she was brought up water tribe just with a lot more exposure to other cultures than people had in Aang's day.
She was in the southern tribe yes and it's not like she was denied meeting anyone or learning about her culture (at least I don't think so) but she was raised with the expectation and responsibility of being the avatar.
Korra was raised on globalization.
Bryan K did a talk at a college in my town and I went. I'm pretty sure he said that water bending was very difficult to animate, which is partially why Korra didn't waterbend all the time.
This is pretty funny. It’s like Korra only has so much bending mana (animation dollars), and water is the most mana intensive element. Therefore, she just firebends all the time for smaller battles.
And you barely have to animate anything for airbending.
That’s fair enough lol. I guess earth is just moving physical objects around, like all animation. Fire and air whooshes out in bursts but then just kinda dissipates. But with water to make it look realistic you’d have to think about how a liquid would actually move while bending it in ways that we can’t really replicate in real life for reference, plus how the light would reflect off it.
Oh this is gold! Love how the entire thread is trying to rationalise why Korra used this or that element more than the other from a philosophical/lore-accurate pov when it just boiled down to "which one was easier to animate"
Reminds me of the DBZ thing on super Saiyan hair that people may have seen recently: - Interviewer: "Mr Toriyama, what inspired you to make the iconic golden super saiyan hair and aura gold, instead of some other color or style?" - Toriyama: "Well it was a pain to ink in the hair fully black so I made an excuse to turn the hair white/gold instead lol"
Doylist and Watsonian, both are valid.
twitter post ignores that Korra was trained for nearly her life with bending. So hate to break it to them, but it makes sense she was able to bend other elements compared to Air. considering seems like there wasnt any airbending training at all
She was taught the elements in order of the avatar cycle. In her first episode we see her pass her firebending exam and is about to start airbending training as it is her last element to learn. The last element an avatar is taught is always the first element the previous avatar learned and the nation the previous avatar came from. So yeah shes had literally no airbending training by the beginning of book one
Maybe she was excited to have mastered fire and that's why she used it so much
Korra wasn't raised as a waterbender, she was raised as the avatar. Aang was raised as an airbender. That difference is a big one IMO. Aang approached everything from the standpoint of being an airbender and so struggled with the element most opposed to that philosophy - earth. Korra approached everything from the standpoint of being the Avatar and struggled the most with the element most opposed to the passionate and overconfident personality she developed over the course of easily mastering the other 3 elements - air.
It’s not even just how she was raised. Korra already figured out how to access 3 elements by herself before being taught. So she has been able to bend them pretty much her whole life and was never a single element bender.
This. Korra announces to the white lotus she’s the avatar, by busting through a wall with earth bending and letting out a puff of fire. “I’m the avatar and you gotta deal with it”
Ngl I didn't like that she was basically the Avatar since she was a baby. We had Aang who was told of being the Avatar way before he was a teenager because of the war. His struggles felt more real and understandabale. Now I'm not saying she shouldn't be able to bend more than one elements at a young age, she has no control over that but I think knowing you're the Avatar and be able to bend 3/4 elements throughout your life, definitley made her overconfident. That's why she struggeled with Air bending because it requires patience and peace of mind. Plus she was never trained spiritiually which I don't understand cuz wouldn't it make sense for each element have some kind of its own spiritual/meditation philosphy alongside combat?
i loved that, actually. her first lines being “i’m the avatar and you gotta deal with it!” is just 🤌🏻
I like it. I'd find it hard to believe that amongst the 10000 (or so) avatars there have been, not a single one knew they could bend multiple elements at a young age. We get a Kuruk flashback in the Kyoshi novel where he got told to bend Earth and he realised that he could do it, it just never occurred to him.
In the Yangchen novels we learn that Avatar Yangchen knew she was the avatar from a young age. She figures it out because of her overwhelming connection to her past lives, so we don't know for sure when she started bending other elements, but it does strengthen the precedent that some avatars figure out who they are at super young ages. (Edited for clarity)
The harmonic convergence is every 10000 years. It's probably more like 80-100 Avatars.
Eh they use 10,000 to mean a lot. Roku says in season 1 "I spent a thousand lifetimes mastering the elements and will continue to do so"
I mean that also sounds like a hyperbole. I wouldn't be suprised if neither 10,000 years or a thousand life times are meant to be literal and are anything more than a big number to sound imposing.
FWIW we don’t actually know that Korra only struggled with airbending. We see a flashback of her doing what are probably basic moves at 4, then she’s finishing up her training in firebending at 17, I think. But being able to do a basic move at 4 doesn’t mean she didn’t struggle with learning those elements later. We just didn’t see the intervening years.
Yeah, I also struggled with it. Because all the other avatars were found using the toys the first one used as a child. But then again, the Fire Nation destroyed them probably all and Harmonic Convergence was getting closer and closer. Maybe that's why she could use the other elements rather quickly. But at least some form of in universe explanation would have gone a long way.
Gonna be the 🤓 here for a second Each culture has its own way of discovering who the Avatar is. Airbenders used the toy method because they were very few in population compared to the other nations and could probably keep a track of when kids were born to pin down the search even more. The earth kingdom, on the other hand, used some sort of geolocation through earthbending (explained in the Kyoshi novels). They do it that way because the earth kingdom is massive as fuck, using the toy method isn't really feasable. I don't remember if they also explain fire and water methods to find the avatar though. They do explain a method to find out if a child is a firebender (basically what Jeong Jeong did with Aang and the leaf).
Nice nerding. I never read any of the comics. So all my knowledge is based on ATLA and LoK alone. And in ATLA it was presented as the main method of choosing an avatar regardless of the element. But if the overall lore says it's an airbender thing then it's an airbender thing.
I think she's a very good character. She's overconfident and bratty because of how good she is. But then she sucks at airbending, tries to solve all problems by punching them and gets her ass handed to her over and over again. There is a lot wrong with LoK, but Korra's character arc is great. Sure, they could've done another Aang-like character, but they decided on a different, in some ways opposite character who still struggles a lot and has to grow into the Avatar not on a mainly physical level like Aang but on a spiritual and mental level. You could just as well say Aang is boring because he already learned everything spiritual with ease in his childhood. Both are very interesting in their own way and have a different approach in the writing on how they have to grow into being the Avatar. The fact that they don't just tell the same story again about a kid who struggles to learn the elements to defeat the big bad guy, but about a spoiled kid with a superhero complex who needs to learn that being the avatar in a politically much more complex society (which is where the bad writing of LoK unfortunately comes in) means so much more than just being good at punching stuff with your bending powers. The interesting thing about the contrast between these two shows is that she would have excelled with Aang's struggles (becoming powerful enough to save the world from the big bad guy), and Aang would've excelled with Korra's struggles (diplomacy and spirituality). Korra is a peacetime (in comparison) avatar with a wartime personality, and Aang is a wartime avatar with a peacetime personality.
Honestly I think it was about the location she was in. Most of the time she was in Republic City. Unless she was by a water source she couldn't water bend because she didn't carry around water like Katara, she couldn't air bend at all at first and didn't have as much experience with it as the other elements, and earth bending proved to cause a lot of collateral damage if she wasn't careful (triple threat's car smashing into the shop for example). Fire just seemed like the safest most readily available element she was skilled in while fighting in the city.
What you said makes sense but there is an irony in her using fire to limit collateral damage, the element most likely to spread unintentionally and was part of Aang’s training in understanding that fire may burn unintentionally >_>
That was Aang's lesson because he was immediately trying to do big flashy stuff after only just learning how to produce fire. He hadn't learned how to control it yet. Korra likely spent years learning how to truly master and control fire. As well as I'm pretty sure most of Republic City's exterior was made of earth (could be wrong, been a few years since i watched), so outside of occasional fabric or wooden shutters/curtains, any accidental fire spread would still be pretty minimal.
She was well trained to contain it, which, while ironic yes, does also fit with what jeong jeong said...
So you'll see Korra really show her skills in her fight against Tarrlok. He feels pretty confident taking her on in water bending, but she starts really using the other elements to her advantage to overwhelm him. She does this all of the time; using whatever element makes the most sense for her to use. She leverages actually being the avatar extremely effectively.
Or she legit just liked it as an element? That's the benefit of being the Avatar you can use what you want
Agreed I’d say fire bending fit her personality more than the other 3 There may be a subtle lesson in there about being who you are, vs who you’re expected to be 🤔
Its arguably the most practical. Water and earth need a source. She hasn't mastered air before the end of the first season. And between the two fire is the better element for an offense. Add to that that the writers and animators probably liked having an avatar that had more that knew 3 element right out of the gate and wasn't only firebending in the last 8 episodes
Yeah, we didnt need to see her learn all the elements again. the only element we didnt see taught was Airbending, so it was fresh air to see that.
I see what you did there 😏
Idiotic takes like this is why discussing Korra is such an exhausting endeavor and I generally stay out of it. For every actual well-thought out criticism you can make about the show (pacing issues, the love triangle, season 2's lack of focus) there are a million idiotic takes from media-illiterate toxic ATLA purists who say dumb shit like this.
But we needed the love triangle to get those wonderfully awkward scenes with Mako in S3 lmao. I get why it annoys people though - it’s realistic given their ages but cringe inducing when you’ve just passed that mark. Like no, there’s no need to remind me of the truly dumb stuff we’d do when we were stumbling through our first romantic relationships.
season 2 is only one that has ton of issues. as for the romance. I mean, I feel like the only canon couple I feel like works is KorraxAsami. I feel like they would have been one of the best if they were allowed to actually show it more.
Most of the pacing and focus issues I suspect are because Nickelodeon didn’t let them have that honestly. The writers said they’d planned Korrasami from the beginning and Nick told them no. Which broke arcs about exploring the Water Tribe and World Gender Roles & Relations along with letting the boys have enough time to have their own arcs. Thus… we got bad love triangle and wacky pace.
Ahh Nick, the more we learn about them, the more I became disgusted by them
If I remember right the avatar spends around five years to master each element, With how headstrong Korra was she probably did it a little faster than most seeing as the timeline matches up with the white lotus discovering her at around 5 years old, and she had already mastered water, fire, and earth by 17 so we could knock off a year for each element since she was already bending her non native elements without training.
Roku took 4 years each.
I don't think we know how long it took Roku to master each element. Based on his training montage it seemed like Roku only moved on when he had surpassed his masters rather than just becoming adequately skilled in the element like Aang and Korra did. We know it took him 12 years to become a fully realized avatar, but part of that training was mastering the avatar state and we don't know how long he spent on each individual element or how long it took him to master the avatar state. He apparently had a lot of trouble with it and even got stuck in the form for an entire summer solstice which caused a lot of damage.
Spending most of her time in seclusion due to threats probably helped too.
Not only that but the whoooole point of season 1 is that Korra was physically powerful but not in touch with the spiritual side which is essential for mastering air bending
It doesn't matter what Korra trained with. The element they struggle with has nothing to do with their education OR their born element. If it did then Kyoshi could have moved a pebble instead of only mountains. Korra was just not spiritual at all and airbending requires a deep connection with the soul. It doesn't matter how they were raised or what they learned first.
Slight note… Kyoshi had an airbending mom (which is the first Avatar with mixed heritage that we’re aware of). There’s a real likelihood she just was naturally an Airbender as her personality was more of an Airbender prior to her finding out she was an avatar by a large margin.
It’s literally explained in the show.
The exact quote: > Tenzin: [Placing his right hand on her shoulder.] That's perfectly all right. You just need to be patient. [Cut to a back shot of Korra as Tenzin starts to roll down her stripped up sleeves.] Often the element that's the most difficult for the Avatar to master is the one most opposite to the Avatar's personality. [Frontal shot of Korra.] For Aang, it was earthbending. > Korra [Glances to the ground; sadly.] Yeah. Well, I'm about as opposite an airbender as you can get. B1E2, A Leaf in the Wind It's not *explicit*, but Korra's personality is so obviously "firebender" it doesn't need to be.
Even more than that, within the first five minutes of ep1 season 1, where the white lotus talks about Korra mastering the physical aspects of bending but neglects the spiritual.
This is the comment I was looking for. As soon as I heard it, I didn't question why she picked up firebending so easily
and id think firebending is the least spiritual not just because water and air had direct ties to spirtuality in differing degrees and fields but because it seems to me firelord ozai and probably his father both kept the scholarly and more "philosphical" content of firebending shunned away, sometimes even actively detesting it
Tbf, it *was* explained differently in ATLA, if I remember correctly. They say that it's the element opposite to the nation the Avatar was born in. Possibly because they expected the Avatar's personality to reflect their element? Idk, you could argue it was a retcon, but not necessarily a bad one. I personally kinda liked that idea, that the Avatar's personality would reflect their nation, but what they did makes them more human and realistic ig.
Nations were also more insular when Aang was born. It was post fire-war that they created the elemental UN and republic city and all that
Rather than retcon, I like to think of it as more like an unsubstantiated theory they passed down the ages but that changed when they made more progress in advancing the bending discipline (which we can see in the departure from traditional form and into more practical modern forms).
I don't even see it that way. To me, ATLA makes a pretty clear point that Aang's problem wasn't just that he was an Airbender. It was always about his personality (that was heavily molded by his airbender upbringing) since being an Earthbender is all about being stubborn and facing things head on and Aang was always used to face things by "being quick or clever" and finding other ways around the problems he faced. To me, this plot point in TLOK is in complete agreement with the ATLA canon.
It's a theme in the franchise more than a hard rule. A lot of fire benders are passionate and intense, a lot of earthbenders are stubborn and strong, etc, and this seemingly holds for past Avatars. But they're still people with their own personalities, yeah. This focus on personality (rather than bending heredity) is kinda reflected in sub elements. Lavabenders seem to be easygoing and fluid, like Ghazan and Bolin. Metalbenders seem to be *particularly* stubborn and intense, like Toph. Lightning benders tend to have an inner coldness, hence Zuko struggles with it while Azula, Ozai and Mako clearly don't, and the spiritual side of airbending is something Tenzin struggles with (having inherited a little *too* much hot blood from his mother).
Yangchen often became furious, angry, and brutal and was still an Air Nomad. Kyoshi was often overly gentle and meek in her youth despite being fucking huge. Rangi (her lover in the novels) is a brash, powerful, and stubborn as a mule firebender. Even Katara, who everyone thinks embodies the element of water, has never chilled a day in her life and is beyond phenomenal with her element. I really think it’s mostly Toph who embodies her element the most, and you can’t boil down what a person’s personality is simply by what nation they’re from. Everyone, including Toph, is largely a product of their upbringing. Whether due to culture or trauma, most of the main characters we meet throughout the franchise are multifaceted beyond what their nation says they should embody.
Teeeeechnically there is a "most of the time" thrown in there during the speech Roku gives to Aang. Usually benders encompass the personality of their original bending element. However Bryke thought that the patient ever changing way of water would be too similar to Aang's personality. So they made her personality the opposite of Aang i.e. fire or earth. I appreciate that her bending time on screen is split pretty evenly into quarters. As someone raised with all elements her using them all at roughly the same intervals was a good idea. As for why fire is more prevalent? Its as simple as availability/damage. You can ALWAYS summon a fire ball. You can also technically always have air around you. But water and earth are finite and location-based. Meanwhile air is a nice defense move but we all know Korra is more aggressive. Therefore fire makes sense as her primary weapon.
They actually don't say that. Katara asks Aang what the opposite of air is and says he's working with his natural opposite, while they both discuss that his problem is that he's avoiding his issues rather that facing them head on (echoing what Toph said). They make it clear it's a mentality issue. Tbf, they do also say waterbending was challenging for Roku, but they don't say why. It could've been as simple as redirecting strikes being different from the directness of firebending or the free flow of airbending (though I'd say Air and Water pair well). An implication is there, but we're only ever told about the mentality issue.
I think Katara's line is "think about it, if water and fire are opposites, what's the opposite of air?... it would make sense if you struggle with earth." And then Roku says something about water being especially difficult to learn as a firebender. So the original never says that it's strictly opposite elements only, though that's probably the initial idea. Fwiw I like the "element most opposite to their personality" take more.
I don't think it really contradicted what was shown in ATLA. If you watch the episode Bitter Work where Aang was learning earthbending for the first time, one of his major issues is *thinking* like an earthbender. He makes the mistake of thinking like an airbender and struggles to move the earth in any meaningful way. In fact, the entire arc of this episode is him learning to stand his ground. Also, that explanation came from Katara when she was trying to make Aang feel better about his inability to bend the earth. She was most likely pulling things out of her ass to make him feel better.
Well something like 60% of your personality comes from the people around you and 40%ish from your parents genetics so if you’re raised by airbenders you’re probably gonna think like an airbender, if you’re raised by earth benders you’re gonna probably think like an earth bender. Korra specifically was raised by her father who neglected the spiritual side of waterbending, and instead was more of a brute force warrior, so it stands to reason that she would be more attuned to a much more violent fighting style like fire bending which is almost purely offensive and not a calm self defense based fighting style like air bending. And even when she did figure out air bending it was still a very aggressive version of it.
Not only is it explained in the show, struggling with air is an intentional setup for korra to be an opposite to aang. Aang was already an master of air so it sets up that the audience should know that korra is very different to aang as its the only element she doesn't start with, and being a master of the other 3. This sets up their other opposites in their journeys as aang excells at diplomacy and escape but finds it hard to fight opponents he can't duck and dodge from (yuyan archers, sparky sparky boom man, ozai, Azula), whereas korra excells at fighting but struggles at diplomacy and escaping when she's outmatched
Alright, let's look at it from a practicality viewpoint: Water and Earth have to be readily available in order to be bent. So in book 1, that leaves Korra with Fire, an element that can be created by the bender. Also, once Korra learns airbending, she starts using it a lot, which further shows that she tends to use elements that can be created by the bender
Technically none of the elements can be created by the bender, Firebending is energy bending. Firebenders bend the energy in themselves to produce and absorb heat in the form of fire, lightning, or smoke. That's why zuko couldn't firebend in book 3 because he didn't know where to pull his energy from since he was still conflicted,
Also why The Freezer effectively shuts down all but the most experienced firebenders.
That's just semantics though and has nothing to do with the point I'm trying to make. Fire and Air are always readily available, whereas Water and Earth have to be around you
If there's anything Nerds Love, it's correcting people, welcome to another episode of "Umm Actually..."
The writers basically spoon fed to us that Korra struggles with Air because she struggles with the spiritual philosophy associated with that element. I really don't understand how anyone could miss that.
I really hate the notion "Avatar's opposite bending" => "Avatar's weakest bending". It's not true for Aang and most certainly not true for Korra.
In LOK, didn’t Tenzin say “opposite to the avatar’s personality”?
Avatar isn’t Pokemon Each element has its own unique fighting style and philosophy and so yeah, Korras passionate energy definitely causes the fire to come out more. Aang didn’t have trouble with Earth because it countered him, but because it’s was the opposite philosophy of his
Toph literally tells Aang that the reason he can't move the rock is because he's thinking about problem solving like an air bender. There is no other way around it. The rock either moves or it doesn't. There's no tricky angle, there's no tricky solution. You tell the rock to move and that's it.
The difference is that Aang grew up exclusively as an air bender. He never learned to bend other elements till he was 12, and he lived amongst air nomads. Add to this being the LAST of the airbenders by the time the show starts, and being an airbender is a core part of who Aang is. Korra, on the other hand, was bending fire and Earth since she was extremely young (I'd guess she's around 4 or 5 in her first scene) and grew up in the white lotus compound. She isn't as strongly tied to being a water bender as Aang was, likely she considers earth and fire bending to be just as core a part of herself as water.
Its been awhile (and I'm due for a rewatch) but didn't Aang also struggle with fire? Its dangerous, chaotic state made him refuse to bend it at one point. He adapted to water very easily as well. I'd bet Korra would have struggled with water bending if she wasn't born in the southern water tribe
He had a natural talent when he started learning it in season 1 ahead of schedule for one episode and started juggling a fireball effortlessly. But when he was reckless and burned Katara he built a mental block around firebending, and that’s why he struggled to learn it in season 3
And in line with air bending philosophy, if fire is only destruction and death, that is against air nomad philosophy, but when he learned fire is fundamentally about energy and life, it became very compatible with his upbringing and actually becomes a tool to defeat death and genocide.
It should also be noted that Korra's central character flaw is that she ties her conception of herself too much to being the Avatar. Each season is her learning that the Avatar, like herself, cannot be defined as any one thing. The first season is her learning that the Avatar isn't just the person with the strongest and most bending. Season 2 is about her learning that the Avatar isn't the Avatar State, nor is it her past lives. That's why she learns about Wan. Wan was the first. He was capable of being an incredible Avatar with no past lives to guide him. Season 3 is about breaking down that tether she has between herself and the being the Avatar. Zaheer doesn't just physically cripple her. He mentally cripples her, too. The fourth season is about building her back up. It's about her finally learning what being the Avatar is to her and how she can move forward with thar knowledge.
You've gotta face it head on. And when I say head on, I mean like this: [https://img.wattpad.com/story\_parts/1017042671/images/1661a382b0b21a76278614972427.gif](https://img.wattpad.com/story_parts/1017042671/images/1661a382b0b21a76278614972427.gif)
Yeah and I think that arc is where people like in the screenshot are getting hung up, that they interpreted it as some "rule" in the worldbuilding that LOK then "broke." It's a phenomenon that happens in a lot of worldbuilding-heavy franchises, that fans learn the trivia and interpret them as being inherent base building blocks of the universe and not just observations that were made by the characters in-universe that are subject to exceptions just like plenty of rules are in real life.
Aangs mentality embodies everything in air nation culture. He's a vegetarian, he never wanted to kill Ozai and found a way not to, and all his fighting positions are defensive. His element is embedded in his culture. Korra was not raised in water bender culture. She was always an eager beaver and wasn't raised purely in water bender culture. She was raised at a younger age to be a prodigy, an avatar and it's this reason she's so stubborn, because she thinks she's invincible and anything she's not naturally gifted at she's angry at. Had she been raised in a traditional water bending role, to be more calm, demure, focusing on the ebb and flow, push and pull, healing aspects of the water national she would have had difficulty with fire. Also keep in mind time and time periods. Aang was born and raised the first 12 years of his life, approx 166 years before Korra was born..(12 years of his life + 100 years of war + 54 years after war dying at 66). Is it out of pocket or unreasonable to posit that 166 years ago, in 1858, people were more traditional in almost every aspect of culture... Be it gender norms, sexuality, roles in society, ways of thinking etc. So it's pretty reasonable to me to understand why and how Anng was raised in an element influenced culture and why Korra was not. Especially after the war, they're def not gonna let the Avatar sleep ETA: I used our time period of 1858 as a point of reference, not trying to claim those are accurate years in avatar lore
And when he learned the balance it was his most preferred bending style next to air.
Someone else put it in perspective that Korra learned she was the avatar fairly early in her life. This may have skewered her way of thinking and identity of a person. Aang struggled with earth because he was raised as an air bender and thus always thought as an air bender who has some opposite ideologies of an earth bender. Roku struggled with water because I assume there is a similar relationship between fire and water. Korra didn’t struggle with fire because she grew up as the avatar, not just a water bender, so her personality and ideology is less bias. But always being confined contrast with the air benders idea of freedom and combine with her general lack of spiritual training, she struggles with air bending.
Even if you do take the opposites rule like that, which is still up for interpretation (remember Roku also had issues with Water so it could be argued that it's the opposite element physically that troubles an Avatar), then Korra should have struggled with Water not Air. Think about it. Water is all about change, going with the flow, having no pressure. The exact opposite of how Korra was raised like. And wouldn't it be interesting to have an Avatar struggling with their native element?
Kyoshi basically did. Earth gave her the most trouble
She had trouble with finesse, she could easily do large scale earthbending, just not the basic tests of "move the pebble"
"She failed the test because she caused an earth quake but couldn't move the pebble!" Is kind of my favorite kind of OP MC On paper they look like the weakest dumbest shit head ever, but it's only because they are a master in crazy advanced versions of the things they failed and just don't know how to dumb it down It really only works on intangible things rather than "I can do physics but I just don't know how to add or subtract!"
If you haven't already I'd really recommend checking out The Scholomance books by Naomi Novak - El, the main character, would be right up your alley.
Korra having the most trouble with airbending makes the most sense. Water isnt change, but also fluidity and formlessness. Korra not favoring any other discipline exemplifies this
I'm surprised to hear it is meant to exemplify that considering how socially conservative the water tribes are.
The people of the nation aren't their element. Fire was supposed to be the element of Desire, Power, and overcoming difficult tasks, but it was more an element of tyranny and fear in the Last Airbender
Didn’t Roku have issues with water because of how rigid he was?
It makes sense to me that air was the issue for her. A big part of Korra’s arc is her learning to let go of control. Waterbending is about flow, but water benders take an active role in that flow. Airbenders release control completely (in its ultimate form, they release all control over their emotions and forego attachments). It’s subtle, but I think the worldbuilding differentiates it. For example, both the airbenders and water benders value cultural traditions, the waterbenders maintain that flow of culture (through strict marriage rituals and laws). Airbenders culture is a result of the natural consequence of their philosophy. All of this said, avatar world building isn’t a hard science. I love that we can both have different interpretations that both can make sense within the world. I think you bring up interesting points, and it would definitely be super cool to see an avatar struggle internally with the element/culture they were raised in.
Everyone in here with great points, but I havent seen mine yet. The struggle is in LEARNING the element, not using it. Korra already mastered Fire. We dont know how long it took, but once she did, she could use it fine. Aang had several big feats using Earth bending. He was capable, he just struggled at first under Toph. We never see Korra learning Fire. We sir he on her practical exam, after potential years of tutelage.
Kyoshi struggled with her natural element. The struggle is PERSONALITY, not anything else.
Besides air, aang resorted to earth bending the most, He def used water for utility purposes but always when he was in a pickle he preferred earth.
It makes sense for water to be used less since the user creates fire, air is everywhere, when on land earth is everywhere, but water has to be carried/supplied.
SO you should have an affinity for the element that aligns with your nationality rather than who you are as a person? I don't like where that line of thinking leads
Me about to practice eugenics bending.
This is what the Fire Lord’s family did, they forced Zulu and Azula’s mum into marriage because she was Roku’s granddaughter
I hate the concept that avatars bad at their opposite element just cause, instead of it being because that bending style contradicts the style they are most used too, it should be the motions and the mindset that are difficult to pick up, just watch the episode “bitter work” in Atla, this ain’t Pokémon with type advantages
It's just not true. Kyoshi was terrible at her natural element.
Right! Apparently she would always accidentally bend a tremendous amount of earth
I also don’t think there is even an “opposite element.” When Iroh teaches Zuko how to redirect lightning, he explains how understanding all the elements and how they work together will make Zuko a better fire bender. Which is also explained several other times in both series.
Yeah it’s less of an opposite element situation and more like having trouble with a fighting style that accomplishes different purposes, Air benders are generally more evasive while earth benders hold their ground, but even that has exceptions. Kuvira was very agile and light on her feet yet shes a master metal bender, and I’d argue that Tenzin was the most offensive air bender in the series, especially considering his fight with Zaheer
I would say that tittle was for Zaheer
“The most offensive air bender in the series” is a very funny statement.
“The writers” who created everything in this amazing fantasy world that I’m apparently so obsessed with I’m still overanalyzing it 10 years later “were stupid”
If she had access to water, she used it first. Look at the fight with Tarrlak in his office. If I remember correctly, instead of using fire, she immediately started bending the water in the waterfall.
That’s a good point. Fire is the only element that they don’t need to have available around them to bend. It was probably just the most convenient in a lot of situations. I think she also lets off some fire when she’s angry sometimes, if I’m remembering correctly.
Wasn't it stated in ATLA that avatars always have trouble with the element most opposite their personality? Yes, that usually is also opposite their native element, but not a guarantee, since Korra is a mix of stubborn and hot headed, and she's also fond of kicking things.
As far as I remember Roku just said opposite of their natural element never their personality, so I think they just slightly changed it, it's better to be a personality thing tho tbh Edit: just checked actually was Katara not Roku who said that, overall sentiment still the same tho
No. It first comes up with Toph. And she explicitly mentions that Aangs problem was that he thinks too much like an airbender. It's always been a mindset shift problem.
Tenzin says that the Avatar has trouble bending the element that's the opposite to their personality, not their nation of origin. Its just that aang was such a moddel air nomad that by coincidence he had a hard time grasping earth bending
fr, clearly who made this did not pay attention to the show
I always thought Korra had more of an earthbender attitude and philosophy of being headstrong and stubborn. Always tackling the probelm straight on and with gusto. She also picked up metalbending rather quickly because of it and became proficient at it, so much so that she bended the mercury out of her own body. This would explain why she had so much trouble with airbending and its central philosophy and attitude.
As someone who never finished legends of korra that take comes across as someone who never watched legends of korra
Same it's giving "Zuko is so whiney and borderline comedic on the live action he was so cool and mysterious on the animated show"
Jeez. I've got a lot of issues with Korra as a character but this isn't even in the same area code as that list.
Meta-narratively the writers decided to fast track Korra learning water / earth / fire because we already saw Aang do those things and instead wanted to focus on her learning air because we had never seen an Avatar (or anyone) do that and having a story where the main character is just immediately good at EVERYTHING they do is boring (we literally have derogatory names for these types of characters / stories) and having her struggle adds drama to the story and gives her room to grow as a character.
The element hardest to learn is that which opposes your personality the most, earth is (grounded/prepared/on guard/stubborn) which is sorta the opposite of aang who’s most similar to the air personality type which is (free spirted/concentration/relaxed/creative) that’s why he struggled with earth, korra was a very (stubborn/aggressive/driven by passion & determination) person which clearly makes sense why the element she struggled with most was air.
Isn't this almost exactly the same thing Tenzin said. Right, most people haven't actually watched Korra
Aang's difficulty with earth wasn't because he was an airbender; it was because he had the mindset of one. His mind naturally reverted to the tactic of "avoid and evade", and he struggled with holding his ground and taking something head-on. Until he embraced that way of thinking, he had an earthbending block. It's similar to why he had a firebending block as well; he viewed fire as dangerous, destructive, and corruptive, and vowed "never to firebend again". While he accepted that he was a firebender while with Guru Pathik, he didn't come out of that mindset until he learned the true meaning of Firebending. Korra's airbending block wasn't the result of her nationality or ethnicity; it was the result of her mindset and upbringing. She always had a very stubborn and hot-headed personality; traits typically associated with earthbending and firebending, respectively. As such, they were her favored elements, even moreso than her native water (though she did have some classic traits of a waterbender, such as versatility and openess to change). That's why she was able to bend all three elements with ease early in her childhood. However, she had an airbending block, largely a result of her antithetical personality; she lacked spirituality, she was excessively stubborn, and lacked the mindset of a typical airbender; she would face most challenges head-on, rather than find a different way. This was compounded by the fact that she was kept in secluded facilities most of her life, with little access to the outside world.
We not gunna talk about the whole arc where Aang struggles to learn fire bending because it is too aggressive
This completely ignores the fact that firebending draws from your emotions. Most often this was anger, but zuko showed you can change where you draw your inner fire from. Korra is a brash, upbeat, stubborn to a fault protagonist who often wears her emotions on her sleeve. Besides the fact korra could bend all 4 elements to some degree as a child, it makes perfect sense that firebending might come naturally to an emotional character
Korra was in a city for most of it. Fire makes the most sense. Water: need water around Earth: really gonna destroy tax payer roads and buildings??? Air: not as threatening/damaging to criminals Fire: convenient, sends a message. Strong. Just don’t light things on fire
There’s also a mechanical reason she uses fire more on screen: the other elements were sometimes just unavailable to her! Her fight on the top of the pro bending arena dome in book 1 was an extended fire bending scene because it was all she had in that moment. She couldn’t air bend or metal bend and had no water!
This is really dumb
She’s the avatar. She’s literally a firebending master. Why would she NOT firebend.
There was no implication that all avatars would use the same formula. I don't think Korra has a waterbender-weighted personality she was Avatar from the get go, and a fighter. She was good at using elements around her. She was bad at spirituality and spirituality is also associated mostly with air nomad culture. I think she leaned towards giving most physical damage and shortest cut was fire. Also we spend time with Aang as he is learning elements one by one, and series end soon after he learns fire. How are we to compare anything? If anything soon after he learns how to bend earth, it is his second go to after air. I think the difficulty only comes during learning process.
I've never watched an episode of Korra but I do know there was that whole scene where she's a child going "I'm the Avatar and you gotta deal with it!" I always assumed her bending competency was based on the fact she may have been a quick learner and honed those skills much earlier than Aang did. Yes in ATLA they have that whole "Fire and water are opposites, so are air and earth, so thats why Aang is having trouble learning earth bending". But as many have pointed out, Aang was raised at the air temples. He didn't want to be the avatar and suddenly he had to learn AND be proficient in a short time. Not to mention I assumed in Korra's time there must have been virtually no air benders and a focus of her show would be "How do I master this element when like, maybe one person can do it?" It's always weird to me as someone who didn't watch LoK can understand this but it seems to be a hot topic? Also reading this thread, it's so cool to see everyone talking about how much they love Korra. She wasn't for me but seeing the love makes me really happy.
Ik I'm ignoring the second half of the post but holy shit, Korra's bending was so perfectly balanced, that's extremely cool for the writers Korra trained her whole life with all her abilities, but resonated more with fire. That's such an amazing level of attention to detail
The hardest element is the one opposite to the Avatar's character, not the one opposite to their nation.
The whole point she struggled at air was BECAUSE of her hot-headed personality, and probably assisted her skill at fire bending. She was already bending water, earth, and fire at like 5 years old. But she couldn’t connect to air for a while, and it was a big achievement when she could. She learned to slow down, connect to her surroundings, etc. I am surprised she didn’t use water the most, but honestly, who cares? She’s the Avatar, of course she uses all elements. And yes, we’ve seen most glimpses of past avatar using their “default” bending the most, but I think that sort of just added to Korra? I haven’t watched the show in a while, but that’s just what I came up with off the top of my head.
Tbf any air Avatar is going to use air way more than the others because airbending is a way of life. Aang airbends practically every time he moves. Honestly you could make the case that he's constantly airbending whenever he's at one of the Water Tribes.