If you haven’t watched the last season of “Avatar: The Legend of Korra” and you hate spoilers, you can watch all the episodes of Korra on Nick.com for free until January 5th.
Still here? Okay! Spoilers!
Look, Bryan says it and Michael says it, so you need to just get over the fact that the show ended with Korra and Asami going on vacation, together, to the spirit world, as a couple.
It was originally written in the script over a year ago that Korra and Asami held hands as they walked into the spirit portal. We went back and forth on it in the storyboards, but later in the retake process I staged a revision where they turned towards each other, clasping both hands in a reverential manner, in a direct reference to Varrick and Zhu Li’s nuptial pose from a few minutes prior. We asked Jeremy Zuckerman to make the music tender and romantic, and he fulfilled the assignment with a sublime score. I think the entire last two-minute sequence with Korra and Asami turned out beautiful, and again, it is a resolution of which I am very proud. I love how their relationship arc took its time, through kindness and caring. If it seems out of the blue to you, I think a second viewing of the last two seasons would show that perhaps you were looking at it only through a hetero lens.
The bolding is mine. But I watched the whole of Season 4 over Christmas and I can tell you, start to finish, I thought “Oh, wow, are they really going there?”
When we meet her, Korra is actually struggling with her identity as the Avatar and how hard it is to master Airbending (the first season is called ‘Air’) and truly be the Avatar. But as Korra grows and changes and becomes her own person and not just the Avatar, things change. That’s the whole plot of the second season, changes. It’s even called ‘Changes.’ Korra finally comes into her own, but then the world changes and she has to start over.
Once we hit the third season, it was clear that the idea of Korra having a relationship with anyone was secondary, and that was good. It’s always a bit bleah when people have to end up paired off. Sometimes the happy ending is alone. The writers knew that Mako and Korra were only season 1 endgame, that they’d break up in season 2, and that worked well.
Which brought us to season 3, ‘Spirits,’ where Asami and Korra are still friends, but neither are doing much by way of dating. Season 3 ended with Korra being pretty much crippled and not wanting to talk to anyone of her old friends … except she was writing to Asami. A lot.
Yeah, there was no build up at all to the finale. I totally believe all you confused people.
Season four was a very weird slow build up, where Korra was struggling to find her own relevancy in a new world, Asami was trying to find her place and rebuild her life (her father… evil, subplot, my cabbages!), and then Korra vanished. Of course it was to go on a healing spiritual journey with everyone’s favorite, Toph, but when she meets with Asami again, they clash and they fight.
Asami was worried, Korra’s sorry, but they’re both clearly in that place where they care about each other and don’t know how to explain it. If you just look at the part where Korra blushes when Asami compliments her on her new haircut, you have to realize that these are cartoons. They went to the extra effort to show Korra’s reaction to Asami’s compliment.
Korra does not react like this to anyone else, not even her ex-boyfriend, complimenting her.
This was a great year-end present to everyone who stuck by Korra, watched the show about a strong, capable, young woman be shunted off to the sidelines by Nick over and over, and finally now an ending that can give a lot of kids hope that they too will be loved for who they are. Gay, straight, bi, or figuring it out.
You can watch all the episodes of Korra on Nick.com for free until January 5th. Go watch now.
