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holydragon2808 · 7 years

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Why I Hate the Phrase “Worst Avatar Ever”....

Feel free to ignore this really. It’s just me ranting again (though if anyone wants to read it of course by all means) and I just needed to get this out because I’m really tired of this whole concept of “worst avatar ever”….

I had a discussion/debate the other day in RL with someone at my job regarding the Avatarverse and it was one of those debates where the other person completely praised Aang and the previous avatars for their accomplishments/achievements and ignoring their flaws (or glossing over them) while completely deriding Korra for every mistake she makes while completely ignoring her accomplishments and character growth and asserting that she’s the worst avatar ever and made bisexual out of nowhere (which I seriously beg to differ on personally) and blah blah blah….Any fan of Korra as a character has probably had at least one of these discussions/debates with someone in the past whether here or somewhere else on the internet or even in RL….

There was a topic about the “Worst Avatar Ever” on the Avatar Wiki page a while back and I posted a response there (or rather who we personally thought was “the worst” I suppose). I’m just going to be lazy and copy/paste what I said there (and add a few other things) because I honestly can’t express what I said any better than what I did on that site and it’s still my post either way so…. Gonna undercut because it’s pretty lengthy…

IMO just going by the few Avatars out of the thousands that we know of (and if we’re going with cataclysmic consequences for the entire world at large), I’d have to say it’s a three way toss up between Wan, Roku, and Aang despite me liking both Wan and Roku and being fairly neutral on Aang. I don’t understand why people in general give Korra so much crap when these three arguably messed up the world far more than she ever did (again just speaking in general here).

Avatar Wan forever separated the forces of light and darkness from one another and threw the world out of balance for 10,000 years and had to constantly reincarnate to fix it. That’s a pretty hard screw up to top IMO….True, he did everything he could to try and fix it (and I think he’s a very courageous and awesome character despite what I’m saying), but at the same time, it forced a person each generation into a life of sacrifice and duty that none of the other Avatars ever asked for or some not even wanting and not having a choice in the matter….He chose it. The rest of the Avatar line didn’t get that luxury. They just have to “deal with it”.

Then Roku put friendship above his duty to the world and in so doing ignored all the obvious signs that Sozin was heading down a very dark path and possessing resources that could (and did) bring disaster and ruin to the world. The end result: The entire air nation was completely wiped out, leaving a permanent imbalance on the existence of the 4 nations (at least until Korra came along two avatar cycles later and played an integral part in fixing this screw up too but people selectively ignore this).

Then Aang comes along and confounds the problem that Roku started by running away and leaving the world without an Avatar at all for 100 years (though to be fair it is pointed out later that had he stayed he would have been killed along with the other Airbenders but he didn’t know about the fire nation war at the time he left so he’s still responsible for running away). Then he spends a good chunk of his show constantly avoiding conflict and his duties at the first opportunity. I never quite understood why so many people looked up to him as this supposed picture perfect avatar. It’s pretty hard to label someone as the perfect hero when they don’t even want the role to begin with and actively goes out of their way to avoid it constantly.

IMO, there’s really no way any of us can say who was the best avatar or the worst because 1) we just don’t have enough information about all the avatars to really compare fairly and 2) one of the major themes of both shows is that at the end of the day, the Avatar is human and humans in general are flawed creatures with both virtues and vices. Wan had good intentions but his (understandable) naiveté caused a calamity for the world that he had to spend (and will still probably forever spend) multiple lifetimes atoning for because there “wasn’t enough time” (and probably never truly will be). Roku’s (understandable) bias towards his best friend led him to ignore the signs that Sozin was not going to let go of his ambitions and as such led to the destruction of the air nation and later the 100 year war. Aang’s (understandable) fear and selfishness of losing his normalcy led him to run away from his duties, get frozen in an iceberg and effectively leave the world without an Avatar to stop the fire nation for 100 years (though to be fair Aang definitely made it up to the world by defeating Ozai and in TLOK we definitely have a firm grasp on the awesome legacy he left behind).

And the latest Avatar, Korra, IMO, her issues caused more harm to herself and her loved ones than the entire world at large (which was kind of the entire point of her journey in a way, to show her that being the Avatar didn’t make her invincible or invulnerable and that she’s a human that can be hurt or rendered powerless too). Her ego, pride and refusal to accept her fears and weaknesses ended up having disastrous consequences for herself and other people on more than one occasion and ended up being her primary reason for her stunted spiritual growth for a long while (that and trusting the wrong people due to her isolated upbringing and said isolated upbringing hardly helped her with her lack of a spiritual center).

However, despite some of her spiritual connection hang ups (which she eventually grows past), most of her active world changing actions and decisions turned out for the better. Let’s take a look at what she’s done or what effect her actions have caused for the entire world at large during her time as the Avatar:

1) Her exposing of Amon gave non benders a voice in Republic City (and just a larger voice in general) and she was able to undo the damage he caused to a lot of innocent benders in the city by restoring their bending powers

2) She built on the theme of unity that Avatar Aang and Lord Zuko started with Republic City by keeping the spirit portals open and bringing the two worlds closer together than they’ve been in several ages (and vanquishing Vaatu instead of just sealing him away at least until the next Harmonic Convergence (something even Avatar Wan, the person who actually is to blame for Vaatu being free in the first place wasn’t able to do) and for the first time ever in history the Southern Water Tribe was declared independent from the Northern Water Tribe after her actions which will probably go a long way towards ending some of the animosity between the two tribes)

3) brought back the Air Nation from the brink of extinction and played a very integral part in uniting them (and went through a very physical, emotional, and spiritual self sacrifice to keep them alive that took her three years to recover from and at the same time inspired people from all over the world to follow her example of service and sacrifice)

4) and created yet another spirit portal right in the center of the city meant to be a symbol of unity in the world while at the same time stopping Kuvira and her Earth Empire dictatorship when the rest of the world leaders couldn’t for one reason or another (politics, lack of man power, etc), reminding the world of the reason why the Avatar is needed.

True, while the devastation of Kuvira’s attack (along with Korra and her friends’ attempts to stop her) left a good part of Republic City in ruins, it won’t take 10,000 lifetimes for her and the city to rebuild the damage, and thanks to the evacuation beforehand, most of the citizens did live through the destruction.

Korra definitely has her flaws and at times she can definitely be frustrating and hard to deal with and even not the best role model at times (though she definitely grows into one by the end and she’s probably my favorite character in the avatarverse), but I don’t think it’s fair (or even true) that she even remotely qualifies for the title of “worst avatar ever”. Tenzin even confirms it himself “Korra, you’ve transformed the world more in a few years than most Avatars did during their lifetimes”. Just saying…

True, a lot of people and spirits aren’t necessarily happy with this forced integration and there are a lot of risks to it definitely, but that doesn’t mean that they can’t learn to co-exist with one another nor should they not be given the chance to try. Only true peace and balance can come when the barriers disappear and both sides learn to accept each other which is why despite some complications and potential dangers with the spirit portals being open, I honestly agree with Korra’s decision on keeping them open will lead the world closer to “balance” in the long run.

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