My Critique of Legend of Korra

White feminism, patriarchy, and white entitlement in almost every way

Nov 30, 2020

SPOILERS

Trigger Warning mention of sexual assault, patriarchy, anti-Black racism, cops, Hinduphobia, ableism

I just finished watching all four seasons of Legend of Korra. Being a huge fan of Avatar the Last Airbender, I have a lot of things to say and I’ll go through them systematically.

Things that hit me hard

In season 4, when Kuvira’s soldiers started sawing down the Banyan tree vines, I almost had a heart attack. My body felt the violence.
Screenshot: Top left is Kuvira’s airships surrounding the ancient banyan to cut down it’s vines and all it’s spirit energy, bottom left is the Bishnois Hindus hugging the trees to protect them from being cut down, right is the Chipko movement also hugging trees to protect them from being cut down

(continued) The reason why I felt it so deeply was because the original treehuggers were Hindus who gave their lives to defend the trees. As a Hindu, it hurts to even think of trees being cut down. If you want to learn more about Hindu resistance to deforestation, look up the Bishnois and the later Chipko movement which was inspired by the Bishnois.
The storyline of season 3 in particular was the story of my people, Hindus. The entire series of Avatar The Last Airbender was very Hindu in its philosophy and storytelling, as well as the title itself, but in season 3 of Legend of Korra, we saw an intense real time replay of major parts of Hindu colonial trauma. The multiple waves of genocide against the Air Nation, how their temples were attacked leading to the near annihilation of their wisdom (that’s called epistemicide), the way their children and babies were captured, and their enemy’s mercilessness ruthless obsession with establishing only one way to exist. It hit me hard and I couldn’t stop crying. (This also happened to Buddhists, Jains, and Sikhs, by the way, when the colonizers came.) The way the Air Nation worked hard together to resist and defend themselves and survive against all odds was powerful. I’m still crying when I think about it because that is the historical truth of my people. It seemed to me that at least one of the writers was consciously telling my people’s struggle although I doubt most of them knew this. Maybe it was even all by accident but there were moments and scenes very clearly connected to Hindus that non-Hindus/people who haven’t studied our history would not notice. More on this topic below.
The kids were adorable! (And yet Meelo had very problematic toxic masculine characteristics. I speak more on this below.)
The queer relationship between Korra and Asami was great. Their queerness wasn’t explicit but at the time of the first broadcast I’m guessing Legend of Korra wouldn’t have been played on tv if they’d been more clear. It was still pretty obvious though and I was glad to see at least that representation.
There were a couple of very minor characters who were androgynous. It was refreshing to watch at least some of that kind of representation, little though it was.
Part of the storyline showed that Aang failed as a father in several ways with his non-Airbender children. Those grown up children, Bumi and Kaya bring it up to Tenzin, their Airbender brother, and after much denial he finally acknowledges their grievances. I was glad to see some genuine family healing regarding this matter, while being disappointed in Aang (specifically regarding this matter since Aang and Katara still did a good enough job that their kids didn’t turn into evil monsters). Honestly, I don’t actually believe the idea that Aang failed as a father, not because I think Aang was not capable of failure, but because I find it hard to believe that Katara would not have addressed it with him (and I also think that Aang would probably have corrected himself willingly). However, it was still good that the writers showed Aang and Katara’s three children addressing the issue and doing the work to help each other heal.

Having said all that, I have many problems with The Legend of Korra. I could sum up my problems with the phrase “white feminism” but here are some details for those who don’t know much about white feminism:

Misogyny

There were lots of “crazy girlfriends” who were angry and violent and controlling and wouldn’t take no for an answer. Eska, Lyn, and even Korra were all examples of this. They were always shown as the problem in their relationship and were feared by their partners. Men, by contrast, were never portrayed as being problematic or a source of fear or violence in a romantic relationship (which we all know is far from the truth).
Screenshot: CDC report

(continued) Tenzin was afraid that his wife Pema would get jealous of Lyn but he himself never got jealous for any reason regarding his wife because he was a masculine paragon of virtue and control, of course. Wow.
The women were always the ones who were “crazy”. Asami’s dad Hiroshi was “diabolical”, Korra’s uncle Unalaq was the “dark avatar”, the flying airbender Zaheer had “entered the void”, but Kuvira was “crazy”. Eska was “emotionally unstable”. Korra was “crazy”.
Pema seduced Tanzen while he was still in a relationship with Lyn despite knowing he was with Lyn. She advised Korra that this is the best way to get the guy she wanted. Korra then did this same thing to Asami by kissing Mako. Women were thus shown to not be loyal to each other but to instead compete for men. This anti-woman tactic worked both times because Pema and Korra both “got the guy” (Mako left Asami for Korra and Tenzin left Lyn for Pema) while the betrayed women had to suffer the resulting loneliness and trauma. I want to remind you that this show is for kids. What. the. heck.
Pema is 16 years younger than Tenzin and an acolyte in the Air Nation, which means she had less power than Tenzin, who was an Airbending master. Such a power difference and age difference is clearly a problem in a relationship.
Bolin used Eska’s feelings for him to manipulate her into freeing him from bondage and making her go against her father. His manipulation worked. A woman was shown to be easily manipulated by a man in a relationship and this was portrayed as a good thing. Meanwhile, it was clearly ok for him to control her but not for her to control him. Eska was a water tribe princess and became a water tribe Chief. Again, women with power were shown to be mentally and emotionally weak.
Korra was naive and easily tricked. This happened multiple times. It was understandable given her sheltered upbringing but it was never formally addressed as an issue with her and/or her mentors. That feeds into the idea that women with power are easily led and manipulated by male characters.
When Korra was in the spiritual world and she became angry, all the spirits around her turned dark and angry also as a result. She, a woman, was shown to be responsible for the emotions of others and in order to keep them happy, she had to pretend to be happy which was called “staying positive”. Uncle Iroh told her this. No nuance was given regarding the differences between the spirit world and the material world, or any real talk about how we all have to take responsibility for our own emotions and actions. Uncle Iroh is known to be a well established wise elder and yet he counseled Korra this way.
In typical white feminist fashion, the extent of “girl power” was fighting, driving fast cars, and putting on metal war suits. Asami drove fast cars and used war suit technology but these technologies were all developed by her father and by Varrick. The main female leads have no strategy, ideas, creativity, or any kind of inspiration of their own, or even any emotional intelligence in the story, which is usually a “feminine” trait. Even Kuvira’s metal army technology was created by Varrick and her fiancé, Baatar Jr. She demanded weapons and Baatar Jr. and Varrick made them. Then she shot a deadly weapon at her own fiancé when she decided he was in the way of her power-grabbing.
Why did they make Asami look like Jessica Rabbit with black hair?
The actress who played “Ginger” was treated like an object by everyone including the audience. She had very few lines and was even sexually assaulted by Bolin when he kissed and touched her against her will when they were filming on set. No one except Ginger said anything to him or did anything about his behavior, other than Varrick saying it wasn’t in the script. Ginger was treated as so inconsequential and empty as a person that we never even heard her real name (I’m pretty sure Ginger was her stage name) let alone have anyone care about her as a human. Furthermore, the moment Bolin was shown as a hero in real life, Ginger suddenly wanted him to be her boyfriend despite the fact that he’d previously sexually harassed and assaulted her. What. the. heck.
I was not OKwith how the writers dealt with Lyn and Suyin’s family issues. Lyn needed support in her healing from the way her mother and sister treated her. Meanwhile, everyone told her that she was the “one with the problem” while her sister Suyin had already “worked on herself”. Suyin and Toff should have been apologizing to Lyn but instead they and others (including the Avatar Korra) gaslit Lyn by calling her a “bitter” and “lonely” woman. They did this only because she stated clear boundaries for her own emotional safety. In other words, she was not allowed to have boundaries. Others were allowed to gaslight and manipulate her and if she resisted in any way then she was the problem.
Toff was criminally negligent towards her daughters but no one held her accountable, not even Katara or Zuko, both of whom have a deep understanding of what it means to lack a mother and how painful that is for a child. “It’s all been worked out” both Suyin and Toff said. It clearly wasn’t worked out. Toff in Avatar The Last Airbender said that her parents gave her everything she wanted but love, and then she did exactly the same thing to her children. Meanwhile, everyone told her daughter Lyn that Lyn was the one who needed to change. “If you can just find some way not to hate me, maybe it’ll be enough, at least for me,” Toff said to Lyn. Toff even recognized that she wasn’t a very good mother but she didn’t consider that maybe she should change and do things differently. It’s pretty clear that her daughter Lyn felt unloved which may well have translated to feeling unlovable. That’s a disaster of parenting and an epic fail from Toff and anyone witnessing who didn’t defend Lyn from her mother’s emotional manipulation. There was also no suggestion that Toff should have introduced her daughters to their fathers. No one ever said or suggested this in any way, despite the fact that her daughters clearly needed their dads. What. the. heck.
Toff and Lyn rightly disapproved of Bolin choosing to work for Kuvira (a fascist) and he called their legitimate criticism “attitude”. Because they, as women, were children and he, as a man, was an adult. Meanwhile, they were his actual metalbending elders.
The Earth Kingdom Prince Wu told Mako that he would give him a raise for saving his life. When Mako informed Wu that he should instead thank Korra since it was really she who saved Wu’s life, Wu said that he’d thank her by taking her out on a date. No one said or did anything about that, other than Korra saying she’d never go on a date with him. But what about her money, Wu? What about her money?
Mako was unbearable when it came to relationships and how he treated women. He was better in Season 3 when he wasn’t dating anyone but then he reverted in Season 4 while he was telling Wu about his relationships with Asami and Korra. His grandmother even angrily said that he was “just like your grandfather” so it was clearly a pattern of behavior in their family. This was never addressed in any meaningful way except only a bit by Wu who was not the best character to depart relationship advice.
The only time we heard any positive applause was for male characters Bolin and Mako. Not even Korra was applauded for all her heroic actions in saving the world again and again but Bolin and Mako got applause for “rescuing the President” who was another man. Kuvira was applauded by her authoritarian army for doing authoritarian deeds. The story thus taught that women with power are to be feared and fought, not celebrated, while men must be bolstered up and encouraged at every point no matter how toxic they are.
Zhu Li was a 24-hour servant to rich man Varrick and no one did anything to help her get away from him or his abusive behavior. Varrick justified it by saying she was “cold and heartless” so he even dehumanized her and no one said anything about that either. Meanwhile, a big issue was made of Bolin being turned into a servant by his girlfriend, Eska. Korra says to Bolin “don’t let her treat you like that” even though Korra never said the same thing to Zhu Li or offered Zhu Li any kind of support. Yet again, women were shown to not support other women. Then there was even a romance between Zhu Li and Varrick, as if this is healthy or acceptable in a boss/worker dynamic. Even when Zhu Li said she wanted to get away from Varrick, she turned out to actually love him and was loyal to him no matter what. He only stopped treating her like a servant when she demanded it (at the end of the series) but despite his promise to treat her equally we had no guarantee that would last. Zhu Li ended up marrying her abuser. No one warned her against such a dangerous decision. No one suggested that Varrick should prove that he’d changed. The series ended with their wedding, as if it was a happy thing. What the heck!

Deep white feminist hatred of men

Vaatu was black in color and had a masculine voice, Raava was white in color and had a feminine voice. Translation: Women are good (but only white women), and men are bad (particularly Black men).
Lyn and Suyin never knew their own fathers and their mother Toff blew the whole issue off, as if the absence of their fathers was not a big deal. It was clearly a big deal to both of them considering that Suyin was a troubled teen always acting out for attention and Lyn had an inability to be vulnerable with anyone. She always had to be strong and a protector because no healthy masculine character showed her that she shouldn’t need to do all of that protecting for herself. No father figure taught her that she should respect herself and that she had a right to demand better from everyone. Instead, Toff centered herself in her daughters lives so they spent years trying to please her and always failing.
No one considered or questioned what Lyn and Suyin’s fathers might have thought of never seeing their daughters. Maybe it upset them. Maybe they had character issues we should know about. Maybe they died. Maybe there was something else going on. We don’t know because it was never addressed. Toff even said that Lyn’s father was a nice man but that it didn’t work out between them. So why couldn’t Lyn know him as a person if he was such a nice man? Suyin’s father was never named, not even to Suyin. Men were shown to be inconsequential or not needed when this was clearly far from the truth.

Toxic masculinity

Varrict told Bolin not to cry when Bolin was regretting his bad choices. Varrick is unbearable.
Almost everything about Mako was unbearable when it came to women.
Meelo. He was adorable and funny but that child would certainly grow up to be a monster towards women. No one corrected him or tried to guide him and the older he got, the less humility he showed towards his sisters or mother.
Wu said that men only ever do good things to get women. Perpetuating this toxic belief doesn’t help combat toxic masculinity, it feeds it, because boys grow up thinking that their only goal is to manipulate and exploit women while never contributing anything meaningful to society. It makes them empty and purposeless and violent.
Korra had a lot of toxic masculine characteristics which is one of the reasons why she felt so empty in the first two seasons. She improved very slowly but this problem was never addressed so she stumbled through her problems instead of finding solutions in an informed manner. It’s not easy to fix a problem when you don’t have a diagnosis.
In his past, Konraq, Korra’s father, mounted an attack in a sacred forest which destroyed the forest and that was never addressed except to point out that his brother got him unfairly banished. But what about the forest? Did they try to heal it? Did it regrow? Did Konraq himself do anything to help the forest? No one ever addressed this or explained it.
Tenzin’s treatment of Lyn was appalling. He’s supposed to be a spiritual leader but he started an affair with Pema while still in a relationship with Lyn. He went on to marry Pema and have a wonderful beautiful family with her. It was clear, meanwhile, that Lyn never got over how he treated her. She lived alone and had no family of her own, so it was no wonder that she was married to her work. Lyn was rejected and mistreated by everyone who called her “bitter” while Tenzin was never held accountable for his behavior.

Shaky interpretations of consent

People kept kissing other people without consent. Often, the person who was kissed was blamed.
There was lots of cheating and dishonesty.
No respect was given to Lyn’s emotional boundaries.
No one corrected Meelo’s toxic characteristics which were likely going to manifest in violating consent in future relationships.
No support was given to Ginger who was sexually harassed and assaulted in public (and at work) by Bolin.
Zhu Li was treated like servant by Varrick all the way through the series until the last few episodes. That’s almost 4 seasons of taking abuse. Then all of a sudden she demanded to be treated like an equal. He responded by proposing marriage. Absolutely no support was given to her by anyone else in this sudden transformation. It was simply assumed that she would be strong enough to resist Varrick’s abusive personality for the rest of their lives. Abusive relationships don’t work that way, unfortunately. He needed therapy and intensive work to interrupt his patterns of behavior and so did Zhu Li, but no one pointed this out or did anything about it.

Anti-Black racism

The dark spirit Vaatu was black, the good spirit Raava was white. This was reflecting a bastardized idea of the Chinese yin-yang but in the US that coloring of their characters feeds the racist idea that violence and evil is associated with Black skin color. It would have been good if they’d instead been the same color with some other method employed to represent their contrasting natures.
There were no Black characters until season 3 and even then they were relatively minor. Why did it take so long and why was there still so little representation?
One character had hair that seemed like it might be an Afro but they were very light-skinned and an obnoxious cop. Super awkward.
None of the Black characters were significant leads with real storylines in the series.
The dark spirit Vaatu even had a Black man’s voice in Varrick’s retelling of the story. Yikes!

Cops

Mako and Lyn were shown as “good cops” as if that’s accurate of cops in general.
The reality of cops being systemically messed up was not portrayed. Instead we saw only that one or two leaders used the cops in an incorrect way. Cops were shown as trying to do the right thing with just a few bad apples here and there, which is a liberal myth.
Cops were believed while children and poor people were criminalized. No one had a problem with that.
The cops were militarized with metal armor and weapons, and no one seemed to think that was a problem.
No cops were shown to actually help any of the ordinary people. Even Mako only helped people when he was off duty. Yet cops were still portrayed as “good”.
No one addressed the idea of prisons as a problematic method of conflict resolution. There were prisons everywhere and it was portrayed as a solution. The only culture that didn’t have a prison was the Airbenders.
Lyn resigned from her position as Chief of Police in season 1 because she wanted to do vigilante justice. No one considered this to be a problem, including the rest of the cops.
The irony is that the writers demonized the Hindu God Shiv, whose very name means auspicious, while making cops out to be the good guys. In reality, the cops are a corrupt and murderous patriarchal gang.
Every villain in the series had some type of legitimate grievance yet their grievance was never addressed and that was why they became villains. This was never looked at as a way to prevent future conflicts. In season 4 Korra whined about how nothing she did stopped conflicts but she also never looked for problems to address before they become giant conflicts. She saw a lot of poverty in Republic City but did she do anything about it? No. She saw a lot of poverty and suffering in the Earth Kingdom but did she do anything about it? No. Then she whined about how the common people were supporting the Equalists and how the poor people in the Earth Kingdom looted the rich. Her mentors never pointed out to her that in order to address the needs of the people she needed to look for such problems before they erupted and even look for the beginnings of problems before they became so grievous that people were suffering so much. This means that Korra was always reactive, not proactive. Aang in Avatar The Last Airbender was different. He looked for problems and tried to address them. An example is when he held the dance party for the Fire Nation youth as a way to teach them creativity and freedom of expression. He knew that without that freedom, they would be repressed and would turn into oppressors just like their elders. Korra didn’t do anything like that. The truth is that Korra was just a glorified cop, reacting to crimes and whining about the paperwork. She was not a spiritual leader or an example of peace. That made her pretty useless, in my opinion. Korra wasn’t an avatar in a true Hindu sense of the word, despite the fact that the writers tried to use Wan’s story to sell her as a amsh avatar.

Capitalism

Asami was seen as a sympathetic character when she lost all her money, as if it was sad that she wasn’t still a gazillionaire. Boo-hoo.
The plight of houseless people was treated like a joke. Mako and Bolin talked about their “hobo street gruel” as if it was funny that the houseless were forced to make their food from everyone else’s trash. This is despite the fact that Mako and Bolin grew up as street kids. Meanwhile, Asami, the lifelong gazillionaire, reacted to street gruel with disgust and no one checked her.
Why were there houseless people in a place that Avatar Aang himself founded, where everyone was supposed to be equal? That question was never addressed.
Kai, who grew up a street kid and was taken in by the Airbenders, was shown to be a thief. There was not much explanation of what his life was like that made him turn to stealing, however. Mako, as a cop, was hostile to him despite the fact that Mako himself grew up a street kid. That’s called “class traitor”. Bolin was more understanding but that was also unhealthy because he was enabling instead of actually addressing the behavior. Kai changed and took on responsibility as he grew but he was a whole person who should have been portrayed in all his humanity from the beginning. Especially since he was a child in the most vulnerable of positions, an orphan.
No one ever did anything to house the houseless, despite having so many characters who had experienced houselessness. Gazillionaire Asami certainly didn’t when she rebuilt her corporate empire. Shouldn’t she have done something to address all the violence her own father inflicted on the people? Should she have done something considering that she and the others were directly helped by houseless people in a time of crisis? Not even Korra addressed this issue. Neither did Tenzin, while his family lived happily on their very own Island. Now, I’m ok with the Airbenders having their own island since they’d gone through not just one but multiple genocides but Tenzin didn’t show any concern for the houseless. Maybe he would have if this topic had been brought up but it never was, including by him.
Varrick was a comic relief character, despite the fact that he was a gazillionaire who committed greedy evil warmongering violence. He was even portrayed as a good character in season 4 who worked against Kuvira and had a conscience. As if a gazillionaire would ever try to stop a war when he could make so much money out of it. A real gazillionaire would have sold the spirit weapons to both Kuvira and Republic City and laughed all the way to the bank.
There was never any suggestion that corporations should be owned by their own workers instead of the gazillionaire.
There was never any suggestion that corporations or gazillionaires have a responsibility towards the people. Asami got contracts from the government, stayed super rich, and no one asked if she paid her employees well, gave them pensions and healthcare, or if she paid fair taxes. No one even thought to ask these things, not even Korra who was her friend and became romantically involved with her.

Disdain for non-benders

A major storyline in season 1 is that the Equalists said that benders were cruel to non-benders. This legitimate grievance was never addressed and was in fact reinforced by the behavior of the benders, even though the Equalists were also not correct in how they wanted to resolve the situation.
They ended up creating elections so that non-benders could have a say in the running of the state but this was not going to change the toxic behaviors of benders. All this did was make toxic bender behavior seem consensual because “The People” were voting for their miserable circumstances instead of having it imposed on them by dictators.
Bumi was Aang’s eldest son and a commander of the United forces (that means he was a high ranking officer and a veteran) but was never shown any respect by his own brother Tenzin for his experience. He told stories of how he accomplished big feats but Tenzin never believed him so he stopped telling his stories. He was a creative thinker like his uncle Sokka but this trait was not valued the way Sokka’s creativity was valued in Avatar the Last Airbender. He only became considered believable and valuable after he become an Airbender.
Did I hear Bumi casually mention that he was forced into joining the army when he was younger? WHAT. THE. HECK.

Transphobia and Ableism

Unalaq’s son and daughter were very similar looking and also possibly both autistic. The boy Desna looked “like a girl” which was made out to be such a joke by Bolin.
Desna and his sister Eska helped their villainous father Unalaq so the villains were queer coded.
Desna and Eska didn’t seem to care when their father died, despite the fact that they’d previously served him faithfully (until Bolin manipulated Eska). Their behavior of not caring for their own father’s demise was as if the writers were portraying autistic people as not caring for their own family or feeling emotions of love or grief or sadness, a myth about autistic people which is not true at all.

Shallow portrayal of animals

Ugi and the other animals were not shown to be developed characters in their own right the way Appa was in Avatar Last Airbender.
The flying bison had a deeper portrayal later on when the wild bison herd got captured but we still didn’t see any real kind of conversation between them and humans except between one baby bison who helped Kai.
Even Naga, Korra’s own polar bear dog, was not really developed as a character. She wasn’t even present in the final battle in season 4. The badger moles did more in the final battle than Naga but the badger moles also didn’t have any personality.
Pokey was shown with some depth when he was trained by Meelo and Tenzin in a very patriarchal way. But instead of deepening the conversation about having a friendship and partnership with the lemur instead of a master/servant relationship, Meelo goes on to train all of the lemurs in exactly the same way. Tenzin even notes that he’s “created a monster” in his son but does nothing about it. The subject is never brought up again.

Unimaginative Bending

Mako and Bolin were not very good fighters. I don’t understand how that was possible because Mako was even a lightning bender and they still lost almost every fight (including in pro-bending) until Bolin learned lava bending much later in the series. Even with his lava bending, he still failed when dealing with Kuvira’s giant metal machine. He could have made the whole street lava. He could have thrown a whole avalanche of lava on the metal monster. He lacked the imagination to do any of that. Asami, by contrast, won almost every fight she was in despite the fact that she was not even a bender. So why were Mako and Bolin lauded and applauded so much by everyone? Celebrating male mediocrity is not good entertainment.
Pro-bending was totally uninspiring, it wasn’t creative and exciting like the professional fights in Avatar The Last Airbender. Too many rules and not enough imagination.

Spirituality

A major theme was Korra’s spiritual journey — how she came to see herself as a spiritual being and understand her connection to everything. But it felt forced for the first two seasons. You can’t make a story spiritual by just repeating the word “spiritual” over and over again. There has to actually be some philosophy.
As a result of the forced spirituality, Korra felt like an empty character. The first time she started to feel like a real person was when she learned about Raava and Wan andeven then, Wan was a more real person than Korra. Even Raava, the spirit, seemed to have more depth that Korra in season 2. Korra finally showed some soul in Season 3 when she was dedicated to saving the Airbenders from another genocide and then in Season 4 she became the realest she’d ever been. The problem is that they didn’t have to make her empty as a person at the beginning of the show to make her story meaningful at the end. That’s not how storytelling works.
Korra never independently had a spiritual thought of her own until towards the end of the series. That’s a long time for a character to develop a spiritual journey.
We saw this world’s version of “hell” in the fog of lost souls but it was never really explained. Did the souls stay lost there forever? Aang rescued his kids from the fog but what about the others? Did all the souls who were in the fog deserve to be there and if they did, did they deserve to be there forever? Who decided this? Hindu philosophy gives a very nuanced explanation of the reactions to our actions in the law of karma with reincarnation all linked to the ultimate goal of spiritual liberation for all, but Legend of Korra gave no such nuance or philosophy, Hindu or otherwise. The fog of lost souls was yet another prison.
Was time relative in the spirit world? It is in Hindu philosophy. So how long was 10,000 years in the spirit world in comparison to the material world in Legend of Korra? It seemed to be the same but if that was the case then what was the difference between the spirit world and the material world? Vaatu and Raava were very old but were they immortal? Was everyone immortal in the spirit world? Why would they count time if they were immortal?
We were told that the spirits were not allowed to cross into the material world while the portals were closed but Jinora saw them around her all the time. Seems like a plot hole unless I missed something.
How could Korra bend in the spirit realm in the end of season 2 when Korra couldn’t do so in previous seasons or Aang in Avatar the Last Airbender? Maybe because the portals were open? But they couldn’t bend in the spirit realm in Season 3 either. So what was with all these plot holes?

Hinduphobia

Since the franchise itself is based largely on Hindu philosophy and season 3 told parts of Hindu trauma this must mean that Legend of Korra cares about Hindus, right? Wrong.

In the season 1, the only Indian character in the entire show (and the darkest-skinned person in the show) was a “Swami” who was supposedly exposed as a fraud and fired from his job — all in the 0.5 seconds he was on screen. He was shown again briefly in a retelling of that storyline with the same Hinduphobic narrative.
“Combustion Woman” P’Li, just like “Combustion Man” from Avatar, had Shiv’s symbol on her forehead through which both she and Combustion Man did their bending. They were both portrayed as evil, deadly, an embodied weapon more than a human (Combustion Man didn’t even have a name of his own). Hindu symbols and Shiv were portrayed as “evil” in this way which is classic Hinduphobia.
Why were there no main Indian characters? The entire premise of the storyline of the Avatar franchise is Hindu/Indian philosophy. They use our words and ideas. This is cultural appropriation, exploitation, extraction, erasure, all while divorcing our teachings from their roots. Thanks for colonizing my people all over again, Avatar/Legend of Korra.
The writers told part of our story in Season 3 but never included us in the telling of that story. Thanks for telling Hindu history for us, not with us, Avatar/Legend of Korra.
The people in Republic City or the Earth Kingdom gave nothing to the Airbenders (aka Hindus) but demanded everything from the Airbenderswho of course put themselves in danger for everyone else.
The story of Raava and the first Avatar Wan is that in order to fight the dark spirit Vaatu, Raava fused herself with Wan and this created the Avatar cycle throughout the generations. This is a part of Hindu philosophy called an amsh avatar in our scriptures. The amsh avatar is not the Divine or God, but they are gifted with the power and spirit of the Divine/God in order to serve all of creation. Legend of Korra did not reference Hindus while telling this story. They totally erased us while explaining Wan’s story. They could have made Wan an Indian character. They could have made Raava much more obviously a Hindu Goddess. They could have used Sanskrit words like “chakra” and “guru” like they did in Avatar The Last Airbender. They did none of these things.
The trauma of Season 3 was intense for the Airbenders (aka Hindus) but we saw no follow-up on this in season 4 at all. The only follow-up we got was on romantic relationships. Meanwhile, the Airbenders were portrayed as model minorities who rescued everyone else despite the genocide they’d just gone through. I mean, who cares about the emotional and mental health of Hindus, right? What do they matter? They exist just to be used by everyone else.
Some might argue that Avatar/Korra aren’t totally Hindu because the world is set in East Asian cultures and races, with some Inuit culture thrown in as the Water tribe. But that’s exactly what cultural appropriators always do. They take everyone’s cultures, mash them together as if they’re toys, and present it as a new fictional universe that all the ignorant white and western people can play in and make money from. Meanwhile, they erase the Hindus, despite the fact that the main driver of the story is Hindu philosophy, with no outward representational at all in terms of ethnicity or skin color. It’s always easier for white people to say “Buddhist” than it is to say “Hindu” despite the fact that Buddhism comes from India and is deeply connected to Hinduism. That’s Hinduphobia, my friends.
If you have still a problem with my interpretation of Airbenders as Hindus, here are some facts for you: Airbenders wear saffron, a Hindu color. They wear arrow tattoos on their forehead and arms, a version of the Hindu Vaishnav tilak that is worn on the forehead, arms, and torso (Hindus of other sects also wear their symbol on their forehead, arms, and torso). Aang’s tattoos are blue and glow when he goes into the Avatar state and blue is a color of divinity for Hindus. Many Hindu avatars were said to have skin color so dark it looked blue. Airbender culture is centered around the Air temples and sacred natural spaces of spiritual energy which they travel to and from, just like in Hindu culture. Airbenders are nomads, just as Hindu renounced sages never used to live in any one place for more than a few days, staying nomadic. Airbenders are the most spiritually focused of all the nations, excelling in meditation, astral projection, connecting with supreme reality, and seeing spirit in all things (particularly the natural world), and these are all Hindu characteristics and practices. Airbenders are vegetarians and Hindus make up the majority of the world’s vegetarians (500 million). Airbenders have a spiritual connection to flying bison (a type of bovines) and flying lemurs (a type of primate), while Hindus are spiritually connected to cows (a type of bovines) and monkeys (a type of primate) who can fly in Hindu legends. Airbenders carry specially made staffs that are a symbol of their culture and airbending abilities, just like Hindu mendicates carry specially made staffs as a symbol of their order and renunciation from the material world. Airbenders shave their heads and Hindu initiates shave their heads in certain ceremonies. The Airbender legendary Guru Laghima let go of all tethers to the material world and could fly while Hindu legends say the same of our gurus. These are just some of many ways the series connects Airbenders to Hindus and Hindu philosophy. Here are some collages that make it clearer:
Screenshot: Left is an older Hindu Vaishnav holy man, middle top a Hindu Vaishnav baby, middle bottom is an adult Hindu Vaishnav holy man, right top is young Aang, bottom is adult Aang, and older adult Tenzin, all with Airbender arrow tattoos.
Screenshot: Left is Aang in saffron and tattoos wielding his staff, middle and right are young Hindu boys in saffron carrying the staff of their initiation ceremony
Screenshot: Above are Guru Pathik and Aang meditating at the ancient Air Temple, below are two Hindu priests meditating in Varanasi, an ancient Hindu city
Screenshot: Left is Aang meditating with blue tattoos, top middle is Aang dark with glowing tattoos connecting to the cosmic energy, top right is Korra dark but glowing while connecting to the cosmic energy, below are depictions of the Hindu Avatar Krishna, a form of God of the Hindu Vaishnav sect, depicted as blue or black, both colors of divinity
Screenshot: Top is Aang and Appa touching heads, below is an elderly Hindu woman and a cow touching heads
Screenshot: Top left and bottom is Avatar Aang with momo on his shoulders and head, middle is a little Hindu girl embracing a deity of Hanuman, the Hindu monkey god, right is Hanuman and Ram embracing (both Hindu Avatars)
Screenshot: Top is Hanuman flying over the ocean, bottom is Momo flying over the river
Screenshot: Left is Tenzin and Meelo training an army of lemurs at the Air Temple, right is Hindu Avatar Ram and his army of monkeys while he establishes the sacred temple of Rameshwaram

And let’s not forget the Hinduphobic demonizing of Shiv’s symbol:

Screenshot: Top left is P’Li “Combustion Woman”, bottom left is “Combustion Man”, right is Hindu God Shiv

This is an extensive list of problems and it’s just what I can remember. There was so much that was problematic because most of Legend of Korra was terrible. Season 3 was the only storyline worth watching in its entirety which is why I’ll rewatch it at some point, bracing myself for the reminders of what my people have gone through for so long.