Avatar: The Last Airbender / The Legend of Korra

Warning: This entry contains spoilers

About

Avatar: The Last Airbender (known in Europe as Avatar: The Legend of Aang) is an American animated television series created by Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko that aired for three seasons on Nickelodeon from 2005 to 2008. The series follows the adventures of Aang, a spiritual defender of Earth known as “The Avatar”, and his friends. On 2012, a sequel of the original series, named The Legend of Korra premiered on Nickelodeon, following the adventures of the next Avatar, Korra, and her friends. Because of the franchise’s past success and fame, the show was quickly picked up and became a popular subject on many sites, including Tumblr in many of its blogs.

Premise

Avatar: The Last Airbender takes place in a world where human civilization is divided in four nations: the Water Tribes, the Earth Kingdom, the Fire Nation, and the Air Nomads, having a distinct society and people known as benders, who can control the element of their nation. The only who can control all elements is the Avatar, who serves as an international arbiter, and reincarnates into the next one of the four nations in the Avatar Cycle: the Fire Nation, Air Nomads, Water Tribe, Earth Kingdom, in order. One hundred years before the story takes place, the Fire Nation planned a world war to expand its influence and territory, but was prevented from it by the Avatar Roku. After his death, and knowing the Avatar Cycle, Sozin, the ruler of the Fire Nation, carries a genocide against the Air Nomads, being Aang (voiced by Zach Tyler Eisen), the next Avatar, the only survivor, who gets encased into an iceberg in suspended animation for one hundred years. During that time, the Fire Nation continued the war and also chased Aang, “The Last Airbender”. A hundred years after, Aang gets revived by Katara (voiced by Mae Whitman) and his brother Sokka (voiced by Jack DeSena), from the South Water Tribe, attracting the attention of prince Zuko (voiced by Dante Basco), the exiled son of Ozai, the current ruler of Fire Nation. To end the war, Aang must master all the forms of bending, gaining some allies on his journey, like Toph (voiced by Jessie Flower), a blind tomboy and Earthbending prodigy who wants independence from her upper-class family, and Zuko, who joins Aang.

Avatar: The Legend of Korra takes place 70 years after the original series, following the next Avatar, Korra (voiced by Janet Varney). After going to Republic City, founded by Aang, to learn airbending from his son Tenzin (voiced by J. K. Simmons), she meets Bolin and Mako (voiced by P. J. Byrne and David Faustino), two brothers who practise Pro Bending, a popular game involving bending abilites, and Asami Sato (voiced by Seychelle Gabriel), daughter of the president of the automotive industry Future Industries, and the local police leader Lin Beifong (voiced by Mindy Sterling), Toph’s daughter. Meanwhile, she fights against a mysterious organisation named Equalists and their leader Amon, who wants to remove the benders from Republican City.

History

The Avatar franchise was co-created by Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko, two animation directors, in Burbank, California, and was animated by JM Animation, DR Movie, and Moi Animation, all studios from South Korea.

Avatar: The Last Airbender uses a mixture of cultural influences to create its universe, all from Asian culture and history. The show uses traditional Chinese for any writing in-universe, and draws from Chinese and Japanese mythology for its plot. The series also draws heavily from anime. In an interview on Nickelodeon’s website, the creators said that they employ numerous consultants on the show – including ones for cultural representation, martial arts, and calligraphy.^[6]

The Legend of Korra runned for four seasons and ended in 2014. Part way through its third season, Nickelodeon pulled the series from television, airing the remaining episodes exclusively online.

Reception

The Last Airbender has received positive reviews from both audience members and critics. It has won 5 Annie awards and 1 Emmy, and is currently the 15th highest rated show of all time on IMDb, with a score of 9,2.^[5] The Legend of Korra has a score of 8,7 on IMDb.^[18]

Comics

The Avatar series has produced two sets of canonical comics. The first are short stories published in Nickelodeon Magazine and the Nickelodeon Comics Club. These were at one point available online through the Nickelodeon website, but were taken down in 2010 when Nickelodeon Magazine ended its run. The other set are a series of graphic novels published by Dark Horse Comics which chart the events that took place immediately after the end of The Last Airbender, and are functionally a prequel series to The Legend of Korra. These comics serve to fill in empty plot points left by the original series (like the ultimate fate of Zuko’s mother), and to show the changes that the end of the war brings to the world (such as the events that lead to the founding of Republic City). A complete list of all the comics, along with plot synopses, are available on the Avatar wiki.^[7]

Movie

On 2010, a live-action film based on the first season of “The Last Airbender” was released. The movie, directed by M. Night Shyamalan, received an extremely poor reception, scoring only a 6% positive on Rotten Tomatoes.^[3] The movie also received a novelization.^[11] The film also failed to earn back its $150 million budget, managing to make only about $131 million at the box office.^[4] Though sequels were planned, no specific release dates have yet been announced. In an interview with the show creators, Shyamalan described what attracted him to what he expected to be a trilogy of films about two hours each. He also said that, in the face of the large number of material contained in each season, he would aim for a “selective adaptation” similar to what happened with the X-Men films.

The film was also the subject of a online controversy called Racebending in response to its cast. Though the main characters in the cartoon all come nations based on an amalgam of Asian and Inuit cultures, all three of the protagonists (Aang, Katara, and Sokka) were cast with white actors, with only the villain (Zuko) cast with a person of color. The controversy created a massive backlash that included satirical fan art, tee-shirts, and a fan-fiction contest.

Fandom

The series gained a substancial following. As April 17th, 2015, the art sharing website DeviantArt has over 141,700 submisions under the keywords “avatar the last airbender”,^[1] and over 79,300 submisions under the keyword “the legend of korra”.^[2] Avatar The Last Airbender currently has the largest amount of fan fictions in the cartoon category of Fanfiction.net at approximately 39,600 fanfictions.^[24] The Legend of Korra is ranked at tenth place of the cartoon category with roughly 12,700 fan fictions.^[25] Series fans are also well represented on 4chan,^[22]^[23] Tumblr^[8]^[9] and Reddit, its main sub-reddit having over 138,000 subscribers.^[10] The official Facebook page for Avatar The Last Airbender received approximately 4.7 million likes.^[29] The official Facebook page of The Legend of Korra (yet to be verified) has roughly 1.7 million likes.^[30]

Shipping

The presence of shipping is strong in the Avatar fandom, characterised for having “shipping wars” or conflicting ships. On the original series, the most relevant ships were Zutara (Zuko x Katara)^[12] and Kataang (Katara x Aang),^[13] and on The Legend of Korra were Makorra (Mako x Korra),^[14] Borra (Bolin x Korra)^[15] and Korrasami (Korra x Asami).^[16]

Korrasami

Korrasami became a heavily talked about topic once the finale of The Legend of Korra strongly hinted at a relationship between Korra and Asami. The possibility of Korrasami being one of the more well-known canon lesbian couples in children’s television generated a huge controversy. Korrasami stopped being a matter of interpretation once the show creators Michael DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko explicitly stated in their personal tumblr accounts on December 22, 2014 that Korrasami is canon. Both posts garnered 76,719^[20] and 123,434^[21] notes from fans, respectively. Bryan Konietzko also uploaded his own fan-art of Korrasami, which gained 77,040 notes (shown below).^[22] A sub-reddit dedicated to discussing Korrasami and posting fanart and fanfics has over 6,400 subscribers as of May 19th, 2015.^[17]

On Febuary 11, 2015, PBS Idea Channel uploaded a Valentine’s Day Episode revolving around Fan Fiction, homosexual relationships, and Korrasami. The video currently has 184,890 views. The development of Korrasami and its officialness also received much coverage from various sites such as The Mary Sue^[26] Screen Crush^[27] and IGN^[28].

Aside from the usual fan-art of fictional couples being romantic with one another, the hype korrasami has built up also generated humorous deviations as well.

Related Memes

Creepy Katara

Creepy Katarais the name of a photoshop exploitable, featuring an image of Katara in a rather somber and very blank stare. It’s used in similar fashion to Weegee. The image is a screenshot from the episode “The Day of Black Sun, Part 1: The Invasion.”

Cactus Juice

Cactus Juice comes from a scene in the tenth episode of season two, in which Sokka hallucinates after drinking juice from a cactus while travelling through the desert. Uses of the meme are often jokes based around Sokka’s incoherent speech and LSD-like hallucinations.

Comedian Amon

Comedian Amonis a series of vertical comics that feature Amon, the antagonist of The Legend of Korra’s first season, acting like a stand-up comedian. Usually the jokes involve Amon making some kind of pun or cultural reference with the last panel of the comic being him pausing for applause that, presumably, shall never come.

Crying Bolin / Kissing Korra

Crying Bolin and Kissing Korra are a pair of related memes that derive from a scene in episode 5 of The Legend of Korra’s first season, in which Bolin runs away crying after seeing Korra kiss his brother Mako.

Inappropriate Timing Spongebob Banner

Inappropriate Timing Spongebob Banner is an exploitable image series based on a Nickelodeon bumper banner featuring the cartoon character Spongebob Squarepants laughing with the caption “Up Next.” The popup banner is typically juxtaposed with emotional scenes from various films and television shows to mock poorly timed cross-promo ads displayed in the lower thirds during broadcast. The banner was first shown in a scene from the sixth episode of The Legend of Korra’s first season.

Then Everything Changed When The Fire Nation Attacked

Then Everything Changed When The Fire Nation Attackedis a catchphrase from Avatar:The Last Airbender’s opening narration. It is often used as a caption in the final panel of multi-panel comics as a humerus all-purpose ending. As a catchphrase, it is often added on to the end of sentences in a similar fashion to the quote I took an arrow in the knee.

Cabbage Man

Cabbage Man is a background character from Avatar: The Last Airbender. In the series, it is a running gag that a chase scene will involve the main characters running over the cart of cabbages that he was trying to sell, at which point he will shout “my cabages!” in despair. In the legend of Korra, one major company that works on new technology is called Cabbage Corp, and was founded by the merchant. The line is often used in image macros.

Zuko’s Honor

Zuko’s Honor is a series of jokes that poke fun at the main character Zuko, who was dishonored after losing an Agni Kai, a fight between Fire Benders, against his father. The jokes normally despict Zuko trying to recover his honor, or crying over his lost honor, or anything that includes the word “honor”.^[19]