So, while being stuck in isolation I decided to just rewatch the Avatar on a whim. It's still as great as I remember it. Then I decided to rewatch Korra on a whim and watching it back to back with Last Airbender I just noticed how amazingly anti-Last Airbender some of the choices were. Like, they were so desperate to not repeat re-learning of all elements, but all they do is take Korra's powers away EVERY FUCKING SEASON (in season 1 it was Amon, in second season Waterbender Palpatine took tattoo waifu from her, in third season she was poisoned for cripple tag and in 4th season she was rebounding from that). And every instance of taking her bending away was a perfectly squandered opportunity to set Korra on Avatar journey. Every single one of them is a cocktease with first one being the worst offender. And it was a neat fucking concept because unlike Aang Korra already had mastery of all elements physically but was empty spiritually, whereas Aang had very strong spiritual connection but would prefer to dodge if he had the option. So teaching character who is hard as a rock to be flexible was interesting enough angle that they talked about AND NEVER DID ANYTHING. Like, ok, I get that they didn't want to rehash Last Airbender and go through the entire world again that we've seen a lot of, but, like, they built Republic City, why not give more character to it, why not emphasize how it's biggest city in the world, give every street its own identity where Korra can kind of have micro-avatar journey. Better yet, why not start season 3 with journey to spiritual world NOT END THE SHOW IMPLYING IT.

Instead they literally just showed us her moaning while she's beat up and sweaty, showed us her feet, restrained her in leather, drugged her, chained her, took the use of her feet and then got her dommed by brown dictator that all lead to revelation that she's a lesbian. That's Korra's journey.