Why Korra Is NOT The Worst Avatar: Each One Made Mistakes Impacting Their Successors

Timed perfectly for the 20th Anniversary year of the original, a brand new Avatar series has recently been announced. Avatar: Seven Havens will follow a young Earthbender who discovers that she is the successor of Avatar Korra, and destined to bend all four elements.

Unfortunately, thanks to an as yet unknown cataclysmic event that occurs sometime between Avatar: The Legend of Korra and Seven Havens, the Avatar is now viewed as a destroyer rather than their previous role as a protector and keeper of balance. Hunted by both humans and spirits, the new Avatar and her long lost twin must restore the Avatar name and save the Seven Havens before civilisation collapses entirely.

Some fans have jumped on the aforementioned cataclysmic event and change in humanity's view on the Avatar as proof of an already wide-reaching belief that Korra is the worst Avatar. However, without knowing the specifics of how or why the cataclysm occurred, it is hard to truly judge whether this is a fair assessment. Afterall, Korra is not the only Avatar to have made a mistake that adversely affected their successor.

Let's take a look at the mistake each known Avatar made.

Avatar Wan

Wan, a young Firebender banished from his home village, became the first human to bend four elements after visiting each of the four elemental Lion Turtles. While living among the Spirits, Wan is tricked into releasing a Dark Spirit known as Vaatu. Wan eventually merges with Vaatu's opposite, the light spirit Raava, becoming the first Avatar, a symbol of balance between the human and spirit worlds.

Working with Raava, Wan is eventually able to reimprison Vaatu, but in the process, opts to seal the openings to the spirit world, a decision unpopular among the spirits. An elderly Wan eventually dies in battle, regretting that he was not able to end conflict in the world. This prompts Raava's decision to remain with him through his lifetimes, beginning the Avatar cycle.

Much of Wan's story ends up lost to time, but his release of Vaatu eventually haunts his distant successor, Korra, causing her to briefly lose Raava.

Szeto

A later Firebending Avatar, Avatar Szeto, decided to go about his duties as the Avatar in a different way. Forgoing the usual automatic power, respect, pomp and ceremony that had grown to come with being the Avatar, Szeto instead gained influence by rising through the ranks of the Fire Nation government, eventually reaching the position of Grand Advisor. During his lifetime, he strengthened the economy, and implemented support programs for the needy.

Initially, Szeto was a beloved Avatar, so much so that his successor, the Air Nomad Avatar Yangchen, feared she would never be able to live up to him. However, Avatar Szeto's position in his own Nation's Government meant that he was often obligated to favor Fire Nation interests, going against the traditional position of the Avatar as a neutral party. Because of this, while he is still revered by his own people, the other three Nations' opinion of Szeto soured over time.

Yangchen

Despite a period of self-doubt early in her life, Avatar Yangchen of the Air Nomads greatly surpassed her predecessor, Szeto, in the eyes of most in the Four Nations. Unlike Szeto, Yangchen was able to remain neutral when dealing with Inter-Nation conflict, and was a successful diplomat, successfuly negotiating several peace treaties, even with Pirates. Most of the treaties Yangchen facilitated endured for decades after her death, and were even studied by diplomats of later generations.

Yangchen was also respected as a warrior, because she was able to set aside her pacifist Air Nomad beliefs when her duties as the Avatar required a heavier hand. Her spirit encourages the next Air Avatar, Aang, to similarly forgo his pacifism when he struggles with the idea of killing Fire Lord Ozai.

Yangchen was deeply loved in all four nations, so much so that in Aang's time, some Earth Kingdom residents even pray to her over their own Earth Avatar, Kyoshi. To many, she was a perfect Avatar.

However, Yangchen made at least one major mistake. During her time as Avatar, Spirits still roamed the human world, and sometimes, conflicts arose. While Yangchen did not favour one Nation over another, she often favoured Humans in Human-Spirit related conflicts. The humans often failed to keep their promise, which angered and corrupted the spirits. This caused terrible trouble for the next Avatar, Kuruk, and often haunted Yangchen in her afterlife.

Kuruk

Following Avatar Yangchen's death, the next Avatar, Kuruk, was born into the Northern Water Tribe. A gifted bender, Kuruk had dreams of becoming as great and beloved Avatar, ready and willing to improve the world and build on the solid foundation that Yangchen had left for him. Sadly, this dream was not to be. Shortly after becoming a fully-realised Avatar, Kuruk was attacked by a Dark Spirit, contracting a dangerous spirit sickness.

Wanting to keep this sickness from spreading, Kuruk took to spending much of his time in the Spirit World, fighting off Dark Spirits. When he was in the human world, he spent a lot of time drinking to stave off a growing depression from his Spirit Sickness, leading many to view him as irresponsible for neglecting his Avatar duties in the human world. Only Kuruk's spiritual mentor, the Fire Sage Nyahitha, knew of his battles in the Spirit World.

Kuruk's spirit sickness claimed his life at the age of just 33, extremely young for an Avatar, and unfortunately, his unintended neglect of his Earthly duties resulted in a widely held belief that his Avatarhood was a failure. Kuruk's successor, Avatar Kyoshi, initially looked down on him, until Yangchen intervened on his behalf, taking some of the blame for his struggle.

Kyoshi

While she had a shaky start to her time as Avatar (Initially, a higher-born friend of Kyoshi's is wrongfully identified as Kuruk's successor) Kyoshi, born to a renegade Air Nomad nun and an Earth Kingdom thief, eventually became one of the greatest. Her rougher upbringing left Kyoshi with fewer qualms about killing dangerous enemies to keep the peace if need be.

Over her 230 year lifespan, the longest of any known human in the Avatar universe, Kyoshi managed to course-correct much of the strife left behind by Kuruk, thwarted a hostile takeover of the Earth Kingdom by Chin the Conqueror, and helped the Earth Kingdom's power structure reform as a constitutional monarchy. She also helped purge corrupt politicians from the Earth Sages, re-establishing them as an order of advisors and academics, providing wisdom to the Earth Kingdom, and formed the Kyoshi Warriors to protect her adopted home on Kyoshi Island, renamed in her honour.

Although it took her time to build the support of the Four Nations, Kyoshi ultimately became one of the most highly respected Avatars. However, she had one major regret. At some point after establishing the Earth Kingdom monarchy, Kyoshi founded the Dai Li, an organisation intended to protect Ba Sing Se's cultural heritage, and shield the current Earth King or Queen from subversive ideas.

Unfortunately, the Dai Li became corrupt over time. Sometime after Kyoshi's death, when the Earth Sages spoke out against growing corruption in the court of Earth King Jialun, Jialun used the Dai Li to have the sages secretly rounded up and killed in an event known as the Night of the Silenced Sages. Kyoshi's successor, Roku, was young and had only recently commenced Avatar training at the time, so could not intervene. By the time of Avatar Aang, the Dai Li effectively ruled Ba Sing Se, with the Earth King as only a figurehead. Thankfully, Aang and his allies are eventually able to correct the problem, returning the Earth Kingdom to what Kyoshi intended.

Roku

Due to Avatar Kyoshi's hard work throughout her long life, the next Avatar, Roku, came into his position in a time of relative peace and prosperity, and was therefore able to take his time training to become a fully realized Avatar. As a child, Roku was close friends with Sozin, the then-Prince of the Fire Nation.

Once his training was complete, Roku returned home to the now-Fire Lord Sozin, who eagerly declared plans to use their combined power as Fire Lord and Avatar to expand the Fire Nation into Earth Kingdom territory. Roku, needing to maintain balance and neutrality as the Avatar, could not allow that, and thought this was the end of the conversation. Eventually discovering Sozin had forged ahead with his expansion plans anyway, Roku angrily confronted and defeated the Fire Lord, but allowed him to live in recognition of their friendship.

Years later, the friends appeared to bury the hatchet when Sozin appeared to aid Roku during a volcano eruption on Roku's Island, working together to hold back the lava flow and allow the people of the Island time to escape. However, when the volcanic gases begin to overwhelm Roku, Sozin realizes that Roku was all that stood in the way of his plans, and left his old friend to die.

Roku blames himself for the century of war that followed, and the slaughter of the Air Nomads, believing it all could have been prevented had he stopped Sozin sooner.

Aang

Despite the extra years of strife caused by his time frozen in an iceberg, Aang, the Last Airbender, eventually became a legend among Avatars. He became the youngest known fully-realized Avatar, mastering three elements in the space of a year (he was already a master of his birth element, Air), and ended the 100-year war on his own terms, removing Fire Lord Ozai's ability to Firebend with Energybending rather than having to kill him.

After the war, Aang initially set about restoring balance by attempting to relocate all Fire Nation colonies in the Earth Kingdom back to the Fire Nation. This goes well, until the now Fire Lord Zuko withdraws his support regarding the relocation effort in Yu Dao, near the edge of the Earth Kingdom.

Initially fearing that he will have to make the same difficult choice regarding Zuko that Roku failed to make with Sozin, Aang ultimately takes a step back and actually listens to his friend, at which point Zuko explains that the people of Yu Dao, both Earth Kingdom and Fire Nation, live in relative harmony, have their own merged culture, and have even intermarried. Removing people from Yu Dao based on Fire Nation ancestry alone would mean splitting up families.

Aang realizes places like Yu Dao represent the world's new balance, and he and Zuko are inspired to found Republic City. Built across both Fire Nation and Earth Kingdom territory, Republic City becomes a thriving metropolis where people of all Nations are welcome. However, it eventually emerges that some pockets of the Earth Kingdom resent that their land was given up for the city to happen. This resentment festers over time, and due to Aang's relatively early death at age 66 (his extended time trapped in the iceberg in the Avatar State drained his life force), the eventual fallout was left to his successor, Avatar Korra, to deal with.

Korra

Given Aang's long list of well-received achievements, his successor, Avatar Korra of the Southern Water tribe, had some rather big shoes to fill. While many questioned her abilities throughout The Legend of Korra series, Korra is ultimately able to boast a number of significant achievements, thwarting Amon and the Equalists, her uncle Unalaq's attempt to become a Dark Avatar through Vaatu, the attack of Zaheer and the Red Lotus, and stopping the rise of Kuvira's Earth Empire.

Korra, though only 21 at the end of her series, seemed to be well on the way to becoming a highly respected Avatar, especially in Republic City, where a park was named after her. Obviously, things will change, with the cataclysm that changes the Avatar from savior to destroyer set to occur at some point in her lifetime.

Due to the fact that both humans and spirits will be hunting the new Earth Avatar, some expect the cataclysm will be linked to Korra's decision to leave the portals to the Spirit World open, and the Spirit vines that began spreading across the human world as a result. The potential destructive properties of the vines were touched upon in Legend of Korra's final season, when Team Avatar thwarts an attempt by Kuvira's forces to use them as a weapon. However, the extent to which Korra is directly responsible for whatever occurs is yet to be seen, and in any case, she is far from the only Avatar to leave a less than optimal situaton for their sucessor, meaning she is not necessarily the worst.

Fans of Korra's character are hoping for a twist that may redeem Korra, similar to how Kuruk was eventually redeemed in the eyes of Kyoshi. Such a reveal could be facilitated via the fact that Korra's loss of and reconnection with Raava made her the first Avatar of a brand new cycle. Whether the new Avatar wants to speak with her or not, Korra will be the only past life whose advice she has access to.

Hopefully we won't have to wait long for answers when Avatar: Seven Havens airs.