Thread by @NussbaumAbigail

My disappointment with The Legend of Korra is well-documented, but this essay by @jeannette_ng says it better than I ever could, and gets into problems with the show that went completely over my head. medium.com/@nettlefish/th…

In particular, the way that the show, when it tries to imagine how the Asian-inspired fantasy world of The Last Airbender might look if it modernized and industrialized, falls back on American and European imagery as its default.

But also, wow, this bothered me so much as the show progressed. It was stunning how a series that was supposedly about how modernity comes to this world ended up being more regressive, and more in love with hereditary power structures, than Avatar ever was.

(This is the essay I wrote about The Legend of Korra at the end of its first season, with its wildly problematic and ill-advised Equalist storyline. I mostly stand by it, except that by the end of the series I was even more negative about it.) wrongquestions.blogspot.com/2012/06/legend…

I find it fascinating how, of the three series that are obvious successors to ATLA - Korra, The Dragon Prince, and She-Ra and the Princesses of Power - none achieve the same heights of political, character, and plot complexity.

She-Ra is the most successful on its own terms, but also significantly less ambitious than ATLA (or even Korra, which at least tried to address weighty political issues even if it usually did so very poorly). It has zero engagement with issues of colonialism or hereditary rule.

The Dragon Prince is the best of the three, but a lot of the time it just feels like it's repeating stuff ATLA did, slightly less well. It's also the most male-oriented of the three shows (and that's before you get into the allegations against creator Aaron Ehasz).

I suppose it's not that surprising - shows as good as ATLA don't come along that often. But it's weird how the series that clearly take it as an inspiration also walk back so many of the things that made it excellent.