That One Time Legend of Korra Got a Little....Awkward.

So, I recently wrote an article for Black Nerd Problems defending Avatar: Legend of Korra which receives as much shade as it does praise. The first few episodes of Book Three premiered yesterday before even the dvd did. And, without giving anything away, it looked very impressive, improving on minor issues in the past two seasons. In fact, it caused me to go back and take a closer look at Book Two for one issue in particular. And then something occurred to me.

SN: I'm breaking my spoiler protocol to tell you that if you haven't seen Book Two...which aired almost a year ago, there are spoilers after the jump.



So, Book Two: Spirits was a pretty entertaining come-up for Bolin, who spent the better part of Book One just being Mako's semi-hopeless little brother (kinda like the Ray J of Republic City). He got to be a movie star playing a superhero which, by the way, was a brilliant send-up of those Old Republic serials. On the set, there's this female costar of his who seems to be more attracted to on screen character than he himself. While filming one scene, he attempts to give her an off-script kiss which is way out of character for someone we'd come to know as a fairly kindhearted guy almost to the point of raw obliviousness. In fact, it came across as sort of downright awful.

Later, during the "Night of a Thousand Stars" episode, Bolin discovers a plot to kidnap the President during the premiere of one of his movies. The result is great not only because a character who'd spent the better part of the season pretending to be a hero actually being heroic, but because the fight itself between Bolin and the kidnappers was a hilarious throwback to the pro-bending matches of the first season (I shit you not...the announcer showed up to narrate the whole thing).

What bothered me, though, was that after the day was saved and the press came for photo ops, the co-star that had once spurned his affections....rightfully so, for the record...was now all over him.

This really sort of bothered me because Legend of Korra and, ultimately, the Avatar series as a whole, is a set of fables. And fables, almost by definition, have morals. What has made the franchise so unique is the fact that it takes rather mature themes such as death, balance and reincarnation, compartmentalizes them and places them in a context that children in a generation that forces them to grow up faster than before can learn from them.

Here, we saw a usually nice guy do something uncharacteristically douchey, be chastised for it and then rewarded seemingly because, in his love interest's eyes, he'd lived up to the fantasy figure he'd portrayed in film. This is, at best, a huge misdemeanor in gender politics and a bizarre, downright misogynistic message to send to kids: "as long as you make yourself into the stereotype you think she wants, she'll reward you no matter how much of a dick you were."

Don't get me wrong. This is not a condemnation of Legend of Korra. I praise most of the season and if the first episodes of Book Three are any indication, it looks like it could very well be an isolated incident. I just hope it stays that way. Again....great show. Just me noticing stuff.