If fiction is now a medium that only exists to make as wide a variety of people happy as possible, then I want out.
---The Big Rant---
Recently I was able to finally talk a friend of mine (a professional writer) into watching Avatar. I was only able to do this by pretty much forcing him to marathon them with me. Well, obviously he loved them, and we just got up to the start of Balance. And while he agreed that Spirits was the best season of the series so far, he still didn't think that Change was bad. And I guess it's not a relatively bad season of tv, certainly not animation. The villains are good, the animation and fights are still amazing... I'm sorry but I just can't seriously defend this season without hearing Sokka saying "but at least the effects were decent". There was no character development, early episodes ranged from boring, inane, to pointless, and while it really picks up in the end the reuse (and misuse) of not one but two iconic ATLA settings in the final episode just reeks of laziness that turns me off in a big way. Also sometimes its just incredibly stupid, like Jenora asking Kai to free the bison before freeing her when a bison is in her cage. I mean I get it, I saw 5 minutes of Two Broke Girls the other day and I wanted to kill myself. I'd love to live in a universe where the storytelling displayed in Change was below average, but I don't.
On the other hand I personally enjoyed almost all of Balance, even most of the finale. But it was a worse season than Change. Far, far worse.
If it wasn't a season of Avatar, but the first season of a new show, I would assume that the writers were completely incompetent. And I can't totally dismiss the possibility. But there are other factors at work here. Yes, each character in this season could get a single wall of text devoted to how pandering to the fanbase ruined them. But y'know what, I guess Air wasn't perfect either and I'm not sure how you could make it so. So I'm going to focus on how Nickelodeon executives probably sabotaged the potential this season had for greatness.
Cause that's the worst fucking part; with minimal rewrites, Balance could have be at least as good as Air. It feels like a season of tv written during a writer's strike. In almost every episode you can see bits that probably would have been changed with a rewrite or two, editing that likely never occurred given the speed the season was made with and the funding that was cut. For instance, as I rewatched the first episode (probably the best episode of Balance), it struck me that the Governor accused Kuvira of only wanting his province for its ore. But she doesn't. She wants every province. The audience knows this already, and the Governor should know it given that he knows Kuvira's tactics with the many other provinces she has taken. The line exists as an obvious analog to war for oil, hell ore even sounds similar, which subconsciously vilifies Kuvira in the minds of the audience, but as I said it just doesn't work for this story at all. This line isn't a massive fuckup; it's rather small really, but it's the kind of thing that gets caught in the editing process. A process that was greatly hindered in Balance.
Without Kuvira, Balance would have been an absolute train wreck. Rather even, without Zelda Williams it would be. Holy christ, get this woman a voice acting career. She's a rare villain that you feel like you'd want to follow in real life. She brings a sheer human magnetism to her character that rivals even Azula, while at the same time being (generally) uplifting, positive, and sympathetic.
But she's also the worst written villain in the series by far. And I don't mean her dialogue and scenes are bad, though some are. I mean everything written around the character from an outside perspective is exploitative, vapid, and at odds with her character. Even when I called the episode where she took Zaofu fantastic I recognized and was wary of these writing cracks, I just hoped that the finale would bring it all together somehow. It didn't. Kuvira as a characters seem to be whatever the script needs her to be at a given point in time, without regards to future character development or continuity. Does she need to be likeable? Give her a sympathetic backstory and have Zelda Williams sell it. Does she need to be disliked? Ethnic cleansing! And also I guess she was supposed to be like Korra the whole time??? It's like there are countless different Kuviras that all have different personalities.
So I'm going to do something different from last season's analysis. I'm going to be constructive, making Balance as good as possible with as few changes as possible.
1. Get rid of Kuvira's AM BAD GUY moments
Here's a fun exercise. Make a list of all the evil things Kuvira has done. Now separate it into two columns; things we see her do, and things we are told she has done. Yeah... see what I did there? All we really know about Kuvira is that she was an orphan who never wanted to see people suffer. So why is she also creating political gulags and doing ethnic cleansing? Little asides here and there, even Korra telling Zaheer that Kuvira is "the worst dictator the earth kingdom has ever seen" (guess Chin wasn't so bad really), only exist to exploit viewer's subconscious minds. This is generally bad writing as a rule, but when it creates plot holes involving character motives (the worst kind of plot hole) it is atrocious. This is an easy fix. Get rid of them. They add nothing to the season.
Now let's move onto things we see her do. The first really evil thing Kuvira does is also one of the worst villain cliches; she is bad to her officers. The way she treats Varrick and Bolin is just not very logical. Clearly Bataar Jr. could work with the spirit vines even if Varrick didn't want to, which would keep two geniuses in her employ. Meanwhile when Bolin, a supposed member of her "inner circle" second guesses her plans (y'know, the job of an inner circle), she just becomes a dick and threatens Bolin with reeducation. Which, great job, gets him to betray her. It's not just that incidents like these are stupid of Kuvira, they conflict with the Episode 1 Kuvira who offered redemption to bandits, and the Episode 6 Kuvira who personally faced the Avatar so her men wouldn't have to.
Now since in a good season 4 Kuvira wouldn't be sending people to reeducation camps or forced labor, Bolin never clashes with her over this, and we never have to wonder how stupid Bolin (and genius Varrick) is for not noticing these things. Rather, Varrick talks Bolin into betraying Kuvira out of fear over the spirit vine technology. Bolin is already torn between his genuine respect for Kuvira and his love for Opal, but he also respects Varrick, and this pulls him over the line. Now since Zhu Li would later try to sabotage the spirit gun, instead we could have Bolin and Varrick leak intel to Zhaofu, or sabotage mechs, hell, even just deserting (which they do anyway) would be grounds for punishment. If Bolin and Varrick betray Kuvira, then her punishment of them is justified while also vilifying Kuvira. Since Bolin is a well loved main character, it doesn't matter if Kuvira's actions are justified or not. But it makes her a much more effective villain. And again, this could all honestly be a simple reordering of events in episode 5. Small changes, big impact.
Taking over Zhaofu is a move genuinely motivated by ego, even though Kuvira likely tells herself that it is for the greater good. This is all fine. Kuvira's motivation for taking Republic City is not. For someone who disliked the Earth Queen so much, it sure is strange that she'd feel the same way about Republic City. The strangest thing? Villains in all three previous seasons expressed what a bad and corrupt place Republic City was, and the redemption of Republic City was a major theme of Air. Kuvira's primary motivation is already supposed to be that she wants to protect the weak, so why the fuck wasn't she motivated by a desire to save Republic City from its gangs and inept government? This would have also made her attempting to kill Bataar Jr. somewhat more reasonable as opposed to not at all, but frankly I wouldn't mind if that plot point had been dropped entirely (and yeah what was Jr.'s beef with his family?).
Slight dialogue changes and reordering would make Kuvira the ambiguous villain that the finale was clearly going for. As is she is not.
2. Get rid of the poison subplot
I cannot fathom how a whole season finale later that the poison could still be such a fucking bad plot device. To begin with it was an awful plan by a usually effective villain (yeah, put the Avatar in the Avatar State, what could go wrong?). And in Balance, it took what looked like could be a fascinating journey of self-reflection and turned it into an easily solvable physical problem. Cool as shit phantom Korra? Fucking went nowhere. But even after episode 4, the poison just HAD to come back in the form of the worst line in the series;
"I had to know true suffering so that I could learn to care about others"
WHAT THE FUCK
Cause Korra has never known true suffering. Not when her bending was taken away, which was clearly a rape metaphor, made her possibly suicidal, and even Aang called it her lowest moment. But ok, that was cleaned up pretty quickly so maybe we can ignore that. How about when she lost all of her previous lives? I mean DAMN. And that didn't fucking come back. She lost a massive piece of herself there. But a physical malady, no, that's true suffering.
And not caring? Did she not care in When Extremes Meet, when she fought for the non-benders that Tarlok was oppressing? Did she not care during the Civil War, about her tribe or her father? Ok, how about an example from a season you guys actually like. Tell me she didn't care when she offered to sacrifice herself for the Air Nomads.
People complained about her character development at the start of Spirits, which was bs as Air didn't have any character development, but this is ok? It's a clear nod to that rancid notion that Korra hadn't suffered as much as Aang. Ironically this season proves what I've always been saying, that all of Aang's problems were self-inflicted and Korra would have just sorted Sozen out; she just did with Kuvira. Besides which debating which character has suffered the most just comes across as the most emo thing ever.
Instead, send Korra on a spiritual journey dwelling on the words of Zaheer and previous villains. This is honestly what I thought they were going for before the poison came back. Zaheer talked about how an Avatar wasn't necessary, one threat keeps popping up after another, and even Toph echoes these sentiments. This would make Toph's inclusion in the season much more natural rather than just a poison radar. In Spirits Korra had to disconnect herself from her expectations of what the Avatar is expected to be and to become her own Avatar; Balance should have been her discovering what kind of Avatar that is. Spirits was a character revolution; Balance should have been a character solidification.
So what SHOULD she have learned? That while she is an instrument of change, she also needs to be a light touch. She suffered while she expected everyone to trust and love her actions all the time. She can't force people to be happy or force the world to be perfect anymore than Aang could realize his dream with Republic City. Mind you, this subtext is mostly there already; it's just covered up by all the poison shit. And emphasizing this point is especially important, because you want to...
3. Show us how Kuvira is like Korra
This was the biggest "excuse me" moment of the finale. Korra breaks out the "we're not so different, you and I". And not because it's a bad idea. It's a great idea! Korra, who has learned all of the things I described above, could pass this wisdom onto Kuvira. Korra could see Kuvira much like she was in earlier seasons, overly eager to help people and frustrated when they don't appreciate it. Kuvira likewise has the power to change the world, but can do damage instead by forcing the world to be ideal (in a way, this is what totalitarianism is). Amon wanted to be the Avatar, Unalaq wanted to be an anti-Avatar, Zaheer wanted no Avatar, and Kuvira could have been a reflection of the Avatar.
But that's not really what happened. Partly because of points 1 and 2. But also because we just never learned that much about Kuvira. And we never saw her bleed. It's easy to say that Korra and Kuvira are ambitious, but since when did Kuvira rush into things without thinking? On the contrary, she always came across as an incredibly calculating and intelligent villain, just look at all she accomplished. If you wanted that to be true, show us some failure. Zelda could make it work and still be likeable.
Show us this orphan who suffered so much. Show us her frustration with proud provincial heads who don't want her help, and idiotic world leaders who want a character as fucking awful as Prince Wu to rule. Hurt her when she loses Bolin and Varrick. Show us an increasingly desperate character trying to save the world from itself. Then and only can Korra and Kuvira bond in the way they did in the finale. Spirits worked because two characters had two separate arcs, and one was able to impart what he learned onto the other. We needed to see Kuvira's arc, instead we were just told about it (like with much of her character).
4. Redeem Kuvira
Make no mistake, Kuvira was NOT redeemed at the end of season 4. She just went to jail. Even Zaheer got a little closure. Outside of comics Kuvira will get nothing. And frankly, it's not even a remotely realistic scenario anyway. Sure, they could execute her for war crimes (which I will ignore from here on because point #1). But the thing is, Ozai's imprisonment was able to be enforced because a new Fire Lord was there to enforce it, and because the Fire Nation army was crippled. Even then in the next comics trilogy there will be repercussions for this.
Kuvira was a charismatic and loved leader to her troops, troops that are still standing right outside of a city that just surrendered. Holding or executing her would only make her a martyr. Kuvira is required to bring balance back to the world. And this is where Korra's bonding with her really becomes important. What if Kuvira had been the one to call for local elections? In the short term she could still provide protection and food, and in the long term the Earth Nation becomes free of both monarchy and totalitarianism. History would ultimately be kind to Kuvira, but only because of the intervention of the Avatar.
Only point #3 would really take new scenes being added, maybe one cut episodes worth even? But it'd have been so simple to make this season great, and such a shame that it's not. It really depresses me. The ideas are there in the finale, but they aren't consistent with the writing of the season.
