Seven Havens’ Apocalyptic Premise Has Korra Fans Worried Their Hero Is Going to Get Slandered

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Yesterday, Nickelodeon and Avatar Studios finally unveiled some concrete details about Avatar: Seven Havens, the new animated spin-off of Avatar: The Last Airbender and The Legend of Korra. While the news came with comforting details like a lengthy episode count and the involvement of series co-creators Michael DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko, the plot details of the new show have Korra fans bracing for more slander of their favorite hero.

Accompanying Seven Havens‘ announcement was some flavor text contextualizing long-time fans with the state of the world its new Earthbending hero and her long-lost twin will be responsible for saving. As past incarnations of the Avatar have proven, being the medium between humanity and the spirit realm inevitably leads to butting heads with either side. For some reason, between the end of Legend of Korra—at which point Korra had managed to achieve a balance between the world of mortals and the spirit realm, leading to a period of unprecedented peace—and Korra’s baton pass to the hero of Seven Havens events came about that have seemingly tarnished the Avatar’s reputation, transforming it from the mantle of humanity’s savior to that of a destroyer. Rather than depending on the Avatar to address the issues plaguing the world, the Avatar of Seven Havens is going to be hunted by both human and spirit enemies. Now Korra fans are redrawing years-old battle lines defending their hero from “the worst Avatar of all time” from both the fandom and, seemingly, series canon.

Simply name searching Korra on social media sites can yield posts virtually dancing on her grave as the de facto “worst Avatar ever.” A blunt accusation, sure, but nothing Korra fans haven’t heard before. Most of the criticism directed at her stems from prolonged debates over whether or not her show lacked the impact and excitement of Aang’s. Frankly, this comparison will always be nonstarter considering The Last Airbender is widely regarded the best Western animated show ever. A fact made more evident considering new crops of Western shows have not so subtly aped its visual style for years to get a similar rub by proxy. So, Korra was never going to escape that fate.

To understand Korra hate, one must think like a Korra hater. So, let’s do that. An uncharitable read of Seven Havens’ flavor text would lead many to believe that whatever Korra did after the finale of the animated series and its prologue comic book run led to her screwing humanity over so badly that her inheritor will have an even more difficult time saving the world than normal. Alright, fine. Aang had a rough go of it getting frozen in an iceberg the moment humanity needed him the most, and he got dragged for it ever since. But Aang had the advantage of communicating with past Avatars to get advice on how he should conduct himself—a connection that’s no longer possible, because the connection to past Avatars was severed in The Legend of Korra.

Korra hate gets even more granular with frustration over her characterization in the show—how much of a haughty teen she can be (compared to Aang, a much younger child), accusations that her villains owned her in every encounter, and that she blames others for her problems, and so on. But a lot of that conjecture misses the point that Korra’s circumstances are as much a fault of previous Avatar’s well-meaning decisions as Aang’s were.

For instance, the rise of the Fire Nation wouldn’t have happened by Avatar Roku’s own admission had he not been harder on his friend, Firelord Sozin. Even Aang was shortsighted in his plan to reinforce the separation of nations in the comics by not taking into consideration he’d basically be committing apartheid. Mix that in with the Aang’s older life as an Avatar basically being an arm of the police and buddying up with politicians, and you can understand how Korra would come into conflict with not playing the same ballgame as him. Basically, no Avatar is wholly remembered fondly. We’ve just only really had time to sit with the heat-of-the-moment decisions of the two Avatars we’ve spent the most time with, in a cycle of many.

This is not to say that Korra did not achieve good things when she was not confronting antagonists whose main objective was to challenge her on political extremism, nationalism, environmental neglect, and the perils of unchecked power. In addition to removing the barrier between the spirit world and humanity, she also played a crucial role in the revival of the airbenders, preventing their extinction. The accused will likely have a chance to speak her peace in Seven Havens, given that she’ll be the only Avatar of the new cycle that will be able to communicate with the new Avatar.

Perhaps humanity came to ruin following her passing, and not as a result of her presence. Whatever the case, Korra fans will probably still have to run defense on their girl until the ends of time, which sucks.

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