Avatar Aang Made Me Rethink Aang vs. Korra

Avatar Aang: The Last Airbender has been on Paramount+ since July 25 and the timeline did what it always does. Aang versus Korra, round 500. I talked about this on episode four of Inside The Screen and I wasn't even supposed to be in this argument, but the movie pulled me in.

I was never in this debate

I was never one to really engage in the Aang versus Korra debates. I always thought it was just people comparing stuff because that's what people do, it's gonna be an everyday thing either way. And I always felt like the Aang supporters thought they already won the argument. So I stayed out of it.

Then I saw the movie and I'm sitting there like bro, I think this movie actually exposes Aang more than it helps anybody's claim.

Spoiler warning: the next section talks about a scene from Avatar Aang: The Last Airbender.

The Tagah scene

There's a part where Aang is on his adventure and he meets Tagah. And there's a rock collapsing and Aang is struggling to keep it up from crashing on him. As soon as I saw that I was like, you are the Avatar. How are you not able to do this? To him this should be a small feat. That's when I felt like at this point in his life he should be way sharper than that.

And then the homies checked me on the pod. Tagah is from the golden age of airbending. Aang mastered airbending at 12 before he got frozen in the ice, but after that he didn't have any airbending masters around to really show him what airbending could be. Tagah is the first airbender he's met in forever and he's one of the more aggressive ones. Aang is one of the most peaceful people you'll ever meet and he does not lock in until somebody puts their hands on Katara.

I had to say it right there on the pod. You killed my claim already. You're right.

Still riding with Korra

Now I'm still gonna support my girl Korra. My next argument was that Korra was facing bigger demons. And the counter I got was a good one. Her villains are stronger and more in depth because the original Avatar built the pathway for that, so the writers could get experimental with Korra. Aang's only real threat was Ozai. Korra had something new every season. But we gotta remember Aang was a little kid. By the end of her series Korra was a fully realized Avatar. We watched her go from a teenager to an adult and we only ever saw Aang at 12. People really be comparing a grown woman to a 12 year old boy.

See chat, he made a good claim. However my claim was always about the storytelling. Storytellers have a goal for each series and every season isn't gonna be about a new antagonist. Season one of the original Aang is oblivious because he's 12 and he's been iced up. Season two him and the crew aren't really taking the war serious, they're kids. Season three they understand what's going on and they're locked in and ready to face anything. That's a growing up story, the same kind of thing that put a lot of shows on my list of arcs that defined a generation.

Korra is a totally different assignment. Those writers already had the original behind them. They knew people wanted more fights and more complex stories. And she's fighting spiritual entities, benders and people who can take your bending away. That's a different kind of hard.

So who had it harder?

I'm not gonna act like we settled it on the pod because we didn't. What I will say is the comparison was lopsided from the jump. You're comparing two different stories with two different goals and that's why this argument never ends.

If anything this movie made me want more Avatar, not less. I think they have a lot of room to make a whole new series for Aang between him at 12 and him at the point where he meets Tagah. And regardless of whether you lean Aang or Korra, Avatar has to be one of the most hyped animated series of all time. I don't know anybody who doesn't love Avatar. And with Paramount's media moves lately, what happens to the Paramount catalog matters for Avatar too.

So now that the movie's out and you've seen Aang grown up, who do you really think had it harder? Settle it in the CXM Discord.