The Legend of Korra - Turf Wars

[icon_uk]

"Avatar: The Last Airbender" and it's sequel "The Legend of Korra" featured some of the best worldbuilding of any cartoon series I've ever seen. The various societies were rich, and complex, and they included their resident elemental powers with creativity and practicality.



One area the cartoon did not expand on was how certain social matters were addressed, and the Korra finale, which showed Korra joining hands with Asami Sato, the woman she loves, as they step into the Spirit World, was positively subversive in showing a blossoming same sex relationship.

So it's good news that Turf Wats, the graphic novel continuation of the series, and which is written by Michael Dante DiMartino (one of the series co-creators), with line art by Irene Koh and colouring by Jane Bak and Vivian Ng, and which is considered canon with the cartoon (the series other creator Bryan Konietzko, is a consultant on the series), is addressing this;

So Korra and Asami have returned from the Spirit World and are ealing with matters arising from the the end of the series, during which the meet up with Kya, the daughter Aang and Katara, who reveals a bit more about her own life than we already knew.









So in four short pages, we have Kya outing herself to our lesbian bizexual heroes, discussion of the Air Nomad, Water Tribe and Fire Nation attitude towards differing orientations, and the reveal that Kyoshi, a previous Avatar, was most likley bisexual. Now that's concsise storytelling!

Comments

[long_silence]

The most interesting part I found was revisiting the physical affects of humans being possessed by Spirits.

Korra has been so set on humans and spirits living in peaceful coexistence. But between humans claiming to own the land where the spirit wilds and portal are and the spirits having the power to permanently alter a human's body like that, the conflict is so much more complicated and potentially interesting. I almost wish that this was the direction they had chosen to go with in the show instead of Kuvira or the Red Lotus.

[matrix_dragon]

Well, any direction would have been better and more interesting than the Red Lotus, really.

But more importantly, it would have been fascinating because of one simple fact the show demonstrated time and time again. Spirits are jackasses that need to be punched in the teeth. Repeatedly. Their clashes with humanity could be utterly fascinating. And it would increase the odds of a certain owl getting plucked, so there's a plus.

[full_metal_ox]

You might be interested in this fanfic portraying a happier ending for Professor Zei:

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/3052595/1/For-the-Sake-of-Knowledge