Nickelodeon’s animated series Avatar and The Legend of Korra introduced audiences to two very different Avatars. Avatar Korra‘s bold personality and love of risk leads her to lose her connection to past Avatars in season two, known as Book Two: Spirits. Does Korra ever get to reconnect with past Avatars?
Two very different connections to past Avatars
In Avatar: The Last Airbender, we get to see Avatar Aang consult past Avatars and commune with them regularly. He reaches into the knowledge made up of the experiences of generations of Avatars over thousands of years. This is part of how Aang was taught to respect past Avatars and their wisdom, and also how he can access memories of the past to solve problems in the present. Audiences are given the impression that a connection to these past Avatars is critical in the series.
Korra’s experience with past Avatars is very different, but Korra is also a unique kind of Avatar. Where Aang desires peace and only enters conflict when necessary, Korra is hotheaded and ready to throw hands. There isn’t much meditation for Korra that isn’t forced on her by mentors, and she has a hard time respecting her elders. So even when Korra could access the experiences of the past Avatars before Book Two: Spirits, she didn’t treat them with the same reverence that Aang did.
Korra’s loss and Raava’s rebirth
In Book Two: Spirits, Korra finds herself in a terrible battle in the Spirit World with her uncle Unalaq, a bender with a desire to unite with the dark spirit Vaatu and become a Dark Avatar. Not only does she fail to prevent this from happening, but Unalaq-Vaatu extracts the light spirit Raava from Korra with devastating consequences. Not only does the melded Dark Avatar steal Raava, but he also kills the light spirit in episode 13, “Darkness Falls”. This leaves Korra defeated and disconnected in the Spirit World, severing her tie to every past Avatar spirit and their experiences.
In the next and final episode of Book Two of A:TLOK called “Light in the Dark”, Korra defeats the Dark Avatar with Jinora’s help, and regains her connection to Raava. Though she can bring the Spirit World and the human world together, Korra cannot regain her connection to past Avatar spirits or their memories. That connection, so important for Aang’s strength, is gone for Korra. This is how the audience is left at the end of the second season.
Does Korra ever heal the severed connection?
Throughout the third and fourth seasons of A:TLOK, books three and four take on Change and Balance, though neither of those things ever brings Korra back to her connection with the past Avatars’ memories and spirits. Korra never regains that connection to past Avatar spirits, and must instead find strength within herself and her connection to the Spirit World. She has begun a new “cycle” of Avatar memories and will be the first Avatar whose memories remain in the next Avatar, and so forth.
It is theorized that Korra’s total disconnection from past Avatar experiences was necessary for her unique Avatar journey. Do you think this is true, or was losing her connection to past Avatars Korra’s mistake? No matter what, the link is severed, the memories are erased permanently, and Korra does not regain the connection.
