Origin
Hailing from the Southern Water Tribe, Korra is the current incarnation of the Avatar – the only person in the world being able to bend all four elements – and the successor to Avatar Aang. Having been able to already bend three elements at a very young age, Korra was soon discovered by the Order of the White Lotus, which intended to help her master the arts of bending and protect her from outside dangers until she reached adulthood. At age 17, Korra had mastered water, earth and firebending, but had trouble learning to airbend, as well as with her spiritual side and couldn’t acess past Avatars. Katara, Aang’s wife, served her as her mentor.
Creation
Korra is the protagonist of the the animated television series The Legend of Korra, which aired on Nickelodeon from 2012 – 2014. She was created by Bryan Konietzko and Michael Dante DiMartino. The Legend of Korra is the sequel to Avatar: The Last Airbender.
Character Evolution
Characters from the Avatar series are heavily influenced from various Asian cultures. The people of the Water Tribe are designed with Inuit culture of the Arctic in mind.
Korra was purposefully designed to have a more fierce and rushed attitude than her previous incarnation, Aang. The fact she was designed as a female protagonist almost prevented the series from ever being put into full production. Nickelodeon executives felt that boys wouldn’t watch a series about a female hero, but Bryan Konietzko, series co-creator, defended the idea. He further had evidence to support his position as males who saw the screening of the first episode didn’t care about the character’s gender.
Major Story Arcs
Book One: Air
Book Two: Spirits
Book Three: Change
Book Four: Balance
Powers & Abilities
As the Avatar, Korra is the only person in the Avatar World being able to bend all four elements and one of the most powerful benders of her time. By the end of the series, Korra has mastered water-, earth-, fire- and airbending, can enter the avatar state at will and is profecient at energybending. She is also a formidable hand-to-hand combatant.
Waterbending
Korra has demonstrated a high level of skill in waterbending – She is capable of creating large walls of ice, powerful water whips, and water waves strong enough to push back opponents of enormous size. She can also launch herself high into the air and maintain the height on a gigantic waterspout easily, fight off several aerial attacks with various water attacks, and propel herself plus another person through the water at high-speeds to avoid attacks. While she was taught both Northern and Southern waterbending, Korra also picked up the ability to bend like Republic City’s waterbenders, using a more direct approach with her attacks.
Healing – Korra can use water to treat injuries and certain dieseases, a special ability posessed by some waterbenders taught to her by Katara. However, this ability has was not shown to be applied during combat.
Spiritbending – Korra is capable of pacifying dark spirits and sending them back to the spirit world using this rare waterbending technique.
Earthbending
Korra has also achieved great mastery in earthbending, regularly using traditional earthbending in combat, while also utilizing pro-style earthbending, attacking more akin to a firebender with light footwork and quick jabs. Her prowess is great enough to easily take control of earth targets levitated by other earthbenders, lauching enemies many feet into the air and throwing large boulders at her opponents. She can also synchronize her earthbending with another person to increase the versatility and control of her bending.
Metalbending – Being the first known Avatar to be able of metalbending, Korra is quite talented at it’s use. She can effectively manipulate metal to a point where she can rip through obstacles made of metal and both deflect and redirect incoming metalbending attacks.
Firebending
Fire is one of Korra’s most used elements. Due to the fact that she relies on offensive maneuvers when under pressure, Korra uses fire more than any other element. She has learned various advanced techniques such as the breath of fire and continous fire streams. Against other firebenders, she can easily deflect and disperse the enemies’ attack. She can produce daggers made out of fire in each hand for close-range combat and is able to propel herself through the air with firebending in short bursts, and use these bursts to run along walls.
Airbending
Unlike with the other three elements, Korra had great difficulties learning how to airbend, only unlocking it after previously having had her other elements blocked temporarily. However, in the following years, she became profecient in the art. She has shown great power in her offensive use of airbending, although her style of airbending varies dramatically from other airbenders, employing straightforward offensive movements similar to firebending while lacking the more characteristic circular and spiraling movements. Korra is able to effective glide with airbender staffs and can used more advanced techniques, such as the air scooter.
Hand-to-hand combat
Korra posesses impressive body strength and is adept at martial arts, being able to lift and throw even heavy people and objects. She is also very agile and can easily dodge incoming attacks by leaping out of their way. Her punches and kicks are strong enough to directly knock out close-range attackers.
Avatar State
Similiar to the other Avatars, Korra can enter the avatar state, which vastly enhances her bending abilities and range. Although not being able to acess the power of her previous incarnations anymore, Korra still posesses great power while utilizing it and can enter it at will, although it may also get triggered as a self defense mechanism or as a response to extreme emotional reactions. If the Avatar dies whil in the avatar state, the Avatar cycle ends with no new Avatar being born. Korra also posesses the unique ability to bend large amounts of spirit energy while in the avatar state and restore people’s bending, after theirs was taken away by a bloodbender.
Weaknesses
Korra’s hot-headed personality causes her to fight agressively and directly, which may sometimes cause her to loose to enemies using corresponding tactics. Since events of Harmonic Convergence, she has lost the ability to acess her past lifes for help. Despite being fused with Raava, the spirit of light, Korra is still a mortal and shares the same basic weaknesses with other humans. Her bending can temporarily be blocked by attackers utilizing chi blocking. She also has horrible driving skills.
Other Media
Cartoons
The Last Airbender: Legend of Korra first began airing on April 14, 2012 on Nickelodeon. It was developed at the Nickelodeon Animation Studios in Burbank, California, but the actual animation was done by the South Korean animation studio Studio Mir. It took strong influences from Japanese anime. The fact that the protagonist would be a girl made Nickelodeon Studios hesitant and nearly pulled production altogether. Konietzko, one of the series co-creators, eventually managed to change the minds of the studio officials.
Korra’s first appearance in the cartoon series was in The Last Airbender: Legend of Korra – Episode 1 “Welcome to Republic City”. Her character is voiced by Janet Varney.
Unlike the epic of the previous series, The Legend of Korra‘s first season only consisted of twelve episodes. This was originally the plan for the entire series, but the president of Nickelodeon’s parent company, MTV, felt that Korra had the potential to be their network’s flagship series. The cartoon was then extended to become another three season series, as the original Avatar was designed. The Japanese anime production company Studio Pierrot, producers of Naruto and BLEACH, were brought in to produce season two, with oversight by Studio Mir. The following three seasons went into production as of May 2013.