Avatar: The Last Airbender‘s successor series, The Legend of Korra, was created by progenitors of the franchise, Bryan Konietzko and Micheal Dante DiMartino. The creators of the show opened up about how they went around creating Korra, in a pitch video that was made for the home release of the show, featuring hand puppet versions of the show’s characters Mako and Bolin.
The Legend of Korra featured a new Avatar, the successor to Avatar Aang. The creators opened up about who they wanted to cater to with the show, introducing an older character and making her the antithesis of Aang. However, despite the creator’s attempts to make a character for veteran A: TLA fans, they failed to interest fans with the creation of Korra, the water-bending Avatar.
There was a whole new fanbase to tap into, according to the creators of Avatar: The Last Airbender
In the home release version of Legend of Korra, Bryan Konietzko and Michael Dante DiMartino talked about how they pitched the show to Nickelodeon:
Of course we knew we would be attracting another fanbase, but we wanted to make sure we respected the new, more grown up taste of the first one [Avatar: The Last Airbender]
The idea was to create a character who could naturally follow in on Aang’s footsteps, someone the show’s old fans are happy to see take up the mantle of the Avatar. The goal was to create a world that feels like an extension of the one made in The Last Airbender. However, despite this vision of a sequel series, it feels that the creators fell woefully short. While some fans warmed up to Korra, the majority of the fandom was pretty appalled at the protagonist being the successor to Aang.
There were several reasons Korra failed to work for Avatar fans
What set Korra apart from Aang was her boisterous attitude, something that was more making to Shonen manga protagonist. Not only that, but the character routinely failed to achieve basic narrative lot points and was viewed as somewhat of the Mary Sue by a section of the fandom. The show also suffered from some decisions that did not sit well with fans (such as Aang’s early death) and Aang never being able to see the Air Nation further alienated the audiences.
There was also the fact that the show was renewed season by season, not allowing the creators to fully unleash their storytelling capabilities, since they were never sure if they were going to get a new season or not. Further, the show, without any proper transition, was moved to an online portal halfway through its airing, which further hurt its viewership and its image with the fans.
