Although Avatar: The Last Airbender has become a world-renowned franchise for all demographics of people, its target audience has always been children. It advertises itself as a children’s television series, and even though it has some very intricate and complex stories, its themes never cross the line into the PG category. Perhaps, because of this, the series had been hesitant to show certain aspects of human life.
Times were a lot different when the original series came out and such hesitance is not surprising. However, when the spin-off was coming out, a lot had changed.
It has become a well-known fact that a percentage of parents do not like specific storylines in their children’s media; be it graphic violence, explicit relationships, and most prominently, queer relationships. Despite this, the creators of the 2005 series took a big risk when they were creating the spin-off series, The Legend of Korra.
Avatar: The Last Airbender Creators Took A Risk
When Bryan Konietzko and Michael Dante DiMartino were making The Legend of Korra, they took more than a few risks. While creating a sequel to one of the most iconic series of all time was risky enough, they took it a step further, making the protagonist purposefully unlike Aang and making changes to the world they introduced in Avatar: The Last Airbender. Although these changes were received with a lot of pushback, the pair did not seem to care much about it and were more focused on telling a story.
When the original series was coming out, times were a lot different and the type of audience they were trying to please was very skeptical. However, when Korra’s time came, things were a lot different. Being 2012, they already had a huge viewership that was waiting for a new addition to the world of the benders, and people had become more accepting of change. This was even more true when the series ended two years later.
Perhaps, it is because of this, that the show creators felt comfortable enough to take a step so radical that it had never been done before in children’s media; a confirmed queer relationship between the protagonists.
Avatar: The Last Airbender Creators Have No Regrets
In The Legend of Korra, Konietzko and DiMartino put in hints that Korra was in a romantic relationship with Asami. This was heavily debated by fans online and they wondered if their favorite ‘relationship’ would ever get confirmed. It is quite a common phenomenon for show creators to hint at queer relationships without confirming them as a way to not stir up controversy.
They shy away from giving concrete proof on either side as a way to keep their audiences happy. Considering how frequently it happens, it is quite rare for it to be confirmed. However, The Legend of Korra did not take such a path. The creators of Avatar: The Last Airbender confirmed their relationship by the finale of the series, putting in a sequence of the pair together in the final scene of the series.
Speaking on this scene, Konietzko and DiMartino went on their social media platforms to flat-out confirm their relationship, wanting to avoid further confusion. Konietzko wrote in a blog post, via The Guardian, that when they were creating the spin-off, they had it in mind that they wanted Korra to be a queer character. Unfortunately, they kept this aspect of her character subtle, trying to follow the unwritten rule of no queer relationships in children’s media.
“But as we got close to finishing the finale, the thought struck me: How do I know we can’t openly depict that? No one ever explicitly said so. It was just another assumption based on a paradigm that marginalises non-heterosexual people. If we want to see that paradigm evolve, we need to take a stand against it.”
“It is long over due that our media (including children’s media) stops treating non-heterosexual people as nonexistent, or as something merely to be mocked,” Konietzko said. “I’m only sorry it took us so long to have this kind of representation in one of our stories.”
However, when the time came for the finale, he decided to not follow such a rule as he was tired of the way queer people were being treated as the butt of jokes when given their rare representation. He and DiMartino made the bold decision of making it blatantly obvious that Korra was queer, ending all debate and speculation on the matter.
Avatar: The Last Airbender and The Legend of Korra are available for streaming on Netflix.
