Cartoon Conversations #2: The Weird Mysteries of 'Avatar'

Welcome to Cartoon Conversations! The semi-regular written essay series where I break down cartoons, their influence, importance, and purpose because I don’t know how to make video essays. Yet. And today’s topic is a double-header:

And:

I started off with one of the most popular cartoons of all time so I figure I can get away with doing my second entry on a cartoon that people any older than, well, me probably haven’t heard of. For the uninitiated, ‘Avatar: The Last Airbender’ was a cartoon that ran on Nickelodeon between 2005 and 2008. Taking a heavy influence from anime and eastern narratives, the show was set in a world where a certain percentage of the population was endowed with the ability to “bend” one of the four basic elements, a skill which corresponded directly with their spiritual energy and mastery of their culture’s respective martial art. These “benders” divided the world into four separate and distinct nations which had been at war for a century as the show began. The only person who could end the conflict was the legendary Avatar, a reincarnating figure who could bend all four elements. Or, as the show explained before every episode:

It educated its audience on east Asian philosophies, world cultures, and environmental conservation. It featured stellar animation, beautifully crafted stories, likeable characters, amazing voice acting from some legends of the industry, and had better action sequences than some big budget films of the same era.

And it was ludicrously popular.

Among critics and audiences alike, ‘Avatar’ struck just the right chord from the very first moments of the very first episode. Adults could sit back in awe at the character development, smart writing, and gorgeous art direction while kids could enjoy the fight scenes, slapstick comedy, and one of the best magic systems ever used in media. Over the course of three years, it won numerous awards, including an Emmy. It spun off into a number of comics, video games, and a particularly lucrative line of action figures. All in all, ‘The Last Airbender’ is widely considered (by those who care about such things) as one of the greatest cartoons ever made.

And then, in 2012, Nickelodeon aired a spin-off show, ‘Avatar: The Legend of Korra,’ which followed the new Avatar in the same world a generation and several technological advancements later. It was created and written by the same team that made ‘The Last Airbender’ and, lo and behold, it was a critical darling. It took the premise of the show in new and exciting directions for a more adult audience. It was considered the cartoon version of ‘Game of Thrones’ for its complexity and deep themes of spirituality, political philosophy, and cultural development.

At the beginning, the show looked to be as big, if not bigger, than its predecessor. But as the first season ended, a worrying downward trend began to emerge. The second season premier had barely half the viewers of the series premier and at one point dipped to just over two million eyes, the lowest the series ever experienced. Halfway through the third season of the show, Nickelodeon stopped airing it on television due to such poor ratings. The series then planned to be finished through online streaming, where it admittedly had been doing far better, and its budget was slashed. Mere weeks after the third season wrapped online, the fourth and final season was rushed through the final stages of development. As if this bizarre rescheduling wasn’t confusing enough, Nickelodeon executives decided midway through the fourth season that the final episodes would air on television.

So the question of this article is just what happened? Why did viewership fade over the course of the franchise? What did ‘Last Airbender’ have that ‘Legend of Korra’ lacked? How did the studio produce one of the most critically acclaimed kids shows of all time but then fumble the ball so bad that it had to be taken off the air? And what did it do to earn a last-second return to television?

To start to address these issues, let’s first examine the biggest differences between ‘Last Airbender’ and ‘Legend of Korra’: their respective main characters. The protagonist of ‘Airbender’ was Aang, a time-displaced pacifist monk. At 12 years old, Aang was energetic and happy-go-lucky. He was mature enough to be aware of the dark realities of his world but immature enough to not know exactly how to process them or acknowledge the pain his own actions could have, choosing instead to cling to the methods and ideals of his long-dead culture, hence the series title. As the main character, the tone of the show was built around his interactions to the show around them. It also didn’t hurt that the primary audience for the show, at the time, was in the same general age range. The writing, despite being shoehorned into a fantastic world, was realistic enough that a young adult audience could easily identify and relate to Aang’s anguish and conflict as he came of age over the course of the show.

‘Legend of Korra’s protagonist was Korra, Aang’s reincarnated successor. While born into the Water Tribes, Korra was raised by an international conglomerate of benders from all cultures, which showed in her jarringly brash and headstrong personality. Up until ‘Legend of Korra,’ waterbenders had been portrayed as balanced, thoughtful people. They were based on Innuit cultures and their bending techniques took influence from Tai Chi, both of which heavily involved the concepts of flow and maintenance. The fighting style of the Water Tribes was said to be taking their opponents’ energy and making it work against them. Korra’s “fight first, questions if there’s time” approach to almost all aspects of her life clashed with what the audience already knew about her native culture.

She was also selfish, proud, and arrogant, traits that are more in line with a human being than a fictional character. Her journey through the first few seasons involved her trying to integrate into an urban society, learning the ins and outs of social decorum, and navigating the world of politics she suddenly found herself thrown into, ventures that mirror people coming of age in the 21st century. As she grew throughout the series, she remained very headstrong and self-confident, but did become more mature as she was forced to confront and challenge her own trauma, preconceptions, and identity.

In these ways, she would appear to have an advantage over Aang in that, while she was less likable than the grinning pre-teen monk, she was tangibly more relatable. Considering her show was made for a more adult audience, it made sense to have Korra deal with more adult issues while keeping the stakes, the fate of the world in both cases, the same to maintain a consistent level of drama.

The other major difference between ‘Legend of Korra’ and ‘Last Airbender’ was their approach to villains. ‘Avatar’ had two secondary antagonists, a grab bag of one-off tertiary villains, and one overarching big boss. The ultimate enemy was Ozai, the leader of the Fire Nation who perpetuated his ancestor’s war against the rest of the world. Though he was never revealed in full before the final season of the original show, his menacing presence was built up through his two children, who served as the primary villains of the first two seasons.

The first was the fan-favorite exiled Prince Zuko, who’s horribly scared face, grouchy personality, and righteous backstory endeared him to the audience so hard that his inevitable turn to the side of good was choreographed seasons in advance.

The other was his younger sister, Azula. Her sadistic characterizations, unique fighting style, and calculated relentlessness all served to make her one of the most memorable villains in the entire medium.

Ozai was never given enough screen time to make a full impact on the audience, but the measure of his progeny was enough to impart just how wicked and cruel he was. If he treated his own children so poorly, then it went without saying that he respected his subjects even less.

‘Legend of Korra’ went in a different direction. As opposed to having one major villain arching the entire series, each season had its own major villain with a few distinct henchmen. But whereas Ozai was a generic evil villain, almost unremarkable in a way, the antagonists of ‘Korra’ each represented a larger ideology that was reflected in their motives and actions. In the first season, Korra was terrorized by the masked political leader Amon, who used a Marxist-esque manifesto to enrage the non-bending class by claiming they had been oppressed by the benders. His urban terror tactics held an entire city within his thrall, backed by his frightening ability to “steal” a person’s bending abilities. This was shorthand for him stealing individual identities in order to indoctrinate them into his “Equalist” movement. His ideas led to a much-needed political revolution, but Amon himself was revealed as a liar who used subterfuge and unjustifiably vicious methods.

The second season villain was Korra’s own uncle and leader of the Northern Water Tribe, Unalaq. His goal was to use his spiritual mastery and political influence to convert the Southern Water Tribe, and by extension the rest of the world, into his theocratic control by using a sudden influx of chaotic spirits as a scapegoat. In his quest for religion-based power, he lied, murdered, and nearly doomed the world by violating the revered Avatar cycle of reincarnation. He was ultimately undone because Korra has her own spiritual awakening separated from his influence, proving that religious diversity was more powerful than a single, unified faith led by a ambitious zealot.

Perhaps Korra’s most dangerous test was the third season villain, Zaheer. Zaheer was the leader of the secret Red Lotus cult which operated under the principle that anarchy was the natural order of the world and the Avatar, a symbol of balance, prevented the universe from achieving its perfect form. Using the spiritual imbalance of the world as a launching point, Zaheer and his cabal assassinated prominent political figures and even attempted to end the Avatar cycle for good. His downfall comes at the hands of a revived Air Nation, demonstrating that a culture’s history, even one as filled with as much strife as the Air Nomads, is more powerful than a ideology that rejects the very idea of culture.

The final Korra villain was also the most poignant. Kuvira was originally tasked with reuniting the splintered Earth Kingdom after Zaheer’s devastation, but became dissatisfied with the future of her nation and took political power for herself and her brutal, dictatorial regime. Adorning her armies with Nazi-esque iconography, she refused to relinquish her fascist grip and even went on the offensive against other nations with a divine superweapon. Despite accomplishing her goals, she is eventually beaten by Korra, who’s resilience and compassion exemplified that even a dictator can fall based on one’s legitimate attempt to understand another.

Again, the differences between the show’s villains speaks to the differences between the shows themselves. ‘Last Airbender’s antagonists were archetypes that fit in with a broader action/adv enture cartoon. Zuko is redeemable because of human traits, Azula isn’t despite her human traits, and Ozai is the reason why both are the way they are. They’re written to be more interesting and 3-dimensional individually, but these are the templates from which they are drawn. None of Korra’s villains can be boiled down to such base forms. Each are driven by a separate ideology and have different codes they abide by. On top of that, their motives are all, to one form or another, represented in the real world. Communists, religious zealots, anarchists, and fascists all really exist, the ‘Korra’ villains are just extreme examples of each.

From these comparisons, we can glean that ‘Last Airbender’ was a more traditional cartoon. Relatively speaking of course, it was still revolutionary for its time. ‘Legend of Korra’ took more chances in being truer to life, both in its antagonists and protagonist. On the surface, this would seem to answer the question as to why ‘Korra’ experienced such a drastic drop in popularity. Cartoons are unique in that they can be as outlandish and fantastic as imagination permits or as realistic as their creative teams desire so long as they remain in the realm of animation. The fantastic world of ‘Last Airbender’ mixed with its amicable, family-friendly tone to make an amazing show that introduced its audience to new cultures and philosophies while ‘Legend of Korra’ tried to make that same fantasy universe more familiar so it could address issues that its audience might deal with in their daily life. One show let itself be a fun exercise in escapism that still managed to be educational while the other tried too hard to be relatable and, by the end of the third season, had pretty much lost most of its comedic elements. Obviously, one would do better than the other.

It also indirectly answers another question. ‘Korra’s tone didn’t just differ from ‘Last Airbender’s, it also clashed with the rest of Nickelodeon’s usual programming, making it stand out like a sore thumb among a lineup of mostly colorful, kid-centric shows. Add to that ‘Korra’s plunge in the ratings and Nickelodeon would have been well within its rights to cancel it outright. Instead, they released the second half of the third season online because it had retained its popularity in online streaming. This was probably because the episodes in question had already been produced at the time. Given the nature of animation, the production team was already in the process of making the fourth season before the second had wrapped, so by the time the show transferred to a web-based medium it was probably a foregone conclusion that the fourth season would wrap the series online, albeit with a reduced budget. It would not have made sense for the studio to just outright cancel it, but releasing it online prevented them from devaluing ad space, gave an opportunity for a more fitting show to get some momentum, and didn’t present any immediate risks.

But this leads to the only unresolved mystery of the series. After the third season finished and while the fourth season was closing production, ‘Korra’ was abruptly returned to television. Granted, it would air on the Nickelodeon subsidiary Nicktoons, not on the main Nick channel, but this was still a major announcement. For context, this was not a casual decision to make. One of the primary sources of money that a company like Nickelodeon has is ad revenue and ad revenue can only be sold at a price correlating to the popularity of the show surrounding it. For example, you know those Superbowl ads that everybody loves? Even a standard 30-second ad spot costs millions just to air because it’s guaranteed that they’ll be seen by almost every household in America. Infomercials, on the other hand, can be aired for a few thousand or even a few hundred because they’re aired on low-value or low-rated channels. So by putting ‘Korra’ back on the air, with its history of abysmal ratings, Nickelodeon was potentially depriving itself of very lucrative advertisement space that might be more valuable with another, more popular show.

However, loyal fans of the series hated this move. To them, this was a clear example of how Nickelodeon had been mismanaging ‘Legend of Korra’ since day one. The studio had been accused even as far back as ‘Last Airbender’ of dropping the ball in marketing the show. It preferred to promote more general-appeal shows and tended to neglect more niche products in a manner that Forbes once described as “abusive.”

But here’s the thing: to this day, nobody is 100% certain why Nickelodeon took this risk. The internet, in its infinite wisdom, has produced a few theories, some of which even hold some weight. For example, there’s the clip-show theory. See, when Nickelodeon cut ‘Korra’ season four’s budget, they did so by almost precisely one episode’s worth. Series creators and showrunners Bryan Konietzko and Mike DiMartino decided that instead of downsizing their animation department, as Nickelodeon execs had allegedly advised, they would cover the ordered number of episodes in the season with a crudely-drawn clip show that recounted the events of the show. For whichever lost soul had stumbled onto the fourth season and got halfway through without questioning the lore or having any prerequisite knowledge of the series. I guess. Konietzko and DiMartino announced this decision publicly and the fan backlash against Nickelodeon was brutal. The theory states that Nickelodeon was so intimidated by the vitriolic response that they tried to smother it by putting the show back on television. While it’s a reasonable conclusion, I’m not convinced that the level of backlash against the studio was sufficient for them to make such a drastic change so suddenly.

As far as my research has uncovered, nobody working on the show or in Nickelodeon has ever revealed why they made the call to air the last few episodes of ‘Korra.’ So I guess we’ll all just have to wonder what happened behind closed doors, who slept with or blackmailed who to get ‘Korra’ back onto the small screen. And as I have no actual clout with the cartoon industry, I can only imagine what the real reason is.

But if I had to guess…

Call me crazy, but I have a theory that Nickelodeon made its decision based on the content of the season. For one thing, it was still doing very well online, and was doubtlessly worthy of returning to television. But the season also had a couple secret weapons that were drawing viewers back into the fold by the droves. The first of which was:

Most surviving characters from ‘Last Airbender’ were relegated to supporting roles in ‘Korra,’ playing minimal parts so that new characters could be given more focus. But Toph’s continued presence in the series had been built up for some time, with tales of her exploits post-‘Airbender’ serving as a backdrop for the larger series. When she appeared, it wasn’t as just as a cameo. She took an active role in Korra’s ongoing recovery and evolution as a character while simultaneously expanding the lore of the show and lending her talents to some pretty spectacular action sequences. It was a solid callback to the original series and the tonal shift she represented inspired a heavy sense of nostalgia in long-time viewers.

The second secret weapon in ‘Korra’s season four arsenal was:

To be blunt, Kuvira was an excellent villain. A near-perfect mirror reflection of Korra at that point in her life’s journey, a justified political and narrative presence, and a legitimately intimidating figure in her own right all wrapped into one driven, motivated, warped character who was more than willing to wreak havoc on those who would even consider threatening her own twisted idea of justice. There was also the fact that she was a Nazi analogue. Keep in mind this was late 2014-early 2015, when troll-humor was on the rise, the alt-right was starting to get more media attention in relation to a string of mass killings and attacks, and there were whispers on the wind about a certain New York retail scam artist maybe taking a serious shot at this whole president business. Not only did it behoove an audience at the time to see a fascist ruler as an immediate and legitimate threat, it was encouraging to see that same ruler inevitably receive their due comeuppance and perhaps even repent due to replicable actions that the viewers themselves could emulate.

And the final weapon that ‘Korra’ held close to its chest was this:

And thus, the U.S.S. Korrasami took her maiden voyage and became canon. Up to literally the very last seconds of the finale episode, Korra and the supporting character Asami had been seen as just close friends. They had dated men before (sometimes the same men) and their connection was that of two women who didn’t have many close female companions finding solace and relief in one another. But then the finale revealed that the two had been harboring romantic feelings for the other and it completely rocked viewers’ worlds. The thing was, this didn’t feel like simple tokenism, just making a few characters gay for the sake of having gay characters. Korra and Asami did have very real chemistry with one another that had built naturally over the course of their relationship. Fans just hadn’t noticed it coming because of a combination of brilliantly layered writing and accidental casual homophobia.

And of season four’s three secret weapons, I suspect this last one was the one that pushed Nickelodeon to return the series to television. Keep in mind, only the last few episodes of season four made it to television, enough that Nickelodeon wouldn’t be betting the farm on the series but also enough that a sufficient number of viewers would be drawn in to see that final image. And you better believe that the final image blew up the internet discussion of the show like no other swerve had before it. Given how vocal the fanbase had been in the past, I suspect Nickelodeon anticipated this making major waves online and made the decision to air this moment on television so that the final note of the series would reflect well on them.

Now I don’t have any proof that this was the reason per se. In fact, according to insiders, the original version of the scene was much more explicit about Korra and Asami’s sexuality, but Nickelodeon walked it back to a reflection of a wedding scene that had taken place mere minutes before, indicating that producers may have been more hesitant to let this scene air at all. But considering the general social trends when it comes to cartoons and kids shows in the current age, I’m willing to bet that Nickelodeon was eager to be the first to have a major protagonist of one of their cartoons be gay. Cartoon characters had been on the fringes of it before, but due to previously existing codes and standards there hadn’t really been a popular animated series with a prominent, non-stereotypical lesbian lead. That, along with a socially relevant villain and a tonal manipulation of nostalgia, are what I think prompted Nickelodeon to reinstate ‘Legend of Korra’ to television.

But even if I’m wrong, it kind of doesn’t matter. Ultimately, the story of ‘Avatar’ is the story of triumph over adversity. The studio had little to no faith in the niche ‘Last Airbender,’ but the series became a smash hit despite poor marketing and half-hearted cross-promotion. ‘Legend of Korra’ went into production with somehow even less studio backing than its predecessor and, despite losing momentum over time, still managed to churn out a quality product even with Nickelodeon trying to undercut it at seemingly every turn, to the point that it forced the studio to overturn its own decision to take the show off the air. And if that’s not a testament to the powerful message, amazing writing, and stellar animation of the show, then I’m not sure what is.

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