The Legend of Korra Season 3 Is One of TV’s Best Seasons

Adulthood often means facing the consequences of your choices. You may have to get up after staying up too late or answer for a mistake at work. Most of the time, no one else can fix things for you.

The Legend of Korra follows its young hero, Korra (Janet Varney), as she grows from a feisty teenager into a more measured adult. Her biggest change comes in season 3, when she faces the consequences of leaving the spirit world portals open.

It is one of Korra’s best decisions, but it also gives the series its most thought-provoking villain.

A new world

Season 3, titled “Book 3: Change,” begins after Harmonic Convergence, a planetary alignment that floods the world with spiritual energy. After a great battle in which Korra becomes a kaiju through astral projection, she leaves the portals open. She believes people and spirits should live in harmony.

The decision reshapes the world. Spirits begin appearing throughout Republic City, and people who had never bent air suddenly gain the ability. Their new powers help revive a culture that had nearly disappeared.

One of the new airbenders is Zaheer (Henry Rollins), a member of the Red Lotus, a secret anarchist organization that aims to disrupt world order and end the Avatar cycle. Zaheer uses his airbending to escape a high-security prison and free his comrades: lavabender Ghazan (Peter Giles), waterbender Ming Hua (Grey DeLisle), and combustion bender P’li (Kristy Wu).

Korra and her team travel the world, gathering new airbenders in the hope of rebuilding the Air Nation.

The Avatar grows up

“Change” is a blockbuster season that makes the most of Studio Mir’s animation. The studio animated the entire season, and its work shows. The series had always featured impressive fights, but here, bending takes center stage.

Ming Hua, who has no arms, shapes several water limbs that make her look like a terrifying spider. P’li’s combustion bending comes with a high-pitched whine, as energy shoots like a rocket from her third eye. She is huge, with braided hair. Both characters have designs that are hard to forget.

The Red Lotus also feels older and more experienced than Korra and her friends, adding to the danger. Zaheer and P’li are devoted partners, and the four members of the group are close comrades whose experiences and crimes have left their mark. Their battles rank among the franchise’s best. Some give previously sidelined characters a chance to shine, including Tenzin (J.K. Simmons), who has a standout fight at the Air Temple, and Korra’s father, Tonraq (James Remar), who comes to her aid and stops the Red Lotus from kidnapping her.

Zaheer is the quietest and least charming member of a group of compelling villains. Detached from the world and committed to his beliefs, he seems impossible to persuade. P’li is his one connection to the world, and the season makes powerful use of their relationship.

In one of the starkest moments in children’s animation, Zaheer kills the Earth Queen by taking the air from her lungs. Her death throws Ba Sing Se into chaos. The series never excuses Zaheer’s extremism, but his beliefs have a logic that makes Korra question whether the world might be better without corrupt leaders like the Earth Queen. She lives amid obscene wealth and imprisons her subjects for her own benefit while the people of her kingdom suffer.

Korra also gets room to grow once the series drops her love triangle with Mako (David Faustino) and Asami (Seychelle Gabriel). She can focus on other challenges, such as her difficulty talking to bureaucrats and her struggle to hold back when dealing with annoying people.

Korra develops relationships with other characters, including Suyin (Anne Heche) and Lin Beifong (Mindy Sterling), two standouts in the franchise. She also spends more time with Asami. The two move past the fact that they dated the same person, before falling in love with each other the following season.

“I think Korra was more likable in Book 3 because — but that was actually part of her arc that we’d set out to do — is that she was becoming more selfless, and it wasn’t just about her own stuff,” co-creator Bryan Konietzko told The Mary Sue in 2014.

By the end of “Change,” Korra has saved the world again, but she is more depleted than ever. The Red Lotus poisons her, leaving her in a wheelchair as she watches the Air Nomads rise once more and their civilization return. Korra learns another difficult lesson: life’s greatest moments can be bittersweet.

The Legend of Korra is streaming on Paramount Plus.

Source: Polygon