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| “ | Well I'm the old Avatar and my era is not over yet! | „ |
| ~ Korra's most infamous quote. |
| “ | The war of the Water Tribes is over. Unalaq has been defeated, and the Northern fleet is returning home. The Water Tribes will always be allies, but the Southern Tribe is now independent, and the Southern Council of Elders has appointed my father, Tonraq, to be your new chief! I've realized that even though we should learn from those who came before us, we must also forge our own path. So that is why I've decided to keep the portals open. Humans can now physically enter the Spirit World, and spirits will be free to roam our world. I will no longer be the bridge. Humans and spirits must learn to live together. My mission will always be to use Raava's light spirit to guide the world toward peace and balance. Harmonic Convergence has caused a shift in the planet's energy. I can feel it. Things will never be the same again. We're entering a New Age. | „ |
| ~ Korra' speech at the end of season 2. |
| “ | No matter what happens, no matter how crazy things get, I'll always try to restore balance. | „ |
| ~ Korra |
Avatar Korra is the titular main protagonist of Nickelodeon's 2012 animated series The Legend of Korra, the sequel to the 2005 series Avatar: The Last Airbender. She is the successor to Avatar Aang.
Born and raised in the Southern Water Tribe, where she mastered waterbending, earthbending, and firebending, she later relocated to Republic City to attain a similar proficiency with airbending under the tutelage and guidance of Tenzin as well as overcome her aversion to the spiritual aspects of the bending arts. With the assistance of Aang's spirit, Korra gained the ability to energybend, and after connecting with her past lives, she gained the capacity to enter the Avatar State at will, marking her transition into a fully realized Avatar. Being Avatar has granted Korra world-wide recognition and in addition to her spiritual responsibilities, she must also deal with being a public figure.
She was voiced by Janet Varney from 2012 to 2022's Nickelodeon Kart Racers 3: Slime Speedway, and is voiced by Jacqueline Grace Lopez since 2023.
Biography[]
Background[]
| “ | I'm the Avatar! You gotta deal with it! | „ |
| ~ Korra as a child. |
After the death of Avatar Aang, at the age of 66 and the proper mourning period, the Order of the White Lotus began their search for Aang's reincarnation. The monks of the White Lotus would find the new avatar born to Tonraq and Senna of the Water Tribe. When found, Korra had already mastered earth, fire and waterbending. Aang's widow, Katara, was also a member of the tribe and so after finding her late husband's reincarnation among her people, she took it upon herself to help with Korra's instruction in bending over her life.
By her teenage years, Korra, was advanced enough in controlling her powers to receive outside help and train with Tenzin, Aang and Katara's youngest son, and himself one of the last airbenders. Tenzin lived in Republic City, a city built on the site of Avatar Aang's final battle with the mad despot, Fire Lord Ozai, in the previous show's climax. Republic City was populated by members of all the Tribes as a place to escape previous pressure's of culture and start anew as a cosmopolitan society. Due to it's founding members being from all different tribes and it's boarders remaining open to immigration Republic City has all forms of benders.
The series starts off with Korra and her spirit animal Naga, the Polar-bear-hound, exploring this new society and making it her new home while pursuing Tenzin as a student.
Republic City[]
Exploring Republic City, Korra is initially taken in by the new blended culture. Despite her excitement, she finds Republic City is over-run with troubles, such as gangs made up of benders who use their powers to steal from non-benders and divided up the city with criminal territories. Additionally the police-force is overwhelmed and Korra's attempts to help only see her as interfering, resulting in her being brought in to police-chief Lin. Korra soon discovers Lin is actually the daughter of one of Aang's friends, Toph Beifong. Lin has mastered her mother's refined brand of earthbending - metalbending and it is now standard issue for the police department, which maintains control thanks to even other earthbenders being unable to learn it on their own without a teacher. Lin recognizes Korra is the Avatar however she is clear in that Korra will be given enough lee-way to be given a warning about disturbing the peace but she will not be excused if she outright breaks the law. Korra is then sent to Tenzin's retreat to train with him.
Tenzin lives with his wife Pema, his daughters Jinora and Ikki and his son Meelo. Tenzin is already anxious with Pema pregnant, the city council trying to pressure him into helping with law-enforcement and dealing with cultural research but prioritizes Korra's training. Despite being initially excited about training with a master airbender, Korra finds herself unable master airbending and Tenzin is at a loss for how to deal with someone raised by a completely separate mindset than the one he was trained with. With bending being tied to emotional-control/indulgence, there is always one element the new Avatars have trouble with that conflicts with their current life's cultural upbringing. For Korra, it is airbending. Neither Korra or Tenzin seem to have any idea of how to integrate the lessons into her. Tenzin simply believes it will take many years of rigorous training, but Korra's frustrations cause her to walk out on the lessons.
While trying to find herself, Korra happens upon a game called Pro-bending making a sport out of bending where teams competed in the Pro-bending Tournament. A member of the team The Fire Ferrets, quits, frustrated at the team appearing to go no-where. Leaving remaining members Mako and Bolin unable to compete with only two people. Korra, taking a liking to the game and eager to make new friends offers to join. Bolin is excited at the prospect of still being able to compete and make a new friend but Mako is a bit more warry, still with no other choices Korra is soon accepted as the third member of the Fire Ferrets. Korra soon finds the two are brothers, and as children of inter-tribal parents, Mako was a firebender while Bolin was an earthbender. In addition to her time playing Pro-bending as a sport, Korra finds it hones her powers. Upon going in to check on her, Tenzin sees her integrating his lessons into her movements in the Pro-bending matches and both concluded she will benefit more from playing the game than she will with the more formal lessons Tenzin would teach her.
Inter-relationships[]
At first, Bolin has affections for Korra and tries dating her. Korra gives the relationship a try, but quickly finds she is attracted to Mako. Bolin, though heartbroken at first, eventually overcomes his heartache. Meanwhile, Mako meets a girl named Asami Sato, a non-bender member descended from the fire-tribe. Mako and Asami begin dating at the same time Korra is gathering up the courage to tell Mako how she feels, and Mako is caught between Asami who he has a real connection with, and Korra, who he had been attracted to, but did not act on due to thinking she had no interest in him. Mako ends up shifting back and forth trying to figure his feelings out. Despite a great deal of drama in figuring out the romantic side of things, the four become regular friends. Though Asami feels like she is a fifth wheel at first and somewhat resenting Korra when she finds out about the attraction between Mako and her, she and Korra eventually become engaged in a romantic relationship together.
Threats[]
Korra ends up fighting a strong array of benders, starting with Amon, head of the Equalists. A group of domestic terrorists who are upset at how differently benders and non-benders are treated. Amon organized the Equalists as his own army of outraged citizens. Amon's end goal was to take-over the city as a unified criminal gang leader. Amon has the power to take away a person's bending abilities. He claimed to be an agent of change to bring balance to the masses. With the entire city robbed of benders, everyone would be equal and as it happens many positions such as police officers would have no qualified members, leaving Amon as the sole bender in the city.
In her pursuit of Amon, Korra would meet with a member of the city council, Tarrlok. Councilman Tarrlok was set on putting a stop to the Equalists once and for all. However over her time on Tarrlok's response force, Korra finds Tarrlok is willing to resort to extremes to stop the Equalists, including locking up entire neighborhoods or locking up anyone suspected of being an Equalist with no proof. When confronting Tarrlok about his overreach Korra discovers Tarrlok is not merely a waterbender but a bloodbender. Bloodbending is a rare type of waterbending only encountered once before by Aang and Katara, however it appears Tarrlok had picked up the technique. Bloodbending allows the user to manipulate the very water in the blood to move others around like puppets despite their frantic struggling to resist. Korra must deal with Tarrlok as both an over-reactive official and a powerful bloodbender.
Amon and Tarrlok both meet their end, but with the trouble in Republic City over them, the head of the water tribe, Unalaq comes to visit the City and make his intentions clear to clean up the remnants of the corruption. Additionally, Unalaq offers to help Korra as a mentor. Korra finds Unalaq as a teacher very in tune with her own learning methods, but soon discovers a darker side. Unalaq is interested in becoming an Avatar himself, and has reached out to the primordial spirit Vaatu. Vaatu is a cruel spirit, and Unalaq is all too happy to indulge his requests to become a second, dark Avatar.
Vaatu is the evil opposite of the spirit Raava, which Korra later finds is the spirit that inhabits her body and makes up the ki of her and all her previous incarnations. Raava let's Korra know that Vaatu cares not for controlling the elements but unleashing them. Vaatu is corrupting the spirit world as well, making the usually passive spirits hateful and confrontational. Under Vaatu's influence, normally friendly spirits become overwhelmed with evil and he seeks to use Unalaq as a human Avatar just as Raava has had her Avatars up to that point. Though Vaatu is eventually defeated, Unalaq's plan to open a solid portal to the spirit world is not only achieved, but following his defeat, Korra decides to leave the portal open. With no Vaatu to corrupt the spirits, Korra sees allowing the spirit world to overlap with the living world as just another way to balance the worlds.
Opening the spirit world has an unintended consequence and many non-benders are incarnated as freshly awakened benders. This allows a rebirth of airbenders, but also gifts an imprisoned radical named Zaheer with airbending. Zaheer overcomes his newly under-qualified restraints and frees his previous allies from their prisons. The band is The Red Lotus, a break-off group from the White Lotus, who found Korra in the first place. The Red Lotus is made up of members of, now with Zaheer, each of the four tribes, and each not only a master, but specialist in variants of normal bending. Unlike previous antagonists, Zaheer's goal is anarchy. The Red Lotus see a great zen in inflicting chaos on a world so repellent of the concept and themselves as balancers of the world by unraveling it.
Though Zaheer is eventually imprisoned, this time in restraints qualified to hold him, and the rest of the Red Lotus end up dying, their path of destruction needs to not only be attended to, but prevented from ever happening again. Kuvira, head of the Earth Kingdom's army acts as an anti-terrorism unit. After Zaheer, Kuvira gets leeway to operate in other territories as well. Bolin ends up joining Kuvira to help make the world a safer place, all the while Mako has been reassigned as a bodyguard to the new Earth Prince. However, the inexperience of the prince, combined with Kuvira's increasing distrust of the world governments to hold back major threats, leads Kuvira to eventually overthrow the Earth Kingdom. Korra has gone into hiding since Zaheer's defeat, unable to bend well with bits of jagged metal caught in her arms that prevent her from concentrating enough to bend. Korra eventually recovers thanks to the help of Toph and goes to confront an increasingly power-mad Kuvira.
Personality[]
Korra is an enthusiastic extrovert even as a child. She does not shy away from her powers and takes great pleasure in being a bender. As an Avatar, she slowly comes into the role; she initially thinks of being the Avatar as being a super-hero, and so sees helping people as her quest in life. Over time, Korra begins to take in how much responsibility she has to the world at large and the importance of keeping it balanced. Each of her opponents teaches her something about herself; Amon teaches her to empathize with non-benders more, Tarrlok teaches Korra to remain self-aware of how her actions to stop evil affect innocents, Unalaq teaches Korra the real weight of what goes into being the avatar, Vaatu enlightens Korra towards the origins of her powers and allows her to commune with Raava, Zaheer makes Korra realize the world will never follow any order supposedly inflicted on it, and Kuvira teaches Korra the value of compromise, but also the line between compromise and submission.
Being initially unable to connect with her spiritual side proved to be a stumbling block in Korra's training, and she admitted that her personality is the opposite of the typical airbender's; as Tenzin noted, Avatars tend to struggle with the bending art most opposite their personality. Due to the lack of a spiritual center in her life, Korra is impulsive and therefore has a hard time hiding her true feelings. She sometimes tends to let her judgment be run by her emotions, a flaw that has gotten her into trouble numerous times, like when she eventually made the rash decision to call Amon out in a one-on-one duel. This indicates that she is ruled by her emotions even when she tries to pretend they do not exist, leaving her vulnerable to Amon as shown by the results of the said encounter. Korra's temper and rage, once provoked, could border on murderous. This was demonstrated during her captivity by the Red Lotus when upon still believing that Zaheer had killed her father, she fully intended to kill him, showing her righteous fury, but with a dark and wrathful side to her as well.
Korra's sense of self-worth is deeply tied to her status as the Avatar, something that is frequently challenged by her enemies such as Amon and Kuvira arguing that the modernized world no longer needs an Avatar, while Unalaq and Zaheer outright attempted to destroy the Avatar spirit permanently. Korra's confidence and assertive attitude is broken when she begins to question her own position as the Avatar, her connection with her previous lives is permanently severed, and her enemies continue to try to discredit the concept of an Avatar even being needed anymore.
Korra fell into a deep depression after suffering a near-death experience when she was poisoned by Zaheer that left her paralyzed in a wheel chair, and additionally developed PTSD over the incident. For 2 years, Korra felt immense guilt over her inability to help the world when it was in a crisis due to her physical incapacitation and mental health issues. This mental block also hindered Korra's ability connect with her spiritual side. After going on a long journey of self-discovery, self healing, and receiving help from multiple people, including Zaheer, Korra slowly learns to find herself and becomes a more mature and sympathetic individual. This is best demonstrated when she chooses to battle Kuvira not for the sake of defeating a villain like she used to do, but to emotionally reach out to Kuvira and help her realize her own flaws.
Korra ultimately proved to be a very resilient person, as she continuously manages to prove that the Avatar is still necessary, and she even goes on to redefine what being the Avatar means. She is fierce, independent and pugnacious, but beneath her tough exterior, she possesses a strong loyalty toward her friends and duty as the Avatar. She has a good sense of humor, vulnerable teenage charm, admirable compassion and devotion, demonstrated when she expresses love toward things such as her family and friends.
Powers and Abilities[]
Powers[]
Avatar Physiology: Korra as the reincarnation of the entity known as the Avatar she has a unique ability to bend all four elements and she has the potential to become the most powerful bender in the world and since she was a child, Korra has always had a remarkable affinity for the physical aspect of bending. She also quickly took to the three different styles of pro-bending with simple instructions from her teammates Bolin and Mako, greatly impressing them after only a week of training to ultimately become a highly capable member of the Fire Ferrets. While in the Avatar State, Korra is able to use an air spout to raise herself into the air while unleashing all four elements in rapid succession. Later after more training, Korra becomes able to easily enter this form with complete control, even during intense competition.
- Waterbending/Hydrokinesis: Korra's waterbending abilities manifested at a young age before she had even been recognized as the Avatar by the Order of the White Lotus. Subsequently trained formally in the art for over a decade by Katara, Korra has demonstrated a high level of skill in this art in addition to its various techniques. She is capable of creating large walls of ice, powerful water whips, and water waves strong enough to push back and, when frozen, contain an enormous mecha suit standing over twenty-five stories tall. 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. She used her waterbending abilities to procure herself a spot on the Fire Ferrets pro-bending team, referring to herself as a "top-notch waterbender". While she was taught Northern and Southern-style waterbending, which both employ fluid motions, Korra has quickly adapted to Republic City's more aggressive, straightforward waterbending style. Korra is also able to draw a sufficient supply of water from the air for her bending. Korra also has sufficient knowledge of bloodbending to understand the nature of its application, despite having never used the outlawed skill, questioning Tarrlok on his use of the ability outside of a full moon.
- Healing: During her waterbending training, Korra was also taught the advanced skill of healing by Katara herself known the best healer in the world and thanks to Katara's training Korra herself became highly skilled in the art, something she takes pride in. By using a small supply of water as a catalyst on the targeted area, Korra is able to drastically increase the healing rate of injuries. Korra's skills were great enough to quickly soothe away the pain on Bolin's injured arm and mitigate the severe burns on General Iroh's arm, leaving no trace of scars.
- Spiritbending: Despite her short time studying under her uncle Unalaq, a spiritual expert, Korra managed to learn his technique of spiritbending, which involves changing negative energy into positive energy in spirits in order to pacify them. While she only managed to understand the mechanics in the beginning, Korra eventually successfully performed the technique and was able to calm countless small spirits at once. She was even able to use the technique to destroy Unalaq and purify the dark spirit Vaatu when the two were fused together as the Dark Avatar. Following her uncle's death, Korra became the only known living practitioner of the skill.
- Earthbending/Geokinesis: Korra's earthbending abilities also manifested at an early age as is shown in her meeting with the Order of the White Lotus. Spending many years of intense training with the White Lotus Order, Korra has gained great mastery in this art. While regularly using traditional earthbending tactics in combat, she quickly learned the basics of pro-style earthbending from Bolin, able to attack 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. She has demonstrated her adept skill and ability in earthbending on several occasions, notably launching a member of the Triple Threat Triad several stories into the air. Korra's earthbending is also able to affect a considerable radius, upturning and demolishing everything in the area. As seen when pairing with Bolin, Korra is able to effectively synchronize her earthbending with another person to increase the versatility and control of her target.
- Metalbending/Metallokinesis: During Korra's stay at Zaofu when she and her friends were looking for new Airbender named Opal, Suyin Beifong Opal's mother offered to train her in the art of metalbending. Suyin started Korra on a meteorite as a beginner, and she quickly adjusted to the metallic body and learned to mold it into various forms. As such, she became the first Avatar to learn metalbending. Korra quickly became more versed in metalbending, being able to skillfully wield metal cables with great dexterity and fluidity in her movements and ensnare her opponents, even more, experienced metalbenders, with said cables. She can also tear through a large, thick metal wall obstructing her path, albeit with some difficulty as she is still somewhat new to this skill. Korra's control eventually became of such a level that she was able to remove residual traces of mercury out of her own body, easily pry open the roof of vehicles, and fluidly reshape metal.
- Firebending/Pyrokinesis: Just as the earthbending and waterbending, firebending also manifested at a young age. Due to the fact that she resorts to offensive maneuvers when under pressure, Korra relies a lot on firebending in combat. Her firebending training, under the tutelage of Master Yim, was finished when she passed the test impressively at the age of seventeen, having learned various advanced techniques such as the breath of fire. Against other firebenders, she can easily deflect and disperse the enemies' attack. Her control is so fine that she is able to produce a small yet intense flame at her fingers that she can maintain to melt through metal chains. She can likewise produce daggers in each hand for close-range combat. She can propel herself through the air with firebending in short bursts and use these bursts to run along a wall. Contrary to the usual difficulty an Avatar has with learning the opposite of his/her native element, firebending has become second nature to her. Korra tends to utilize firebending when provoked, frustrated or attempting to assert dominance, such as when she falls back on firebending a newspaper cut out of Lin after failing to do so with airbending. Tenzin attributed this unusual combination to her innate personality being quite fit for the art thanks to her natural assertiveness and fiery spirit.
- Airbending/Aerokinesis: Unlike the prior three elements, airbending did not come easily to Korra. Tenzin explained that it was due to its innate nature of being the most opposite to her personality. While initially having difficulty with airbending's fighting style and battle tactics, during her first pro-bending match, she was able to employ basic airbending movements to dodge the opposing team's assault and ultimately tire them out to win the match for her team. As her training has progressed, her understanding of its techniques greatly improved, and she was able to quickly and gracefully progress through the gates and ultimately learned all of its physical maneuvers; she later applied these tactics against the Lieutenant, effectively dodging all his attacks. After Amon severed Korra's connection to her first three elements and was about to take Mako's firebending, Korra's emotional build-up allowed her to fully connect with her spiritual side to utilize airbending. Despite only knowing the theory and practice of its forms, Korra has shown considerable skill and power in airbending: being able to create air blasts from punching and kicking movements, which were strong enough to send Amon flying several yards through a window. Although she has shown great power in her offensive use of airbending, her style of airbending varies dramatically from other airbenders, employing straightforward offensive movements similar to firebending while showing little of the more characteristic circular and spiraling movements. Six months after the Anti-bending Revolution, she has nearly mastered the art, employing traditional maneuvers, such as gliding, and is able to proficiently use several advanced skills, such as the air scooter. Over time, she took to using a glider both for means of transports and as a way to augment her airbending in combat. After learning from Jinora, Korra became able to separate her spirit in astral form and travel to the Spirit World through meditation. Korra further refined her airbending in the following years, showing the ability to create an air bubble around a person's head to provide them with oxygen and keep poisonous gases at bay. Ultimately, air has become Korra's second most used element, and she is confident enough in her prowess to at least teach the basics to other airbenders.
- Energybending/Ergokinesis:
- Medium:
Abilities[]
- Peak Human Condition:
- Master Hand-To-Hand Combatant:
- Craftswoman:
Trivia[]
- Her name follows a longstanding tradition in the polar Water Tribes, where often people include one or two "K"s and/or have an "AH" sound in their name (Arnook, Eska, Desna, Hakoda, Kanna, Katara, Kuruk, Noatak, Pakku, Sokka, Tarrlok, Varrick, Yakone, Yugoda, etc.).
External Links[]
- Korra on the Avatar Wiki
- Korra on the Near Pure Good Wiki
- Korra on the Shonen Heroes Wiki
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 Heroes
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Playable Characters Non Playable ’’Others’’ | ||
