The Atlantic has a great piece on Korra!
The Legend of Korra: A TV Show For Kids With Serious Appeal for Adults
Great fantasy is more than escapism—it’s believable, and ideally holds a mirror up to our world in some way. And if you’re not watching Nickelodeon, you’re missing some of the highest quality fantasy of our time, from a kids’ cartoon called The Legend of Korra.
Korra is the Avatar, a distinction first described in Avatar: The Last Airbender, Korra’s also-excellent parent show that takes place in the same universe. Though many people in her world are “benders,” meaning they can control earth, fire, water or air through martial arts-style moves, only the Avatar can master all four. This simple conceit has led to one of the best and most believable integrations of magic into a fully realized, flawed world that resembles our own.
When I say integration of magic—think of Harry Potter. Potter’s wizarding world is deliberately separate from the Muggle world. What jobs are there, really, for a wizard, other than being a professional Quidditch player or an Auror or working for the Ministry of Magic? In the Avatar universe, people use their bending as healers, police officers, performers, soldiers and more, working in the same communities as non-benders. Harry Potter is a magical world parallel to, but separate from our own; Korra is what happens when the magical and non-magical collide.
While Avatar was more traditional, a classic hero’s journey in an ancient world where kings and swords ruled, Korra uses magic as a focal point to show the growing pains of a modernizing world seeing the rise of technology and capitalism, and taking halting, jerky steps toward self-governance.
Read more. [Image: Nickelodeon]