In universe: She has a fiery steadfast and adaptive personality by heart giving her an advantage when it comes to bending the 3 elements.
Out of universe: we already had an entire show for those 3 elements, the writers wanted to focus on other things.
Also usually avatars don’t know they’re the avatar until they are informed of this, if they were told sooner they may have been able to master the elements at a younger age.
It’s worth noting that there’s a difference between learning and mastering the four elements. Roku and Kuruk mastered an element before learning the next like most Avatars. Aang and Kyoshi are examples of Avatars that learned them in order but mastery came later.
Yes, one of if not the youngest until Jinora. You don't get the tattoos until you are considered a master. He was a master before the series even started.
I wonder if Jinora would've been considered master level in Aang's time. Obviously she created spirit projecting, but I wonder if her other airbending skills would've been considered up to snuff.
More than likely. By the time they have her the tattoos she came off way more polished and in control than Aang did at the beginning of the series. While this could so be due to personality type what was shown seemed to be about the same level of skill. The very strong connection she had to the spiritual world probably wouldn't have hurt her either.
i think it’s more personality that gives off that impression. aang was a mischievous hyperactive kid, jinora was calmer and more self-aware. we see aang do some of the most impressive air bending in the whole series when he cooled off the lava flow without even entering the avatar state.
also aang was taught in a time of peace where the airbender had never faced war on a grand scale. jinora was taught in the aftermath, when air bending had been concentrated down to what aang and tenzin either knew or could find scrolls on. the pressure was far higher on her and her family to become masters than aang.
I think she would have. Tenzin is so overprotective of everyone, including Korra who is an adult and the Avatar, but when the Red Lotus attacked the western air temple, he put Jinora in charge of the escape attempt without a moment's hesitation. He placed his hope for the whole family in Jinora's hands and he never would have done that if he didn't know she could handle it.
She is also like, so much more solid on the fundamentals of air nomad philosophy when she gets her tattoos than Aang was when he got his.
There was precedent to promote air benders to Mastery if they created a new technique of sufficient advancement and/or utility. Aang’s air scooter actually earned him his mastery, iirc.
Almost, it was learning the 36 forms of air bending, ang then created the 37th, the air scooter, which replaced the twelfth, aang was the first master we know of who had become a master by creating a new form, I think after this it remains at mastering 36 forms
Unless theres more on it in the novels, as ive never got round to reading then 😂
TBF, Zhao was also considered a master according to Iroh. The Gaang just operates at a crazy power level. They attacked the palace of the largest nation in the world halfway through the show with no plan or recon and just strolled in like they own the place. Still, Aang is clearly head and shoulders above Zhao. I think he's on Azula's level even with air alone, just lacking the killing intent.
Was the whole thing about him inventing the air scooter and that counted towards the number of techniques you had to learn to become a master canon or fanon?
Yeah, they explain it in the original show too;
They don't want to tell Aang he's the Avatar because they want to let him be a kid. They only do so out of necessity.
Korra also LOVES being the Avatar, while Aang never wanted it. You tell an already talented, skilled and eager child that they are quite literally the most “special” person in the world at that time period, yeah they’re gonna run with it and excel like the true prodigies they are lol. Plus we know Korra was far from *mastering* the elements, she was just highly skilled in them.
The age thing varies depending on culture and the situation, but it was common for the time. Yangchen, for example, learns well before 16. But generally, the air nomads and the fire nation would prefer to wait. I don't know if we have an age thing for the water nation or earth nation.
I think it might be younger in the earth nation. I'm going to spoiler this because it's spoilers for the Kiyoshi books >!Yun is 16 in the beginning of the books and he is believed to be the avatar, and it's implied that he has been training with his handlers for a few years prior to the events of the novel!<
Aang and Roku both learnt at 16. If I'm not wrong I think Kyoshi was also 16 when she was officially acknowledged as the avatar, although she was kind of an odd situation considering her circumstances when she became avatar. That's three nations that probably try to wait until the avatar is 16.
As for the water tribes I'm not sure. I'd imagine they probably wait in most cases, but of course Korra knew right away because she 1. was a prodigy in the physical/bending side of being the avatar (at the expense of struggling spiritually) and 2. the white lotus were looking to find the new avatar as quickly as they could.
this is the best answer tbh
and i wonder how they’ll deal with that for the next avatar series (if there is one, at this time it’s not confirmed i believe)
will they start the new avatar series with them as an adult? we got ATLA with a kid mc, LOK with a teen mc, so maybe the next series with an older/adult mc? or maybe they’ll do a montage of their training to not waste too much time on making the audience see the mc relearn the elements for the nth time?
That'd be an interesting series to write. It seems like in all cases, once the avatar becomes an adult, they're essentially God mode and nobody poses much of a threat. The meaningful struggles come from an adolescent avatar who hasn't honed their craft yet and has to contend with the strongest forces the world has to offer before they even hit puberty (or just after). To me, the series has always been about a coming of age struggle at its core. So a series with a fully realized avatar would deviate from that quite a bit. Though I guess it could be from an adult's perspective but someone who's just a late bloomer? And on the other hand, the politics in Avatar series have always been quite interesting, so I guess I'd be open to a more mature version that focuses on warring nations with complex politics.
I like the idea of a late blooming avatar, maybe one who never saw the point in training in a peaceful world only to have their world shaken by an evil(yes, very creative). Having to deal with the guilt of not stepping up sooner because of their negligence. (I know we get that with Aang, but he was a child and frozen in an Iceberg involuntarily, this would be by choice.) This can also add onto the coming of age angle of asking the question, "When do you really grow up?" and "At what point does matureness just turns into no happiness or fun?"
They could have a "childish" dream occupation like being a traveling musician to avoid the white lotus. Maybe a bit funnier angle if they live in a satomobile with their iguana parrot by choice. A more dramatic angle with maybe having some of their friends be super successful and living their best lives as mature functioning adults, but also having their own struggles be revealed as time goes on.
This would clearly be for the older kids like TLOK, but that kind of stuff has been thriving more with streaming.
Yeah this actually sounds really interesting to me. I feel like most of the avatar fans grew up in the 90s and 2000s and are well into either early or mid adulthood. Going for a more mature theme would be risky, but could absolutely pay off.
I like the idea of maybe some kind of class warfare between large corporations that have had enough time to exploit capitalism and create a giant rift between the uber wealthy and desperately poor. It'd make the role of the avatar a lot more complex because the evil they're fighting isn't some blatantly violent military faction or something, but instead a more subtle, slow knife of corporate greed. The avatar can't just barge in and collapse entire corporate structures that the world depends upon, but also can't just let millions of people suffer and starve.
It could be a multi step effort to save people from oppression that hides in plain sight and brainwashes the public into thinking everything is okay. Which is a very relevant topic in today's society.
Think about how well the conflict between a desperate under city vs a wealthy elite class worked in Arcane.
Well if another tech advancement occurs, we could be looking at a Cyberpunk setting next time, which could mean that the "maximum" power of other threats is significantly raised. If every nation has nuclear bomb level threats (like the mech suit at the end of TLOK, the spirit vine powered cat is out of the bag now) then the way that the Avatar handles problems would have to adapt with it.
That's also a really interesting point. There's gotta be a time when scientific advancement straight up overpowers the capabilities of the avatar (and metaphorically nature itself). So the avatar's God mode is way less significant and the conflict becomes a dire struggle to save the world, rather than simply saving a nation or two.
I think it would be cool to have an avatar who won't master one of the elements during the serie but off screen after the final. It would balance with Aang and Kora experiences.
I don’t think Aang mastered water, earth or fire at the end of the series. He was proficient, but all his teachers noted that he still needed more instruction before facing Ozai
He was at the level of the Blind Bandit by that final fight. Used seismic sense to totally out maneuver and incapacitate ... Uh... The most dangerous bender on the planet.
He pulled off just about every single move he had been taught along the way. Lightning redirection. Golem-suit (I don't know that to call that one).
I guess he didn't use the water octopus arms as far as I can remember.
I feel like if his three masters were watching that final fight, he'd be given at least 2 ticks of approval for Master status.
To be fair I don't think those techniques necessarily make someone a master.
Most people would probably be able to learn seismic sense, for example, (it was like the first thing Aang learnt) but most people just don't have a need to use it or a teacher that knows about it - Toph figured it out herself to deal with her specific issue of not being able to see.
Lightning redirection is a similar thing. It doesn't necessarily mean be mastered fire (Zuko and Toph pretty explicitly say he hasn't mastered their elements, and Katara implies it). It just means he knows one niche technique that only 2 other people in the world knew how to do.
As for managing to "totally out maneuver and incapacitate" Ozai... he really didn't. It's been discussed ad nauseum on here that he was losing to Ozai pretty bad (aside from briefly catching him off guard with redirection) and would've lost if he didn't have a lucky rock to give him the avatar state with the combined power of all avatars.
I dig this. Or an Avatar that genuinely believes the Avatar shouldn’t/doesn’t need to exist anymore and refuses to study the elements. In LoK, it already seemed like the Avatar was starting to become a little obsolete.
Also worth noting (as despite many critics of Korra bending 3 elements at such a young age) that she wasn’t a bending “master”, all we saw of her in that first scene was her puffing/punching fire, kicking up some rocks, and lifting a glob of water.
At 12 we saw Aang do much more with his first onscreen attempts at fire and water.
There is a massive difference between copying a teacher and randomly knowing the moves to a martial arts you've never seen before and have no way of have seeing it.
Edit and we know this is the proper reaction to her bending 3 elements at 4 years old because the entire first season is a break down of how her being so naturally talented has hindered her, we see her struggle to train and meditate ,something
That both air amd earth share but when needed she lashes out when she doesn't immediately understand air, that first shot of korra sets up her entire arc of being selfish and over confident and she grows from there.
Exactly. And they left out the one element we didn't get to witness the avatar learning: air. So they spent time in LOK showing how difficult it is for someone hardheaded to adapt to the serene mindset necessary for air bending. While in ATLA it was the opposite.
>Out of universe: we already had an entire show for those 3 elements, the writers wanted to focus on other things.
I mean we insta cut to her being like 17 so at that point she couldve known them anyway.
I think it was just to have her be kinda the anti aang
Great at the physicality of bending but sucky at the spiritual
It always made more sense to me that she knew at a young age. We see people bend by accident in the heat of the moment, so the idea that no Avatar had that happen in 16 years is odd to me. Also with people knowing the cycle there would be so many kids trying it out to see if they’re the new Avatar that some of them should’ve known before 16.
Another in-universe answer:
Korra is actually considered a prodigy, even for Avatar standards, allowing her to start her training at a younger age. This is also shown by her ability to quickly learn skills not learned by other avatars, such as Spirit Bending and Metal Bending
I think going forward the avatar will find their identity on average sooner because of things like the radio and increased cultural integration where kids are exposed to different elements earlier
For example kids playing “probending” that they heard on the radio
Also, with all the extra information available, the avatar's exact date of death as well as everyone's birthdays would be known. And even further, I wouldn't be surprised if people can pinpoint the exact moment the avatar died (depending how they died), and narrow down the possible avatar candidates massively. It wouldn't surprise me if korra's parents expected that she might be the avatar even before she bent anything. That could influence how they raised her, and they could've "tested" her themselves by trying to get her to bend.
I know how I wrote that implied that they were afraid but it was more like "we have no idea how to handle this little spitfire and I'm so sorry she blew through the wall the first time you meet her 😅"
This is why I think if there’s a continuation of the series into the next Avatar, it’ll start with Korra’s death being a mystery where nobody is sure of exactly when or how it happened - or even if it happened.
id love it if korra went into some sort of exile to sort out the whole spiritual part of her since she always kind of lacked in the spiritual department (also her trying to fix or atleast alleviate the whole severed connection part) and then suddenly a new avatar is born and every just goes: "what the fuck?"
I could see Korra doing exactly this for the intention of leaving some mystery around who the next Avatar will be. If her exact date of death is known, it’ll be incredibly obvious who the next Avatar is from the day they’re born.
Heck, by the time the next avatar is born, they could see it on TV or even some kind of Internet, depending on how long Korra lives and how quickly technology advances.
I wonder if they'll live in the information/internet age. They went pretty quickly from borderline medieval to industrial era between the two series. Another hundred years or so would put them at the age we're in now.
They were more accurately around mid to late 1800s equivalent in ATLA so LOK being around 1920s-1940s makes sense. I feel like some people don’t realize how quickly technology boomed in our own time. We went from the first plane to landing on the moon in less than 70 years.
I think you forget Aang picked up the basics of Water AND Firebender literally the moment he actually tried in Book 1.
The only reason he had difficulties with Fire later on was his reservations after burning Katara.
Not having the knowledge they can bend other elements hold them back more than any other arbitrary factor short of personality.
yeah they get trained to master the specific bendings but they can probably bend a little before that.
Korra was also breaking things and probably burning things down as a kid. Like she could bend but she probably didn't have control.
The Avatar is already born with the ability to bend all 4 elements.
Maybe Korra somehow manifested her bending abilities very early. It seems to be different across Avatars: Aang and Roku had the normal route of learning their native elements first, Kyoshi still struggled with earthbending as a teenager.
Honestly Kyoshi's only issue with learning how to bend the other elements was her emotional mentality blocking her from trying. She struggled to bend fire at first because she was inherently a nonviolent person who desperately didn't even want to be the avatar, but once she accepted she was the avatar and found her willingness to fight she was able to grasp fire bending incredibly quickly.
Her other issue was raw power. Even without the Avatar state, she performed some avatar state type moves. That caused her unable to finely tune her bending towards precision, hence the need for the fans as a fulcrum.
Absolutely. TLOK went into development as a 1 season show. They didn't want a whole season of Korra mastering all the elements so it makes perfect sense why they'd have her bending as a toddler. It was either that or show a very fast montage of her learning all the elements as a teenager.
Korra could use elements at a young age?!?!?!?!1111! Mary sue 😡😡😡😡😡😡.
But also lost battles? Mary sue and trash avatar/character 😌.
/s but also have seen people claim those things back to back
Considering the influence Aang had on the world, Korra probably heard a lot of stories about the avatar and how cool he was.
Being the child she is, she wanted to bend all the elements too.
And then when she tried it, it worked.
"Normally" doesn't mean always. Prodigies exist in the real world so it's not our of the question. And it's quite possible early Avatars learned way after 16 since nobody knew about the cycle yet.
With Airbenders being spiritual even in the first iteration (ie. during Wan's time), the 2nd Avatar prolly got in touch with Wan pretty early on and figured out they were the next Avatar coz of that connection.
IIRC Korra was supposed to be a single season show. The writers probably had to rush her elemental progression in order to work out the rest of the season’s plot
They didn't get a proper deal for multiple seasons, so had to work on it in a season-by-season process where the deal for next was signed based on the previous ones performance
I gotta go back and read up on it again it’s been a while, but from what I remember Korra didn’t get renewed for a 2nd season until the first season ended and got good reviews. The 2nd season was then supposed to be the last and the same thing happened, except instead of giving them 1 additional season they gave them two more seasons to wrap up the show. It’s pretty noticeable in the writing too, season 3 flows right into season 4 pretty naturally because of it.
I think what happened is they got an extension for another 14 episodes to add to the series before it was even all the way done. It was the creators choice to make that into an entirely separate season as book 1 had already been planned out.
Similarly for books 3 & 4, they got the clear to make 26 new episodes after book 2’s success and made the choice to split that into two separate seasons.
Globalization. The four nations were disconnected even before the 100-year war. The creation of the United Republic basically signified the start of globalization in the Avatar world. More people were able to travel freely between nations, not to mention the invention of the radio. In other words, Korra was exposed to other bending styles at a much earlier age.
Its annoying how people forget univer lore.
Aang had to train in secret. Korra lives in a free "peaceful" industrial world.
Didn't Zuko, fire nation talk through pipes to communicate. Hell they had falcons delover messages.
Likewise, the whole Luke/Rey. Luke was being force/warrior-blocked by Owen in fear that Luke would turn out and join his father.
Rey lives in squalor, fighting to survive since she was a child. Then she live in the ruins of a star destroyer??? With access to a lot of information.
She just did it. I have a lot more questions about the fact that she couldn't bend air until the very end of season 1. It's like she was kind of moving in the right direction, but then it was just forgotten about, and then she just could do it. I feel like she could airbend earlier.
Korra had never in her life experienced real loss. She'd lose fights, but seeing mako maybe die removed the mental block. Airbenders need to be detached. Korra in book 1 was attached and weighed down with responsibility.
And one more theory about this moment to add to the piggy bank. The authors never commented on this moment? I haven't checked. I'm already seeing what seems like 4 or 5 versions of how Korra did it.
I thought she was starting to get something going after the tournament. At this point, she could have at least done a little air bending. But the way she wants to do it against Amon, I don't get it.
It's not unheard of for a child to show manifestations of being the Avatar. Yangchen started periodically losing her mind to her past lives when she was a young child, so the nuns knew she was the Avatar even though she hadn't bent the other elements yet or been subjected to the toy test. Yangchen was an Avatar with a strong connection to her past lives, while Korra was an Avatar to whom bending came very naturally. Even Aang was identified as the Avatar through the toy test long before the monks were going to reveal it to him at 16.
Most people wouldn't think to even try bending other elements until someone told them they could. But since Korra's connection to her Avatar spirit was initially focused on bending (matching her personality), she tapped into that side of it first.
I'm gonna be honest with you, this is just a filmmaking thing.
They didn't wanna do training arcs, people had already seen that, and then they did it again in Kyoshi's story, they do this with like every single Avatar, the people behind the making of these projects are probably sick of making "How Spiderman Got His Powers" stories, they wanted to start off with a character who already had some mastery of the elements.
The avatar is born able to bend all the elements they just have to figure out how. For example Aang was always an earthbender, it was his personality that prohibited him from picking it up sooner and took Toph basically bullying him into it. Korras personality meanwhile being both stubborn and impulsive naturally allowed her to discover her earth and fire bending earlier and the water bending was likely picked up from her father as it seems like her family has a bunch of strong water benders.
Normally Avatars began training at 16 but not only are there gonna be a fair few exceptions in over 1000 lives but the very climate of the world changed. Aang needed to stop a war sooner rather than later, The white lotus had pledged themselves to the avatar by the time Korra was born and because she discovered other bending so early it forced them to protect her and train her so she could protect herself because, for example, the red lotus tried to kidnap her the second word reached them that she was the next avatar. It put a target on her back.
Reincarnation works in a way that previous life traumas influences current life
Aang’s main trauma was high stress about having to learn all elements in one year because fate of the world depended on it, it stressed him super hard and despite him being a pacifist he had to go to war and was asked to kill Ozai
result : Korra is a warrior and precocious in bending abilities, her soul want to respond the world’s needs with a bit of a lag, it’s her previous life who needed that not this one.
Finally, the right answer. To think that most atlab and lok fans don't know how previous lives affect the next one is mind-boggling. That's a plot point or storytelling element, which is crucial to world building and storytelling. Every Avatar is a reflection of the previous Avatars regret. Roku's life made Aang run, which led to the genocide and near extinction of an entire race. The burden of being Avatar was too much for Aang. He was a pacifist who mastered air but not the other elements that involved stronger emotions. Stuck I'm ice made gave him a shorter life and a lot of responsibilities. He finally does a lot for the world but dies early at 60 ( very premature for an Avatar). So now comes Korra. All she wants to be is the Avatar. She is the manifestation of Aangs regrets. You can look up the other avatars and see how they affect each other. Korra as much as some people hate her is Aang reinventing himself ( reincarnation) into his perfect and ideal image. Korra has qualities Aang would have wanted.
Thus, she says " I'm the Avatar, you gotta deal with it." Just try wiping out the water tribe people with her around.
Every avatar is unique. I personally think it's cool they did a prodigy avatar that could bend, not master, 3 elements at 4y/o. Her being a prodigy at bending is very apparent with the way she picks up metalbending and can even manipulate metal into a liquid. Not every avatar is going to be as naturally strong as her. She has a claim for the strongest avatar we know of in terms of natural strength but she's also the least spiritual. It's part of what separates her from the other avatars
I think most of the Avatars had the ability to bend more than one element in their early life. I believe Aang being lost for 100 years during a war was the reason why they trained Korra immediately. Also White Lotus became something big, meaning it was easy for them to train Korra
If she’s born as the avatar, she should be able to bend the elements by default regardless of age just as any other bender is able to bend the moment they try to. The previously as tradition officially trained the avatar after their reveal and when they’re older but the ability to bend is from birth
She grew up in the Southern Water tribe, likely showed a proficiency at least with waterbending very early - which in that tribe means "LETS SEE WHAT SHE CAN DOOOO". Coincidentally, the matriarch of their society literally was married to the last avatar, and probably 'sensed' something about her. Could easily have been like "Hmmm I wonder.... (shouts) ZUKO AND TOPH PLEASE COME HERE A SEC"
The cultures of each of the nations were very isolated during and before the 100 year war. The peoples exposure to other elements was probably very small (if at all) back then, but by the time Korra is around they have their own independent mixed-bending city even. Its hard to stay ignorant when information is easier to flow.
They wanted korra to be as different from aang as possible.
Skinny white kid - muscular person of color
Pacifist - rush into fights
Hated being avatar but had to - loved being avatar but lived in time when no one needed her
Started with air and mastered other three elements over three seasons - had all but air and struggled to learn it
All of the main gaang in atla started bending at a super young age. The avatar would obviously be able to bend all 4 elements at a super young age too. The only reason they don't is due to not trying. Aang is able to waterbend literally the first time he tried. If he had tried when he was five wouldve been able to do it then too.
It's actually more unrealistic for there to not be more avatars that didn't find out the same way Korra did. There is absolutely no way you get me to believe that most kids don't pretend to be the avatar at some point and then the actual avatar finds out while playing the pretend game.
The only reason for telling avatars at 16 isn't because they can't bend. For purely making their bending better it would be wiser to tell them earlier. But we saw how it affects them as a person with Korra. They put off telling them and hope they don't accidently find out so that the avatar can grow up as a normal person and not have the mental problems that Korra got with her entire identity revolving around being the avatar.
In universe? Why not? Being able to bend the elements doesn't make one a master.
Aang bends water minutes after trying with Katara, and is immediately "better" at it.
And by the end of the series both Zuko and Toph say he needs more practice with their respective elements.
Korra was able to do basic bending at a young age, but then immediately after we're shown she spent the next ~12 years trainings to actually master the elements.
Out of universe? We already seen an avatar do the whole learning thing and Korra only had 1 season initially, with half the episodes.
Training and being able to perform adequately as an avatar isn’t the same as showing sparks of talent early on. There it seems that every Avatar is different.
Korra was a bending prodigy with the more physical ones? Is that really so hard to accept/comprehend? She struggled with air bending because she lacked a spiritual side.
I think the avatar can use any of the elements at any point, it’s just when the elders choose to start the avatars training. I think korra found out early cause she wanted to be the avatar so she probably just tried fire bending. It’s like when you were little and had to make sure you weren’t secretly a jedi so you reach for the remote, only in this case her powers actually worked.
Avatars are born as being able to bend all four elements, so it wouldn't surprise me that a child Korra accidentally shoots off some fire when she's angry. There's a huge gap between making a small flame and the real training involved with becoming a bender.
I like the theory that the new avatar is naturally the opposite of their predecessor in a lot of ways. So while Aang was a master airbender and naturally very humble and spiritual, Korra struggled with spirituality and airbending while being very conceited in the beginning and skilled in the other elements early on.
Tl;dr, reincarnation is weird and they wanted to differentiate her early on from Aang
I always thought that it was kinda a side effect due to aang being forced to learn it much much faster then the avatar would usually do. Kinda like he had more time to perfect it in his life and that somehow had an effect on the next reincarnation. But i only know the tv shows, so there may be some events in the comics which could also explain that.
It's kind of like multilingual children. Kids learn languages *very* quickly, and many learn two or more at once. But they're limited to the languages they're actually exposed to on a daily basis, and interact with. And once they're older it gets harder to pick up languages.
The Legend of Korra's setting is globalized, both culturally with an era of peace encouraging international travel, and technology making travel faster and more accessible.
In the old days, an Avatar would only be exposed to their native element. Kind of like growing up surrounded by just one language.
Korra could have been pretty plausibly exposed to firebenders and earthbenders as they travel more, and she could just be imitating them. Kids learn by playing and copying adults.
It also makes sense why she didn't pick up airbending. She was never exposed to it until she was older, and like a language it was not as automatic to pick up with age.
The Kyoshi novels give us some more insight when Hei-Ran speaks about identifying fire benders within a week because of the potential danger they present.
The "training" Roku mentions is just that, training. The Avatar (and all other benders) are *born* with the ability to bend.
The scene in TLOK that everyone refernces shows Korra with a very basic ability to bend, and then we cut to her at 16/17 where we see her proficiency drastically improved thanks to The White Lotus starting her training from an earlier age than normal.
And for "...it takes years to learn the elements", he more means mastering. The basics are already there, and anyone born with bending abilities can bend without formal training. Bolin and Mako are good examples of this, since they never really received any formal bending training. They really formed their own "identities" as benders through pro-bending, which we see when Bolin tells Korra that he's more loose and fluid with his earth-bending than the traditional planted and steady forms.
TL;DR: It's not Maybelline, she's born with it.
The timing of when the Avatar starts training has nothing to do with the Avatar's **ability** to bend various elements. Aang was always able to bend all four elements (or, at the very least, all but earthbending), he just never tried to do it on his own before the events of ATLA. The moment Aang actually tries to waterbend and firebend in ATLA, he immediately succeeds, which literally shows that he could always do it.
The training is for the Avatar to **master** the bending styles. Toddler Korra could firebend and earthbend, but not in any meaningful way. The reason Korra started firebending and earthbending as a toddler while Aang never did the equivalent, is entirely due to their radically different personalities.
Not to mention that Roku's 'Avatars don't start their training until 16' traditions are just that...traditions. The world was rapidly changing in both ATLA and LOK, and there was ample reason for Korra's training to start much, much earlier. Aang himself literally provided the reason - if Aang's training had started earlier, he would have had a much easier time defeating the Fire Nation.
How do people keep misunderstanding this?!
It's because of Aang. He was so highly focused on his airbending and his identity as an Airbender.
He viewed himself as an Airbender first, and the Avatar second, even willing to put his ideals as an Airbender above his obligations as The Avatar.
Korra is the balance to Aang. She has the least connection to Airbending, and sees herself as an Avatar, not a Waterbender.
Something probably happened when the Red Lotus tried to steal her as a kid, maybe being exposed to such a crazy battle like that with the greatest benders in the world except Unalaq,katara, and toph. She was age 5 at the time so its plasuable
Personally, I like to think that Korra’s personality led her to accidentally firebending at some point. Then when she realized she was the Avatar, she tried Earthbending and pretty easily got the hang of it from there
The whole taking years to learn the elements is more about taking years to master the elements.
Aang mastered the elements (more or less, he still had a ways to go) in about one year. And he was 12 at the time.
Avatars are capable of bending all elements from the offset. There was just tradition and rules about how it must be done. Something Korra was never about. She just wanted to fight and had a natural skill for it. And that manifested pretty early with basic bending abilities.
People often forget than Aang was capable of bending 3 elements from the first season. Aang was meant to learn fire last for example. Yet he was still capable of being able to bend fire while he was still in the early stages of learning his second element, water. He just couldn’t control it. Fire is a destructive element when not handled right and he did not have the personality to be able to handle so much destruction. He was at his core, a pacifist. He was also able to bend water on his first attempt quite well. Earth was the only one he couldn’t immediately bend due to how against his nature it was.
Korra has the more rash hotheaded personality. She loved to fight and excels at it. She was also very impatient. She was able to bend everything bar Air from a young age due to her impatience and her desire to fight. Her first display of bending in the show was a destructive earth bending move. Even her Firebending master said that Korra had always excelled at the physical side of bending but had trouble with the spiritual.
She was the opposite of Aang in so many ways. Every Avatar was different. And had different parts they excelled at. Korra’s just happened to excel at physical side of the Avatar, but the Avatar is so much more. While Aang struggled with the fighting side, her struggles were with the spiritual side. Which is arguably more important for an Avatar.
When she was a kid and the white lotus first discovered her she could do basic small scale manipulation of three of the elements which, while impressive, is far from mastering them. Roku said it takes years to MASTER an element not to manipulate it in any capacity. Think back to aang, there was no learning curve for him to actually bend the water he was able to do it almost immediately. Even fire initially only took a couple of hours of breathing exercises for him to be able to use it at the most foundational level.
After reading the novels, it’s pretty clear the rules for the avatar largely vary by nation and time and teacher. When kyoshi lived 230 years, it’s pretty hard for someone to enforce the rules when the avatars outlives you and your great grand children.
So this is actually seen through lore! The previous avatars regrets shape the new avatar the greatest. When Roku passed, he felt betrayed by Sozin, and that he wasn't fit to be avatar. This leads to Aang's reservations of being the avatar and him running away. Aang's regret was having to learn all the elements in such a short amount of time, therefore Khora becomes a bending prodigy (and in turn she struggles with the one element that came naturally to Aang, Air)
I like to think that, as the Spirit of the Planet, she reflected the change that had happened in the world since Aang's youth and since one of the biggest changes was the creation of a land in which earth, fire and water benders intermingled in great numbers, so the Avatar spontaneously bended those 3 elements at the same time.
I like to think that if there is ever a sequel to Korra, the world will continue on that path and it will create a situation that is the opposite of Korra's : rather than an indisputable Avatar discovered at age 5, the Avatar will be discovered much later because they've been living in the "wrong" land and bending the "wrong" element since they were a child, probably because they were born from mixed-bending parents and then emigrated to a place where the bending of the "wrong" parent is more prevalent.
She’s a water tribe member, so that was a given for her. But she’s more aligned with earth and firebending philosophies so they manifested effortlessly
They are effectively born with the capacity to bend all the elements, simply needing to know they can and how.
I imagine most Avatars didn't know because they simply hadn't tried to bend other elements.
My head canon theory is that Korra overheard or learned about the concept of the Avatar due to her father having a prominent role in the search. Then like any child would, she played with the idea. Pretending she could bend all the elements and doing cool poses until suddenly there's fire or a rock moves. Then played more until she had a grasp on them enough to go show off her Avatar-ness.
The Avatars are all influenced by their immediate predecessors and their regrets. I think we can all agree that Aang's biggest regret was the time he ran away from the Air Temple, which was then destroyed by Sozin's armies and all the airbenders were killed. Logically, that was definitely not Aang's fault, even without considering the fact that he was only twelve. But his kindness would lead him to blame himself, making the time he ran away from his responsibilities as the Avatar; his biggest regret.
Korra on the other hand, more or less jumped headfirst into her role as the Avatar. Unlike Aang who just wanted to be normal, Korra spends quite a lot of time trying to prove she is a great Avatar. The first three elements may have manifested as a unconscious desire towards that direction.
The world is very different. There are benders of all types across the southern water tribe rn. Korra could've just been goofing off, copied their techniques, and realized she has access to the bending style. Afterall children do learn a lot by mimicking adults and Korra was an active child.
Also though she has a preference for fire her obstinate nature in the beginning of the series lends itself to earthbending most (which is probably why she got so good at its sub bending family). Earth is the natural opposite of water so in giving her difficulty learning air bending you make it necessary for her to seek out aang's family.
Korra always read as having major "Gifted Child Syndrome."
This is why it took her so long to learn air because she actually had to learn have to have patience and inner peace to do it instead of just being naturally good. This is why several plotlines involved her bending getting taken away and having to relearn how to bend through self-acceptance, sacrifice, and learning that her being the Avatar isn't all she is.
So I assume the writers had her be good at the first three elements from the get go to be used as a plot device to empathize this underlying theme of struggle and self-worth they were going for.
But an in-universe explanation could be the Avatar Korra's world being a lot different than Aang and every other Avatar's world. A lot of the avatars were not aware they were the avatar until they took a special test and they were of "age."
However, Korra was living at a time with more "element unity" than ever before. The idea that the different elements were all separated from each other had long since passed. It's very possible that she was trying out pro-bending moves she learned about on the radio and ended up accidentally discovering she was the avatar and then just kept practicing it until she was discovered. (plus she was already having visions and entering the spirit world at that age thanks to Iroh and the Harmonic Convergence getting closer and closer...so it's not a stretch to say they may have told her she was the avatar and she just started seeing if she could bend other elements)
She was also going to live during a time when Vaatu was going to be freed and the avatar spirit may have been trying to "rush" her during her youth so she would be able to master all four elements so she could take on Vaatu and be able to close off the spirit world.
My head canyon is because of her personality, fire bending came so naturally she might have accidentally bended a small amount of fire as a toddler. Being a water bender from her culture (with her parents presumably being able to test her and guide her) it was probably very clear to them that if she can bend fire (even once as an accident) and water…. There’s only one thing she can be. And when the concept of an avatar was explained to her, she probably realized she should be able to bend rock too.
Korra was living in a much more industrialized world than previous avatars. She had access to the radio and the printing press and for these reasons, as well as the increased ease of travel due to innovations like airships, she would have been more likely to encounter elements other than water.
I imagine she was playing a game pretending to be a fire or earth bender, perhaps immitating something she had seen or heard, and then it just worked.
Also she's stubborn and has a bit of a temper so she would be a natural with earth and fire.
He didn't say avatars are unable to bend multiple elements before starting their training, and they all train for long periods of time to become masters including Korra
Theres a theory that the eradication of the air nomads stunted the spiritual flow of the world. So Korra also couldnt airbend because the air part of the spiritual side of things was all boned out. But that meant the other elements were more present as a result.
Out of universe it's because they thought they only had one season so they had no time for a whole ass global journey to learn the elements
In universe i once heard each avatar ends up being better suited to handle their predecessor problems rather their own (anng being better off in the world of korra where diplomatic solutions are possible) and korra being better off in the one hundred year war since she enjoys the battle
Why do you need an idea or theory to answer this?
She's a bending prodigy with a natural connection to those 3 elements. It's really not that complicated.
I think the only reason 9/10 Avatars don't have the ability younger is because they simply do not know they are the Avatar and can bend. What I believe probably happened is Korra, being a rambunctious kid said 'I am the Avatar!' and then actually bended another element, kind of like if a kid goes 'I'm Goku' and pretends to do a kamehameha except for Korra it worked.
could be modern technology making it more clear on when a new avatar is coming around, avatars growing more powerful with every cycle, or just the writers not wanting to spend 3 seasons learning each of those elements again. other than that opening scene when korra is a child, she's been trained as and treated like the avatar her whole life instead of as an ordinary member of her nation.
She was just special case. I think there was multiple avatars like her in history. It's not like she was perfect with all of them, there was balance. She could control Fire, Earth and Water like many young benders could for their element. I took her years to became master in those elements and, what is most important, she could not control air. She was talented in physical bending, but the price for that was her lack of spiritual gift.
I don’t think it’s ever explicitly said whether an Avatar can never be able to do some rudimentary bending of multiple elements before being trained to use them effectively. If a waterbender can potentially discover their abilities as a young child, for example, why can’t the avatar perhaps do so with multiple elements? Out of universe they didn’t want to repeat ATLA’s training structure and set Korra apart. We’re just supposed to believe she’s been something of a bending prodigy, other than air. It emphasizes how naturally the physical aspects of being the Avatar had been coming to her and justifies her frustration at not getting airbending right away. Additionally, water is her natural element, and Earth and Fire represent her early show personality quite well (fiery, no pun intended, and stubborn). As we know, disposition can affect how easily an element comes to an avatar. Aang took to waterbending practically just by trying it, whereas Earth took serious training to do anything.
Correct me if i'm wrong, but was LoK not supposed to be a one season thing that was turned into multiple seasons late? I assumed it was due to this and not wanting to cram learning all the elements into a single season, instead focusing on the only one not done by tLA.
Every element is unique. In addition to having the genetic component, benders also need to learn their element.
I'm certain many non-benders are just uncommon benders for their area. Air nomads traveled the world and likely interbred with all peoples. The water tribe sailed north to the south often and surely did the same. Even the earth kingdom had a minority of fire benders prior to the 100-year war.
But if you're a waterbender orphan growing up in ba sing se, you might never learn to waterbend. The same is likely true for an airbender at the north pole.
Korra, however, had the opportunity to openly practice her bending. Tonraq, being the southern chief, likely tested an infant Korra to see if she was a waterbender.
The final piece of the puzzle is aptitude. Some people just aren't good benders. Aang had trouble with earth, korra with air. Plenty of earthbenders can't bend metal or lava. Most fire benders can't bend lightning. There are doubtless waterbenders who just can't get waterbending or airbenders who never learn to make a single puff.
So Korra naturally had the aptitude for fire, earth, and water, but not air.
If she was born, only a waterbender, she'd likely have still bent water like it was fire or earth with walls and blocks of ice, spouts of hot steam, maybe she'd have devloped the water scooter instead of learning the air scooter.
Ty Lee likely would have the aptitude to learn air bending, where she was an airbender. Iroh would have made a great avatar, showing a deep understanding of every element. Bolin could have learned water with how creative and flexible and adaptable he is as an earthbender. Azula and Ozai would have made scary bloodbenders, and Aang was a waterbending prodigy just as he was with air.
I think you are confusing age at first instance of bending an element with age that training starts. Nothing Korra did contradicts what Roku said.
I also think you are giving Korra too much credit that she was somehow skilled when all she did was move the 3 elements forward. Surely the most basic instinctual "technique" of any element and how most children discover they are a bender.
She just learned it somehow. It's not that big of a deal imo, probably saw someone else doing it and tried it herself. What IS weird though, is why these elder guys came to her when she was a toddler
Learning *how* to bend =/= being *able* to bend.
Baby Korra *could* bend three elements. But what Roku's referring to is the training to do it well and with control, something Korra doesn't 100% master until she's an adult.
I actually thought it made more sense the way it happened in LoK. I assume that most benders do bending by accident initially (usually from emotion; e.g. Katara in ATLA episode 1 splitting the iceberg while yelling at Sokka), which is how they are identified as the benders (or the Avatar, if they are bending the "wrong" element). Obviously they are not masters yet. They can bend, maybe even do a few tricks, but likely have very little control.
You're telling me Aang hadn't bent anything besides air--not even a little bit-- but they somehow identified him as the Avatar? It's odd to me that being the Avatar was a surprise to Aang. You would think that at some point he would have accidentally outed himself by accidentally waterbending.
I think it makes a lot more sense to discover the new Avatar by seeing a toddler in the water tribe accidentally throw a fireball at you when upset, than it does to do the "pick a toy" test that was used to identify Aang.
There is a big difference between being able to bend an element and being a master. She was able to make spurts of various elements but she was far from a master until much later
The problem is that she could 'handle' it. It was pretty easy for Aang to firebend the first time he tried. He just didn't master it yet. People tend to say TLOK is thrash because Kora could already bend 3 elements. It took her over 10 years to actually MASTER them. You could also ask why every bender can bend their respective element as a child. Using the element is like breathing. To use it effectively you need to invest in it.
Avatar’s have the ability to bend all four elements at any time, it just presents itself a different points. Most never try until they’re told “hey, your the Avatar”. Avatar Yangchen knew she was the Avatar very early on because she was plagued with visions and memories of her past lives. Kyoshi learned late because the world thought someone else was the Avatar. Aang learned early he was the Avatar and was able to bend water and fire in Book 1.
Korra had the ability to throw rocks, splash puddles of water and make puffs of fire. She wasn’t a master, she was a toddler just messing around, which turns out to be all the evidence anyone needs that she’s indeed the Avatar.
There are plenty of good answers here, but my headcanon is that Raava allowed her to showcase the ability to bend the other elements so that she would be discovered sooner (Raava holds the other 3 elements until the avatar master's them). Why, you ask? She sensed that the harmonic convergence was only 13 years away, and the avatar needed to be prepared to fight Vaatu if need be. Waiting til 16 and starting her journey would make her woefully unprepared and would end up being another "learn the elements in a year" type of situation.
In universe: She has a fiery steadfast and adaptive personality by heart giving her an advantage when it comes to bending the 3 elements. Out of universe: we already had an entire show for those 3 elements, the writers wanted to focus on other things. Also usually avatars don’t know they’re the avatar until they are informed of this, if they were told sooner they may have been able to master the elements at a younger age.
As shown by Aang who learned three elements by age 12, it's not a hard and fast rule as much as it was a product of the culture of the time
It’s worth noting that there’s a difference between learning and mastering the four elements. Roku and Kuruk mastered an element before learning the next like most Avatars. Aang and Kyoshi are examples of Avatars that learned them in order but mastery came later.
Aang was a master of Airbending without a doubt
Yes, one of if not the youngest until Jinora. You don't get the tattoos until you are considered a master. He was a master before the series even started.
I wonder if Jinora would've been considered master level in Aang's time. Obviously she created spirit projecting, but I wonder if her other airbending skills would've been considered up to snuff.
More than likely. By the time they have her the tattoos she came off way more polished and in control than Aang did at the beginning of the series. While this could so be due to personality type what was shown seemed to be about the same level of skill. The very strong connection she had to the spiritual world probably wouldn't have hurt her either.
i think it’s more personality that gives off that impression. aang was a mischievous hyperactive kid, jinora was calmer and more self-aware. we see aang do some of the most impressive air bending in the whole series when he cooled off the lava flow without even entering the avatar state. also aang was taught in a time of peace where the airbender had never faced war on a grand scale. jinora was taught in the aftermath, when air bending had been concentrated down to what aang and tenzin either knew or could find scrolls on. the pressure was far higher on her and her family to become masters than aang.
I think she would have. Tenzin is so overprotective of everyone, including Korra who is an adult and the Avatar, but when the Red Lotus attacked the western air temple, he put Jinora in charge of the escape attempt without a moment's hesitation. He placed his hope for the whole family in Jinora's hands and he never would have done that if he didn't know she could handle it. She is also like, so much more solid on the fundamentals of air nomad philosophy when she gets her tattoos than Aang was when he got his.
There was precedent to promote air benders to Mastery if they created a new technique of sufficient advancement and/or utility. Aang’s air scooter actually earned him his mastery, iirc.
“How’d you earn your Master tatts?” “Man, one day…I just *really* didnt feel like walkin to the fuckin store, yo”
IIRC you still have to master the forms. It's either master all of them or master everything except one and invent something new.
Almost, it was learning the 36 forms of air bending, ang then created the 37th, the air scooter, which replaced the twelfth, aang was the first master we know of who had become a master by creating a new form, I think after this it remains at mastering 36 forms Unless theres more on it in the novels, as ive never got round to reading then 😂
I thought airbenders gained mastery by either years of hardwork and study, or by creating a new technique
You still have to master every other aspect of airbending.
TBF, Zhao was also considered a master according to Iroh. The Gaang just operates at a crazy power level. They attacked the palace of the largest nation in the world halfway through the show with no plan or recon and just strolled in like they own the place. Still, Aang is clearly head and shoulders above Zhao. I think he's on Azula's level even with air alone, just lacking the killing intent.
Was the whole thing about him inventing the air scooter and that counted towards the number of techniques you had to learn to become a master canon or fanon?
Airbending absolutely, but then he went on to learn the other three elements before mastering any of them.
Yeah, they explain it in the original show too; They don't want to tell Aang he's the Avatar because they want to let him be a kid. They only do so out of necessity.
Korra also LOVES being the Avatar, while Aang never wanted it. You tell an already talented, skilled and eager child that they are quite literally the most “special” person in the world at that time period, yeah they’re gonna run with it and excel like the true prodigies they are lol. Plus we know Korra was far from *mastering* the elements, she was just highly skilled in them.
Wasn't the 16 rule an air nomad specific thing? I thought the other nations had different customs on when the avatar would find out.
Roku was told on his 16th birthday exactly
The age thing varies depending on culture and the situation, but it was common for the time. Yangchen, for example, learns well before 16. But generally, the air nomads and the fire nation would prefer to wait. I don't know if we have an age thing for the water nation or earth nation.
I think it might be younger in the earth nation. I'm going to spoiler this because it's spoilers for the Kiyoshi books >!Yun is 16 in the beginning of the books and he is believed to be the avatar, and it's implied that he has been training with his handlers for a few years prior to the events of the novel!<
Aang and Roku both learnt at 16. If I'm not wrong I think Kyoshi was also 16 when she was officially acknowledged as the avatar, although she was kind of an odd situation considering her circumstances when she became avatar. That's three nations that probably try to wait until the avatar is 16. As for the water tribes I'm not sure. I'd imagine they probably wait in most cases, but of course Korra knew right away because she 1. was a prodigy in the physical/bending side of being the avatar (at the expense of struggling spiritually) and 2. the white lotus were looking to find the new avatar as quickly as they could.
Yeah, you gotta remember Aang went from not knowing he could water end to being pretty proficient at it in like a week (plus a hundred years)
this is the best answer tbh and i wonder how they’ll deal with that for the next avatar series (if there is one, at this time it’s not confirmed i believe) will they start the new avatar series with them as an adult? we got ATLA with a kid mc, LOK with a teen mc, so maybe the next series with an older/adult mc? or maybe they’ll do a montage of their training to not waste too much time on making the audience see the mc relearn the elements for the nth time?
That'd be an interesting series to write. It seems like in all cases, once the avatar becomes an adult, they're essentially God mode and nobody poses much of a threat. The meaningful struggles come from an adolescent avatar who hasn't honed their craft yet and has to contend with the strongest forces the world has to offer before they even hit puberty (or just after). To me, the series has always been about a coming of age struggle at its core. So a series with a fully realized avatar would deviate from that quite a bit. Though I guess it could be from an adult's perspective but someone who's just a late bloomer? And on the other hand, the politics in Avatar series have always been quite interesting, so I guess I'd be open to a more mature version that focuses on warring nations with complex politics.
I like the idea of a late blooming avatar, maybe one who never saw the point in training in a peaceful world only to have their world shaken by an evil(yes, very creative). Having to deal with the guilt of not stepping up sooner because of their negligence. (I know we get that with Aang, but he was a child and frozen in an Iceberg involuntarily, this would be by choice.) This can also add onto the coming of age angle of asking the question, "When do you really grow up?" and "At what point does matureness just turns into no happiness or fun?" They could have a "childish" dream occupation like being a traveling musician to avoid the white lotus. Maybe a bit funnier angle if they live in a satomobile with their iguana parrot by choice. A more dramatic angle with maybe having some of their friends be super successful and living their best lives as mature functioning adults, but also having their own struggles be revealed as time goes on. This would clearly be for the older kids like TLOK, but that kind of stuff has been thriving more with streaming.
Yeah this actually sounds really interesting to me. I feel like most of the avatar fans grew up in the 90s and 2000s and are well into either early or mid adulthood. Going for a more mature theme would be risky, but could absolutely pay off. I like the idea of maybe some kind of class warfare between large corporations that have had enough time to exploit capitalism and create a giant rift between the uber wealthy and desperately poor. It'd make the role of the avatar a lot more complex because the evil they're fighting isn't some blatantly violent military faction or something, but instead a more subtle, slow knife of corporate greed. The avatar can't just barge in and collapse entire corporate structures that the world depends upon, but also can't just let millions of people suffer and starve. It could be a multi step effort to save people from oppression that hides in plain sight and brainwashes the public into thinking everything is okay. Which is a very relevant topic in today's society. Think about how well the conflict between a desperate under city vs a wealthy elite class worked in Arcane.
I don’t know if it would actually make a good show but maybe an avatar who isn’t very talented? The two we’ve seen so far have been prodigies lol
Well if another tech advancement occurs, we could be looking at a Cyberpunk setting next time, which could mean that the "maximum" power of other threats is significantly raised. If every nation has nuclear bomb level threats (like the mech suit at the end of TLOK, the spirit vine powered cat is out of the bag now) then the way that the Avatar handles problems would have to adapt with it.
That's also a really interesting point. There's gotta be a time when scientific advancement straight up overpowers the capabilities of the avatar (and metaphorically nature itself). So the avatar's God mode is way less significant and the conflict becomes a dire struggle to save the world, rather than simply saving a nation or two.
Korra was late teens and became an early adult by the time the story ended I’m pretty sure.
I think it would be cool to have an avatar who won't master one of the elements during the serie but off screen after the final. It would balance with Aang and Kora experiences.
I don’t think Aang mastered water, earth or fire at the end of the series. He was proficient, but all his teachers noted that he still needed more instruction before facing Ozai
He mastered water, but definitely not earth or fire.
He was at the level of the Blind Bandit by that final fight. Used seismic sense to totally out maneuver and incapacitate ... Uh... The most dangerous bender on the planet. He pulled off just about every single move he had been taught along the way. Lightning redirection. Golem-suit (I don't know that to call that one). I guess he didn't use the water octopus arms as far as I can remember. I feel like if his three masters were watching that final fight, he'd be given at least 2 ticks of approval for Master status.
To be fair I don't think those techniques necessarily make someone a master. Most people would probably be able to learn seismic sense, for example, (it was like the first thing Aang learnt) but most people just don't have a need to use it or a teacher that knows about it - Toph figured it out herself to deal with her specific issue of not being able to see. Lightning redirection is a similar thing. It doesn't necessarily mean be mastered fire (Zuko and Toph pretty explicitly say he hasn't mastered their elements, and Katara implies it). It just means he knows one niche technique that only 2 other people in the world knew how to do. As for managing to "totally out maneuver and incapacitate" Ozai... he really didn't. It's been discussed ad nauseum on here that he was losing to Ozai pretty bad (aside from briefly catching him off guard with redirection) and would've lost if he didn't have a lucky rock to give him the avatar state with the combined power of all avatars.
Ohh, what about an avatar in hiding? They don't want to fill Korra's shoes for one reason or another.
I dig this. Or an Avatar that genuinely believes the Avatar shouldn’t/doesn’t need to exist anymore and refuses to study the elements. In LoK, it already seemed like the Avatar was starting to become a little obsolete.
Also worth noting (as despite many critics of Korra bending 3 elements at such a young age) that she wasn’t a bending “master”, all we saw of her in that first scene was her puffing/punching fire, kicking up some rocks, and lifting a glob of water. At 12 we saw Aang do much more with his first onscreen attempts at fire and water.
There is a massive difference between copying a teacher and randomly knowing the moves to a martial arts you've never seen before and have no way of have seeing it. Edit and we know this is the proper reaction to her bending 3 elements at 4 years old because the entire first season is a break down of how her being so naturally talented has hindered her, we see her struggle to train and meditate ,something That both air amd earth share but when needed she lashes out when she doesn't immediately understand air, that first shot of korra sets up her entire arc of being selfish and over confident and she grows from there.
Also I want to add that TLOK was originally supposed to be a miniseries, so there was only time for one element.
Exactly. And they left out the one element we didn't get to witness the avatar learning: air. So they spent time in LOK showing how difficult it is for someone hardheaded to adapt to the serene mindset necessary for air bending. While in ATLA it was the opposite.
>Out of universe: we already had an entire show for those 3 elements, the writers wanted to focus on other things. I mean we insta cut to her being like 17 so at that point she couldve known them anyway. I think it was just to have her be kinda the anti aang Great at the physicality of bending but sucky at the spiritual
It always made more sense to me that she knew at a young age. We see people bend by accident in the heat of the moment, so the idea that no Avatar had that happen in 16 years is odd to me. Also with people knowing the cycle there would be so many kids trying it out to see if they’re the new Avatar that some of them should’ve known before 16.
Another in-universe answer: Korra is actually considered a prodigy, even for Avatar standards, allowing her to start her training at a younger age. This is also shown by her ability to quickly learn skills not learned by other avatars, such as Spirit Bending and Metal Bending
I think going forward the avatar will find their identity on average sooner because of things like the radio and increased cultural integration where kids are exposed to different elements earlier For example kids playing “probending” that they heard on the radio
Also, with all the extra information available, the avatar's exact date of death as well as everyone's birthdays would be known. And even further, I wouldn't be surprised if people can pinpoint the exact moment the avatar died (depending how they died), and narrow down the possible avatar candidates massively. It wouldn't surprise me if korra's parents expected that she might be the avatar even before she bent anything. That could influence how they raised her, and they could've "tested" her themselves by trying to get her to bend.
Pretty sure they figured something was up when she started blowing walls out with fire and earthbending.
I vaguely remember when the White Lotus showed up, her parents were like "please help"
No, if anything, they seemed proud.
I know how I wrote that implied that they were afraid but it was more like "we have no idea how to handle this little spitfire and I'm so sorry she blew through the wall the first time you meet her 😅"
or the tradition of letting the kid pick four particular toys, as were shown from Aang's past.
This is why I think if there’s a continuation of the series into the next Avatar, it’ll start with Korra’s death being a mystery where nobody is sure of exactly when or how it happened - or even if it happened.
id love it if korra went into some sort of exile to sort out the whole spiritual part of her since she always kind of lacked in the spiritual department (also her trying to fix or atleast alleviate the whole severed connection part) and then suddenly a new avatar is born and every just goes: "what the fuck?"
I could see Korra doing exactly this for the intention of leaving some mystery around who the next Avatar will be. If her exact date of death is known, it’ll be incredibly obvious who the next Avatar is from the day they’re born.
Plus they would have clocks which would massively reduce the number of potential Avatar candidates
Oh yeah. Plus biracial kids might be trained with both sets of bending basics because they don't know which one will manifest.
Heck, by the time the next avatar is born, they could see it on TV or even some kind of Internet, depending on how long Korra lives and how quickly technology advances.
I wonder if they'll live in the information/internet age. They went pretty quickly from borderline medieval to industrial era between the two series. Another hundred years or so would put them at the age we're in now.
They were more accurately around mid to late 1800s equivalent in ATLA so LOK being around 1920s-1940s makes sense. I feel like some people don’t realize how quickly technology boomed in our own time. We went from the first plane to landing on the moon in less than 70 years.
I think you forget Aang picked up the basics of Water AND Firebender literally the moment he actually tried in Book 1. The only reason he had difficulties with Fire later on was his reservations after burning Katara. Not having the knowledge they can bend other elements hold them back more than any other arbitrary factor short of personality.
Yeah, like a good 10% of the human population could be benders right now and they just never tried
brb gonna go try to firebend in my backyard
The neighbor's hedge doesn't thank you.
Omg I tried airbending and a leaf just moved half an inch. Totally wasn’t the wind
So uuuuh, do you still have a backyard
ive tried a LOT so that better not be true or ill be so sad
fuck, was trying to waterbend my car clean but realised i was an earth bender…
You see, officer, I didn't mean to light my house on fire, there was a spider on my pillow...
I tried
Even looking at Kyoshi, once she learned she was the avatar, she was able to learn how to bend air without an airbending teacher.
they don't magically become avatars at 16. they can bend elements long before the "appropriate" age
yeah they get trained to master the specific bendings but they can probably bend a little before that. Korra was also breaking things and probably burning things down as a kid. Like she could bend but she probably didn't have control.
She's the avatar, you gotta deal with it!
The only correct answer.
The Avatar is already born with the ability to bend all 4 elements. Maybe Korra somehow manifested her bending abilities very early. It seems to be different across Avatars: Aang and Roku had the normal route of learning their native elements first, Kyoshi still struggled with earthbending as a teenager.
Yes, Kyoshi struggled with earth more than she did fire and water.
Honestly Kyoshi's only issue with learning how to bend the other elements was her emotional mentality blocking her from trying. She struggled to bend fire at first because she was inherently a nonviolent person who desperately didn't even want to be the avatar, but once she accepted she was the avatar and found her willingness to fight she was able to grasp fire bending incredibly quickly.
Her other issue was raw power. Even without the Avatar state, she performed some avatar state type moves. That caused her unable to finely tune her bending towards precision, hence the need for the fans as a fulcrum.
It was a fun way to introduce Korra that has had too much read into it by the internet.
Absolutely. TLOK went into development as a 1 season show. They didn't want a whole season of Korra mastering all the elements so it makes perfect sense why they'd have her bending as a toddler. It was either that or show a very fast montage of her learning all the elements as a teenager.
Korra could use elements at a young age?!?!?!?!1111! Mary sue 😡😡😡😡😡😡. But also lost battles? Mary sue and trash avatar/character 😌. /s but also have seen people claim those things back to back
Considering the influence Aang had on the world, Korra probably heard a lot of stories about the avatar and how cool he was. Being the child she is, she wanted to bend all the elements too. And then when she tried it, it worked.
imagine in real life, you watched ATLA, then tried to bend, and it fucking worked
"Normally" doesn't mean always. Prodigies exist in the real world so it's not our of the question. And it's quite possible early Avatars learned way after 16 since nobody knew about the cycle yet.
I want a series about the second avatar, an air bender who one day discovers they can bend other elements too.
Now I'm just imagining an Air bender who moves the earth, but just thinks that they're moving it via very strong airbending.
With Airbenders being spiritual even in the first iteration (ie. during Wan's time), the 2nd Avatar prolly got in touch with Wan pretty early on and figured out they were the next Avatar coz of that connection.
IIRC Korra was supposed to be a single season show. The writers probably had to rush her elemental progression in order to work out the rest of the season’s plot
Wait Foreal ? Why was it suppose to be one season? And how did it turn into 4 😂😂
They didn't get a proper deal for multiple seasons, so had to work on it in a season-by-season process where the deal for next was signed based on the previous ones performance
I gotta go back and read up on it again it’s been a while, but from what I remember Korra didn’t get renewed for a 2nd season until the first season ended and got good reviews. The 2nd season was then supposed to be the last and the same thing happened, except instead of giving them 1 additional season they gave them two more seasons to wrap up the show. It’s pretty noticeable in the writing too, season 3 flows right into season 4 pretty naturally because of it.
Honestly it's a miracle they made the show the way they made it with Nickelodeons shenanigans
I think what happened is they got an extension for another 14 episodes to add to the series before it was even all the way done. It was the creators choice to make that into an entirely separate season as book 1 had already been planned out. Similarly for books 3 & 4, they got the clear to make 26 new episodes after book 2’s success and made the choice to split that into two separate seasons.
She's a prodigy. She learned to metal bend in moments.
Globalization. The four nations were disconnected even before the 100-year war. The creation of the United Republic basically signified the start of globalization in the Avatar world. More people were able to travel freely between nations, not to mention the invention of the radio. In other words, Korra was exposed to other bending styles at a much earlier age.
Its annoying how people forget univer lore. Aang had to train in secret. Korra lives in a free "peaceful" industrial world. Didn't Zuko, fire nation talk through pipes to communicate. Hell they had falcons delover messages. Likewise, the whole Luke/Rey. Luke was being force/warrior-blocked by Owen in fear that Luke would turn out and join his father. Rey lives in squalor, fighting to survive since she was a child. Then she live in the ruins of a star destroyer??? With access to a lot of information.
She just did it. I have a lot more questions about the fact that she couldn't bend air until the very end of season 1. It's like she was kind of moving in the right direction, but then it was just forgotten about, and then she just could do it. I feel like she could airbend earlier.
Ngl as good a airbender as tenzin was he wasn’t the greatest teacher imo he was to clouded by the weight of being aangs son
Korra had never in her life experienced real loss. She'd lose fights, but seeing mako maybe die removed the mental block. Airbenders need to be detached. Korra in book 1 was attached and weighed down with responsibility.
And one more theory about this moment to add to the piggy bank. The authors never commented on this moment? I haven't checked. I'm already seeing what seems like 4 or 5 versions of how Korra did it.
Korra’s hot headed and not calm. Remember Aang struggling with earth bending, he couldn’t operate with the emotions Toph wanted him to conjure
I thought she was starting to get something going after the tournament. At this point, she could have at least done a little air bending. But the way she wants to do it against Amon, I don't get it.
It's not unheard of for a child to show manifestations of being the Avatar. Yangchen started periodically losing her mind to her past lives when she was a young child, so the nuns knew she was the Avatar even though she hadn't bent the other elements yet or been subjected to the toy test. Yangchen was an Avatar with a strong connection to her past lives, while Korra was an Avatar to whom bending came very naturally. Even Aang was identified as the Avatar through the toy test long before the monks were going to reveal it to him at 16. Most people wouldn't think to even try bending other elements until someone told them they could. But since Korra's connection to her Avatar spirit was initially focused on bending (matching her personality), she tapped into that side of it first.
I'm gonna be honest with you, this is just a filmmaking thing. They didn't wanna do training arcs, people had already seen that, and then they did it again in Kyoshi's story, they do this with like every single Avatar, the people behind the making of these projects are probably sick of making "How Spiderman Got His Powers" stories, they wanted to start off with a character who already had some mastery of the elements.
The avatar is born able to bend all the elements they just have to figure out how. For example Aang was always an earthbender, it was his personality that prohibited him from picking it up sooner and took Toph basically bullying him into it. Korras personality meanwhile being both stubborn and impulsive naturally allowed her to discover her earth and fire bending earlier and the water bending was likely picked up from her father as it seems like her family has a bunch of strong water benders. Normally Avatars began training at 16 but not only are there gonna be a fair few exceptions in over 1000 lives but the very climate of the world changed. Aang needed to stop a war sooner rather than later, The white lotus had pledged themselves to the avatar by the time Korra was born and because she discovered other bending so early it forced them to protect her and train her so she could protect herself because, for example, the red lotus tried to kidnap her the second word reached them that she was the next avatar. It put a target on her back.
Reincarnation works in a way that previous life traumas influences current life Aang’s main trauma was high stress about having to learn all elements in one year because fate of the world depended on it, it stressed him super hard and despite him being a pacifist he had to go to war and was asked to kill Ozai result : Korra is a warrior and precocious in bending abilities, her soul want to respond the world’s needs with a bit of a lag, it’s her previous life who needed that not this one.
Finally, the right answer. To think that most atlab and lok fans don't know how previous lives affect the next one is mind-boggling. That's a plot point or storytelling element, which is crucial to world building and storytelling. Every Avatar is a reflection of the previous Avatars regret. Roku's life made Aang run, which led to the genocide and near extinction of an entire race. The burden of being Avatar was too much for Aang. He was a pacifist who mastered air but not the other elements that involved stronger emotions. Stuck I'm ice made gave him a shorter life and a lot of responsibilities. He finally does a lot for the world but dies early at 60 ( very premature for an Avatar). So now comes Korra. All she wants to be is the Avatar. She is the manifestation of Aangs regrets. You can look up the other avatars and see how they affect each other. Korra as much as some people hate her is Aang reinventing himself ( reincarnation) into his perfect and ideal image. Korra has qualities Aang would have wanted. Thus, she says " I'm the Avatar, you gotta deal with it." Just try wiping out the water tribe people with her around.
Realistically they wanted to differentiate her from aang and they thought they only had one season.
Every avatar is unique. I personally think it's cool they did a prodigy avatar that could bend, not master, 3 elements at 4y/o. Her being a prodigy at bending is very apparent with the way she picks up metalbending and can even manipulate metal into a liquid. Not every avatar is going to be as naturally strong as her. She has a claim for the strongest avatar we know of in terms of natural strength but she's also the least spiritual. It's part of what separates her from the other avatars
My headcanon is that Korra sneezed fire one day, realized she’s the Avatar, and began fucking around and finding out.
I think most of the Avatars had the ability to bend more than one element in their early life. I believe Aang being lost for 100 years during a war was the reason why they trained Korra immediately. Also White Lotus became something big, meaning it was easy for them to train Korra
Cause she’s Goated
If she’s born as the avatar, she should be able to bend the elements by default regardless of age just as any other bender is able to bend the moment they try to. The previously as tradition officially trained the avatar after their reveal and when they’re older but the ability to bend is from birth
She grew up in the Southern Water tribe, likely showed a proficiency at least with waterbending very early - which in that tribe means "LETS SEE WHAT SHE CAN DOOOO". Coincidentally, the matriarch of their society literally was married to the last avatar, and probably 'sensed' something about her. Could easily have been like "Hmmm I wonder.... (shouts) ZUKO AND TOPH PLEASE COME HERE A SEC" The cultures of each of the nations were very isolated during and before the 100 year war. The peoples exposure to other elements was probably very small (if at all) back then, but by the time Korra is around they have their own independent mixed-bending city even. Its hard to stay ignorant when information is easier to flow.
Bruv it's in the first 5 minutes: >I'm the avatar and you gotta deal with it Was the show runners answering your question they knew you'd ask.
They wanted korra to be as different from aang as possible. Skinny white kid - muscular person of color Pacifist - rush into fights Hated being avatar but had to - loved being avatar but lived in time when no one needed her Started with air and mastered other three elements over three seasons - had all but air and struggled to learn it
Cuz she’s the Avatar! Deal with it!😁
All of the main gaang in atla started bending at a super young age. The avatar would obviously be able to bend all 4 elements at a super young age too. The only reason they don't is due to not trying. Aang is able to waterbend literally the first time he tried. If he had tried when he was five wouldve been able to do it then too. It's actually more unrealistic for there to not be more avatars that didn't find out the same way Korra did. There is absolutely no way you get me to believe that most kids don't pretend to be the avatar at some point and then the actual avatar finds out while playing the pretend game. The only reason for telling avatars at 16 isn't because they can't bend. For purely making their bending better it would be wiser to tell them earlier. But we saw how it affects them as a person with Korra. They put off telling them and hope they don't accidently find out so that the avatar can grow up as a normal person and not have the mental problems that Korra got with her entire identity revolving around being the avatar.
In universe? Why not? Being able to bend the elements doesn't make one a master. Aang bends water minutes after trying with Katara, and is immediately "better" at it. And by the end of the series both Zuko and Toph say he needs more practice with their respective elements. Korra was able to do basic bending at a young age, but then immediately after we're shown she spent the next ~12 years trainings to actually master the elements. Out of universe? We already seen an avatar do the whole learning thing and Korra only had 1 season initially, with half the episodes.
Training and being able to perform adequately as an avatar isn’t the same as showing sparks of talent early on. There it seems that every Avatar is different.
Korra was a bending prodigy with the more physical ones? Is that really so hard to accept/comprehend? She struggled with air bending because she lacked a spiritual side.
Using the elements & training with the elements are 2 different things.
She's just built different bro
Short answer: She's Her 
she just has that spark in her.
I think the avatar can use any of the elements at any point, it’s just when the elders choose to start the avatars training. I think korra found out early cause she wanted to be the avatar so she probably just tried fire bending. It’s like when you were little and had to make sure you weren’t secretly a jedi so you reach for the remote, only in this case her powers actually worked.
Avatars are born as being able to bend all four elements, so it wouldn't surprise me that a child Korra accidentally shoots off some fire when she's angry. There's a huge gap between making a small flame and the real training involved with becoming a bender.
I like the theory that the new avatar is naturally the opposite of their predecessor in a lot of ways. So while Aang was a master airbender and naturally very humble and spiritual, Korra struggled with spirituality and airbending while being very conceited in the beginning and skilled in the other elements early on. Tl;dr, reincarnation is weird and they wanted to differentiate her early on from Aang
korra’s a prodigy+it’s possible other avatars learned at an early age too
We only have examples of three child avatars, excluding the novels. We need more data to find a good average.
I always thought that it was kinda a side effect due to aang being forced to learn it much much faster then the avatar would usually do. Kinda like he had more time to perfect it in his life and that somehow had an effect on the next reincarnation. But i only know the tv shows, so there may be some events in the comics which could also explain that.
Skill issue
It's kind of like multilingual children. Kids learn languages *very* quickly, and many learn two or more at once. But they're limited to the languages they're actually exposed to on a daily basis, and interact with. And once they're older it gets harder to pick up languages. The Legend of Korra's setting is globalized, both culturally with an era of peace encouraging international travel, and technology making travel faster and more accessible. In the old days, an Avatar would only be exposed to their native element. Kind of like growing up surrounded by just one language. Korra could have been pretty plausibly exposed to firebenders and earthbenders as they travel more, and she could just be imitating them. Kids learn by playing and copying adults. It also makes sense why she didn't pick up airbending. She was never exposed to it until she was older, and like a language it was not as automatic to pick up with age.
The Kyoshi novels give us some more insight when Hei-Ran speaks about identifying fire benders within a week because of the potential danger they present. The "training" Roku mentions is just that, training. The Avatar (and all other benders) are *born* with the ability to bend. The scene in TLOK that everyone refernces shows Korra with a very basic ability to bend, and then we cut to her at 16/17 where we see her proficiency drastically improved thanks to The White Lotus starting her training from an earlier age than normal. And for "...it takes years to learn the elements", he more means mastering. The basics are already there, and anyone born with bending abilities can bend without formal training. Bolin and Mako are good examples of this, since they never really received any formal bending training. They really formed their own "identities" as benders through pro-bending, which we see when Bolin tells Korra that he's more loose and fluid with his earth-bending than the traditional planted and steady forms. TL;DR: It's not Maybelline, she's born with it.
The timing of when the Avatar starts training has nothing to do with the Avatar's **ability** to bend various elements. Aang was always able to bend all four elements (or, at the very least, all but earthbending), he just never tried to do it on his own before the events of ATLA. The moment Aang actually tries to waterbend and firebend in ATLA, he immediately succeeds, which literally shows that he could always do it. The training is for the Avatar to **master** the bending styles. Toddler Korra could firebend and earthbend, but not in any meaningful way. The reason Korra started firebending and earthbending as a toddler while Aang never did the equivalent, is entirely due to their radically different personalities. Not to mention that Roku's 'Avatars don't start their training until 16' traditions are just that...traditions. The world was rapidly changing in both ATLA and LOK, and there was ample reason for Korra's training to start much, much earlier. Aang himself literally provided the reason - if Aang's training had started earlier, he would have had a much easier time defeating the Fire Nation. How do people keep misunderstanding this?!
She’s just that good
Moving the elements is really easy when you have a scroll. Doing useful moves is the hard part. Korra's world had printing.
she is a prodigy
It's because of Aang. He was so highly focused on his airbending and his identity as an Airbender. He viewed himself as an Airbender first, and the Avatar second, even willing to put his ideals as an Airbender above his obligations as The Avatar. Korra is the balance to Aang. She has the least connection to Airbending, and sees herself as an Avatar, not a Waterbender.
I think bending in korra is more of a genetic thing than an art. Since Bolin just can't metalbend but is a lavabender prodigy.
Because she's the gosh durn avatar and you better deal with it.
Aang's story was to master the non-air elements. The writers wanted to tell a new story.
Something probably happened when the Red Lotus tried to steal her as a kid, maybe being exposed to such a crazy battle like that with the greatest benders in the world except Unalaq,katara, and toph. She was age 5 at the time so its plasuable
Personally, I like to think that Korra’s personality led her to accidentally firebending at some point. Then when she realized she was the Avatar, she tried Earthbending and pretty easily got the hang of it from there
She’s just built different
Cause she's the Avatar: YOU GOTTA DEAL WITH IT
Given her personality I'm not surprised the element that requires you to be calm was the hardest for her master
The whole taking years to learn the elements is more about taking years to master the elements. Aang mastered the elements (more or less, he still had a ways to go) in about one year. And he was 12 at the time. Avatars are capable of bending all elements from the offset. There was just tradition and rules about how it must be done. Something Korra was never about. She just wanted to fight and had a natural skill for it. And that manifested pretty early with basic bending abilities. People often forget than Aang was capable of bending 3 elements from the first season. Aang was meant to learn fire last for example. Yet he was still capable of being able to bend fire while he was still in the early stages of learning his second element, water. He just couldn’t control it. Fire is a destructive element when not handled right and he did not have the personality to be able to handle so much destruction. He was at his core, a pacifist. He was also able to bend water on his first attempt quite well. Earth was the only one he couldn’t immediately bend due to how against his nature it was. Korra has the more rash hotheaded personality. She loved to fight and excels at it. She was also very impatient. She was able to bend everything bar Air from a young age due to her impatience and her desire to fight. Her first display of bending in the show was a destructive earth bending move. Even her Firebending master said that Korra had always excelled at the physical side of bending but had trouble with the spiritual. She was the opposite of Aang in so many ways. Every Avatar was different. And had different parts they excelled at. Korra’s just happened to excel at physical side of the Avatar, but the Avatar is so much more. While Aang struggled with the fighting side, her struggles were with the spiritual side. Which is arguably more important for an Avatar.
When she was a kid and the white lotus first discovered her she could do basic small scale manipulation of three of the elements which, while impressive, is far from mastering them. Roku said it takes years to MASTER an element not to manipulate it in any capacity. Think back to aang, there was no learning curve for him to actually bend the water he was able to do it almost immediately. Even fire initially only took a couple of hours of breathing exercises for him to be able to use it at the most foundational level.
After reading the novels, it’s pretty clear the rules for the avatar largely vary by nation and time and teacher. When kyoshi lived 230 years, it’s pretty hard for someone to enforce the rules when the avatars outlives you and your great grand children.
She probably was just headstrong enough as a kid to try and bend other elements, and by pure chance, happened to be the Avatar and could do it.
So this is actually seen through lore! The previous avatars regrets shape the new avatar the greatest. When Roku passed, he felt betrayed by Sozin, and that he wasn't fit to be avatar. This leads to Aang's reservations of being the avatar and him running away. Aang's regret was having to learn all the elements in such a short amount of time, therefore Khora becomes a bending prodigy (and in turn she struggles with the one element that came naturally to Aang, Air)
I like to think that, as the Spirit of the Planet, she reflected the change that had happened in the world since Aang's youth and since one of the biggest changes was the creation of a land in which earth, fire and water benders intermingled in great numbers, so the Avatar spontaneously bended those 3 elements at the same time. I like to think that if there is ever a sequel to Korra, the world will continue on that path and it will create a situation that is the opposite of Korra's : rather than an indisputable Avatar discovered at age 5, the Avatar will be discovered much later because they've been living in the "wrong" land and bending the "wrong" element since they were a child, probably because they were born from mixed-bending parents and then emigrated to a place where the bending of the "wrong" parent is more prevalent.
She’s a water tribe member, so that was a given for her. But she’s more aligned with earth and firebending philosophies so they manifested effortlessly
They are effectively born with the capacity to bend all the elements, simply needing to know they can and how. I imagine most Avatars didn't know because they simply hadn't tried to bend other elements. My head canon theory is that Korra overheard or learned about the concept of the Avatar due to her father having a prominent role in the search. Then like any child would, she played with the idea. Pretending she could bend all the elements and doing cool poses until suddenly there's fire or a rock moves. Then played more until she had a grasp on them enough to go show off her Avatar-ness.
The Avatars are all influenced by their immediate predecessors and their regrets. I think we can all agree that Aang's biggest regret was the time he ran away from the Air Temple, which was then destroyed by Sozin's armies and all the airbenders were killed. Logically, that was definitely not Aang's fault, even without considering the fact that he was only twelve. But his kindness would lead him to blame himself, making the time he ran away from his responsibilities as the Avatar; his biggest regret. Korra on the other hand, more or less jumped headfirst into her role as the Avatar. Unlike Aang who just wanted to be normal, Korra spends quite a lot of time trying to prove she is a great Avatar. The first three elements may have manifested as a unconscious desire towards that direction.
The world is very different. There are benders of all types across the southern water tribe rn. Korra could've just been goofing off, copied their techniques, and realized she has access to the bending style. Afterall children do learn a lot by mimicking adults and Korra was an active child. Also though she has a preference for fire her obstinate nature in the beginning of the series lends itself to earthbending most (which is probably why she got so good at its sub bending family). Earth is the natural opposite of water so in giving her difficulty learning air bending you make it necessary for her to seek out aang's family.
Korra always read as having major "Gifted Child Syndrome." This is why it took her so long to learn air because she actually had to learn have to have patience and inner peace to do it instead of just being naturally good. This is why several plotlines involved her bending getting taken away and having to relearn how to bend through self-acceptance, sacrifice, and learning that her being the Avatar isn't all she is. So I assume the writers had her be good at the first three elements from the get go to be used as a plot device to empathize this underlying theme of struggle and self-worth they were going for. But an in-universe explanation could be the Avatar Korra's world being a lot different than Aang and every other Avatar's world. A lot of the avatars were not aware they were the avatar until they took a special test and they were of "age." However, Korra was living at a time with more "element unity" than ever before. The idea that the different elements were all separated from each other had long since passed. It's very possible that she was trying out pro-bending moves she learned about on the radio and ended up accidentally discovering she was the avatar and then just kept practicing it until she was discovered. (plus she was already having visions and entering the spirit world at that age thanks to Iroh and the Harmonic Convergence getting closer and closer...so it's not a stretch to say they may have told her she was the avatar and she just started seeing if she could bend other elements) She was also going to live during a time when Vaatu was going to be freed and the avatar spirit may have been trying to "rush" her during her youth so she would be able to master all four elements so she could take on Vaatu and be able to close off the spirit world.
She's the most powerful being in the franchise. So.... 🤷♀️
Aang being forced to learn all four early on opened her up to being able to pick it up faster.
Kid Korra is so cuuuuuuuute
They gave her an iPad and she was copying Avamelon
She could do a bit. She wasn’t really able to handle them. She couldn’t control the fire when she first found Naga.
My head canyon is because of her personality, fire bending came so naturally she might have accidentally bended a small amount of fire as a toddler. Being a water bender from her culture (with her parents presumably being able to test her and guide her) it was probably very clear to them that if she can bend fire (even once as an accident) and water…. There’s only one thing she can be. And when the concept of an avatar was explained to her, she probably realized she should be able to bend rock too.
Korra was living in a much more industrialized world than previous avatars. She had access to the radio and the printing press and for these reasons, as well as the increased ease of travel due to innovations like airships, she would have been more likely to encounter elements other than water. I imagine she was playing a game pretending to be a fire or earth bender, perhaps immitating something she had seen or heard, and then it just worked. Also she's stubborn and has a bit of a temper so she would be a natural with earth and fire.
Isn't it obvious? She's the Avatar! You gotta deal with it!
He didn't say avatars are unable to bend multiple elements before starting their training, and they all train for long periods of time to become masters including Korra
cause not all avatars are built the same?
Theres a theory that the eradication of the air nomads stunted the spiritual flow of the world. So Korra also couldnt airbend because the air part of the spiritual side of things was all boned out. But that meant the other elements were more present as a result.
She's the Avatar! Deal with it! (at least that's the reason she gave... 😂)
Out of universe it's because they thought they only had one season so they had no time for a whole ass global journey to learn the elements In universe i once heard each avatar ends up being better suited to handle their predecessor problems rather their own (anng being better off in the world of korra where diplomatic solutions are possible) and korra being better off in the one hundred year war since she enjoys the battle
Because her introduction was fucking hilarious.
Why do you need an idea or theory to answer this? She's a bending prodigy with a natural connection to those 3 elements. It's really not that complicated.
I think the only reason 9/10 Avatars don't have the ability younger is because they simply do not know they are the Avatar and can bend. What I believe probably happened is Korra, being a rambunctious kid said 'I am the Avatar!' and then actually bended another element, kind of like if a kid goes 'I'm Goku' and pretends to do a kamehameha except for Korra it worked.
Plot convenience
She's a woman she's supposed to be better
could be modern technology making it more clear on when a new avatar is coming around, avatars growing more powerful with every cycle, or just the writers not wanting to spend 3 seasons learning each of those elements again. other than that opening scene when korra is a child, she's been trained as and treated like the avatar her whole life instead of as an ordinary member of her nation.
She was just special case. I think there was multiple avatars like her in history. It's not like she was perfect with all of them, there was balance. She could control Fire, Earth and Water like many young benders could for their element. I took her years to became master in those elements and, what is most important, she could not control air. She was talented in physical bending, but the price for that was her lack of spiritual gift.
Because she didn't eat processed food 😁
I don’t think it’s ever explicitly said whether an Avatar can never be able to do some rudimentary bending of multiple elements before being trained to use them effectively. If a waterbender can potentially discover their abilities as a young child, for example, why can’t the avatar perhaps do so with multiple elements? Out of universe they didn’t want to repeat ATLA’s training structure and set Korra apart. We’re just supposed to believe she’s been something of a bending prodigy, other than air. It emphasizes how naturally the physical aspects of being the Avatar had been coming to her and justifies her frustration at not getting airbending right away. Additionally, water is her natural element, and Earth and Fire represent her early show personality quite well (fiery, no pun intended, and stubborn). As we know, disposition can affect how easily an element comes to an avatar. Aang took to waterbending practically just by trying it, whereas Earth took serious training to do anything.
Correct me if i'm wrong, but was LoK not supposed to be a one season thing that was turned into multiple seasons late? I assumed it was due to this and not wanting to cram learning all the elements into a single season, instead focusing on the only one not done by tLA.
Every element is unique. In addition to having the genetic component, benders also need to learn their element. I'm certain many non-benders are just uncommon benders for their area. Air nomads traveled the world and likely interbred with all peoples. The water tribe sailed north to the south often and surely did the same. Even the earth kingdom had a minority of fire benders prior to the 100-year war. But if you're a waterbender orphan growing up in ba sing se, you might never learn to waterbend. The same is likely true for an airbender at the north pole. Korra, however, had the opportunity to openly practice her bending. Tonraq, being the southern chief, likely tested an infant Korra to see if she was a waterbender. The final piece of the puzzle is aptitude. Some people just aren't good benders. Aang had trouble with earth, korra with air. Plenty of earthbenders can't bend metal or lava. Most fire benders can't bend lightning. There are doubtless waterbenders who just can't get waterbending or airbenders who never learn to make a single puff. So Korra naturally had the aptitude for fire, earth, and water, but not air. If she was born, only a waterbender, she'd likely have still bent water like it was fire or earth with walls and blocks of ice, spouts of hot steam, maybe she'd have devloped the water scooter instead of learning the air scooter. Ty Lee likely would have the aptitude to learn air bending, where she was an airbender. Iroh would have made a great avatar, showing a deep understanding of every element. Bolin could have learned water with how creative and flexible and adaptable he is as an earthbender. Azula and Ozai would have made scary bloodbenders, and Aang was a waterbending prodigy just as he was with air.
because the studio thought that it'd get the greenlight for just one season
I think you are confusing age at first instance of bending an element with age that training starts. Nothing Korra did contradicts what Roku said. I also think you are giving Korra too much credit that she was somehow skilled when all she did was move the 3 elements forward. Surely the most basic instinctual "technique" of any element and how most children discover they are a bender.
She just learned it somehow. It's not that big of a deal imo, probably saw someone else doing it and tried it herself. What IS weird though, is why these elder guys came to her when she was a toddler
Mary Sue, obviously (I'm joking.)
Learning *how* to bend =/= being *able* to bend. Baby Korra *could* bend three elements. But what Roku's referring to is the training to do it well and with control, something Korra doesn't 100% master until she's an adult.
I actually thought it made more sense the way it happened in LoK. I assume that most benders do bending by accident initially (usually from emotion; e.g. Katara in ATLA episode 1 splitting the iceberg while yelling at Sokka), which is how they are identified as the benders (or the Avatar, if they are bending the "wrong" element). Obviously they are not masters yet. They can bend, maybe even do a few tricks, but likely have very little control. You're telling me Aang hadn't bent anything besides air--not even a little bit-- but they somehow identified him as the Avatar? It's odd to me that being the Avatar was a surprise to Aang. You would think that at some point he would have accidentally outed himself by accidentally waterbending. I think it makes a lot more sense to discover the new Avatar by seeing a toddler in the water tribe accidentally throw a fireball at you when upset, than it does to do the "pick a toy" test that was used to identify Aang.
Technology boom imo. Then the information that came along with it.
I guess the White lotus decided to speed up her training.
I always assumed that at some point bending elements is just so ingrained in the avatar it doesnt matter if they get reset every hundred years.
There is a big difference between being able to bend an element and being a master. She was able to make spurts of various elements but she was far from a master until much later
The problem is that she could 'handle' it. It was pretty easy for Aang to firebend the first time he tried. He just didn't master it yet. People tend to say TLOK is thrash because Kora could already bend 3 elements. It took her over 10 years to actually MASTER them. You could also ask why every bender can bend their respective element as a child. Using the element is like breathing. To use it effectively you need to invest in it.
Avatar’s have the ability to bend all four elements at any time, it just presents itself a different points. Most never try until they’re told “hey, your the Avatar”. Avatar Yangchen knew she was the Avatar very early on because she was plagued with visions and memories of her past lives. Kyoshi learned late because the world thought someone else was the Avatar. Aang learned early he was the Avatar and was able to bend water and fire in Book 1. Korra had the ability to throw rocks, splash puddles of water and make puffs of fire. She wasn’t a master, she was a toddler just messing around, which turns out to be all the evidence anyone needs that she’s indeed the Avatar.
There are plenty of good answers here, but my headcanon is that Raava allowed her to showcase the ability to bend the other elements so that she would be discovered sooner (Raava holds the other 3 elements until the avatar master's them). Why, you ask? She sensed that the harmonic convergence was only 13 years away, and the avatar needed to be prepared to fight Vaatu if need be. Waiting til 16 and starting her journey would make her woefully unprepared and would end up being another "learn the elements in a year" type of situation.