111 Girls Who Kick Ass, Number 12: Korra

WELL, DUH.

Let's see . . .

As the Avatar, she is (not to put too fine a point on it) the most powerful person in the entire world.

She had already taught herself the basics of Waterbending, Firebending, and Earthbending when she was five years old.

She learned healing from Katara.

She is the opposite of Aang in just about every way you can think of; pretty much all they have in common is being the Avatar.

She doesn't let a little thing like being terrified stop her from going into battle.

She is the first person ever to tame a polar bear dog (which, so far, has not actually been mentioned on the show itself).

She's a Waterbender, but her first instinct in a fight is usually to Firebend.

. . . But, you know, as much as all of that makes me love her (and I do; in the short time since her show started, Korra has quickly shot up there with some of my favorite fictional characters ever, like Harriet the Spy and the Animorphs and Tiffany Aching), I almost love her even more for the message that she sends to us in the real world:

YES, you can have a kids' action show and make the hero a girl. YES, it can be wildly successful. YES, she will appeal to little girls and little boys -- all they care about is the fact that she's awesome. NO, being a "strong female character" doesn't mean she's not allowed to have feelings. And so on and so forth and so on. Why, in 2012, is any of this still a discussion that anyone's having like they're surprised?

Really, the question isn't, "Why is this show so good?" The question is, "Why do other shows act like this one should be impossible?"

Why I Love Korra SO DAMN MUCH

Well, first of all, duh.

Avatar: The Last Airbender is one of my three favorite TV shows of all time; to this day, despite multiple viewings of all episodes, I can still pick an episode at random and start crying -- not because it's sad or happy or whathaveyou (although there is plenty of that going on, too), but because it is just so good as a story. Every single aspect, from the animation to the voice acting to the music to the characterization to the plot to the history to the mythology to the action, is SO GOOD that you just can't handle it (well . . . maybe if you don't have a soul).

So it was a given that I would love the sequel series, too.

. . . Okay, honestly, I can't even go into detail about how much I love it yet. I am still processing. I'd like to provide full recaps of the first two episodes, but they wouldn't be very interesting to read: "So then this happens and I love it, and then Korra says something funny and I love her for it, and then there's a scene that I just absolutely love . . ."

But there is one point that I want to make:

The main thing I'm loving about Korra so far -- which should not come as a surprise at all to anyone who watched the original series* -- is that absolutely no one finds it weird or "wrong" or surprising that the Avatar, the most powerful person in the entire world, is

a girl.








*Kyoshi, Yangchen.