So many people I talk to about LoK say they think it's "cheap" that Korra got all of her bending back at the end of Book 1. That it takes away the stakes, that it's tropey, that there's no consequences, etc. Mary Sue accusations, and so on and so forth.
But I very much disagree.
Korra does a lot of exploration of trauma, family, and identity. Especially the final season. But in season 1, she has her "identity" as the Avatar taken away by someone else. Prior to that, she doesn't really think of herself as Korra, a person. Her first line in the show is "I'm the Avatar, and you gotta deal with it." She is Avatar first, Korra second. So when Amon takes away her bending—the thing that makes her the avatar—, she loses who she is.
A common issue for people with trauma is a lack of self-worth and reliance on others to define them. Korra did not grow up in an abusive environment, but she did grow up where the adults in her life did not give her sufficient space or room for her to grow as a person, to define who she is. They encouraged her to reduce her identity to merely "Avatar." it is only when she goes to Republic City and rebels against Tenzen that she starts to consider that she might be her own person.
This is all standard YA trope stuff, and only a slight deviation from the Heroes Journey (but that deviation is important). At the end of Season 1, she has her "darkest moment / darkest hour / dark night of the soul / mirror moment" etc, whatever you want to call that story beat. All is lost, the thing that made her special is gone, the thing that she thought was crucial to success was taken away, the plan went horribly wrong.
The deviation: In many other YA Chosen One / Hero Journey stories, though, the protag hasn't wrapped their entire identity into that "sword of power" that they think they need. Luke only embraces "Jedi" as an identity later on. Luke has a "refusal of the call." Many YA protags start of wishing they weren't special, wanting to have an identity outside of their Chosen One status. Korra embraces it. She's the Avatar, and you gotta deal with it.
She doesn't have to go on the journey to find the magical sword; she is the sword. When the sword is lost, she is lost.
Whatever the traumatic incident(s) is/are, for survivors, it causes them to doubt themselves. It makes them question who they are, what their identity is. They lost something, something that they had previously used to define themselves.
And trauma survivors in media are expected to never get whatever that is back. To do so would to lose "stakes." we have to stay broken in some capacity or manner. The trauma has to leave some sort of permanent scar and the struggle from then on out has to be accepting that scar.
And that is what people expect from Korra. Amon takes her bending, and her struggle must now be learning to live without her bending, and any quest to get it back must ultimately "fail" so she realizes that she has truly lost it.
But why? Why can't Korra get her bending back? Why are we OK with narratives that trauma must leave people broken forever in some capacity? Why must the survivors journey be one of acceptance of scars? Why must the growth of survivors focus on the survivor creating a *new* identity, instead of their healing leafing to reclaiming who they were?
The lesson Korra learns in her Dark Night of the Soul is that Avatar is only one component of her identity. That yes, she is the Avatar, but that doesn't define who she is as a person. She can still have wants and dreams and desires and a beautiful mechanic girlfriend.
But she doesn't have to accept that the Avatar part of her identity can be stolen from her. She doesn't have to tolerate Amon getting to re-define her. She doesn't have to let trauma destroy an aspect of her identity. So she gets it back. And her journey to get that back is an internal one, one of self-reflection.
This leads into season 4, when she again has to grapple with her identity and trauma. This time the trauma is deeper, and the healing doesn't come easily or quickly. She may flounder, she may struggle and nearly give up and give in, but in the end she still decides that she doesn't have to accept the damage, she doesn't have to accept that other people can take parts of her away.
The narrative around trauma and it's portrayal in fiction is deeply flawed, in my opinion. And Korra is one of the few times where I saw myself, as a survivor, truly represented. This wasn't a cliche "and the heroes powers are all restored and he also gets the girl!" This was a look at what healing has the potential to be for people who have had their sense of self ripped away.
We trauma survivors have to work on accepting that trauma happened to us, but we don't have to accept the scars and come to terms with losing something of who we were. We don't have to go on journies to be taught that we are somehow stronger for now being without something we used to have.
#LegendOfKorra #LongRead #Trauma #HerosJourney #Healing #LiteraryAnalysis
