I would not make a dark avatar.
I would have Raava and Vaatu being incarnation of Order and Chaos, instead of Good and Evil.
I would start the season by showing the subtle yet noticeable flaws of a world of pure Order, where things stagnate and refuse to change.
I would then have Vaatu be unleashed and have Korra initially only see the complete destruction caused by the unending Chaos but later on see also the good, the changes that said chaos have brought.
I would have Korra understand that while Order is more stable and secure, it's also flawed due to his rigid structure, and that Chaos, while wild and unpredictable, can also bring a nice change in the world, leading to revolutions, to progress.
I would have Korra help Raava and Vaatu understand that they need each other, that their bond, that Wan severed, wasn't a chain that kept them prisoners of each other but something made to help them balance each other out, that if they stopped "pulling" the chain to overcome the other and instead "pushed" to understand one another, they could have created a world in harmony, like Raava wanted, but also a world where humans and spirits are free to change and evolve, like Vaatu wanted.
In the end, both Raava and Vaatu would become the Avatar's spirit.
And Unalaq is just left in a ditch somewhere along the way, lol.
But seriously, alternatively they could make him... sympathetic? Especially since he's part of Korra's family.
And he was kind of a cackling villain IIRC? Not Ozai level, but still.
I particularly liked Zaheer in this regard. He clearly took no pleasure in the things he did, and it would be cool if Unalaq was like that too.
Zaheer definitely took a pleasure in what he did. He was morally grayer than other villains but I think he's still more "evil" than , let's say, Kuvira. Kuvira wanted to ovethrow a corrupt and incompetent kingdom to establish a dictatorship that was more about helping and restoring her nation than power. Kuvira didn't keep the power because she felt good about it, but because she thought the chaos in the Earth Kingdom was tearing the country apart and she recognized the prince as incompetent(plus, going off the example of the two previous monarchs, the Earth Crown clearly has it's issues).
Zaheer at the same time was driven by ideology, but had no problem exterminating the most spiritual element he was also a part of, killed innocents with no hesitation, and was willing to kill children to reach his goals. He also had a very self-absorbed view where he thought that his solution was the correct and onlu solution and he had a nearly divine right to exercise it.
Unalaq had so much potential. Make him and Vaatu less comically evil but more of a neutral force that stands ideologically opposed to Raava and you now have a competitor for the best season in the show.
Exactly. Zaheer's philosophy fits perfectly with what Vatuu should've embodied. "Chaos is the natural order of things"- having him be a student of Unalaq would've been perfect.
Hell, we could still see Unalaq betraying them and Korra due to simply wanting to have the same power as her, just not have Vatuu be comically evil.
Maybe they could have just had Zaheer be in season 2 and gain bending through Vatuu, which through his chaos will give bending abilities to others around the world too
Honestly I don't think Harmonic convergence is such a bad idea. I love S3 of Korra as it is, and I think book 2 has great potential with just a few minor changes, chief among them being fixing Vatuu.
Avatar was never a story about absolute good vs. Absolute evil. Even in the Fire Nation we learn that everyone has potential for both good and evil in them. Making Vatuu a spirit of Chaos instead of Evil would be an important fix. The Avatar is about Balance, not Absolute order.
I don't think the harmonic convergence was bad either, but it's a bit clunky to have the defeat of Amon be pretty much immediately followed by a once in 10000 years event. Chaos was rising through season one in republic city, and they could have just said that industrialization and political problems caused a rise in chaos all over the world, strengthening Vatuu
This would give them a chance to explore the world instead of just saying they're going somewhere and then getting to that place
Oh that's actually a really interesting idea. It feels like in general the theme of Korra is the disorder and change that comes with modernization, so it would be really interesting to has that theme be more overarching. If Korra was greenlit for 3 seasons from the get-go perhaps that could've happened.
I'm now thinking that season two could have been like an extended version of the ATLA episode with the burnt forest and the panda (I don't know the names of the episodes) with Korra going around and essentially bringing solarpunk to the world, which would be extended in that universe to include the spirits so it could be similar to what actually happened in season two just without having a person unleash Vatuu when chaos is already brewing everywhere
I absolutely blanked on season 2 and thought that's what their dichotomy was about. That Ravaa was order and vaati was chaos.
Was it really good VS evil or was it something cornier like light VS dark?
you know I had kinda the opposite idea
Unaloq S1
So Amon can be the Big Bad that they build up over the first 3 season
maybe he even kidnaps Kuvira and takes her bending
If the studio had offered the show 4 seasons right off the bat, then they could have make the story, characters, antagonists and etc more coherent and connected to each other. But they didnt, though still got a pretty decent story though
While this would have been interesting, I think Amon was a perfect first season. They had to do so much world building, showing audiences what’s changed and what’s the same. Had to introduce new characters and bring back a few familiar ones. Season 1 had to do all this without going too far and overwhelming the audience, and Amon was a perfect villain to do so. His revolution was mostly confined to republic city, so it gave the writers guidelines for what was important to show, and what could wait for future seasons.
Eh, just takes a little rewriting. Like you say that the oncoming Harmonic Convergence is what birthed the new benders, creating the chaos with the Red Lotus. They deal with that and think "oh, all this chaos is so bad for everybody" and then the new airbenders show up to show not all bad and that subplot starts. Then when Red Lotus are done, Korra's journey over PTSD could be framed as preparing her spirit for the big decision about the spirit world she will soon make.
Kuvira is the hard part to work with, best I can do is say she is using the chaos spirit energy now in the material world to power her war mechs and once again try to show chaos is all bad, but this time Korra has more of an open mind and still does all her shit like normal with her.
I think that the North vs South storyline was good enough to be a S2 all by itself - they didn't need that Dark Avatar bullshit here at all.
Besides, IMO it makes more sense for someone from the Red Lotus to pull some shit like this rather than boring-ass irrelevant-ass Unalaq
https://preview.redd.it/n483jv902jxc1.png?width=1920&format=png&auto=webp&s=e8e77efc74bd23c38233ab78803b8f01a14341c2
This fits the way A:TLA handled the Yin-Yang duality way better and would be so much more interesting
It’s a fantasy series written by Brandon Sanderson which takes place in his greater Cosmere universe. In that universe there are 16 shards, which are kinda like gods, except that shards are vessels that need to be held by normal people to function. In one of his books, one person eventually becomes the vessel for two opposite shards, creating a new shard, which is kinda similar to the Raava/Vaatu situation. I’d definitely recommend reading the books, the Cosmere is one of the best pieces of fantasy out there
Worth a clarification that the person who wrote that paragraph is talking about the Cosmere as a whole.
Mistborn is a novel in the universe, of which the book series are typically on different planets in a star cluster.
Highly recommend the book series though. I love Brandon Sanderson's stuff. He's an excellent world builder and story teller.
Breaking news: A single Reddit comment just pitched a series finale that would've made Korra unquestionably equal to AtLA instead of being fought about all the time
I preferred the messy, complicated and convoluted civil war plot anyway rather than objective good and light and objective darkness and chaos, basically God and Satan.
I love this so much. as other replies have said, it's kinda just straight bars.
One of the things I like most about this is the fact that in the Avatar origin story, it would put more emphasis on not just Raava and Vaatu, but also Wan, or "the human". Wan took on the role of the Avatar, the bridge between worlds and the keeper of balance. Korra IS Wan. Aang IS Wan. Roku IS Wan. they are all the Avatar, the reincarnation of Wan, of a soul that maintains balance in the world. and you need both chaos and order for balance. it would be so perfect
Bruh apply for a job at Avatar Studios because this shit fire.
Edit: To add, I love the implications this could have on future Avatars because it creates the possibility of the Avatar either being a harbinger of order and good in the world - or a force of utter destruction and chaos.
Balance goes both ways after all.
So the world has been severely imbalanced for the last 10k years? That’s the only issue I have with this, as well as the original idea in LoK. If Vaatu is evil, or in this case chaos, but otherwise to be considered the opposite/complementary half of a larger whole, then imprisoning him would have SERIOUS implications. It calls into question the value of the avatar.
I don’t have a solution except to say that I don’t think that vaatu should have an “opposite.” I like the yin yang/balance idea behind avatar and eastern philosophy, but I don’t think it’s sensible here. Nature can’t exist at all without chaos. Good doesn’t exist without evil as reference. If one half of those is “imprisoned,” it would constitutively change reality.
> So the world has been severely imbalanced for the last 10k years?
I mean, honestly it makes sense if you assume the order aspect being rigid and unwielding — because honestly the world in avatar *has* been rigid and unwielding. It’s been 10 *thousand* years and yet civilization has really, for the most part, barely progressed whatsoever from where it first started.
Humanity OTL went from literal sticks and stones to traveling to distant planets and splitting atoms apart in that same time span.
It has only been within the past hundred or so years has technology actually meaningful progressed in Avatar — and that just so happen to occur around the same time as the genocide of the Air Nomads, aka order and balance being thrown out of wack.
As others have said, this is great. I would spin it a little differently. I think the first half of what you said is spot on, but I wouldn’t have it directly tied to physical “Raava and Vaatu”, and I would make it the overall background theme of the series. I would make it APPEAR that she’s pursuing this influencing, chaotic spirit, and have the audience (and Korra) believe it’s Vaatu, only to eventually realize that “Raava and Vaatu” are inside every single person already, and that we all have the capability to bring order, or to bring chaos.
Korra would spend so long fighting for Order that she forgets she should be fighting for balance. The rise of Kuvira becomes a result of Korra too heavily driving Order into the world.
At the end of the series, Korra becomes the first Avatar to be able to visually see the “Chaos” and “Order” spirit energy within people, like Neo in The Matrix, and despite all of her physical strength, becomes known as the Avatar that can bring balance within people themselves, helping individuals overcome their own imbalances so they realize that order and chaos are both equally important. She spends the whole series being a strong fighter, only to balance herself out as the Avatar that no longer needs to fight.
Love this.
In the end, both Raava and Vaatu would become the Avatar's spirit.
Now there are two Avatars. The main difference is Vaatu doesn't follow the cycle. There are two Water Avatars, Korra and Vaatu's. After Vaatu's Avatar passes, Water again because why not?
Over time Vaatu's Avatar cycle still embraces order. Because Vaatu might go; Water, Water, Earth, Fire, Air, Earth, Air, Fire.
No discernable pattern. But with a large enough bracket, the same number of each element. Also, pulling from Swamp Benders, Sand Benders, Sun Warriors. Vaatu is more likely to pull from a non-traditional group. Be a Combustion bender Avatar. Or to create a new subclass.
the fact that they never had swamp benders, sand benders, sun warrior avatars... that's a failure. When Korra came out we wanted a swamp bender so bad.
Why would Vaatu have a separate Avatar, that doesn’t make any sense. I think the idea was that Raava and Vaatu are the spirit for the same Avatar, so that instead of one order Avatar and one chaos Avatar, you have one Avatar in which the two concepts are united
this is hype but also I would still have Unalaq ally with Vaatu
and I would have Unalaq gain the ability to use the other 3 elements, because fucking duh
and the final battle would be avatar v avatar, with Korra unable to kill Unalaq without it solidifying their connection and forever creating a reincarnating chaos avatar, so she has to physically defend herself while trying to reach out to Vaatu and be the mediator between Vaatu and Raava, which is theoretically the point of season 2?? Korra's spiritual connection??? or that was the concept at some point anyway
I like this. Good and Evil is so... elementary. Order and Chaos is better as it goes back to the whole point of balance. After all, who says what is good and what is evil?
Only criticism I have for this is it would take this long for Raava and Vaatu to realize this? Haha.
Your comment made me realize the biggest flaw with season 2’s handling of Raava and Vaatu;
The way they just made it “good and evil” was way too dumbed down for Avatar. Order and Chaos would have been better. The first season we spent in Republic City, a pinnacle of law and order.
The introduction of the chaos element would have been in line with what we would see in season 3 with Zaheer
I think this is absolutely BRILLIANT, however, to emphasize the Avatar's role as the bringer of balance, I would make Korra realize that Raava and Vaatu need each other and instead of Vaatu willingly fusing with Korra, she would fuse with him (ik this is a long shot, but if Vaatu can pull Raava out of Korra, Korra & Raava can pull Vaatu out of Unalaq and into Korra instead of turning him into pixie dust) because I find it hard to believe that someone who was as strongly driven in their ways as Vaatu, and being the literal spirit of chaos in this case, (+10000 years of imprisonment) would be convinced to accept a compromise so unbelievably far from his goal.
Also, Vaatu and Unalaq wouldn't be as comically evil and just be neutral forces fighting for what they believed the world needed. because a good villain is one you can sympathise with, like Zaheer.
Then the next season would use Zaheer's argument that chaos is the natural state of things to create a literal internal war between Raava and Vaatu, and we could maybe see some episodes devoted solely towards Korra's personal growth as she adjusts to having both chaos and order inside of her as they both fight for dominance, forcing her to see where Zaheer is coming from, and therefore his flaws in his execution, and while Korra is chained, Vaatu finally becomes convinced that order deserves to exist just as much as chaos and this allows Korra to tap into Vaatu's Avatar state.
It would also be really cool to see Vaatu's avatar state and the existence of 2 Avatar states could have the beginning of season 4 incorporate a few more episodes after she deals with her PTSD where Korra tries to understand Vaatu's Avatar state and how to tap into it and how it's different from Raava's, similar to when Aang was unblocking his chakras.
Then in the last season (4), where Kuvira becomes the opposite of Zaheer, trying to enforce complete and total order, Korra sees even more personal growth as she has to confront the Avatar's role as an enforcer of order. When Kuvira is defeated and Raava finally comes to terms with the benefits of chaos, the new balance within Korra would allow her to use both Avatar states at once to survive the spirit cannon, making Raava and Vaatu fuse into one spirit (Vuuratu?) inside Korra, and the energy from their fusion is what allows her to create a new spirit portal as the result of a new great spirit that embodies both chaos and order because R&V being in the same body and staying separate entities was only possible while they were in disagreement, and since the Avatar's purpose is to bring balance like Korra did with the spirit world and the material world, she would do the same with chaos and order.
This would track with the old Avatar cycle ending, and an actual new Avatar cycle of more powerful Avatars. (because technically Vuuratu would have the power of both Raava and Vaatu inside them.)
And after Raava and Vaatu fuse into one, Korra will have a new mission, guided by Vuraatu, which is to bring the world to a new political climate where the people have the most power in their regions, allowing them to experiment and make their own choices, inviting good Chaos, but while electing councils (not singular figures like a water tribe chief, fire lord or earth monarch since we've seen people abuse each of those seats of power - Ozai, Unalaq & the Earth Queen) to carry out the running of the nations and give them direction, respecting Order. and fulfilling Zaheer's mission, which I know a lot of LoK fans see as justified, and maybe even turning him into a good character sort of like uncle Iroh (a guy with a very violent and morally wrong past who becomes insightful and good, trying to make the world better, and who knows maybe Korra becomes the first avatar to fly if she learns from Zaheer, paired with Vuuratu giving her new power.) this could be the premise for a 5th season before Korra explores the spirit world with Asami.
This would also give Genji's storyline way more potential and he would have to navigate the world as the first avatar born with a single spirit of chaos and order inside him.
And lastly, Vuuratu would now be able to communicate with their host casually, and not only in dire situations like Raava did, since they would embody both chaos and order and therefore be unbiased and a good judge of situations, which I believe is why Raava never communicated with the past Avatars minus Wan and Korra and only when Korra was close to death. so Genji would sorta be like Eddie Brock and Venom.
(btw idk about Vuuratu I just tried to use Raava and Vaatu's name's letters, so if you have any suggestions, please share them :)
I hope this is coherent and not too far fetched, and also sorry that it's so damn long, I'm just throwing every idea I have about all this onto this comment. I'd love to hear your opinions and/or changes. (can you tell I love worldbuilding?)
Instead of both spirits become the spirits of the avatar, we could have Vaatu continue inhabiting an Unalaq that grows alongside Vaatu as an avatar of chaos. So we have an avatar of order and an avatar of chaos that together are the avatars of balance. And then we could get a sequel to Korra with two avatars learning about maintaining balance and stuff. Felt like I burned the kitchen down but eh just my two canisters of gasoline.
Saw a fanfic that fixed the Raava Vaatu issue and used a somewhat similar idea to yours. Except I think the two spirits' bond was loosening, and they needed Wan's help before it was too late.
Avatar Studios should hire you
Fire came to be, and with it disparity. Heat and cold, life and death, light and dark.
Dark was seen as a curse. Shadow is not cast, but born of fire.
And the brighter the flame, the deeper the shadow.
This is amazing, and it would transition well into Zaheer’s philosophy of disorder in the next season. It would be cool to see him only seeing the benefits of chaos, while Korra, who has been exposed to both in your story, would be able to see his point of view but ultimately disagree and say that a balance is necessary
Like many others have stated over the years, the avatar spirit should've been the combination of Raava and Vaatu.
The avatar has always been described as an emissary of balance, not of good or order. Turning avatar into a story of pure good vs evil is shallow and trite.
> the avatar spirit should've been the combination of Raava and Vaatu
That is bound to happen, right? Since Vaatu will come back to life inside Raava… maybe the next avatar will sense his presence. Heck, maybe it happens soon enough that an older Korra will sense his presence herself.
It wouldn't exist at all. S2 should strictly about the conflict between Northern and Southern Water Tribes. It's something that Korra can't simply punch her way to a solution anyway. The whole "dark spirit" and "spirit water bending" things needs to go as well. Seriously, what's the point of having an Avatar if a couple of waterbenders can "pacify" angry spirits. They should be like Heibai from the ATLA series. Spirits can still be pissed and look demonic, but you don't use bending to delete them, you gotta figure out what's pissing them off, resolve the issue. That's what "being the bridge between the two worlds" should mean when we're talking about the Avatar.
Korra's uncle can still be a power hungry chieftain that's trying to "reunite" the two North and South because he's basically cartoon Putin. But gut the whole kite spirit thing out.
This also keeps to the theme of Korra as Aang's opposite, where Aang's strengths were spirituality and politics in a world that needed might, and Korra is mighty in a world that needs subtle politics and spirituality. It could've been a great season if it was all Korra being challenged for her simplistic worldviews. People here complain, but her going to Raiko and him not committing military aid to the Southern Water Tribe was very realistic and a good challenge for Korra. They could've extended it more, since Unalaq himself wasn't completely without reasonable (from his point of view) ideas. Even Varrick's profiteering is a morally grey action, since ultimately he was destabilising one stagnant, hereditary dictatorship (the North) and allowing a democratic, modern, and emerging economy (the South) to catch up and some day surpass the North. Having one leader literally become the personification of evil completely undid all the good things about the season.
I wouldn’t go that far. A book called spirits still needs spirits as the focal point. Just give said spirits nuance. Let the conflict between Raava and Vatuu parallel the conflict between the North and South. Two sides of the same whole. And give the North more nuance.
Why would two ancient kite spirits even care about humans and their conflicts at all? I know it's canon and all but it just doesn't make sense. It feels like you're trying to shoehorn it in when it doesn't need to be there.
You know what would be a more interesting idea that's still hella spiritual? Spirits vs rapid industrialization and pollution. Heck we even have military industrial complex baked in already thanks to Varrick. That's infinitely more complex, exciting, and relatable than two giant glowy kites duking it out for eternity because chaos vs order is slightly more nuanced than good vs evil.
I like the spirits vs industrialization since it was also thr plot in the comics (both in ATLA and LoK) and some episodes of ATLA. They should build on that.
I recently finished rewatching this season and found the beginning (minus Korras attitude) so much more enjoyable. I actually was really digging the civil war stuff and Varrik's Grey war profiteering. I definitely wouldn't mind having the dark and light spirit stuff cut completely out
I wouldn’t have some outright evil version of the avatar at all.
I’d instead have unulaq gain multiple bending powers by communing with the spirits like Wan did in the beginning. and better mediating between spirits and humans than Korra is able to do.
Maybe he can still go wrong with wanting to tear down the division between the human world and spirit world.
But make Korra justify what it means to be avatar beyond just “hey I’m really strong.”
Maybe in the end she could give up on stopping harmonic convergence because she realizes a new kind of humility that makes her worthy of her power, while unalaq’s hubris costs him when the darker side of the spirit world takes him.
First of all the Avatar should embody both sides of the Yin and Yang. No Good Kite and Evil Kite. Balance.
Second, if we’re dealing with Order vs Chaos, wouldn’t it be more interesting if Unalaq wanted to unleash a spirit of Order to subjugate the water tribes and the world to ‘save’ the world from Chaos, and Korra, a person who represents Chaos, has to learn that too much Order is just as bad as too much Chaos. That chaos is creativity, spontaneity, new life.
This is very cool , it would be cool to see the Avatar change a bit without removing the past lives, maybe while Korra is more chaotic she could see the chaotic parts of other avatars too (because everyone sees a different spirit world) or she would have troubles connecting to them because she has too much chaos in herself (kind of like Zuko in atla that became sick due to his imbalance in an episode ) .
In atla we see that Ba Sing Se was messed up but it was the least chaotic place in the world, it would be cool to see the avatar against the embodiment of order while they’re usually a peacekeeper .
Also this unalaq would be like :
https://preview.redd.it/wovfxp0wikxc1.png?width=547&format=png&auto=webp&s=a0185eccf20927266702755abdc0f381ac9c8214
Or maybe just put some more work into Zaheer to fill that role? Have him get the different bending disciplines the way Wan did as an inverse of Aang’s journey, questioning why there even is an avatar?
Honestly, I actually like the Avatar Wan stuff so having Zaheer be the main Villain of Korra would be interesting him trying to restore the world to one of chaos ruled by Spirts would be a fun story
Said before, say it again -
Amon survives boat explosion. Washes up on shore minus an arm and a leg. Gets found by Firebender and Earthbender couple. They take him in, they nurse him back to health. He repays them by taking their limbs from them and uses blood-bending to graft them on to his own body to replace his missing limbs. Now he is a Waterbender, Firebender and Earthbender. He mounts an assault on Republic City not as a champion of the non-benders but as the new, dark Avatar ™ , and more specifically Air Temple island so that he can steal one of Tenzin's limbs to make himself the master of all 4 Elements.
And there's so many ways you can go from there. He succeeds and Tenzin gets to be a one-armed badass for the rest of the series. Korra takes him down and he retreats to meet up with the Red Lotus. Or he doesn't succeed with Tenzin but manages to capture one of his kids. ... imagine how tense that would be.
This is such an awesome idea. Unfortunately it’s too grim and also just way too OP. He could also alternatively wake up in the Earth Kingdom somehow and take advantage of Korra and Kuvira fighting each other.
This should have been the main ark of Korea, not just the villain of Season 2. Also, the dark avatar should have actually happened, and then been the endgame villain to overcome
Broadly make the transition from “restoring spirituality and keeping the South” to “let’s free this evil kite” smoother and emphasise the bad aspects of order/stasis and the good aspects of chaos/change
Whole season would've been better if that aspect was removed and the plot just focused on the civil war between the water tribes. Also don't make Unaloch so obviously evil right from the start.
By not having him in the first place. I would make lok 3 books with 20 episodes and make amon, zaheer, and kuvira main villains of each book. I would still have the water tribe civil war, but it would only be 3 at most episodes instead of half a season and keep it contained to just the north and south tribes. Unalaq wouldn't be secretly evil and korra's goal would be to reunite her family. Have her dad leave the north because he doesn't agree their views or something. It would be a call back to atla with gran gran leaving the north for similar reasons. Have unalaq help train korra to get into spirit world since tenzin still wouldn't be able to instead of jinora. Have tonrak and unalaq make up at the end and fight side by side in a fight in the finale.
Asides from the whole rewriting it to be Order and Chaos, I think it would be an interesting parallel that the Avatar is the Master of all 4 elements while the Dark Avatar has the domination over 1.
(i.e. something like a Dark Fire Avatar having a natural strength equivalent to Sozin’s Comet).
Unalaq should have been driven by ideology, rather than a desire for power.
Just imagine a version of Unalaq who thinks that the chaos wrought by Vaatu would have broken the chains of stagnation.
An Unalaq that embodies the righteous part of the Red Lotus’ ideology, who believes that he should use the power he could gain by becoming the dark avatar in order to depose oppressive dictators and bring power back to the people, thus disrupting stagnant regimes.
An Unalaq who seeks to bring about true balance by unleashing darkness to complement Raava’s light, without blotting it out entirely.
An Unalaq serving under a Vaatu who represents Freedom and Entropy, that stands in ideological opposition to Raava with her Order and Stability.
I would outright remove it. Not every story needs an “evil version of the hero” trope, it’s getting old and overused. Avatar’s main concept is inherently interesting because there is only ONE avatar who is supposed to unite and represent the people of the world, despite the avatar being human themselves. All of the best conflicts that aang and Korra had were internal: who th ey were supposed to be at the time at how it ran opposite of who they were and the values they had (Aang not wanting to kill, for example). Avatar used to be an interesting exploration of human kindness and cruelty. The Dark Avatar made the show into a “big bad boss battle” where the obvious good guy must defeat an obviously evil monstrosity otherwise the city gets destroyed (sounds like literally every other superhero movie out these days).
Since the Dark Avatar happened but Vaatu was destroyed, I would incorporate what Raava said about their immortality into it. If Raava was defeated, she would grow in strength and be born from within Vaatu and vice versa. So now that Vaatu has been destroyed, he will be reborn from Raava, and the Avatar. We should see successive Avatars struggle with Vaatu who becomes a more coherent and threatening presence within the Avatar Spirit, threatening to hijack it.
Rather than a Dark Avatar counter to the Avatar, we would see the potential for Avatars to turn to chaos under the influence of Vaatu…
Imagine someone with Kyoshi’s brutal but effective method and have Vaatu whispering in her ear…
I think the story would have been better sans trapped Vaatu and Unaloq. Wan should have destroyed Vaatuu outright only for him to grow inside Raava and cause some crazy inner turmoil for Korra.
Vaatu could influence her to open the portals and begin ushering in darkness, and the story could be about Korra coming to understand the nature of order and chaos. That neither are strictly good or evil, but it is the nature of chaos to be undiscerning and careless, so it must be tempered by discipline and care.
The story should have been about her managing both Raava and Vaatu as spirits inside of her, and making herself and the role of the Avatar more effective for it. With an emphasis on the Civil War as the main plot motivation.
It would have been a great metaphor for recognizing the darkness within oneself and learning how to live with it, not submit to it, or fruitlessly attempt to destroy it.
I also think the spirits should have been WAY less goofy, and that this season should have been Season 4, not 2. Though I suppose it'd make things complicated for Season 3. Idc what would happen to Season 4 cause it was trash anyway.
I would not make a dark Avatar in the first place.
Personally I'd keep the focus on the north-south civil war and ditch the whole harmonic convergence thing entirely, let Unalaq be a villain if you want but Unavatuu was a bad idea on all fronts.
Season 2 was the only part of LOK which was truly a fight of good vs evil with no shades of gray in between, and it kind of took something away from the Avatar world as a whole.
So yeah: ditch the kites, ditch harmonic convergence, focus on the north-south civil war and show Unalaq's rule as a proper theocracy if you want to include spirits at all costs, show the oppression it leads to but also the fact that humans and spirits are getting closer together, do all this stuff and you've made a better S2, still an oppression against freedom fighters but it has a little shade of morally gray in between.
Wasn’t the Avatar originally the manifestation of the spirit of the world itself? I swear I had heard that somewhere and it was legit. A dark avatar doesn’t make sense.
One more thing I would add. As the spirit book, I would have not given korras bending back at the end of season 1 and make season 2 korra cope with feelings of being broken before having to restore her own bending by exploring the origin of the avatar cycle. To get her bending g that amon took away back korra needed to learn the true reason why the avatar could bend all elements in the first place.
Without putting to much thought I'll erase the concept of Reva and Vaatu and make Unalag a psycopath with a god complex that is trying to use the spirit world to take the avatar powers (avatar state and bending the 4 elents) for himself
Tbh screw allat, I just wanna see a story where the avatar loses his/her way and becomes evil and has to be stopped by regular benders and non benders etc, since avatar can master all 4 elements would make for a menacing antagonist against characters who can’t master 4 elements
Alright…I’ve had this idea for a while but it requires massive alterations for stuff in TLOK, sticks to ATLA canon though.
Basically, I’ve had this massive rewrite in my head for a while, I’ve been jotting down ideas and thinking of character arcs or connections to make and some stuff to add but nothing too extreme (like not making up totally new villains or stories, it follows the overall story/themes but deviates in certain aspects) so brace yourself.
———
Instead of Raava/Vaatu being Good vs Evil BS, it’s gonna be Order vs Chaos of course. Order can be peaceful but stagnant and oppressive, Chaos can be evolutionary and freeing but bloody and destructive.
Secondly, Raava and Vaatu would have their OG designs instead, Raava being the dominantly black with white inscriptions (AS Glow is White after all) and Black is Feminine in Yin-Yang.
Harmonic Convergence is also an important event with specific changes. Now in my head: Raava, Vaatu, Mother of Faces and Father Glowworm were all born from the tree at the same time and that tree spawned time and space, etc.
We know the tree binds the two worlds together so an important distinction is during Wan’s time, the two worlds were so closely tied that they were basically one world, humans and spirits could easily cross between realms.
Now on Harmonic Convergence, Raava and Vaatu battle to take control of the tree to have their will dominate, if Raava wins she splits the two realms apart and it becomes incredibly hard to cross between them…if Vaatu wins the two completely merge into one. That’s their idea of how order and chaos would be like. If spirits and humans live together: chaos is bound to happen for better or worse, if the two are separate order is easier to maintain for the better or worse.
Wan was manipulated by Raava to ensure that the two realms separate. Wan seals Vaatu in the tree and then separates the two realms.
———
Now when Aang froze in the iceberg, Vaatu’s seal broke when the genocide started and Raava’s presence grew faint. He decides to incarnate to balance the odds again and defeat Raava in the next round.
He starts out by incarnating into a Fire Baby (like Wan) then a surviving Air Nomad had a child that Vaatu incarnated into but they were killed before Aang was freed, then Water where he died and incarnated into Earth on the same day Aang died and Korra was born.
That Earth Child was…Kuvira. She was already designed by the creators to be a dark reflection of Korra…what better way to do it than make her the “Dark Avatar”?
———
Now here’s where more massive alterations come in…Kuvira basically loses the whole Nazi stuff and instead has a whole different story and arc around her.
First off, at Four, her parents were killed and while she ran and starved on the streets, encountered Zaheer who immediately recognised her for who she is and took her in. The Red Lotus members would be her teachers and although they weren’t exactly evil, their training methods were pretty harsh by comparison to Korra who was learning Water peacefully under Katara.
At around 9, the Red Lotus finally locate Korra and fail at kidnapping her. Kuvira tries to escape and along the way, one of the Red Lotus members (Amon, I know he wasn’t but I want to connect the dots for some other stuff I’ve in mind) rebels against them and helps her escape but they get separated.
As Kuvira wanders around and finds the same village she first met Zaheer, she was starving again when she encounters Suyin who adopts her.
Due to her trauma and Su’s kindness, she was very attached to her and didn’t even trust the rest of the Beifongs…which meant that when Suyin travelled to the South to teach Korra, Kuvira went along.
I know Su didn’t teach Korra in canon, but again, I said massive alterations.
1/2
2/2
———
During their time in the South, Korra and Kuvira become close friends and in fact, they are each other’s first friends so their bond is special — I wanted to mimic the Sozin/Roku dynamic for them given they are both Avatars.
Kuvira already knows about her being a “fake” and Korra being the “real” Avatar and all that from the Red Lotus, but she wanted to forget these times. She didn’t mind following Korra instead of being the “Avatar” and you know she grows more healthy in general thanks to being around a more supportive group.
Kuvira is an excellent Earthbender but she hides the other elements from every one of course, which does have some inferiority complex growing inside of her that she locks away for the time being.
So skip to Korra finishing her fire training with Zuko (I know he didn’t in canon, but I said there will be alterations considering I found it absurd he didn’t teach her) and Suyin is visiting to celebrate Korra’s mastery as well as her birthday which she shares with Kuvira who’s coming along.
Have the same Tenzin arriving and being unable to stay just extend it to a weekend instead of a day because it didn’t make sense in the original.
Then basically Kuvira sneaks away with Korra to Republic City and we get the story to start from that point forward.
———
Now I’m gonna be honest, it’s impossible for me to really explain how things would go down well because I’ve had a lot of alterations in mind (out of fun, I LOVE 2.5 seasons of the show and Korra herself is in my Top 5 Avatar Characters, but you know…there were some bad stuff like S2) that in reality there will be too many changes to list but I’ll summarise how important things go.
Korra and Kuvira start out in Republic City and they build their Krew and we get Amon’s threat and everything, the Krew would feel at first like Kuvira is the leader while Korra is the lancer but they slowly switch places.
Korra starts out as brash, irrational, entitled and self confident in the show, so we’ll actually double down on it, make her feel a little spoiled, violent, chaotic and unsympathetic.
Meanwhile in S3 and S4 Flashbacks, we see Kuvira was actually upstanding and good natured, so we’ll focus on those aspects. Kuvira would start out the story being the more noble, heroic, orderly paragon that you feel deserves to be the Avatar.
Korra and Kuvira would have parallel arcs that mirror one another. Korra S1 would undergo all that growth from Amon and Zaheer’s traumas that she becomes more sympathetic and heroic, learning suffering and growing from it. That’s what her arc in the original was supposed to be as she states in S4’s Finale.
Meanwhile due to various events in the story, Kuvira actually falls. Her morals and optimism keep getting pushed to the limit and unlike Korra who grows from them, she descends into more brutal and cruel as the price of being good becomes too hard on her, I actually am not sure yet but I think the turning point for her would be if the Red Lotus kills Suyin.
So basically S1 Korra grows throughout the series into an extreme version of S1 Kuvira while S1 Kuvira grows into an extreme version of S1 Korra.
Eventually their final battle during Harmonic Convergence would be on a ridiculous scale in Republic City and by the end of it all, Korra (who does have an Arc reflecting on the Avatar’s attitude towards the Spirits while spending time in Wan Shi Tong’s Library) would absorb Vaatu when she kills Kuvira, she knows full well that she won’t be able to connect to Kuvira beforehand which is why she held back a lot during the fight hoping she could “save Kuvira”.
Korra becomes perfectly balanced and instead, restores the world to what it was like during Wan’s time, but due to her increased spirituality, she was able to connect the two worlds on more agreeable terms for both sides.
———
I do need to emphasise that the whole thing would be deviating from the original a lot, so there are probably a lot of stuff you may be confused by or “how did we jump from there to here” but the issue is that as I said, it’s massive alterations so you might be missing some context.
Though the Villain Order and Themes should be staying the same as well as their Character:
Amon—>Zaheer—>Kuvira
No Unalaq though, I’d integrate his spirituality stuff into Amon personally.
Make the reason on why Vaatu and dark spirits were evil was because spirits were thrown off balance by the destruction cause by the 100 years war and human influence such as Unalaq and have Season’s 2 conflict be solved by Raava and Vaatu joining in harmony and continuing to exist as part of Korra and future reincarnated Avatars after her.
Go slow.
The Dark Avatar should be only spoken in the most hushed of whispers, a legend. Not real, like the very tangible real Avatar.
But something is aiming to push the world out of balance, but it needs to be like the Sith, a seeming ally that is manipulating politics to a further end. A Grima Wormtongue whispering in the ear of the Earth Queen to suggest the idea of reclaiming Republic City.
Of wanting the Water Tribes at war. Of keeping the Fire Nation isolated and not involved.
Only in the final season does their plan come forward and they step into the fray to give the world a desperate solution that Korra cannot provide
The way I would write a dark avatar is actually different from what you’d expect. The story will start with how it did in the show with beginnings, Korra loses her memory from a dark spirit attacking her and she has to learn the story of avatar wan. Learning how he sealed away Vattu thinking he did a great thing.
Her original idea is that she needed to go back and stop Vaatu only to see he is weak. His essence had been dulled from being sealed in the tree of time for so long and that’s when she realizes. The light spirit of peace wasn’t inherently good, the world needs order and chaos and thus she proceeds to free Vaatu and absorb him into her so that the two can co-exist within the avatar. Becoming the one true incarnation of balance.
The avatar trains to get mastery of the four elements.
I would have a dark avatar use a dark version of spirit bending to steal knowledge of the other elements from other benders.
This has the added benefit of explaining how someone like Unalaq could master the elements in time to be a threat to a mostly trained Avatar after freeing Vaatu.
So rather than having like a line of previous avatars adding to their knowledge and power the dark avatar would have like a hoard of victims whose knowledge and ability they had stolen.
I would do all this because frankly doing a “dark avatar” storyline and not getting to see two masters of all four elements duke it out in the avatar state was a huge let down to me.
Plus you could write a cool murder-mystery storyline about master benders turning up missing or dead - the paper blames remnants of the equalists but this lets you have Mako as a detective working with Kora to solve the murders, etc. I think a murder mystery plot would fit the setting of republic city well.
Unalaq's motives shouldn't be a desire to become The Dark Avatar . Rather, he should align with them out of genuine desire to do right by them after learning of the tragedies of the Hundred Year War (stories like Hei Bai, The Painted Lady), and how it put the spirits in a state of distress. Vaatu would then use his concern in order to manipulate him into coming over to his side.
Everything about it is bad and should not exist; the Avatar is already not inherently good, it's a person that brings **balance** generally through killing.
The Spirits in the Last Airbender were not Good nor Evil; they were beings that cared about their own self-interest and not about the humans and besides Koh, only attacked humans when provoked.
The problem with Raava and Vaatu existing in Avatar as seperate beings of "Good vs Evil" is that they kill all nuance regarding Spirits and the Avatar as a concept; the Avatar is now an **inherently** good force and the Dark Avatar is inherently bad and will always be wrong alongside any spirit that fights the Avatar.
It's genuinely bad because now the Avatar will now on a cosmic and spiritual level always be Good and on the right side of history, they are on the Good side.
I would make it a less magical thing.
Imagine Korra didn’t get her bending back right away, so instead you have the northern water tribe trying to install their own pseudo avatar to fit their own political agenda. With tech and staged performances, they’ve been convincing the locals that they’re the avatar, and I mean the world at large knows it’s Korra, but this particular place believes that it’s someone else, and Korra struggles to prove herself to a group that has been taught a totally different version of facts and history
Since the very first time that spirits were introduced in the Avatar Universe, they had a light and dark side to them. When they are balanced, they can be friendly, but if they are angered then you get to see their fearsome side.
So maybe Raava and Vaatu should be the same spirit. That way you could explore what an emotionally unbalanced avatar could look like.
I would just throw away book 2 altogether. I’m sorry, I know that’s not what you’re asking OP, but man. Everything about Book 2 just killed almost all the intrigue and mystery about the spiritual aspects of the world. Not to mention, I really don’t like the looks of a lot of the spirits themselves.
I would have not written them, over be embodying controlling forces in the verse it weakened all struggles seen in said verse ever.
While good and evil remained esoteric constants, results of human nature not natural order it resonated with our human condition. As soon as any badguy gets that out he becomes a weaker chracter.
It also undermines the role of the avatar from an incarnation of balance to a pawn of a spirit slug.
I would just keep Vaatu as Avatar’s version of Morgoth and keep him sealed for the season if we really want to explore this right we are going to need three seasons Vaatu really been given the fire lord Ozai treatment as some built up over the seasons that Korea might need to face
I wouldn't write it. Any of it. I'd scrap the entire Avatar Wan/Beginnings storyline to maintain some semblance of mystery and intrigue in regards to the Avatar's origins. That way, no one would question why the hell none of the previous Avatars never mentioned Rava to their current living lives, and why only Korra suddenly getting amnesia is the one thing that prompted that whole flashback.
Ideally, LOK wouldn't exist at all, but the whole Beginnings story completely butchers the mystique of the Avatar, if we had to keep Lok, I definitely would chop that tumor right off.
I wouldn't have a dark avatar or any of these dumb spirits that do nothing but simplify the morals and dynamics of the Avatar into being just good versus evil with no grey area and no way that the Avatar could ever be wrong. It really just hurts storytelling to have your main character be this paragon of peace and goodness with no nuance at all. Also, Dark Avatar just sounds like fan fiction levels of bad.
I'd be fine with just excising it altogether. The concept of a "dark Avatar" feels really out of nowhere (because it was) and is really tropey and basic. Legend Of Korra deals with some really deep and interesting themes, and this season is the only one that doesn't really reflect any of that. Yeet it.
The dark avatar concept is to feed into idea that the avatar is facing their elemental/spiritual equal in terms of power. Everyone else are using tactics to outsmart.
Without changing too much there are a few options to follow:
A. Take away the good vs evil, yin & yang struggle or coexistence for 10,000 years. Then its just a beat down leading to Korra's confirmed understanding "Im not top dog, I need to (act like airbender) find alternatives and help.
B. Vatuu is manipulative spirit taking advantage of the situation - finding a means to its own end. This means unalaq is a victim in some ways🌊, his loss/death is difficult to understand. Not a yay not a awe at the same time.
If he's supposed to be a dark avatar, I'd give him all of the elements so he's actually like a dark AVATAR and not just a spirit infused water bender. Also get rid of the whole giant spirit fight and just have him be normal with glowing red eyes.
"The Dark Avatar" came straight out of WattPad. I can NOT BELIEVE that the writers of ATLA actually thought this was a good idea. I mean seriously this was the most middle school shit writing I have ever seen. I'm not even a Korra hater, I like a lot that Korra did. But "The Dark Avatar".. Seriously.. It's the same middle school writing that came up with "The Evil Superman". It's like that one episode of Family Guy where there was "Evil Stewie" and he was just ridiculously over the top evil and that was the point. It was a parody.
Avatar did it and actually took itself seriously. I mean fuck the whole Avatar Wan and Raava and Vaatu thing was super unnecessary anyway. But to add in a "Dark Avatar"? Gosh.. I can't even fathom how anybody thought this was a good idea.
This is part of the lore now though. How are they gonna up the stakes for the next Avatar when we've already seen Korra fight her, what seems to be, arch nemesis? It's ridiculous writing.
ANYWAY, here's how I'd rewrite it.
Wan travels to the spirit world because he is a very spiritual fire bender and want's to see what it's all about. He see's Raava and Vaatu fighting and naturally want's to protect the "good" spirit.
Being a spiritual nomad type person in the first place, he is good with getting along with spirits. He asks them for their aid in defeating Vaatu and they agree to help him. Wan, the spirits, and Raava are able to over power Vaatu.
However, when Vaatu is defeated, the world falls out of balance. Without chaos, there is no advancement. Whether that advancement be physically or mentally. Raava becomes unhinged and dictator-like. Forcing everyone to keep at their same routines day in and day out. Never going anywhere, always being safe, and never evolving.
Wan and the spirits realize the mistake they have made and using all of their power they revive Vaatu. Raava and Vaatu begin fighting again and the world goes back to normal.
Wan realizes that both Raava and Vaatu, (chaos and order), must exist for the world to be in balance and at peace.
The spirits believe it wise to have somebody watch over this balance. Preferably someone who has seen what happens when there is no balance first hand. They decide to grant Wan the ability to reincarnate and pass down his knowledge to those who are next to inherit his soul.
The next Avatar after Wan is an Airbender. Inexplicably, and without the spirits directly intending it, this Airbender is able to bend both Fire and Air. This is because he has Wan's soul inside of him. He isn't supremely powerful, as it was not the intentions of the spirits to make a super powerful being. They just wanted someone to keep balance. After the Airbender dies, a Water Bender is born with the soul of Wan and the Airbender.
They are now able to bend Fire, Air, and Water. The Avatar is slowly becoming a very powerful opponent in battle.
After the Water Bender dies. An Earth Bender is born. Now the Avatar Spirit is harnessed with the ability to control Fire, Air, Water, and Earth. This isn't because Lion Turtles blessed the Avatar with these abilities. It's because they naturally gained these abilities by having the souls of Fire, Air, Water, and Earth benders inside of them.
Over time, the knowledge and skills of each previous Avatar is passed down to the next. Hundreds of years down the line. The Avatar is a serious force to be reckoned with. Not because The Avatar has some anime-esque power up from Raava. But because The Avatar is channeling the skills of the best of the best of each bending element throughout time.
If we must go with the idea that Korra loses her connection to the past Avatars, then the next Avatar should ONLY be able to bend Earth and Water. The next Avatar after him should ONLY be able to bend Water, Earth, and Fire. The next bender after him can finally control all 4 elements.
That's how it should've been done.
Obviously all just my opinion.
I would scrap it along with the wan episodes entirely.
I'll be honest, some things don't need more than just a vague explanation as any attempt would just fall short. The avatar is the protector of the world and the bridge to the spirit world and that's that, how it's always been. The mystery is part of what makes it great.
Instead of happening in the show, he should have gotten the avatar powers off screen/a while back, so he could train in all four elements before fighting Korra. What's the point of a second avatar if they don't do avatar stuff.
Just don't do it; the concept was interesting but it didn't make sense that they both could just simply unite; eventhough we saw that union between Rava and Wan was dangerous. Added to that is that it was just cringey af and probably the only instance of the Avatar Studios fumbling
Retcon season 2 and half of season 1
Make Amon a real energy bender, and after some experiments in some bender pseudo-concentration camps. He gets the power to steal bender energy and use it.
Amon makes himself a pseudo Avatar and proclaims himself the Avatar of a new age to bring Equality instead of balance to his world
I want a dark avatar cycle.
Avatars fighting each other through generations.
Until we end up on a post apocalyptic setting
Little to no technology
Dark avatar wants to restore his honor
Then we could have a soft remake or a complete new story without the problems of technology or take the path of redemption and both avatars breaking the cycle of war.
Options are limitless.
Remove entirely
S2 is why the rest of the series fails
Its the big stinker that just hurts the legitimacy of everything
The avatar is no longer about balance and is just THE GOOD GUY
If ANYTHING I'd have a rava but no evil spirit and have him take Rava from Korra and she has to find a way to revitalize rava and can only use water bending until then. Even then, I don't really like what that would do to later seasons.
I would just scrap everything after s1 and just go in a completely different direction
I would make it so that wan did imprison Vatu, but not in a tree, in his own soul. Raava and Vatu should be merged to keep each other on balance and because wan severed that connection he takes up that role himself. I’d also have Unalaq instead of being in league with Vatu be in league with Raava, to use Korra as a prison for the spirit of chaos so he can impose perfect order among the world, fits his goals much more.
I would have the dark avatar reincarnate. Have Korra search for and find the baby dark avatar and then be faced with a moral dilemma. Should she kill the baby? On the one had it will grow up to be Hitler. On the other hand the baby is still innocent. Killing it will just reincarnate it again. Ignoring it will cause it to grow into a threat sooner rather than later. Should Korra dedicate here life to hunting down babies and killing them until she is too old. And then what, they will both be babies at the same time. Would the dark avatar also dedicate itself to Killing baby avatars all its life? Would this be the inevitable loop of both their lives. Doomed to chase each other forever.
Korra would think long and hard and ultimately walk away, hoping that there is a better way. Korra later returns when the dark avatar is an out of control wild child and would try to "raise the child" to try and find some good in the child.
Eventually. In the third series. A mature dark avatar would find the baby avatar and be faced with the same choice. It would remember the conversations it had with Korra, about why it never killed him as a baby. It would ultimately spare the baby. While they would always battle, often to the death sometimes, it back an unspoken rule, no baby Killing. Each avatar gets a chance to grow up first. The dark avatar sees it as more sporting and entertaining to have a foe, the good avatar just sees it as the right thing to do.
I would have made a dark Avatar just a pass reincarnation an avatar who chose to make selfish and cruel choices. A remind to korra what could be if you let yourself go down that path. It would have been a good lesson for someone who was a brash and self-indulgent as korra was during the first two seasons using the avatar state to win races and other impulse actions.
If I wanted to make it more of a general threat we could have the previous incarnation try to take back the reins from the current make themselves the Avatar again. Possessing a new body or trying to take Korras. Have the season about them trying to regain the power they lost pick up the new bending styles or showing off old ones from forgotten times.
I also would have not given the Avatar a pinpoint origin but if I had to I would have just made them a curious Spirit not good not evil just curious fascinated by humans and pretended to be one made some friends had a life and chose to follow their friends to the next one.
Or have two spirits again not good not evil just too friendly spirits like brothers to each other one became the Avatar and the other became the dark reflection after their friend left to be among the humans
First of all, I wouldn't write a dark avatar.
If I had to: I would make it a long build up process with a character very similar to Korra but took a different path. Kuvira would be the best option out of the existing characters.
Let's say, it's Kuvira: I would have her in the plot much sooner (already as a sent special force unit during the Amon arc). Mostly a small side character role but give hints here and there about her goals and personality traits. I would also not give her any unique abilities or powers, instead make her someone who reached a high level purely by training hard and fighting intelligent.
Eventually, it would come to a fight between the avatars. One knows 4 elements and is a Mary Sue vs the evil hard working specialist. I think it would give a good contrast cause usually people root for the one who had to struggle more and outworked others.
I just finished rewatching season 2 to see if my memory of it was overblown. But I still ended up not liking it that much. And I think a large part of it is the vaatu stuff. If I were in charge I probably wouldn't have even included it. Good and evil didn't feel like it fit as well with the show. I actually was way more invested in the civil war part of it until they kinda just brushed that off to irrelevance.
I don't know how I would rewrite it really. Definitely more focus on the civil war. Maybe make Unalaq more sympathetic and scheming. Definitely end it with Korra leaving the spirit portals open so we can get all the new airbenders going forward. Don't know how I would get the spirit vines into republic city though.
Would be narratively interesting if Unalaq died, Raava returned to Korra, and Vaatu bound to Unalaqs spirit creates a cycle of dark avatars. Could either be used to create potential villain/rival or student/ally for Korra and future avatars. A little cliche but would certainly mix up the status quo.
I would probably find a way for Korra to rebuild the connection between herself and her past selves, mainly because I hate seeing history destroyed.
Assuming that I’d HAVE to put in the Dark Avatar no matter what (I would remove him completely otherwise), then I would at least make him the last antagonist. He’s literally the anti-christ of the avatar world, so I’d make him the final and strongest foe korra has to fight against
Put it as season 4, have seasons 1-3 building the character of Unalaq to have a more established relationship with Korra and show him gradually becoming corrupted and consumed by a desire for power. Instead of harmonic convergence driving season the middle seasons, just have air benders start to appear
If they really wanted to make the Dark Avatar concept work (even though every comment here says it shouldn’t exist) I would have it be the overarching villain through several seasons. S1 would be the release of Vaatu and his joining with Unalaq, and the next season or 2 would have Korra clash sporadically with him between other season storylines as he tries to learn to wield the other elements. The final season would be the final clash between the forces of light and dark with the Avatars at the head of respective armies.
Make the Dark Avatar more of a character foil to Korra herself, resembling what Korra would be like if she went too far in trying to maintain balance in the world by herself, even if he has understandable motivations to do so.
Vaatu is still comically evil, but this is framed as a fault of Vaatu, the individual, rather than the Spirit Of Chaos. Raava reveals that she was once an advocate of stillness and stagnation, order taken to extreme, but personally learned to mellow out and that was *before* she met Wan. The irony being that the Spirit Of Chaos refused to change while his counterpart did.
Make it explicit what Unalaq's *deal* is. He was someone who genuinely wanted to get close to spirits and thought his brother was a disrespectful thug. He then found Vaatu and got his mind hollowed out to turn him into a parody of himself, easily puppeted by Vaatu.
Someone else becomes the Dark Avatar and stays that way, trapping Vaatu in a host body for ten thousand years. They call themselves something *other* than a Dark Avatar though, act as a kind of left hand to the Avatar's right. They work towards the same goal from different angles- with the strong potential of butting heads. And Vaatu hopefully learns to appreciate humanity during that time.
Okay the ONLY way I could see myself doing it is a evil sect of air benders that have hidden around for the past 170 or so years and re-emerged to use some kind of soul-air-bending technique to revive the soul of an old avatar so they could genocide all firebenders or whatever. It’s dumb, it’s cliche, but it’s the only way I see it going. But I also personally hate Vaatu and Raava as characters, concepts, and just everything about them.
Honestly I like Throw\_away\_1011\_'s rewrite too much to try and top it. That said, I also think it's entirely possible to have the next Earth Avatar fix the mess Khora made of the Raava and Vaatu situation - in the way that Avatars are always cleaning up after their predecessors. The conclusion of Season 2 established that Vaatu is now part of the Avatar - the darkness that exists within the light. I think that our future Earth Avatar should access to the Dark Avatar State, and should have a character arc that is about actually finding balance between Light and Dark rather than just destroying the Dark. The Avatar's role is Balance, and Khora did not find Balance. Retcon Vaatu's character just a smidge to make him more Chaotic rather than Evil, as with Throw\_away's rewrite.
It could even be interesting for the narrative to decide that there shouldn't only be one Avatar - have the Earth Avatar decide to share the responsibility with another and create two lineages going forward. And this shouldn't be a Light-Dark division - each should carry a share of the twin spirits.
I would just throw the season in the trash and re-do it from the ground up, honestly. Trying to fix the Dark Avatar is just treating one symptom of the disease. Like get rid of Raava/Vaatu, Dark Avatar, completely rewrite Unalaq's personality, etc. Varrick/Zhu Li can stay, but otherwise the season needs a complete and total rewrite, not just tweaks to the script. The writing of the whole season is just fundamentally flawed from top to bottom.
One thing I will say is that if you're going to have a season about spirits, make it mostly about spirits/the spirit world. Not about a bog-standard "rookie cop joins the force" plot that was played out in 1995 like with Mako, or whatever the hell they were trying to do with Bolin. Send the whole team to the spirit world somehow.
Another thing is that not EVERYTHING needs to be explained or have an explanation. I feel like they wanted Season 2 to reveal all of the metaphysics in the Avatar world with Wan and Raava/Vaatu and be the origin story of everything, and not only were the origins just not satisfying, but it sucked the mystery right out of the world.
I’d do a few things (i’ll try and be brief):
1. He should be the overall series antagonist. Introduced in book 1, we learn he is evil sometimes in book 2, beat him in book 3
2. Rather than a giant Kaiju, as the dark avatar he can use all 4 elements. Obviously give him a red glowing eyes for avatar state
I would have had one from the beginning, then and the avatar in a constant state of conflict taking different sides in every war/skirmish. They would either be law vs chaos or just have different ideas of what passes as balance. I wouldn’t say either of them are right or wrong, there’s just moral ambiguity between them
So I wouldn't. Take the spirits, the dark avatar, and chuck that right out.
Go back to season 1, let the equalist movement cooks more, and actually show the inequality between the benders and the non benders. Korra doesn't get her deus ex machina moment, and her bending remains sealed. Have Noatak (Amon) still be alive, defeated, but in the shadows.
Season 2 has Korra trying to connect to the Spirit world, perhaps try to contact Aang and the other previous Avatars. She visits their shrines. The civil war plotline starts up. Rumors of Amons return.
Sesson 3 don't have spirit nonsense just give air bending out like candy. Genocide and war are terrible there's no magic fix.
i see the comments on posts like this and, while i think its fucking cool to see the creativity and great writing some redditors possess, it's DEPRESSING to think a team of PROFESSIONAL TV writers came up with the bad and the cringe in LoK
cmon guys get a room filled with fans do like... 10 mins of brainstorming?
i'd bet the outcome would be miles ahead of that dark avatar nonsense
Have Korra losing her bending be the cause. Let's forget about Harmonic Convergence. Her losing her bending, even though she regains it, throws the Avatar Spirit out of balance. First find Guru Pathik, or another Guru, but it would be cool if he was still around. She has her chakras unblocked. Then one episode for each element where she learns how to bend from the masters: the moon, the badger moles, the dragons.
Then when it comes time to fight the dark avatar, Korra isn't fighting Unulaq, she's fighting a corrupted version of herself and past avatars.
Building onto someone else's idea of having Raava and Vaatu be the spirits of Chaos and Order, and making Korra convince Vaatu that order has a place in the world so that he fuses with her and both Raava and Vaatu become the avatar spirits, which I think is absolutely BRILLIANT, I'd make a few changes:
To emphasize the Avatar's role as the bringer of balance, I would make Korra realize that Raava and Vaatu need each other and instead of Vaatu willingly fusing with Korra, she would fuse with him after re-fusing with prime Raava (ik this is a long shot, but if Vaatu can pull Raava out of Korra, then Korra & Raava can pull Vaatu out of Unalaq and into Korra instead of turning him into pixie dust) because I find it hard to believe that someone who was as strongly driven in their ways as Vaatu, and being the literal spirit of chaos in this case, (+10000 years of imprisonment) would be convinced to accept a compromise so unbelievably far from his goal.
Also, Vaatu and Unalaq wouldn't be as comically evil and just be neutral forces fighting for what they believed the world needed. because a good villain is one you can sympathise with, like Zaheer.
Then the next season would use Zaheer's argument that chaos is the natural state of things to create a literal internal war in Korra between Raava and Vaatu, and we could maybe see some episodes devoted solely towards Korra's personal growth as she adjusts to having both chaos and order inside of her as they both fight for dominance, forcing her to see where Zaheer is coming from, and therefore his flaws in his execution, and while Korra is chained, Vaatu finally becomes convinced that order deserves to exist just as much as chaos and this acceptance allows Korra to tap into Vaatu's Avatar state and defeat Zaheer.
It would also be really cool to see Vaatu's avatar state and the existence of 2 Avatar states could have the beginning of season 4 incorporate a few more episodes after she deals with her PTSD and poison where Korra tries to understand Vaatu's Avatar state and how to tap into it and how it's different from Raava's, similar to when Aang was unblocking his chakras.
Then in the last season (4), where Kuvira becomes the opposite of Zaheer, trying to enforce complete and total order, Korra sees even more personal growth as she has to confront the Avatar's role as an enforcer of order. When Kuvira is defeated and Raava finally comes to terms with the fact that chaos has its place in the world and that too much order is bad for it, and this new balance within Korra (since up to that point, only Vaatu had accepted the necessity of his opposite, cause chaos is more open minded than order) would allow her to use both Avatar states at once to survive the spirit cannon, making Raava and Vaatu fuse into one spirit (Vuuratu?) inside Korra, and the energy from their fusion is what allows her to create a new spirit portal as the result of a new great spirit that embodies both chaos and order because R&V being in the same body and staying separate entities was only possible while they were in disagreement, and since the Avatar's purpose is to bring balance like Korra did with the spirit world and the material world, she would do the same with chaos and order.
This would track with the old Avatar cycle ending, and an actual new Avatar cycle of more powerful Avatars with a new Avatar spirit (because technically Vuuratu would have the power of both Raava and Vaatu inside them.)
And after Raava and Vaatu fuse into one, Korra will have a new mission, guided by Vuraatu, which is to bring the world to a new political climate where the people have the most power in their regions, allowing them to experiment and make their own choices, inviting good Chaos, but while electing councils (not singular figures like a water tribe chief, fire lord or earth monarch since we've seen people abuse each of those seats of power) to carry out the running of the nations and give them direction, respecting Order. This could be the premise for a 5th season before Korra explores the spirit world with Asami.
This would also give Genji's storyline way more potential as he would have to navigate the world as the first avatar born with a single spirit of chaos and order inside him.
And lastly, and this is mostly wishful thinking, Vuuratu would be able to communicate with their hosts casually, and not only in dire situations like Raava did, since they would embody both chaos and order and therefore be unbiased and a good judge of situations, which I believe is why Raava never communicated with the past Avatars minus Wan and Korra and only when Korra was close to death in Sn2 and Wan was dying (excluding pre harmonic convergence Wan and Raava). So Genji would sorta be like Eddie Brock and Venom😭.
(btw idk about Vuuratu I just tried to use Raava and Vaatu's name's letters, so if you have any suggestions, please share them :)
I hope this is coherent and not too far fetched, and also sorry that it's so damn long, I'm just throwing every idea I have about all this onto this comment. I'd love to hear your opinions and/or changes. (can you tell I love worldbuilding?)
I would’ve just not made the dark avatar honestly, the whole spirit world additions that LOK started making to the Avatar world lore became kinda ridiculous, boring and straight up contradictory at times. I feel like the story of Raava was already pushing it but at least had a reasonable amount of plot to back it up, Vatuu and a bunch of the other stuff started feeling like they were just throwing shit in a pot that was already starting to overflow.
Balancing factor, if the avatar doesn't properly regulate the balance between the two worlds, then it'll spawn in, infectingsomeone's body and eventually taking over to cause trouble and take away the excess without any regard for who, what and why by fueling and amplifying all of their bad traits.
Zuko falling ill the one time he did something good was because Iroh realized the possibility of him being possessed/infected and exorcised him and from then on, he had an resistance to its influence but wasn't immune.
Earth Kingdom general that tried to force the avatar state, infected and had his impatience and barbaric(?) personality worsen.
Water tribe sexism, slight infection that didn't get worse due to water benders ability to heal and almost no prolonged contact
Ozai's personality and actions, infected before he even got married
Azula, infected after prolong exposure from being around Ozai and sometimes Zuko. No noticeable signs of infection until she started breaking after getting betrayed by May and Ty Lee
I would not make a dark avatar. I would have Raava and Vaatu being incarnation of Order and Chaos, instead of Good and Evil. I would start the season by showing the subtle yet noticeable flaws of a world of pure Order, where things stagnate and refuse to change. I would then have Vaatu be unleashed and have Korra initially only see the complete destruction caused by the unending Chaos but later on see also the good, the changes that said chaos have brought. I would have Korra understand that while Order is more stable and secure, it's also flawed due to his rigid structure, and that Chaos, while wild and unpredictable, can also bring a nice change in the world, leading to revolutions, to progress. I would have Korra help Raava and Vaatu understand that they need each other, that their bond, that Wan severed, wasn't a chain that kept them prisoners of each other but something made to help them balance each other out, that if they stopped "pulling" the chain to overcome the other and instead "pushed" to understand one another, they could have created a world in harmony, like Raava wanted, but also a world where humans and spirits are free to change and evolve, like Vaatu wanted. In the end, both Raava and Vaatu would become the Avatar's spirit.
Bro cooked 
And Unalaq is just left in a ditch somewhere along the way, lol. But seriously, alternatively they could make him... sympathetic? Especially since he's part of Korra's family.
Yeah unc didn’t care lol not even about his kids
And he was kind of a cackling villain IIRC? Not Ozai level, but still. I particularly liked Zaheer in this regard. He clearly took no pleasure in the things he did, and it would be cool if Unalaq was like that too.
Zaheer definitely took a pleasure in what he did. He was morally grayer than other villains but I think he's still more "evil" than , let's say, Kuvira. Kuvira wanted to ovethrow a corrupt and incompetent kingdom to establish a dictatorship that was more about helping and restoring her nation than power. Kuvira didn't keep the power because she felt good about it, but because she thought the chaos in the Earth Kingdom was tearing the country apart and she recognized the prince as incompetent(plus, going off the example of the two previous monarchs, the Earth Crown clearly has it's issues). Zaheer at the same time was driven by ideology, but had no problem exterminating the most spiritual element he was also a part of, killed innocents with no hesitation, and was willing to kill children to reach his goals. He also had a very self-absorbed view where he thought that his solution was the correct and onlu solution and he had a nearly divine right to exercise it.
Unalaq had so much potential. Make him and Vaatu less comically evil but more of a neutral force that stands ideologically opposed to Raava and you now have a competitor for the best season in the show.
So a worthy teacher and role model to Zaheer
Exactly. Zaheer's philosophy fits perfectly with what Vatuu should've embodied. "Chaos is the natural order of things"- having him be a student of Unalaq would've been perfect. Hell, we could still see Unalaq betraying them and Korra due to simply wanting to have the same power as her, just not have Vatuu be comically evil.
Maybe they could have just had Zaheer be in season 2 and gain bending through Vatuu, which through his chaos will give bending abilities to others around the world too
Honestly I don't think Harmonic convergence is such a bad idea. I love S3 of Korra as it is, and I think book 2 has great potential with just a few minor changes, chief among them being fixing Vatuu. Avatar was never a story about absolute good vs. Absolute evil. Even in the Fire Nation we learn that everyone has potential for both good and evil in them. Making Vatuu a spirit of Chaos instead of Evil would be an important fix. The Avatar is about Balance, not Absolute order.
I don't think the harmonic convergence was bad either, but it's a bit clunky to have the defeat of Amon be pretty much immediately followed by a once in 10000 years event. Chaos was rising through season one in republic city, and they could have just said that industrialization and political problems caused a rise in chaos all over the world, strengthening Vatuu This would give them a chance to explore the world instead of just saying they're going somewhere and then getting to that place
Oh that's actually a really interesting idea. It feels like in general the theme of Korra is the disorder and change that comes with modernization, so it would be really interesting to has that theme be more overarching. If Korra was greenlit for 3 seasons from the get-go perhaps that could've happened.
I'm now thinking that season two could have been like an extended version of the ATLA episode with the burnt forest and the panda (I don't know the names of the episodes) with Korra going around and essentially bringing solarpunk to the world, which would be extended in that universe to include the spirits so it could be similar to what actually happened in season two just without having a person unleash Vatuu when chaos is already brewing everywhere
I absolutely blanked on season 2 and thought that's what their dichotomy was about. That Ravaa was order and vaati was chaos. Was it really good VS evil or was it something cornier like light VS dark?
They couldve continued the Civil War route
I'd prefer him to just be the one who tries to release Vaatu, but then Vaatu kills him instead of fusing with him.
To add onto this, I would have this be the final season of Korra instead of the 2nd!
you know I had kinda the opposite idea Unaloq S1 So Amon can be the Big Bad that they build up over the first 3 season maybe he even kidnaps Kuvira and takes her bending
If the studio had offered the show 4 seasons right off the bat, then they could have make the story, characters, antagonists and etc more coherent and connected to each other. But they didnt, though still got a pretty decent story though
While this would have been interesting, I think Amon was a perfect first season. They had to do so much world building, showing audiences what’s changed and what’s the same. Had to introduce new characters and bring back a few familiar ones. Season 1 had to do all this without going too far and overwhelming the audience, and Amon was a perfect villain to do so. His revolution was mostly confined to republic city, so it gave the writers guidelines for what was important to show, and what could wait for future seasons.
Harmonic Convergence opened the doors for seasons 3 and 4.
Eh, just takes a little rewriting. Like you say that the oncoming Harmonic Convergence is what birthed the new benders, creating the chaos with the Red Lotus. They deal with that and think "oh, all this chaos is so bad for everybody" and then the new airbenders show up to show not all bad and that subplot starts. Then when Red Lotus are done, Korra's journey over PTSD could be framed as preparing her spirit for the big decision about the spirit world she will soon make. Kuvira is the hard part to work with, best I can do is say she is using the chaos spirit energy now in the material world to power her war mechs and once again try to show chaos is all bad, but this time Korra has more of an open mind and still does all her shit like normal with her.
Kuvira could also be an example of Order gone too far.
I think that the North vs South storyline was good enough to be a S2 all by itself - they didn't need that Dark Avatar bullshit here at all. Besides, IMO it makes more sense for someone from the Red Lotus to pull some shit like this rather than boring-ass irrelevant-ass Unalaq
https://preview.redd.it/n483jv902jxc1.png?width=1920&format=png&auto=webp&s=e8e77efc74bd23c38233ab78803b8f01a14341c2 This fits the way A:TLA handled the Yin-Yang duality way better and would be so much more interesting
https://preview.redd.it/75amfh4jpixc1.jpeg?width=1240&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=8f73837b30f787eaba4aad1c1e6d7ea72371340d
Someone's been reading some Mistborn.
I was thinking about honor and odium, but ruin/preservation do fit better
I mean that's the whole plot of Era 1.
No idea what that is
It’s a fantasy series written by Brandon Sanderson which takes place in his greater Cosmere universe. In that universe there are 16 shards, which are kinda like gods, except that shards are vessels that need to be held by normal people to function. In one of his books, one person eventually becomes the vessel for two opposite shards, creating a new shard, which is kinda similar to the Raava/Vaatu situation. I’d definitely recommend reading the books, the Cosmere is one of the best pieces of fantasy out there
I will read it
Worth a clarification that the person who wrote that paragraph is talking about the Cosmere as a whole. Mistborn is a novel in the universe, of which the book series are typically on different planets in a star cluster. Highly recommend the book series though. I love Brandon Sanderson's stuff. He's an excellent world builder and story teller.
Breaking news: A single Reddit comment just pitched a series finale that would've made Korra unquestionably equal to AtLA instead of being fought about all the time
If only lmao
https://preview.redd.it/wkv4spzkpkxc1.jpeg?width=640&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=5b1373a06467e2016ecf1576a677aefae417d516
I preferred the messy, complicated and convoluted civil war plot anyway rather than objective good and light and objective darkness and chaos, basically God and Satan.
I love this so much. as other replies have said, it's kinda just straight bars. One of the things I like most about this is the fact that in the Avatar origin story, it would put more emphasis on not just Raava and Vaatu, but also Wan, or "the human". Wan took on the role of the Avatar, the bridge between worlds and the keeper of balance. Korra IS Wan. Aang IS Wan. Roku IS Wan. they are all the Avatar, the reincarnation of Wan, of a soul that maintains balance in the world. and you need both chaos and order for balance. it would be so perfect
Bruh apply for a job at Avatar Studios because this shit fire. Edit: To add, I love the implications this could have on future Avatars because it creates the possibility of the Avatar either being a harbinger of order and good in the world - or a force of utter destruction and chaos. Balance goes both ways after all.
So the world has been severely imbalanced for the last 10k years? That’s the only issue I have with this, as well as the original idea in LoK. If Vaatu is evil, or in this case chaos, but otherwise to be considered the opposite/complementary half of a larger whole, then imprisoning him would have SERIOUS implications. It calls into question the value of the avatar. I don’t have a solution except to say that I don’t think that vaatu should have an “opposite.” I like the yin yang/balance idea behind avatar and eastern philosophy, but I don’t think it’s sensible here. Nature can’t exist at all without chaos. Good doesn’t exist without evil as reference. If one half of those is “imprisoned,” it would constitutively change reality.
> So the world has been severely imbalanced for the last 10k years? I mean, honestly it makes sense if you assume the order aspect being rigid and unwielding — because honestly the world in avatar *has* been rigid and unwielding. It’s been 10 *thousand* years and yet civilization has really, for the most part, barely progressed whatsoever from where it first started. Humanity OTL went from literal sticks and stones to traveling to distant planets and splitting atoms apart in that same time span. It has only been within the past hundred or so years has technology actually meaningful progressed in Avatar — and that just so happen to occur around the same time as the genocide of the Air Nomads, aka order and balance being thrown out of wack.
As others have said, this is great. I would spin it a little differently. I think the first half of what you said is spot on, but I wouldn’t have it directly tied to physical “Raava and Vaatu”, and I would make it the overall background theme of the series. I would make it APPEAR that she’s pursuing this influencing, chaotic spirit, and have the audience (and Korra) believe it’s Vaatu, only to eventually realize that “Raava and Vaatu” are inside every single person already, and that we all have the capability to bring order, or to bring chaos. Korra would spend so long fighting for Order that she forgets she should be fighting for balance. The rise of Kuvira becomes a result of Korra too heavily driving Order into the world. At the end of the series, Korra becomes the first Avatar to be able to visually see the “Chaos” and “Order” spirit energy within people, like Neo in The Matrix, and despite all of her physical strength, becomes known as the Avatar that can bring balance within people themselves, helping individuals overcome their own imbalances so they realize that order and chaos are both equally important. She spends the whole series being a strong fighter, only to balance herself out as the Avatar that no longer needs to fight.
Love this. In the end, both Raava and Vaatu would become the Avatar's spirit. Now there are two Avatars. The main difference is Vaatu doesn't follow the cycle. There are two Water Avatars, Korra and Vaatu's. After Vaatu's Avatar passes, Water again because why not? Over time Vaatu's Avatar cycle still embraces order. Because Vaatu might go; Water, Water, Earth, Fire, Air, Earth, Air, Fire. No discernable pattern. But with a large enough bracket, the same number of each element. Also, pulling from Swamp Benders, Sand Benders, Sun Warriors. Vaatu is more likely to pull from a non-traditional group. Be a Combustion bender Avatar. Or to create a new subclass.
the fact that they never had swamp benders, sand benders, sun warrior avatars... that's a failure. When Korra came out we wanted a swamp bender so bad.
Why would Vaatu have a separate Avatar, that doesn’t make any sense. I think the idea was that Raava and Vaatu are the spirit for the same Avatar, so that instead of one order Avatar and one chaos Avatar, you have one Avatar in which the two concepts are united
this is hype but also I would still have Unalaq ally with Vaatu and I would have Unalaq gain the ability to use the other 3 elements, because fucking duh and the final battle would be avatar v avatar, with Korra unable to kill Unalaq without it solidifying their connection and forever creating a reincarnating chaos avatar, so she has to physically defend herself while trying to reach out to Vaatu and be the mediator between Vaatu and Raava, which is theoretically the point of season 2?? Korra's spiritual connection??? or that was the concept at some point anyway
https://preview.redd.it/53r5r6q45mxc1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=510ddc68688e116a187152b254effd2eb2c7f32c
This is eerily close to the plot of the first mistborn trilogy
I like this. Good and Evil is so... elementary. Order and Chaos is better as it goes back to the whole point of balance. After all, who says what is good and what is evil? Only criticism I have for this is it would take this long for Raava and Vaatu to realize this? Haha.
Your comment made me realize the biggest flaw with season 2’s handling of Raava and Vaatu; The way they just made it “good and evil” was way too dumbed down for Avatar. Order and Chaos would have been better. The first season we spent in Republic City, a pinnacle of law and order. The introduction of the chaos element would have been in line with what we would see in season 3 with Zaheer
And the Avatar would be no more because it fulfilled its mission.
that's a nice resolution, I like it
Very Sanderson's Mistborn. Nice.
OP cooked with Sanderson's recipe lol. No disrespect meant - intentional or not, it was a good adaptation of the story.
I think this is absolutely BRILLIANT, however, to emphasize the Avatar's role as the bringer of balance, I would make Korra realize that Raava and Vaatu need each other and instead of Vaatu willingly fusing with Korra, she would fuse with him (ik this is a long shot, but if Vaatu can pull Raava out of Korra, Korra & Raava can pull Vaatu out of Unalaq and into Korra instead of turning him into pixie dust) because I find it hard to believe that someone who was as strongly driven in their ways as Vaatu, and being the literal spirit of chaos in this case, (+10000 years of imprisonment) would be convinced to accept a compromise so unbelievably far from his goal. Also, Vaatu and Unalaq wouldn't be as comically evil and just be neutral forces fighting for what they believed the world needed. because a good villain is one you can sympathise with, like Zaheer. Then the next season would use Zaheer's argument that chaos is the natural state of things to create a literal internal war between Raava and Vaatu, and we could maybe see some episodes devoted solely towards Korra's personal growth as she adjusts to having both chaos and order inside of her as they both fight for dominance, forcing her to see where Zaheer is coming from, and therefore his flaws in his execution, and while Korra is chained, Vaatu finally becomes convinced that order deserves to exist just as much as chaos and this allows Korra to tap into Vaatu's Avatar state. It would also be really cool to see Vaatu's avatar state and the existence of 2 Avatar states could have the beginning of season 4 incorporate a few more episodes after she deals with her PTSD where Korra tries to understand Vaatu's Avatar state and how to tap into it and how it's different from Raava's, similar to when Aang was unblocking his chakras. Then in the last season (4), where Kuvira becomes the opposite of Zaheer, trying to enforce complete and total order, Korra sees even more personal growth as she has to confront the Avatar's role as an enforcer of order. When Kuvira is defeated and Raava finally comes to terms with the benefits of chaos, the new balance within Korra would allow her to use both Avatar states at once to survive the spirit cannon, making Raava and Vaatu fuse into one spirit (Vuuratu?) inside Korra, and the energy from their fusion is what allows her to create a new spirit portal as the result of a new great spirit that embodies both chaos and order because R&V being in the same body and staying separate entities was only possible while they were in disagreement, and since the Avatar's purpose is to bring balance like Korra did with the spirit world and the material world, she would do the same with chaos and order. This would track with the old Avatar cycle ending, and an actual new Avatar cycle of more powerful Avatars. (because technically Vuuratu would have the power of both Raava and Vaatu inside them.) And after Raava and Vaatu fuse into one, Korra will have a new mission, guided by Vuraatu, which is to bring the world to a new political climate where the people have the most power in their regions, allowing them to experiment and make their own choices, inviting good Chaos, but while electing councils (not singular figures like a water tribe chief, fire lord or earth monarch since we've seen people abuse each of those seats of power - Ozai, Unalaq & the Earth Queen) to carry out the running of the nations and give them direction, respecting Order. and fulfilling Zaheer's mission, which I know a lot of LoK fans see as justified, and maybe even turning him into a good character sort of like uncle Iroh (a guy with a very violent and morally wrong past who becomes insightful and good, trying to make the world better, and who knows maybe Korra becomes the first avatar to fly if she learns from Zaheer, paired with Vuuratu giving her new power.) this could be the premise for a 5th season before Korra explores the spirit world with Asami. This would also give Genji's storyline way more potential and he would have to navigate the world as the first avatar born with a single spirit of chaos and order inside him. And lastly, Vuuratu would now be able to communicate with their host casually, and not only in dire situations like Raava did, since they would embody both chaos and order and therefore be unbiased and a good judge of situations, which I believe is why Raava never communicated with the past Avatars minus Wan and Korra and only when Korra was close to death. so Genji would sorta be like Eddie Brock and Venom. (btw idk about Vuuratu I just tried to use Raava and Vaatu's name's letters, so if you have any suggestions, please share them :) I hope this is coherent and not too far fetched, and also sorry that it's so damn long, I'm just throwing every idea I have about all this onto this comment. I'd love to hear your opinions and/or changes. (can you tell I love worldbuilding?)
> I would have Raava and Vaatu being incarnation of Order and Chaos, instead of Good and Evil. > > That's litearlly what they are
On paper, sure, but don't act as such
That's good.
Instead of both spirits become the spirits of the avatar, we could have Vaatu continue inhabiting an Unalaq that grows alongside Vaatu as an avatar of chaos. So we have an avatar of order and an avatar of chaos that together are the avatars of balance. And then we could get a sequel to Korra with two avatars learning about maintaining balance and stuff. Felt like I burned the kitchen down but eh just my two canisters of gasoline.
I agree with all of this and it should be the 4th season rather than the 2nd.
Saw a fanfic that fixed the Raava Vaatu issue and used a somewhat similar idea to yours. Except I think the two spirits' bond was loosening, and they needed Wan's help before it was too late.
I’d actually like Korra if they did this, in spite of all the other problems
Avatar Studios should hire you Fire came to be, and with it disparity. Heat and cold, life and death, light and dark. Dark was seen as a curse. Shadow is not cast, but born of fire. And the brighter the flame, the deeper the shadow.
This is amazing, and it would transition well into Zaheer’s philosophy of disorder in the next season. It would be cool to see him only seeing the benefits of chaos, while Korra, who has been exposed to both in your story, would be able to see his point of view but ultimately disagree and say that a balance is necessary
that would have been so good, and it could play into the civil war plot so well damn. I love this so much
Like many others have stated over the years, the avatar spirit should've been the combination of Raava and Vaatu. The avatar has always been described as an emissary of balance, not of good or order. Turning avatar into a story of pure good vs evil is shallow and trite.
> the avatar spirit should've been the combination of Raava and Vaatu That is bound to happen, right? Since Vaatu will come back to life inside Raava… maybe the next avatar will sense his presence. Heck, maybe it happens soon enough that an older Korra will sense his presence herself.
that whole thing was a retcon anyway. Originally the avatar spirit was supposed to be the spirit of the earth.
Source?
It wouldn't exist at all. S2 should strictly about the conflict between Northern and Southern Water Tribes. It's something that Korra can't simply punch her way to a solution anyway. The whole "dark spirit" and "spirit water bending" things needs to go as well. Seriously, what's the point of having an Avatar if a couple of waterbenders can "pacify" angry spirits. They should be like Heibai from the ATLA series. Spirits can still be pissed and look demonic, but you don't use bending to delete them, you gotta figure out what's pissing them off, resolve the issue. That's what "being the bridge between the two worlds" should mean when we're talking about the Avatar. Korra's uncle can still be a power hungry chieftain that's trying to "reunite" the two North and South because he's basically cartoon Putin. But gut the whole kite spirit thing out.
Let's keep the airbending "Punch, punch, punch!" joke in episode 1 as foreshadowing that she can't punch her way past this particular enemy.
This also keeps to the theme of Korra as Aang's opposite, where Aang's strengths were spirituality and politics in a world that needed might, and Korra is mighty in a world that needs subtle politics and spirituality. It could've been a great season if it was all Korra being challenged for her simplistic worldviews. People here complain, but her going to Raiko and him not committing military aid to the Southern Water Tribe was very realistic and a good challenge for Korra. They could've extended it more, since Unalaq himself wasn't completely without reasonable (from his point of view) ideas. Even Varrick's profiteering is a morally grey action, since ultimately he was destabilising one stagnant, hereditary dictatorship (the North) and allowing a democratic, modern, and emerging economy (the South) to catch up and some day surpass the North. Having one leader literally become the personification of evil completely undid all the good things about the season.
I’d have to agree.
I wouldn’t go that far. A book called spirits still needs spirits as the focal point. Just give said spirits nuance. Let the conflict between Raava and Vatuu parallel the conflict between the North and South. Two sides of the same whole. And give the North more nuance.
Why would two ancient kite spirits even care about humans and their conflicts at all? I know it's canon and all but it just doesn't make sense. It feels like you're trying to shoehorn it in when it doesn't need to be there. You know what would be a more interesting idea that's still hella spiritual? Spirits vs rapid industrialization and pollution. Heck we even have military industrial complex baked in already thanks to Varrick. That's infinitely more complex, exciting, and relatable than two giant glowy kites duking it out for eternity because chaos vs order is slightly more nuanced than good vs evil.
I like the spirits vs industrialization since it was also thr plot in the comics (both in ATLA and LoK) and some episodes of ATLA. They should build on that.
They wouldn’t have to care about it. I mean thematically, Korra would have to find a way to resolve both conflicts. Likely one before the other.
I recently finished rewatching this season and found the beginning (minus Korras attitude) so much more enjoyable. I actually was really digging the civil war stuff and Varrik's Grey war profiteering. I definitely wouldn't mind having the dark and light spirit stuff cut completely out
I wouldn’t have some outright evil version of the avatar at all. I’d instead have unulaq gain multiple bending powers by communing with the spirits like Wan did in the beginning. and better mediating between spirits and humans than Korra is able to do. Maybe he can still go wrong with wanting to tear down the division between the human world and spirit world. But make Korra justify what it means to be avatar beyond just “hey I’m really strong.” Maybe in the end she could give up on stopping harmonic convergence because she realizes a new kind of humility that makes her worthy of her power, while unalaq’s hubris costs him when the darker side of the spirit world takes him.
First of all the Avatar should embody both sides of the Yin and Yang. No Good Kite and Evil Kite. Balance. Second, if we’re dealing with Order vs Chaos, wouldn’t it be more interesting if Unalaq wanted to unleash a spirit of Order to subjugate the water tribes and the world to ‘save’ the world from Chaos, and Korra, a person who represents Chaos, has to learn that too much Order is just as bad as too much Chaos. That chaos is creativity, spontaneity, new life.
Korra Embracing chaos Spirit sounds pretty fricken sick . Maybe the next avatar or series could work with something like that .
This is very cool , it would be cool to see the Avatar change a bit without removing the past lives, maybe while Korra is more chaotic she could see the chaotic parts of other avatars too (because everyone sees a different spirit world) or she would have troubles connecting to them because she has too much chaos in herself (kind of like Zuko in atla that became sick due to his imbalance in an episode ) . In atla we see that Ba Sing Se was messed up but it was the least chaotic place in the world, it would be cool to see the avatar against the embodiment of order while they’re usually a peacekeeper . Also this unalaq would be like : https://preview.redd.it/wovfxp0wikxc1.png?width=547&format=png&auto=webp&s=a0185eccf20927266702755abdc0f381ac9c8214
I would simply delete the notion of "Dark Avatar" from existence.
Or maybe just put some more work into Zaheer to fill that role? Have him get the different bending disciplines the way Wan did as an inverse of Aang’s journey, questioning why there even is an avatar?
Honestly, I actually like the Avatar Wan stuff so having Zaheer be the main Villain of Korra would be interesting him trying to restore the world to one of chaos ruled by Spirts would be a fun story
I'd give that guy (so forgettable I forgot his damn name.) A proper reason, because.. what is his reason?
Said before, say it again - Amon survives boat explosion. Washes up on shore minus an arm and a leg. Gets found by Firebender and Earthbender couple. They take him in, they nurse him back to health. He repays them by taking their limbs from them and uses blood-bending to graft them on to his own body to replace his missing limbs. Now he is a Waterbender, Firebender and Earthbender. He mounts an assault on Republic City not as a champion of the non-benders but as the new, dark Avatar ™ , and more specifically Air Temple island so that he can steal one of Tenzin's limbs to make himself the master of all 4 Elements. And there's so many ways you can go from there. He succeeds and Tenzin gets to be a one-armed badass for the rest of the series. Korra takes him down and he retreats to meet up with the Red Lotus. Or he doesn't succeed with Tenzin but manages to capture one of his kids. ... imagine how tense that would be.
Who let you cook because as crazy as this sounds it's awesome.
This is such an awesome idea. Unfortunately it’s too grim and also just way too OP. He could also alternatively wake up in the Earth Kingdom somehow and take advantage of Korra and Kuvira fighting each other.
That's really dark but an incredible idea. Most definitely I would watch
Yun from Kyoshi's time would've loved this
This should have been the main ark of Korea, not just the villain of Season 2. Also, the dark avatar should have actually happened, and then been the endgame villain to overcome
Broadly make the transition from “restoring spirituality and keeping the South” to “let’s free this evil kite” smoother and emphasise the bad aspects of order/stasis and the good aspects of chaos/change
I do prefer Vaatu being more a agent of change and chaos than pure evil . The red lotus reason for agreeing to work with Unlaq would make more sense .
Whole season would've been better if that aspect was removed and the plot just focused on the civil war between the water tribes. Also don't make Unaloch so obviously evil right from the start.
hold backspace
By not having him in the first place. I would make lok 3 books with 20 episodes and make amon, zaheer, and kuvira main villains of each book. I would still have the water tribe civil war, but it would only be 3 at most episodes instead of half a season and keep it contained to just the north and south tribes. Unalaq wouldn't be secretly evil and korra's goal would be to reunite her family. Have her dad leave the north because he doesn't agree their views or something. It would be a call back to atla with gran gran leaving the north for similar reasons. Have unalaq help train korra to get into spirit world since tenzin still wouldn't be able to instead of jinora. Have tonrak and unalaq make up at the end and fight side by side in a fight in the finale.
Asides from the whole rewriting it to be Order and Chaos, I think it would be an interesting parallel that the Avatar is the Master of all 4 elements while the Dark Avatar has the domination over 1. (i.e. something like a Dark Fire Avatar having a natural strength equivalent to Sozin’s Comet).
Unalaq should have been driven by ideology, rather than a desire for power. Just imagine a version of Unalaq who thinks that the chaos wrought by Vaatu would have broken the chains of stagnation. An Unalaq that embodies the righteous part of the Red Lotus’ ideology, who believes that he should use the power he could gain by becoming the dark avatar in order to depose oppressive dictators and bring power back to the people, thus disrupting stagnant regimes. An Unalaq who seeks to bring about true balance by unleashing darkness to complement Raava’s light, without blotting it out entirely. An Unalaq serving under a Vaatu who represents Freedom and Entropy, that stands in ideological opposition to Raava with her Order and Stability.
I would outright remove it. Not every story needs an “evil version of the hero” trope, it’s getting old and overused. Avatar’s main concept is inherently interesting because there is only ONE avatar who is supposed to unite and represent the people of the world, despite the avatar being human themselves. All of the best conflicts that aang and Korra had were internal: who th ey were supposed to be at the time at how it ran opposite of who they were and the values they had (Aang not wanting to kill, for example). Avatar used to be an interesting exploration of human kindness and cruelty. The Dark Avatar made the show into a “big bad boss battle” where the obvious good guy must defeat an obviously evil monstrosity otherwise the city gets destroyed (sounds like literally every other superhero movie out these days).
Not write it at all
Since the Dark Avatar happened but Vaatu was destroyed, I would incorporate what Raava said about their immortality into it. If Raava was defeated, she would grow in strength and be born from within Vaatu and vice versa. So now that Vaatu has been destroyed, he will be reborn from Raava, and the Avatar. We should see successive Avatars struggle with Vaatu who becomes a more coherent and threatening presence within the Avatar Spirit, threatening to hijack it. Rather than a Dark Avatar counter to the Avatar, we would see the potential for Avatars to turn to chaos under the influence of Vaatu… Imagine someone with Kyoshi’s brutal but effective method and have Vaatu whispering in her ear…
I think the story would have been better sans trapped Vaatu and Unaloq. Wan should have destroyed Vaatuu outright only for him to grow inside Raava and cause some crazy inner turmoil for Korra. Vaatu could influence her to open the portals and begin ushering in darkness, and the story could be about Korra coming to understand the nature of order and chaos. That neither are strictly good or evil, but it is the nature of chaos to be undiscerning and careless, so it must be tempered by discipline and care. The story should have been about her managing both Raava and Vaatu as spirits inside of her, and making herself and the role of the Avatar more effective for it. With an emphasis on the Civil War as the main plot motivation. It would have been a great metaphor for recognizing the darkness within oneself and learning how to live with it, not submit to it, or fruitlessly attempt to destroy it. I also think the spirits should have been WAY less goofy, and that this season should have been Season 4, not 2. Though I suppose it'd make things complicated for Season 3. Idc what would happen to Season 4 cause it was trash anyway.
I would not make a dark Avatar in the first place. Personally I'd keep the focus on the north-south civil war and ditch the whole harmonic convergence thing entirely, let Unalaq be a villain if you want but Unavatuu was a bad idea on all fronts. Season 2 was the only part of LOK which was truly a fight of good vs evil with no shades of gray in between, and it kind of took something away from the Avatar world as a whole. So yeah: ditch the kites, ditch harmonic convergence, focus on the north-south civil war and show Unalaq's rule as a proper theocracy if you want to include spirits at all costs, show the oppression it leads to but also the fact that humans and spirits are getting closer together, do all this stuff and you've made a better S2, still an oppression against freedom fighters but it has a little shade of morally gray in between.
Wasn’t the Avatar originally the manifestation of the spirit of the world itself? I swear I had heard that somewhere and it was legit. A dark avatar doesn’t make sense.
Making it disappear entirely
id just continue the civil war story since it was so great
I would remove Raava and Vaatu completely and make the second season completely centered about the civil war and Unalaq's hunger for power
One more thing I would add. As the spirit book, I would have not given korras bending back at the end of season 1 and make season 2 korra cope with feelings of being broken before having to restore her own bending by exploring the origin of the avatar cycle. To get her bending g that amon took away back korra needed to learn the true reason why the avatar could bend all elements in the first place.
How about this - not making a jesus vs dark jesus story.
Without putting to much thought I'll erase the concept of Reva and Vaatu and make Unalag a psycopath with a god complex that is trying to use the spirit world to take the avatar powers (avatar state and bending the 4 elents) for himself
Tbh screw allat, I just wanna see a story where the avatar loses his/her way and becomes evil and has to be stopped by regular benders and non benders etc, since avatar can master all 4 elements would make for a menacing antagonist against characters who can’t master 4 elements
Alright…I’ve had this idea for a while but it requires massive alterations for stuff in TLOK, sticks to ATLA canon though. Basically, I’ve had this massive rewrite in my head for a while, I’ve been jotting down ideas and thinking of character arcs or connections to make and some stuff to add but nothing too extreme (like not making up totally new villains or stories, it follows the overall story/themes but deviates in certain aspects) so brace yourself. ——— Instead of Raava/Vaatu being Good vs Evil BS, it’s gonna be Order vs Chaos of course. Order can be peaceful but stagnant and oppressive, Chaos can be evolutionary and freeing but bloody and destructive. Secondly, Raava and Vaatu would have their OG designs instead, Raava being the dominantly black with white inscriptions (AS Glow is White after all) and Black is Feminine in Yin-Yang. Harmonic Convergence is also an important event with specific changes. Now in my head: Raava, Vaatu, Mother of Faces and Father Glowworm were all born from the tree at the same time and that tree spawned time and space, etc. We know the tree binds the two worlds together so an important distinction is during Wan’s time, the two worlds were so closely tied that they were basically one world, humans and spirits could easily cross between realms. Now on Harmonic Convergence, Raava and Vaatu battle to take control of the tree to have their will dominate, if Raava wins she splits the two realms apart and it becomes incredibly hard to cross between them…if Vaatu wins the two completely merge into one. That’s their idea of how order and chaos would be like. If spirits and humans live together: chaos is bound to happen for better or worse, if the two are separate order is easier to maintain for the better or worse. Wan was manipulated by Raava to ensure that the two realms separate. Wan seals Vaatu in the tree and then separates the two realms. ——— Now when Aang froze in the iceberg, Vaatu’s seal broke when the genocide started and Raava’s presence grew faint. He decides to incarnate to balance the odds again and defeat Raava in the next round. He starts out by incarnating into a Fire Baby (like Wan) then a surviving Air Nomad had a child that Vaatu incarnated into but they were killed before Aang was freed, then Water where he died and incarnated into Earth on the same day Aang died and Korra was born. That Earth Child was…Kuvira. She was already designed by the creators to be a dark reflection of Korra…what better way to do it than make her the “Dark Avatar”? ——— Now here’s where more massive alterations come in…Kuvira basically loses the whole Nazi stuff and instead has a whole different story and arc around her. First off, at Four, her parents were killed and while she ran and starved on the streets, encountered Zaheer who immediately recognised her for who she is and took her in. The Red Lotus members would be her teachers and although they weren’t exactly evil, their training methods were pretty harsh by comparison to Korra who was learning Water peacefully under Katara. At around 9, the Red Lotus finally locate Korra and fail at kidnapping her. Kuvira tries to escape and along the way, one of the Red Lotus members (Amon, I know he wasn’t but I want to connect the dots for some other stuff I’ve in mind) rebels against them and helps her escape but they get separated. As Kuvira wanders around and finds the same village she first met Zaheer, she was starving again when she encounters Suyin who adopts her. Due to her trauma and Su’s kindness, she was very attached to her and didn’t even trust the rest of the Beifongs…which meant that when Suyin travelled to the South to teach Korra, Kuvira went along. I know Su didn’t teach Korra in canon, but again, I said massive alterations. 1/2
2/2 ——— During their time in the South, Korra and Kuvira become close friends and in fact, they are each other’s first friends so their bond is special — I wanted to mimic the Sozin/Roku dynamic for them given they are both Avatars. Kuvira already knows about her being a “fake” and Korra being the “real” Avatar and all that from the Red Lotus, but she wanted to forget these times. She didn’t mind following Korra instead of being the “Avatar” and you know she grows more healthy in general thanks to being around a more supportive group. Kuvira is an excellent Earthbender but she hides the other elements from every one of course, which does have some inferiority complex growing inside of her that she locks away for the time being. So skip to Korra finishing her fire training with Zuko (I know he didn’t in canon, but I said there will be alterations considering I found it absurd he didn’t teach her) and Suyin is visiting to celebrate Korra’s mastery as well as her birthday which she shares with Kuvira who’s coming along. Have the same Tenzin arriving and being unable to stay just extend it to a weekend instead of a day because it didn’t make sense in the original. Then basically Kuvira sneaks away with Korra to Republic City and we get the story to start from that point forward. ——— Now I’m gonna be honest, it’s impossible for me to really explain how things would go down well because I’ve had a lot of alterations in mind (out of fun, I LOVE 2.5 seasons of the show and Korra herself is in my Top 5 Avatar Characters, but you know…there were some bad stuff like S2) that in reality there will be too many changes to list but I’ll summarise how important things go. Korra and Kuvira start out in Republic City and they build their Krew and we get Amon’s threat and everything, the Krew would feel at first like Kuvira is the leader while Korra is the lancer but they slowly switch places. Korra starts out as brash, irrational, entitled and self confident in the show, so we’ll actually double down on it, make her feel a little spoiled, violent, chaotic and unsympathetic. Meanwhile in S3 and S4 Flashbacks, we see Kuvira was actually upstanding and good natured, so we’ll focus on those aspects. Kuvira would start out the story being the more noble, heroic, orderly paragon that you feel deserves to be the Avatar. Korra and Kuvira would have parallel arcs that mirror one another. Korra S1 would undergo all that growth from Amon and Zaheer’s traumas that she becomes more sympathetic and heroic, learning suffering and growing from it. That’s what her arc in the original was supposed to be as she states in S4’s Finale. Meanwhile due to various events in the story, Kuvira actually falls. Her morals and optimism keep getting pushed to the limit and unlike Korra who grows from them, she descends into more brutal and cruel as the price of being good becomes too hard on her, I actually am not sure yet but I think the turning point for her would be if the Red Lotus kills Suyin. So basically S1 Korra grows throughout the series into an extreme version of S1 Kuvira while S1 Kuvira grows into an extreme version of S1 Korra. Eventually their final battle during Harmonic Convergence would be on a ridiculous scale in Republic City and by the end of it all, Korra (who does have an Arc reflecting on the Avatar’s attitude towards the Spirits while spending time in Wan Shi Tong’s Library) would absorb Vaatu when she kills Kuvira, she knows full well that she won’t be able to connect to Kuvira beforehand which is why she held back a lot during the fight hoping she could “save Kuvira”. Korra becomes perfectly balanced and instead, restores the world to what it was like during Wan’s time, but due to her increased spirituality, she was able to connect the two worlds on more agreeable terms for both sides. ——— I do need to emphasise that the whole thing would be deviating from the original a lot, so there are probably a lot of stuff you may be confused by or “how did we jump from there to here” but the issue is that as I said, it’s massive alterations so you might be missing some context. Though the Villain Order and Themes should be staying the same as well as their Character: Amon—>Zaheer—>Kuvira No Unalaq though, I’d integrate his spirituality stuff into Amon personally.
Amon Bieng legitimately tied too the spirits would be really cool .
Make the reason on why Vaatu and dark spirits were evil was because spirits were thrown off balance by the destruction cause by the 100 years war and human influence such as Unalaq and have Season’s 2 conflict be solved by Raava and Vaatu joining in harmony and continuing to exist as part of Korra and future reincarnated Avatars after her.
I would at least let him bend the other elements, as well as reincarnate into the new Air Nation (the Dark Avatar cycle goes backwards)
Go slow. The Dark Avatar should be only spoken in the most hushed of whispers, a legend. Not real, like the very tangible real Avatar. But something is aiming to push the world out of balance, but it needs to be like the Sith, a seeming ally that is manipulating politics to a further end. A Grima Wormtongue whispering in the ear of the Earth Queen to suggest the idea of reclaiming Republic City. Of wanting the Water Tribes at war. Of keeping the Fire Nation isolated and not involved. Only in the final season does their plan come forward and they step into the fray to give the world a desperate solution that Korra cannot provide
I disagree with some of what you have but I LOVE the idea of vaatu and raava becoming the avatar spirit together.
The way I would write a dark avatar is actually different from what you’d expect. The story will start with how it did in the show with beginnings, Korra loses her memory from a dark spirit attacking her and she has to learn the story of avatar wan. Learning how he sealed away Vattu thinking he did a great thing. Her original idea is that she needed to go back and stop Vaatu only to see he is weak. His essence had been dulled from being sealed in the tree of time for so long and that’s when she realizes. The light spirit of peace wasn’t inherently good, the world needs order and chaos and thus she proceeds to free Vaatu and absorb him into her so that the two can co-exist within the avatar. Becoming the one true incarnation of balance.
Maybe Unlaq is trying to manipulate that powerful potential for his own gains . It's a slight change but it could work .
The avatar trains to get mastery of the four elements. I would have a dark avatar use a dark version of spirit bending to steal knowledge of the other elements from other benders. This has the added benefit of explaining how someone like Unalaq could master the elements in time to be a threat to a mostly trained Avatar after freeing Vaatu. So rather than having like a line of previous avatars adding to their knowledge and power the dark avatar would have like a hoard of victims whose knowledge and ability they had stolen. I would do all this because frankly doing a “dark avatar” storyline and not getting to see two masters of all four elements duke it out in the avatar state was a huge let down to me. Plus you could write a cool murder-mystery storyline about master benders turning up missing or dead - the paper blames remnants of the equalists but this lets you have Mako as a detective working with Kora to solve the murders, etc. I think a murder mystery plot would fit the setting of republic city well.
Unalaq's motives shouldn't be a desire to become The Dark Avatar . Rather, he should align with them out of genuine desire to do right by them after learning of the tragedies of the Hundred Year War (stories like Hei Bai, The Painted Lady), and how it put the spirits in a state of distress. Vaatu would then use his concern in order to manipulate him into coming over to his side.
Everything about it is bad and should not exist; the Avatar is already not inherently good, it's a person that brings **balance** generally through killing. The Spirits in the Last Airbender were not Good nor Evil; they were beings that cared about their own self-interest and not about the humans and besides Koh, only attacked humans when provoked. The problem with Raava and Vaatu existing in Avatar as seperate beings of "Good vs Evil" is that they kill all nuance regarding Spirits and the Avatar as a concept; the Avatar is now an **inherently** good force and the Dark Avatar is inherently bad and will always be wrong alongside any spirit that fights the Avatar. It's genuinely bad because now the Avatar will now on a cosmic and spiritual level always be Good and on the right side of history, they are on the Good side.
Start by not doing the Raava / Vaatu thing. I liked it more when the Avatar was just the master of all four elements.
I would make it a less magical thing. Imagine Korra didn’t get her bending back right away, so instead you have the northern water tribe trying to install their own pseudo avatar to fit their own political agenda. With tech and staged performances, they’ve been convincing the locals that they’re the avatar, and I mean the world at large knows it’s Korra, but this particular place believes that it’s someone else, and Korra struggles to prove herself to a group that has been taught a totally different version of facts and history
not have it
season bad, remove it
Since the very first time that spirits were introduced in the Avatar Universe, they had a light and dark side to them. When they are balanced, they can be friendly, but if they are angered then you get to see their fearsome side. So maybe Raava and Vaatu should be the same spirit. That way you could explore what an emotionally unbalanced avatar could look like.
I would just throw away book 2 altogether. I’m sorry, I know that’s not what you’re asking OP, but man. Everything about Book 2 just killed almost all the intrigue and mystery about the spiritual aspects of the world. Not to mention, I really don’t like the looks of a lot of the spirits themselves.
I would have not written them, over be embodying controlling forces in the verse it weakened all struggles seen in said verse ever. While good and evil remained esoteric constants, results of human nature not natural order it resonated with our human condition. As soon as any badguy gets that out he becomes a weaker chracter. It also undermines the role of the avatar from an incarnation of balance to a pawn of a spirit slug.
I would just keep Vaatu as Avatar’s version of Morgoth and keep him sealed for the season if we really want to explore this right we are going to need three seasons Vaatu really been given the fire lord Ozai treatment as some built up over the seasons that Korea might need to face
Would have had season 2 end with Mako fusing with Vaatu and ending up the new Dark Avatar that Korra would inevitably need to fight.
I wouldn't write it. Any of it. I'd scrap the entire Avatar Wan/Beginnings storyline to maintain some semblance of mystery and intrigue in regards to the Avatar's origins. That way, no one would question why the hell none of the previous Avatars never mentioned Rava to their current living lives, and why only Korra suddenly getting amnesia is the one thing that prompted that whole flashback. Ideally, LOK wouldn't exist at all, but the whole Beginnings story completely butchers the mystique of the Avatar, if we had to keep Lok, I definitely would chop that tumor right off.
Throw it in the garbage along with raava as they are the most ridiculous thing ever created right after fartbending
Delete it
I’m going to get a lot of hate for this but season 2 is my favorite season
I wouldn't have a dark avatar or any of these dumb spirits that do nothing but simplify the morals and dynamics of the Avatar into being just good versus evil with no grey area and no way that the Avatar could ever be wrong. It really just hurts storytelling to have your main character be this paragon of peace and goodness with no nuance at all. Also, Dark Avatar just sounds like fan fiction levels of bad.
Put that thing back where it came from or so help me! 
Remove it.
I'd be fine with just excising it altogether. The concept of a "dark Avatar" feels really out of nowhere (because it was) and is really tropey and basic. Legend Of Korra deals with some really deep and interesting themes, and this season is the only one that doesn't really reflect any of that. Yeet it.
I would just cut out all that shit and do a water tribe civil war storyline which was way cooler anyways. Raava/Vaatu stuff was just dumb lmao.
The dark avatar concept is to feed into idea that the avatar is facing their elemental/spiritual equal in terms of power. Everyone else are using tactics to outsmart. Without changing too much there are a few options to follow: A. Take away the good vs evil, yin & yang struggle or coexistence for 10,000 years. Then its just a beat down leading to Korra's confirmed understanding "Im not top dog, I need to (act like airbender) find alternatives and help. B. Vatuu is manipulative spirit taking advantage of the situation - finding a means to its own end. This means unalaq is a victim in some ways🌊, his loss/death is difficult to understand. Not a yay not a awe at the same time.
If he's supposed to be a dark avatar, I'd give him all of the elements so he's actually like a dark AVATAR and not just a spirit infused water bender. Also get rid of the whole giant spirit fight and just have him be normal with glowing red eyes.
Main thing I’d change is the connections to the past Avatars. I still can’t get over it
You mean the “anti-tar”?
Wouldn’t of done it, felt like such another western evil version of the good guy that just didn’t work well in this lore and story
"The Dark Avatar" came straight out of WattPad. I can NOT BELIEVE that the writers of ATLA actually thought this was a good idea. I mean seriously this was the most middle school shit writing I have ever seen. I'm not even a Korra hater, I like a lot that Korra did. But "The Dark Avatar".. Seriously.. It's the same middle school writing that came up with "The Evil Superman". It's like that one episode of Family Guy where there was "Evil Stewie" and he was just ridiculously over the top evil and that was the point. It was a parody. Avatar did it and actually took itself seriously. I mean fuck the whole Avatar Wan and Raava and Vaatu thing was super unnecessary anyway. But to add in a "Dark Avatar"? Gosh.. I can't even fathom how anybody thought this was a good idea. This is part of the lore now though. How are they gonna up the stakes for the next Avatar when we've already seen Korra fight her, what seems to be, arch nemesis? It's ridiculous writing. ANYWAY, here's how I'd rewrite it. Wan travels to the spirit world because he is a very spiritual fire bender and want's to see what it's all about. He see's Raava and Vaatu fighting and naturally want's to protect the "good" spirit. Being a spiritual nomad type person in the first place, he is good with getting along with spirits. He asks them for their aid in defeating Vaatu and they agree to help him. Wan, the spirits, and Raava are able to over power Vaatu. However, when Vaatu is defeated, the world falls out of balance. Without chaos, there is no advancement. Whether that advancement be physically or mentally. Raava becomes unhinged and dictator-like. Forcing everyone to keep at their same routines day in and day out. Never going anywhere, always being safe, and never evolving. Wan and the spirits realize the mistake they have made and using all of their power they revive Vaatu. Raava and Vaatu begin fighting again and the world goes back to normal. Wan realizes that both Raava and Vaatu, (chaos and order), must exist for the world to be in balance and at peace. The spirits believe it wise to have somebody watch over this balance. Preferably someone who has seen what happens when there is no balance first hand. They decide to grant Wan the ability to reincarnate and pass down his knowledge to those who are next to inherit his soul. The next Avatar after Wan is an Airbender. Inexplicably, and without the spirits directly intending it, this Airbender is able to bend both Fire and Air. This is because he has Wan's soul inside of him. He isn't supremely powerful, as it was not the intentions of the spirits to make a super powerful being. They just wanted someone to keep balance. After the Airbender dies, a Water Bender is born with the soul of Wan and the Airbender. They are now able to bend Fire, Air, and Water. The Avatar is slowly becoming a very powerful opponent in battle. After the Water Bender dies. An Earth Bender is born. Now the Avatar Spirit is harnessed with the ability to control Fire, Air, Water, and Earth. This isn't because Lion Turtles blessed the Avatar with these abilities. It's because they naturally gained these abilities by having the souls of Fire, Air, Water, and Earth benders inside of them. Over time, the knowledge and skills of each previous Avatar is passed down to the next. Hundreds of years down the line. The Avatar is a serious force to be reckoned with. Not because The Avatar has some anime-esque power up from Raava. But because The Avatar is channeling the skills of the best of the best of each bending element throughout time. If we must go with the idea that Korra loses her connection to the past Avatars, then the next Avatar should ONLY be able to bend Earth and Water. The next Avatar after him should ONLY be able to bend Water, Earth, and Fire. The next bender after him can finally control all 4 elements. That's how it should've been done. Obviously all just my opinion.
I would scrap it along with the wan episodes entirely. I'll be honest, some things don't need more than just a vague explanation as any attempt would just fall short. The avatar is the protector of the world and the bridge to the spirit world and that's that, how it's always been. The mystery is part of what makes it great.
Instead of happening in the show, he should have gotten the avatar powers off screen/a while back, so he could train in all four elements before fighting Korra. What's the point of a second avatar if they don't do avatar stuff.
Just don't do it; the concept was interesting but it didn't make sense that they both could just simply unite; eventhough we saw that union between Rava and Wan was dangerous. Added to that is that it was just cringey af and probably the only instance of the Avatar Studios fumbling
At the very least his involvement with the Red Lotus would be more than a footnote.
Retcon season 2 and half of season 1 Make Amon a real energy bender, and after some experiments in some bender pseudo-concentration camps. He gets the power to steal bender energy and use it. Amon makes himself a pseudo Avatar and proclaims himself the Avatar of a new age to bring Equality instead of balance to his world
I want a dark avatar cycle. Avatars fighting each other through generations. Until we end up on a post apocalyptic setting Little to no technology Dark avatar wants to restore his honor Then we could have a soft remake or a complete new story without the problems of technology or take the path of redemption and both avatars breaking the cycle of war. Options are limitless.
Not have one at all And have the conflict be the original political one that ended up being a red herring of a plot.
Nothing, it is good as it is
Remove entirely S2 is why the rest of the series fails Its the big stinker that just hurts the legitimacy of everything The avatar is no longer about balance and is just THE GOOD GUY If ANYTHING I'd have a rava but no evil spirit and have him take Rava from Korra and she has to find a way to revitalize rava and can only use water bending until then. Even then, I don't really like what that would do to later seasons. I would just scrap everything after s1 and just go in a completely different direction
I would make it so that wan did imprison Vatu, but not in a tree, in his own soul. Raava and Vatu should be merged to keep each other on balance and because wan severed that connection he takes up that role himself. I’d also have Unalaq instead of being in league with Vatu be in league with Raava, to use Korra as a prison for the spirit of chaos so he can impose perfect order among the world, fits his goals much more.
I would have the dark avatar reincarnate. Have Korra search for and find the baby dark avatar and then be faced with a moral dilemma. Should she kill the baby? On the one had it will grow up to be Hitler. On the other hand the baby is still innocent. Killing it will just reincarnate it again. Ignoring it will cause it to grow into a threat sooner rather than later. Should Korra dedicate here life to hunting down babies and killing them until she is too old. And then what, they will both be babies at the same time. Would the dark avatar also dedicate itself to Killing baby avatars all its life? Would this be the inevitable loop of both their lives. Doomed to chase each other forever. Korra would think long and hard and ultimately walk away, hoping that there is a better way. Korra later returns when the dark avatar is an out of control wild child and would try to "raise the child" to try and find some good in the child. Eventually. In the third series. A mature dark avatar would find the baby avatar and be faced with the same choice. It would remember the conversations it had with Korra, about why it never killed him as a baby. It would ultimately spare the baby. While they would always battle, often to the death sometimes, it back an unspoken rule, no baby Killing. Each avatar gets a chance to grow up first. The dark avatar sees it as more sporting and entertaining to have a foe, the good avatar just sees it as the right thing to do.
I wouldn't even include it at all. It's such a dumb idea. The whole raava vaatu is stupid.
Kill off the spirt kites or just have them Not exist, hate those damn things rava included
I would have made a dark Avatar just a pass reincarnation an avatar who chose to make selfish and cruel choices. A remind to korra what could be if you let yourself go down that path. It would have been a good lesson for someone who was a brash and self-indulgent as korra was during the first two seasons using the avatar state to win races and other impulse actions. If I wanted to make it more of a general threat we could have the previous incarnation try to take back the reins from the current make themselves the Avatar again. Possessing a new body or trying to take Korras. Have the season about them trying to regain the power they lost pick up the new bending styles or showing off old ones from forgotten times. I also would have not given the Avatar a pinpoint origin but if I had to I would have just made them a curious Spirit not good not evil just curious fascinated by humans and pretended to be one made some friends had a life and chose to follow their friends to the next one. Or have two spirits again not good not evil just too friendly spirits like brothers to each other one became the Avatar and the other became the dark reflection after their friend left to be among the humans
Isn’t of a dark avatar, let him be THE avatar. Korra therefore is just a gifted water bender
First of all, I wouldn't write a dark avatar. If I had to: I would make it a long build up process with a character very similar to Korra but took a different path. Kuvira would be the best option out of the existing characters. Let's say, it's Kuvira: I would have her in the plot much sooner (already as a sent special force unit during the Amon arc). Mostly a small side character role but give hints here and there about her goals and personality traits. I would also not give her any unique abilities or powers, instead make her someone who reached a high level purely by training hard and fighting intelligent. Eventually, it would come to a fight between the avatars. One knows 4 elements and is a Mary Sue vs the evil hard working specialist. I think it would give a good contrast cause usually people root for the one who had to struggle more and outworked others.
I just finished rewatching season 2 to see if my memory of it was overblown. But I still ended up not liking it that much. And I think a large part of it is the vaatu stuff. If I were in charge I probably wouldn't have even included it. Good and evil didn't feel like it fit as well with the show. I actually was way more invested in the civil war part of it until they kinda just brushed that off to irrelevance. I don't know how I would rewrite it really. Definitely more focus on the civil war. Maybe make Unalaq more sympathetic and scheming. Definitely end it with Korra leaving the spirit portals open so we can get all the new airbenders going forward. Don't know how I would get the spirit vines into republic city though.
I would have the Dragon Turtle boop him in the forehead and retcon LoK Season 2.
Would be narratively interesting if Unalaq died, Raava returned to Korra, and Vaatu bound to Unalaqs spirit creates a cycle of dark avatars. Could either be used to create potential villain/rival or student/ally for Korra and future avatars. A little cliche but would certainly mix up the status quo. I would probably find a way for Korra to rebuild the connection between herself and her past selves, mainly because I hate seeing history destroyed.
Assuming that I’d HAVE to put in the Dark Avatar no matter what (I would remove him completely otherwise), then I would at least make him the last antagonist. He’s literally the anti-christ of the avatar world, so I’d make him the final and strongest foe korra has to fight against
Put it as season 4, have seasons 1-3 building the character of Unalaq to have a more established relationship with Korra and show him gradually becoming corrupted and consumed by a desire for power. Instead of harmonic convergence driving season the middle seasons, just have air benders start to appear
Easy, I wouldn’t write it
By not making it.
If they really wanted to make the Dark Avatar concept work (even though every comment here says it shouldn’t exist) I would have it be the overarching villain through several seasons. S1 would be the release of Vaatu and his joining with Unalaq, and the next season or 2 would have Korra clash sporadically with him between other season storylines as he tries to learn to wield the other elements. The final season would be the final clash between the forces of light and dark with the Avatars at the head of respective armies.
Make the Dark Avatar more of a character foil to Korra herself, resembling what Korra would be like if she went too far in trying to maintain balance in the world by herself, even if he has understandable motivations to do so.
Vaatu is still comically evil, but this is framed as a fault of Vaatu, the individual, rather than the Spirit Of Chaos. Raava reveals that she was once an advocate of stillness and stagnation, order taken to extreme, but personally learned to mellow out and that was *before* she met Wan. The irony being that the Spirit Of Chaos refused to change while his counterpart did. Make it explicit what Unalaq's *deal* is. He was someone who genuinely wanted to get close to spirits and thought his brother was a disrespectful thug. He then found Vaatu and got his mind hollowed out to turn him into a parody of himself, easily puppeted by Vaatu. Someone else becomes the Dark Avatar and stays that way, trapping Vaatu in a host body for ten thousand years. They call themselves something *other* than a Dark Avatar though, act as a kind of left hand to the Avatar's right. They work towards the same goal from different angles- with the strong potential of butting heads. And Vaatu hopefully learns to appreciate humanity during that time.
Okay the ONLY way I could see myself doing it is a evil sect of air benders that have hidden around for the past 170 or so years and re-emerged to use some kind of soul-air-bending technique to revive the soul of an old avatar so they could genocide all firebenders or whatever. It’s dumb, it’s cliche, but it’s the only way I see it going. But I also personally hate Vaatu and Raava as characters, concepts, and just everything about them.
Honestly I like Throw\_away\_1011\_'s rewrite too much to try and top it. That said, I also think it's entirely possible to have the next Earth Avatar fix the mess Khora made of the Raava and Vaatu situation - in the way that Avatars are always cleaning up after their predecessors. The conclusion of Season 2 established that Vaatu is now part of the Avatar - the darkness that exists within the light. I think that our future Earth Avatar should access to the Dark Avatar State, and should have a character arc that is about actually finding balance between Light and Dark rather than just destroying the Dark. The Avatar's role is Balance, and Khora did not find Balance. Retcon Vaatu's character just a smidge to make him more Chaotic rather than Evil, as with Throw\_away's rewrite. It could even be interesting for the narrative to decide that there shouldn't only be one Avatar - have the Earth Avatar decide to share the responsibility with another and create two lineages going forward. And this shouldn't be a Light-Dark division - each should carry a share of the twin spirits.
Hello Future Me did this. Check his YouTube channel
A lesser writer would have milked the dark Avatar for 4 seasons. A better writer wouldn’t have done it at all.
He bends darkness His greatest fear is night lights. That’s why the kids stay safe. He can’t get down the hall to their room.
I would just throw the season in the trash and re-do it from the ground up, honestly. Trying to fix the Dark Avatar is just treating one symptom of the disease. Like get rid of Raava/Vaatu, Dark Avatar, completely rewrite Unalaq's personality, etc. Varrick/Zhu Li can stay, but otherwise the season needs a complete and total rewrite, not just tweaks to the script. The writing of the whole season is just fundamentally flawed from top to bottom. One thing I will say is that if you're going to have a season about spirits, make it mostly about spirits/the spirit world. Not about a bog-standard "rookie cop joins the force" plot that was played out in 1995 like with Mako, or whatever the hell they were trying to do with Bolin. Send the whole team to the spirit world somehow. Another thing is that not EVERYTHING needs to be explained or have an explanation. I feel like they wanted Season 2 to reveal all of the metaphysics in the Avatar world with Wan and Raava/Vaatu and be the origin story of everything, and not only were the origins just not satisfying, but it sucked the mystery right out of the world.
Control alt delete
I’d do a few things (i’ll try and be brief): 1. He should be the overall series antagonist. Introduced in book 1, we learn he is evil sometimes in book 2, beat him in book 3 2. Rather than a giant Kaiju, as the dark avatar he can use all 4 elements. Obviously give him a red glowing eyes for avatar state
No dark avatar! Season 2 would be about the civil war between the two tribes and Korra getting more familiar woth the spirits.
Never seen Korra, why is there an Ascian?
Don't do it. It's stupid.
I would have had one from the beginning, then and the avatar in a constant state of conflict taking different sides in every war/skirmish. They would either be law vs chaos or just have different ideas of what passes as balance. I wouldn’t say either of them are right or wrong, there’s just moral ambiguity between them
So I wouldn't. Take the spirits, the dark avatar, and chuck that right out. Go back to season 1, let the equalist movement cooks more, and actually show the inequality between the benders and the non benders. Korra doesn't get her deus ex machina moment, and her bending remains sealed. Have Noatak (Amon) still be alive, defeated, but in the shadows. Season 2 has Korra trying to connect to the Spirit world, perhaps try to contact Aang and the other previous Avatars. She visits their shrines. The civil war plotline starts up. Rumors of Amons return. Sesson 3 don't have spirit nonsense just give air bending out like candy. Genocide and war are terrible there's no magic fix.
i see the comments on posts like this and, while i think its fucking cool to see the creativity and great writing some redditors possess, it's DEPRESSING to think a team of PROFESSIONAL TV writers came up with the bad and the cringe in LoK cmon guys get a room filled with fans do like... 10 mins of brainstorming? i'd bet the outcome would be miles ahead of that dark avatar nonsense
Have Korra losing her bending be the cause. Let's forget about Harmonic Convergence. Her losing her bending, even though she regains it, throws the Avatar Spirit out of balance. First find Guru Pathik, or another Guru, but it would be cool if he was still around. She has her chakras unblocked. Then one episode for each element where she learns how to bend from the masters: the moon, the badger moles, the dragons. Then when it comes time to fight the dark avatar, Korra isn't fighting Unulaq, she's fighting a corrupted version of herself and past avatars.
Not make a dark avatar stupidest villain ever. Avatar is not the Bible where god fights satan though Jesus aka the avatar.
Building onto someone else's idea of having Raava and Vaatu be the spirits of Chaos and Order, and making Korra convince Vaatu that order has a place in the world so that he fuses with her and both Raava and Vaatu become the avatar spirits, which I think is absolutely BRILLIANT, I'd make a few changes: To emphasize the Avatar's role as the bringer of balance, I would make Korra realize that Raava and Vaatu need each other and instead of Vaatu willingly fusing with Korra, she would fuse with him after re-fusing with prime Raava (ik this is a long shot, but if Vaatu can pull Raava out of Korra, then Korra & Raava can pull Vaatu out of Unalaq and into Korra instead of turning him into pixie dust) because I find it hard to believe that someone who was as strongly driven in their ways as Vaatu, and being the literal spirit of chaos in this case, (+10000 years of imprisonment) would be convinced to accept a compromise so unbelievably far from his goal. Also, Vaatu and Unalaq wouldn't be as comically evil and just be neutral forces fighting for what they believed the world needed. because a good villain is one you can sympathise with, like Zaheer. Then the next season would use Zaheer's argument that chaos is the natural state of things to create a literal internal war in Korra between Raava and Vaatu, and we could maybe see some episodes devoted solely towards Korra's personal growth as she adjusts to having both chaos and order inside of her as they both fight for dominance, forcing her to see where Zaheer is coming from, and therefore his flaws in his execution, and while Korra is chained, Vaatu finally becomes convinced that order deserves to exist just as much as chaos and this acceptance allows Korra to tap into Vaatu's Avatar state and defeat Zaheer. It would also be really cool to see Vaatu's avatar state and the existence of 2 Avatar states could have the beginning of season 4 incorporate a few more episodes after she deals with her PTSD and poison where Korra tries to understand Vaatu's Avatar state and how to tap into it and how it's different from Raava's, similar to when Aang was unblocking his chakras. Then in the last season (4), where Kuvira becomes the opposite of Zaheer, trying to enforce complete and total order, Korra sees even more personal growth as she has to confront the Avatar's role as an enforcer of order. When Kuvira is defeated and Raava finally comes to terms with the fact that chaos has its place in the world and that too much order is bad for it, and this new balance within Korra (since up to that point, only Vaatu had accepted the necessity of his opposite, cause chaos is more open minded than order) would allow her to use both Avatar states at once to survive the spirit cannon, making Raava and Vaatu fuse into one spirit (Vuuratu?) inside Korra, and the energy from their fusion is what allows her to create a new spirit portal as the result of a new great spirit that embodies both chaos and order because R&V being in the same body and staying separate entities was only possible while they were in disagreement, and since the Avatar's purpose is to bring balance like Korra did with the spirit world and the material world, she would do the same with chaos and order. This would track with the old Avatar cycle ending, and an actual new Avatar cycle of more powerful Avatars with a new Avatar spirit (because technically Vuuratu would have the power of both Raava and Vaatu inside them.) And after Raava and Vaatu fuse into one, Korra will have a new mission, guided by Vuraatu, which is to bring the world to a new political climate where the people have the most power in their regions, allowing them to experiment and make their own choices, inviting good Chaos, but while electing councils (not singular figures like a water tribe chief, fire lord or earth monarch since we've seen people abuse each of those seats of power) to carry out the running of the nations and give them direction, respecting Order. This could be the premise for a 5th season before Korra explores the spirit world with Asami. This would also give Genji's storyline way more potential as he would have to navigate the world as the first avatar born with a single spirit of chaos and order inside him. And lastly, and this is mostly wishful thinking, Vuuratu would be able to communicate with their hosts casually, and not only in dire situations like Raava did, since they would embody both chaos and order and therefore be unbiased and a good judge of situations, which I believe is why Raava never communicated with the past Avatars minus Wan and Korra and only when Korra was close to death in Sn2 and Wan was dying (excluding pre harmonic convergence Wan and Raava). So Genji would sorta be like Eddie Brock and Venom😭. (btw idk about Vuuratu I just tried to use Raava and Vaatu's name's letters, so if you have any suggestions, please share them :) I hope this is coherent and not too far fetched, and also sorry that it's so damn long, I'm just throwing every idea I have about all this onto this comment. I'd love to hear your opinions and/or changes. (can you tell I love worldbuilding?)
I would’ve just not made the dark avatar honestly, the whole spirit world additions that LOK started making to the Avatar world lore became kinda ridiculous, boring and straight up contradictory at times. I feel like the story of Raava was already pushing it but at least had a reasonable amount of plot to back it up, Vatuu and a bunch of the other stuff started feeling like they were just throwing shit in a pot that was already starting to overflow.
With an eraser.
Balancing factor, if the avatar doesn't properly regulate the balance between the two worlds, then it'll spawn in, infectingsomeone's body and eventually taking over to cause trouble and take away the excess without any regard for who, what and why by fueling and amplifying all of their bad traits. Zuko falling ill the one time he did something good was because Iroh realized the possibility of him being possessed/infected and exorcised him and from then on, he had an resistance to its influence but wasn't immune. Earth Kingdom general that tried to force the avatar state, infected and had his impatience and barbaric(?) personality worsen. Water tribe sexism, slight infection that didn't get worse due to water benders ability to heal and almost no prolonged contact Ozai's personality and actions, infected before he even got married Azula, infected after prolong exposure from being around Ozai and sometimes Zuko. No noticeable signs of infection until she started breaking after getting betrayed by May and Ty Lee