Legend of Korra, Season 4

 Book Four of Legend of Korra is called Balance.

I remember watching the second season and thinking "wow, this is a plot that feels like it should be the final season," given the high-mystical elements at play. Season three was ultimately just a better story (and I think generally considered the high watermark of the series) but also felt tied into the Avatar mythos enough (though in a very different way) that it felt fitting as the send-off to the series (Zaheer is also a fantastic villain).

So there's a part of me that felt a bit underwhelmed by the plot of season four. On the other hand, while it does end with a giant mech battle that devastates Republic City a lot worse than Unalaq/Vaatu's assault actually did, the story is, in a lot of ways, really much smaller in scale. Spirits, and even philosophical points of view, aren't really the focus here. In a lot of ways, actually, the crisis of season four is a mirror to the plot of Avatar: the Last Airbender - though in the original series it was the Fire Nation that threatened the world, in this case it's a sort of misguided (though also just morally bankrupt) Earth Empire that poses the threat (this also completes the villain collection, with at least one main villain of each elemental bending type, as our bad guy is an earthbender, and a metalbender.)

In the last couple episodes of season three, we're given the name of one of Suyin Beifong's lieutenants a couple times, and without any other context, it seems totally random. A badass young metalbender named Kuvira saves Korra's dad and is set up as if she might become a more important member of Team Avatar or something.

Instead, she winds up as Korra's final (at least in the series) big bad to fight.

The events of season three, with Zaheer's assassination of the Earth Queen, leave the Earth Kingdom in disarray. The Red Lotus did this to undo the corrupt and stratified system in place in the Earth Kingdom, but in the years that followed, the response to that power vacuum was the demand for a strong arm to restore order. Kuvira, beginning with a mandate from the international community to reign in the roving bands of outlaws, has been growing a massive and technologically-superior army, and each state "saved" and brought under her control just stokes the fires of her ambitions.

Yes, the years that followed. Book Four picks up a whole three years after the events of season three, which means that a gap of time just as long as the series itself occurs before this season.

Korra fights to recover from the poison and near-asphyxiation that Zaheer subjected her to, and while she's able to get most of the poison out of her system, regaining the ability to walk, the true poison was the trauma to which she's been subjected.

And let's be clear - every season has had her severely traumatized by the villains. Amon took almost all of her bending away, robbing her of the thing that had defined her since she was a small child. Unalaq destroyed her connection to her past incarnations (sadly meaning we didn't get much time to see Aang guide her,) and then Zaheer nearly killed her and left her weaker than she'd ever been before.

While it's true that she's still carrying around some of that poison, even when she gets rid of it with Toph's help (who joins Aang in the "we love this character, but that doesn't mean they're automatically going to be a good parent" club) it's the PTSD she's suffering from that is truly holding her back.

As Korra struggles to enter the Spirit World, she tries to convince herself that she's not traumatized by going and confronting Zaheer in his prison (sometimes it's nice to have villains who aren't dead after they're defeated!) What's kind of amazing is that Zaheer, while certainly not an ally or friend now, actually genuinely wants to help her, and while he sure as hell doesn't apologize for what he did (one gets the sense that if things were different, he might still want her dead,) he does ultimately point Korra in the right direction, getting her to accept her trauma (the one he inflicted upon her) and find a way to carry that weight.

While Kuvira's actions ultimately veer into not just conquest, but the early warning signs of genocide (rounding up those who aren't Earth-Kingdom ethnically in camps) and mission creep that sets her ambitions on Republic City, even though that was territory that was given freely long before she was born (and even earlier, when she attempt to bring her "order" to the already perfectly stable state of Zaofu,) she is nevertheless perhaps the most sympathetic villain.

Indeed, one of the lessons Korra learns is that each of the villains of this series have had reasonable intentions, but lost the sense of balance and perspective (though I sort of wonder if Unalaq is getting retroactively given a better motivation - I kind of thought he was just power-hungry and happy to become the antichrist.) This ultimately allows her to understand how the lady who wants to lock down the world in her totalitarian order and builds a giant nigh-impenetrable robot has trouble being vulnerable.

The thing that ultimately defeats Kuvira is Korra's mercy - when the doomsday weapon she's unleashed on the city is pointed straight at her, Korra - who has discovered a connection to the very spiritual energy that the weapon runs on - demonstrates the godlike power she possesses by shielding Kuvira, and redirecting that energy to create a new spirit portal (and also take out most of downtown Akira-style - though thankfully the place is evacuated.)

There's more to say here, but I'm now realizing how late it is I'm writing this and must go to bed.