(Warning: Nothing major beside spoilers for Avatar: the Last Airbender and Legend of Korra and me rambling about my personal history of the show)
Yesterday afternoon after I wake up, I was browsing on my Reddit home feed when I saw a post from r/television that Nickelodeon greenlight another Avatar sequel called Seven Heavens, where this time the protagonist is an Earthbender who lives in a cataclysmic world AND the Avatar is portray as the humanity’s destroyer!
When I first saw the headline, I was like, well it’s about time they greenlighted the sequel as it’s been 10 years since Legend of Korra ended. And wait, she DID THIS!?!
I know that the fandom has some STRONG feelings on the first sequel that took place 70 years after the event of the Avatar: the Last Airbender. That some didn’t like the Waterbender for being selfish, cocky, rude and was involved in that infamous love triangle that took up part of season 1 and 2.
Then some didn’t like that the series was too short for their likings as each season (or Book the show calls it) was only 12 episodes long, which means it wasn’t enough time to get to know the characters and enjoy the surroundings. So seeing that even after opening the spirt world at the end of season 2 and nearly dying from the hands of the Red Louts at the end of season 3, poor Korra gets blamed for causing the calamity anyways! Ouch.
Don’t know, that’s based on how some of the comments on both Reddit and Tumblr is when they read the description.
Whatever the case here, I’m still glad that the show is back as it was one of the few heavy story-plot cartoons from the 2000s’ (along with Total Drama) that I liked growing up. Not only that, Avatar is one of the few cartoons that my mom LIKES, which is a big deal since she’s not a fan of some of the cartoons that I grew up liking (well beside the early seasons of SpongeBob SquarePants)! She likes it so much; she has the digital copy of the two series for us to stream. After reading the article, I send a link to my mom and she sent me a heart emoji, saying that she likes it.
Another funny thing about me writing this blog is that today marks the 20th anniversary since the very first episode of Last Airbender aired on Nickelodeon. I was 9 years old and remembered watching the series premiere on the big box TV in the living room in my childhood home back in Ohio. I also remember turning off the lights in the room for some reason to make it a cinematic atmosphere or something. I was such a strange child. But I liked it enough to keep watching it.
I remember watching all three seasons of the show when it aired. From watching the very first episode in that living room to watching the series finale at my aunt’s bedroom in Texas, I loved it. It has the humor (the scenes with the Cabbage Man), the drama and managed to keep it in balance. I liked the art style of the show as it was one of the more famous anime-influence cartoons that aired around in the 2000s.
Then there’s the fact that it was one of the few kids show that mention war, politics, sexism and heavy stuff, but mention in a way that they can understand it! Especially in the finale, where some people on the Internet (at the time) were mad that the Avatar didn’t Fire Lord Ozai on spot and let him live instead. That’s because Aang was raised to respect all life and killing the Fire Lord doesn’t feel right to him, so he decided to strip Ozai’s firebending instead.
No wondered why it was one of Nick’s more successful shows in the 2000s (beside SpongeBob)!
Then four years later, the sequel series, Legend of Korra aired and unlike the first one, I heard it has some “issues”. Beside what I mention above, it also aired during Nick’s Dark Age, where the channel was doing poorly in ratings and keep spanning reruns of SpongeBob SquarePants instead of other Nicktoon series. Sadly, Korra was one of those victims as while it did well in the 1st season, it didn’t in the 2nd season as for some reason. Mainly because, it was where Nick decided to put the show on a Friday night death slot and it end up SUFFERING in ratings!
It got worst in the 3rd season where the show got a little darker than Nick was used to. I say that as in one episode, the big bad of the season managed to kill the queen of the Earth Kingdom ON SCREEN! Well we didn’t actually see her die on screen; we heard it on the radio instead. And plus, the queen was a terrible ruler and a jerk to everyone, so no one was sad when she died. But it was after that episode; Nick pulled the show off the air and moved it online, where it stayed for the rest of the series, which made the longtime fans mad.
But one of the good things about the sequel is that in the series finale, Korra ends up dating Asami, which is a huge deal for the LGBT community as they became the first same-sex couple to appear in a KIDS SHOW!! Then some people on the Internet got mad because they feel like the forming of the couple was placed in a last minute notice from the creators and such. Despite that, it was thanks to the finale, more same-sex couples started appearing in kids shows and it won’t stop anytime soon (hopefully).
Funny thing about the sequel series, I never watched fully when it first came out as I was living in Germany and don’t remembered if it aired on the British version of Nickelodeon or not (as my family has British Sky satellite). It wasn’t until I moved back to the States in to attend university, is when I finally binged watched the first three seasons on Amazon Prime account that my family shared. As expected, I wasn’t a fan of the first two seasons, but did like the third season as it was a big improvement and end up feeling depressed by the end of that season.
As for the 4th season, I end up watching on my laptop from Nick’s website and sometimes I might hear people at my tabletop club, talk about the episode. as it aired on the same day the club is held, which was on Fridays. When I went back home for winter break in Southern Texas, it was when I saw the series finale and the ending where Korra and Asami hold hands!
Now here I am at 29 years old and now there’s another sequel series on the run. With the somewhat mixed reactions about the setting and such, I hope Seven Heavens will be as good as the last two series. Then I realized that Seven Heavens means this will be the first time I'll be watching Nickeloden since 2018. Just like how the new season of Total Drama airing last year, made me watch Cartoon Network for the first time since 2020! God, I'm getting old!
Hopefully Nickelodeon treats the show a little better now since the series has their own studio and has been releasing tons of new material related to the show such as books, the comic books and a new movie that’s going to come out next year. I know they have Paramount+ and they can put the show there in case the show gets too dark again. But not everyone has the streaming app, so I expect this show to might be pirated, a lot in the future.
I also hope that there won’t be any online fandom wars that the show had in the past, when Seven Heavens eventually comes out. Like, I was too young when the Zuko/Katara/Aang shipping wars happened and I got into the online fandom at the tail end of Legend of Korra, where people said that the sequel sucks. But at least the one thing that the Avatar fandom can agree on is that the live-action movie SUCKED and that it should not be discussed, ever!
Then I wondered that when the show does come out, will I like it, just like the past series? Or will I hate it instead? But if I do like, will I like it enough to replace my Total Drama special interest (that I have currently) as I realize that I tend to replace my special interest every four years?
Who knows?
But at least the (animated) series is on Netflix right now (which caused a newbie boom of people liking the show when they put there in 2020), so I should re watch that so I get a good feel of what Seven Heavens, “might” look like when the show comes out around 2027/28 ish.
Hopefully it won’t be that bad. Otherwise, the fandom might explode into the netherworlds!
Ooof!