Legend of Korra is just that show I kept up with eagerly because I kept telling myself "It's gonna get better..." I kept up that feeling throughout the entirety of the show's run. In the end though, it's just a cavalcade of wasted potential from creators that really just don't know what to do with the universe they set up. They try time and time again to delve into more mature, complex themes but often deal with them in a very simplistic manner. Then, to add to that, I'm not really sure the appropriate ending to your ENTIRE FRANCHISE should be "Your favorite ship is canon! Commence the fanart!" Wouldn't the ending be better punctuated with something a lot more thematically relevant? Like, something to do with the Avatar or Korra's legacy, y'know, the TITULAR aspects of the show? The smug tumblr post Bryke made after the fact just kind of made the whole deal seem a lot more self-congratulatory for a job poorly done. Just kind of goes to show what was really important to them as artists...
I dunno, I guess I'm just salty that this show was never nearly as good as it should have been. I was in love with the setting and characters, and still am to a degree, but they never do anything interesting with either of those aspects aside from Korra herself (and even then, she just kind of gets progressively less fun to watch.) Asami,
ironically the endgame love interest,
got the worst of it. Throughout the entire show, she goes through maybe one and a half moments of genuine character development. A shame too, because she was my favorite character throughout Book 1, but even then that's only because she's the only character that didn't do anything to make herself unlikable. That's pretty bad when you're a fan favorite by simple virtue of being less of a tool than everyone else.
Except for the finale of Book 3. Holy sphincters, was this written by an entirely different crew? Did they get the ATLA writing staff back for a season? What gives? When did this show start to actually hit hard? Too bad that feeling didn't last long.
I guess I'm kind of relieved; it's over. I'm done being let down. At least we got a surprisingly good Avatar game out of it.