Korrasami confirmed guys
http://bryankonietzk...rate-it-embrace
http://michaeldanted...orra-and-asamis
I'm literally fuming right now. To think I used to like them so much and now they do this. They stooped down to Kishi's level trying to explain via tumblr or interviews what should have been clear from the damn story. But of well I'll just post two quotes that sum up my thoughts perfectly and add some comments so go read if you're interested. If not, just consider it me blowing off some steam. I'd wrap it all in spoiler tags, but I'm not sure how to do that.
I am seriously disappointed in you, both as storytellers and as individuals interacting within this fandom.
I am disappointed in you for validating the worst parts of this fandom. When you say, “If it seems out of the blue to you, I think a second viewing of the last two seasons would show that perhaps you were looking at it only through a hetero lens,” you are propping up a group of individuals who have, since the very beginning of this show, used the specter of social justice to be cruel to other fans. And the worst thing is, in saying that, you demonstrate a lack of understanding of the final product you worked so hard to put on screen.
Would people have been less surprised by Korra ending up with Asami if Asami had been male? That’s probably true. But I don’t think anyone would support that ship; without the subversive factor, it’d be completely obvious how rote and lacking in substance the ship really is.
By choosing to take this path, you turned Asami into a Shallow Love Interest. And, somehow, you failed to notice that you’d kept giving all of the substance that Korra’s love interest should have gotten to Mako, even though you believed that you had written him and Korra apart permanently.
It truly astounds me how a group of people I respected could misunderstand what they committed to cel so badly.
You failed to write Asami as a main character in every season past Book 1. Her struggle to save her company in Book 2 was really about Mako and Varrick, while her main role was to provide a romantic obstacle for a ship you never intended to put back together. She didn’t have an arc in Book 3, other than to become Korra’s caretaker at the end. Her forgiveness of her father ended up being about Hiroshi so his sacrifice at the end of the series would be meaningful, and her feelings about his death were used to push her towards relationship with someone who had consistently shown little response to her affection.
You failed to make Asami’s feelings matter, and you failed to make them matter toKorra at crucial junctures. You could have shown Korra doing something for Asami when Asami saw her father die in front of her eyes. Instead, Korra remains cold and business-like — “Hiroshi’s plan worked. There’s our opening” — and Asami disappears for the rest of the fight.
You failed to keep Mako from stealing all of the scenes that could have provided emotional resonance for Asami’s relationship with Korra. You showed Korra standing still while Asami hugged her, then moving in to hug Mako. You showed Asami failing to help Korra deal with her confusion (to the point that Tenzin had to show up to help Korra figure things out), then let Mako go with Korra on the trip that actually helped her get better. You showed Mako looking concerned for Korra when she disappeared, while Asami wandered aimlessly in the background. You gave Korra and Mako a resolution that could easily have been interpreted romantically given Korra’s expression almost immediately before trying to convince us that Korra really had feelings for Asami.
You failed to make Asami into someone with whom Korra could have a healthy relationship. Asami is simply too fragile for Korra to have ever been allowed to act like Korra around her, and it shows in all of their interactions. When she’s around Asami, Korra is constantly forced to hold back, whether because Asami can’t take Korra hitting the punching bags she’s holding or because even slight disagreements seriously hurt Asami’s feelings. By sticking Korra with Asami, you took away part of what made Korra Korra.
You failed to make Asami work as a Katara-type emotional support. Korra is not Aang; she doesn’t respond to gentle support the way Aang did (which I thought was the point of having Toph and Zaheer being the ones to actually help Korra figure things out). Asami kept trying and trying to help Korra and never actually did her any good. How is being in a relationship going to work out any better?
You failed to realize that, instead of showing Mako and Korra as unambiguously uninterested in future romance, you kept focusing on details that suggested that Mako was still interested (and even added a few that implied that Korra might be, too). And, honestly, I can’t understand how you could possibly not realize that keeping Mako single for three years and have him continuously irritated by Wu trying to woo Korra wouldn’t suggest continued interest. It would have been easy to show that he’d moved on, but you failed to do that, and instead implied that there was still relationship potential right up to Mako’s last scene.
You failed to realize that “respecting, admiring, and inspiring” is not mutually exclusive with romance. In fact, it’s the best way to ensure that a romancedoesn’t turn one of its participants into a trophy. All of those things could have existed within the context of a Makorra relationship. They don’t exist in Korrasami, though; Asami might respect, admire, and be inspired by Korra, but there’s no indication that things work the other way around. As you wrote her, Asami is a trophy that you gave to Korra in the name of “representation;” her own feelings matter so little that her grief at her father’s death got transformed into shipping fodder and she didn’t even get to look worried when Korra was missing.
(You failed to realize that, in placing so much emphasis on Mako and Korra’s mutual respect, admiration, and inspiration, you ensured that they would be the het equivalent of every slash pair in genre fiction. You can’t expect people to invest in a romance when the characters’ bond with someone else gets a hundred times more attention)
And, most importantly, you failed to understand that the show you made was not the show you thought you made, then accused your fans of heteronormativity for reading what’s actually there.
You should have stuck with your initial plan of not having Korra end up with anyone. Not because there’s something inherently wrong with having Korra end up with Asami, but because confirming that ship turns an enormous amount of subconscious narrative choices into huge mistakes.
You say you didn’t want a female character who was little more than a trophy to be won? Well, I’m sorry to say, that’s exactly what you made, even if the lead she ended up with was female rather than male. As a secondary character, Asami would have been functional. As a romantic lead, she’s a terrible disappointment, and Korra’s story deserves better.
This is from the tumblr used ikkinthekitsune and I have to say she is spot on. I literally love her so much because she is one of the rare people that don't like the ending but is not afraid to tell it like it is even though tumblr is a very very inhospitable place for everyone that is not a Korrasami shipper. The best part is she isn't even a Makorra shipper, so she's not salty as many fans call Makorra shippers, she just supported them because it seemed like the most logical ending story-wise. Well if anything good came out of the mess with Kishi and Bryke, it's that I finally learned that salty also has a connotative meaning. i was not aware of it before fans started calling me that. 
Sorry guys, this is a really long post. Basically me ragging on Bryan Konietzko, who I love with all my heart, but I’m really just very angry right now.
This picture is my answer to Bryan’s admission of Korrasami being canon.
This relationship was given a more intimate, meaningful moment than any single Korrasami scene. I understand now that Bryan and Mike intended from the outset of book 4, at the very least, to have Korra and Asami be a couple, and yet they had very little development - Asami was just ‘there’. Maybe Bryan is right, maybe I was looking through my ‘hetero lens’, but even through it, I saw so much potential for Kuvira and Korra.
Many people didn’t see that the writers were aiming for Korra and Asami to be a couple - even the Korrasami shippers themselves didn’t expect to win! - and I think it’s pretty crappy to blame the fans for that. It is a writer’s job to challenge whatever ‘lenses’ the viewers bring with them when they watch a show.
They had an entire episode to run only clips and they chose to run Mako’s one-man romance novel centered on how much he loved Korra. They could have shown Tenzin’s journey through the show, or how far Asami had come since book 1 - that would have rocked; the clips episode being shown first from Asami’s POV, and then Korra’s. It would have helped people get the message. Instead, they chose to showcase Mako’s memories next to Korra’s. They missed an opportunity to challenge this ‘hetero lens’.
They missed it again in making Asami’s only sacrifice in the finale the loss of her father. It gave Hiroshi the credit for getting team Avatar into the mega suit, instead of giving Asami something to be thanked for, and it made her a character for Korra to console instead of thank at the end, creating an imbalance in the give-take of a relationship, right before it became romantic. If Asami had been in a hummingbird with, say, Zhu Li, and she ejected Zhu Li so she could keep cutting, and then miraculously survived against all odds, with an injury or two - see ‘Mako’s arm’ - Korra could be genuinely amazed and have a zoom-in moment of realization that would - again - BREAK THROUGH THE HETERO LENS.
We could also have had a worried Asami looking for Korra after the huge spirit blast, instead of a zoom in on Mako. I love Mako, I love him getting screen time, but book 4 would have been the right time to give him less screen time and let him fade out of the main plot. Heck, you could have given him a cute girlfriend, even if she just got one scene where she brings him lunch and gives him a kiss. Or let Mako date Wu, even. Wu genuinely loves Mako, and I think Mako loves him too. That would create a nice little aha moment when Wu mentions dissolving the monarchy.
If two bisexual characters is good - four is awesome!
I’m also bummed about Bolin being completely ignored at the end of the finale. Korra gets the girl, Mako gets a pat on the back, and Bolin gets … ? To marry a couple of other people? Plus his girlfriend didn’t die? He was part of team avatar too, and he deserved at least a close-up. They could’ve thrown him in to stand next to Mako when Korra thanked him, and then Bolin could get a ‘hey, thanks for not letting Mako kill himself’.
I loved Zhurrick, but if any couple needed a pre-battle ‘I might die so lets make out’ scene, it could have been Korra and Asami. No kissing, of course, but we could have had a hug, even some tears. And their wedding, great as it was, took screen time that could have been allotted to better defining Asami and Korra’s relationship.
Korra could have formally introduced Asami to her dad! That would have CHALLENGED THE HETERO LENS.
I don’t know if this was just bad writing, or budget problems, or just a bunch of people who didn’t know how to plan out a queer ending, but I think it’s pretty crappy of Bryan to blame the fans - and flat out call them homophobic - for their not seeing something the writers had the opportunity to make clearer. As they say, ‘a joke isn’t funny if you have to explain it’, and in the same vein, you don’t get credit for writing something if you had to explain what you wrote.
Korra could have written more than just one letter to Asami. Asami could have gone with Korra to the south pole after her poisoning. Asami could have gone with Korra to Zaheer’s prison. Asami could have had the flashback episode to reflect on her feelings for her gal pal - not enough scenes for that? Well kitten, Bryan, you should have written some! Asami could have had so much more development. We could have gotten Korra commenting on another girl being attractive, to point out subtly that she is also attracted to girls - someone who is not Asami, because everyone compliments their friends.
The fact is, they wrote Korra as straight in book 1. They changed her sexuality later on, and while that can happen in real life, there would be a period of questioning for the character.
I just think the fans shouldn’t be blamed for assuming a character is straight, when the character was written as straight, and we were not provided a ‘wait am I queer’ moment.
So basically, everyone who expected Makorra to happen again got screwed into expecting it, and everyone who wanted Korrasami didn’t expect it at all.
All of the fans got screwed.
I award you no points.
This is from xrhiax. I think it's enough to say that most of the people who I knew and who were not Makorra shippers were convinced that Makorra was going to be canon. They might have hated it, disliked it, shipped another couple but everyone was sure that it was going to be Makorra of nothing. So much for Korrasami being that obvious. They might have had subtle development, but sorry, that's too subtle for my taste. And Avatar is never a series that is really really subtle with romance. No we could all argue until the cows come home about how long Korrasami really was planned (which I think wasn't that long, since they wouldn't push the damn Makorra hints up to the last few minutes) but it wouldn't make any difference since it's canon either way. It's just like with NH, it's over and done but there will always be fans who will be unsatisfied about it because it makes little to no sense.
Oh and don't get me started on the hetero lens. Bryan, I have no damn hetero lens because I'm not hetero!!! I'm open and usually perceptive to any kind of romance if it's developed well from the start and fits with the narrative!
All in all, there is only two ways I would have liked Korrasami:
a) If it was developed properly and made actual sense. If they really wanted to push the envelope at the last minute, they could have explored it with some minor character that wouldn't need so much development since the show doesn't focus on them often at all.
b) If I weren't so invested in this series and never analyzed it so carefully. If I watched it occasionally, I would definitely go, omg, good for them, about time somebody did something daring to raise awareness! But honestly, they way it is done not makes me think it does more harm than good.
And that's it. I'm really tired of discussing this. I really should step away from both the Naruto and LoK franchise because the only thing this does is agitate and depress me. Oh if I had known I would be spending Christmas this emotionally ruined, I never would have followed the damn things. Nothing but completed series for me from now on.
Edited by Nami, 23 December 2014 - 05:20 PM.
Persona 5 hype 
