In this thread: People who are disappointed with the first season of Legend of Korra

Bryan and Mike are not spectacular writers, but they are incredible visionaries--and the Legend of Korra had a great deal of awesome moments that were clearly planned out ahead of time, but just poorly strung together. In short, nearly all of the scenes between the series milestones were unfocused and lacking in detail. And this is most clearly demonstrated by the characters in the show: Mako was ultimately an unsympathetic character, Tenzin's dialog was poorly constructed and largely monotonal, Lin had impressive growth--but her character-defining sacrifice was sabotaged without a clear explanation by the poor writing in the show. This effect of poor writing is apparant in every character in the show:

Pema: She's an exposition device, she's never on screen long enough to convey a real personality so most of her lines come off as apparant confessions about her life. Ex. "I'm not helpless, I'm pregnant!" "I really want to have just a regular baby that doesn't bend!" "Do what I did when I was in love--I just walked up to Tenzin and now I make babies--that's how I'm relevant--do that thing I did!"

Jinora & Ikki: They're both great characters but they start to meld into the same personality by the second half of the show. At the begining, Jinora was the bookish type and Ikki was the hyperactive little whipper. Then mid way through the season Jinora picks up on Korra's crush for Mako--yet it's Ikki who blurts it out to Asami later on in the show, which even though it fits her personality, it robbed a moment to show Jinora's depth and naivety even in social conditions. In the same episode, Jinora gives a a well-thought out scientific description of a fire ferret, but then Ikki proves she's just as intelligent by instantly answering Bolin's series of questions. These scenes don't help separate these characters personalities--espeically in a series this short. Conclusively, more effort should have been made to keep these characters from blending. It also doesn't help that they look, train, fight, and speak in similar fashions, AND experience no vital character development by the end of the series either. A hired writer may have simply combined Jinora and Ikki into one awesome character rather than two underdeveloped tropes.

Meelo: His humor lines and fart jokes are really uneeded considering that this series was hailed for an older audience and given that even the pervious seasons of Avatar didn't have such a character that embodied this basal of a level of appeal. (PFFFBTBYBTH!!! --"I'm the funny one!") However, my main issue is with the timing of his lines, which always punctuated a serious and heartwarming moment unwantedly. For example, his line after Lin's sacrifice nearly spoiled the moment and his farting after the declaration of a "New Team Avatar" was unecessary. Also, his voice actor was poor--and coming from ATLA, which had a number of child VA's, I would have expected a higher calibur of acting for such an important role.

Tarlok: His thirst for power, heinous personally developed legislation, and abuse of bending really made him a truly unsympathetic individual who was controlled only by his own ambition—and in this particular role, Tarlok was perfect. But by suddenly writing the character in a manner that changed his fundamental purpose in the final two episodes from a villanous villain to a pathetic suicidal broken man, the show suffered from another unappealing end. His final action, seemingly killing himself and Amon (see: Amon fanfiction-quality death tear), was really out of the blue too since the Fire Lords in ATLA flat out committed genocide and world domination/racial enslavement—yet neither Amon/Tarlok ever killed anyone and essentially just wanted to be a mayor of a city. Why was Ozai allowed to live after the crimes he did and these guys have to die on a speedboat? Why are there speedboats--ugh--I digress...

Amon: *ugh... So many things. Just to name two of my biggest issues: 1. He had no real feasible long-term plan that was at least explicit to the viewers 2. His ideals reflected a serious issue with Republic City that was NOT addressed by Korra regaining her bending back {Benders ARE IN FACT abusing nonbenders politically, socially, and economically: there is no explicit non-bender representation in the council {I assume everyone on the council is a bender due to Tarlok's speech about a non-bender curfew and everyone else's eagerness to back him}, non- benders can't participate in any relevant sporting events, or be recruited into elite police task force units, or have fruitful jobs--which is evident since all of the homeless/menial task workers in the LoK universe are non-benders, etc.) Some equality in the world WORLD be appreciated—but nothing other than status quo is obtained at the end. If Amon was less suspicious and did exactly everything he did without the mask and an openly public persona, he'd likely be successful—if that's too hypthetical, then at least consider the following: The fact that he was a waterbender in the end shouldn't have convinced non-benders everywhere in Rep. City that he, in fact, did not have some valid socioeconomic points that are now likely to be ignored. But at least Korra loves Mako right? Right?

Who else is in the show?—the writing equally does everyone a disservice:

Asami: Poor Asami. Sigh. So now she's an orphan who has to run the remnants of her father's company that most likely invested a significant portion of saved profits in burnt wreckage. Oh, and your boyfriend is dumping you/cheating on you I guess? Good luck with that.

Naga: For as many times as Naga actually saved the gang (also how the heck did Naga not get caught in the electric fence outside in the finale??? I'm getting upset again) very little was done to establish her personality. Appa and Momo had a clear dynamic that was established fairly early on in the series but we never got anything more out of Naga in that she was basically a horse that conveniently saved main characters out of complex plot points. Very little humanization was done on her and the fire ferret's part.

The Hobo: How were we supposed to know that he was an expert in communication? Why would Korra know that and be so confident about that—she hadn't seen him in nearly a year's time since she first came to Rep. City.

Bumi: One line. And it was, if I remember correctly... "whooooooo."

General Iroh: Fanservice incarnate. Did the series really need another firebender cutting loose in the war—flying from plane to plane, propelling himself through the air, etc.? Couldn't this time have been spent giving the audience a reason to appreciate Mako more?

Bolin: I love Bolin. I hate the part of his arc where he essentially becomes a comic relief device after he gets his heart broken by Korra. He was genuinely deeper than that before, and to see his character forgotten in the later half of the series is a severe disappointment and glaring blind-sight of the show's writing.

I think I ran out of characters now.

Honestly, LoK to me felt like 1/3rd Animated UFC, 1/3rd Twilight, and final 1/3rd Scooby Doo Mysteries. Hence, the finale is not why I'm disappointed in the series. It fits this work perfectly—which is really just part of the problem.