Hey youtubers it’s Charlie, All Hail Queen Kuvira.
Since Book 4 starts tomorrow and we already know who one of the big antagonists is going
to be I wanted to do my TOP 10 Villains.
Based on Translations, this says “All Hail Queen Kuvira”.
You could also say “President Kuvira’.
Quick reminder, the weekly Korra Giveaway is back, all you have to do to participate
is be a subscriber and leave a comment on this video.
Here we go, starting with number 10 - Right of the bat Kuvira
She goes at the bottom of the list because it’s the beginning of the season and she’s
an unproven villain.
I have very high expectations for her.
She is going to be one of if not THE last villain on an avatar tv series.
So she’s got these other 9 people she’s got to out evil.
When I saw the book 4 trailer she reminded me a lot of Ozai when he crowned himself the
phoenix king in front of all those legions.
I’m going into the new season with an open mind, so we’ll see what she’s got.
Number 9 - Koh the Face Stealer
Still haven’t gotten a good answer where he or she is in present day.
Probably waiting for another Avatar to come along.
This was really intended to be a villain to make Aang doubt himself, which is why it was
a spirit world character.
It was all about messing with his head.
You could argue that all of Korra’s villains have done that to her in some way.
Just made her question her identity.
Especially Zaheer in book 3.
I think that’s the real reason we haven’t seen Koh in the Korra series, just because
they gave the role he serves in the story to physical world villains.
I won’t be upset if we don’t see him.
I mean we did get to see Wan Shi Tong.
Number 8 - Unalaq and Unavaatu
I’m including Unalaq and the Dark Avatar in this same one.
I wasn’t really happy with the way the character turned out, but I do have to give props for
the big twist on the avatar lineage.
This all depended on the introduction of Vaatu to the story, who I also included on this
list separately, but I feel like we didn’t spend enough time with Unalaq before things
went crazy.
Because episodes are so short and each narrative arc is only 13 or so episodes.
You really don’t have time to give the villain a lot of their own episodes.
A lot of the best Last Airbender Villains were the best because we got to see them evolve
across the entire series.
They weren’t limited to a single arc.
I also felt like the final boss form of Unavaatu didn’t turn out to be the terrifying villain
you want to end the season on.
There were a whole lot of other pacing and story issues I had with the Book 2 finale,
but Unalaq and the dark avatar felt like great villains that just didn’t pan out the way
they were originally imagined.
I feel like they had a great idea when they thought of him.
Number 7 - Zuko from Book 1 of Last Airbender
A lot of the best characters start out at one end of the spectrum and swing to the other
by the end of a series.
Zuko had the benefit of being a main character that wasn’t always defined by his relationship
with the avatar.
He started out that way, but then we got to see him in this big family arc in the fire
nation and his sojourn to the earth kingdom.
There haven’t been a lot of Avatar Characters that got so much time dedicated to them.
Which is probably why the others aren’t so memorable.
The reason he’s not higher on the list is because while he is one of the best Avatar
characters in general, he was pretty lousy as a villain.
Aang just kept running circles around him.
Number 6 - Firelord Sozin
Here’s someone who knew how to get an evil job done.
There’s a reason it’s called Sozin’s Comet.
I really miss flashbacks in the Korra series, there were so many good last airbender flashback
stories.
Sozin’s is one of the most important because it tells the tale of how the 100 year war
began.
He’d go down in history as one of the most successful warlords ever.
It was a 100 year war though, so he only presided over the escalation.
The clean up job mostly fell on his son Azulon and then his grandson Ozai really dropped
the ball.
The twist on Korra now is that it’s the Metal Bending Tribe that’s bullying everyone.
Number 5 - Vaatu
I really liked the concept for this character but I feel like he and raava were brought
out too soon.
I understand that right after doing a human villain, Amon, Bryke didn’t want to do the
exact same thing so they rolled out a spiritual villain.
But when you start talking about universal concepts like good and evil it feels too big
to be sandwiched in the middle of a series.
Korra defeated Vaatu, so it’s like saying Korra defeated Evil.
Vaatu is the essence of evil.
So it’s kind of ridiculous when you vanquish the sum of all evil in the universe and you
still have two more giant story arcs.
That’s why I feel like they should have pushed re-opening the spirit portals and “balancing”
raava and vaatu to the end of book 4.
It’s okay if you don’t agree, but I feel like ending on something like that would be
the best way to tee up the expanded material and the comics to tell the story of how the
world learned to live with the spirits like they did before Avatar Wan.
You begin the tale with Avatar Wan, so naturally the story would circle back around and end
on a similar moment.
The cycle of the avatar, it’s all about the circle of life.
If someone wants to cue the Lion King theme.
You can let me know if you agree though, do you think the series should end on a moment
that ties back with Avatar Wan?
Number 4 - Azula
She was just so much fun.
She was written well, got a lot of time to develop in the narrative and was voiced by
the amazing Grey Delisle.
If you want to learn more about Azula after the last airbender series, just read the comics.
I’ve noticed a lot of you don’t know where to buy them.
If you’re local comic shop doesn’t have them, you can find them online on comixology.com
I’ll be totally okay if we do not see Azula in book 4.
But it would be a lot of fun if she at least got a name drop.
Number 3 - Ozai
Not quite as complex as some of the other villains like Zuko, but largely thanks to
Mark Hamill’s performance and the highly serialized nature of the last airbender series,
he turned out to be a very good big bad.
Sometimes the over-the-top crazy villains are the best.
Unless you count the flashbacks to his early childhood, Ozai was always the clear villain.
Very uncomplicated, he wanted to crush the avatar and dominate the world.
Very simple.
It made the final arc of the last airbender series very easy to follow.
Aang needed to squish him like a bug.
So the entire last airbender series became the rise of aang and the fall of ozai.
He spiritually squashed him like a bug, but it was still that big TKO Mike Tyson punch
out ending.
The bigger the villain, the more satisfying the takedown.
Which is why I’m not sure if Korra taking Kuvira down will be as satisfying, we just
haven’t seen enough of her.
I’m going to withhold that judgement till after book 4.
Number 2 - Team Zaheer
One of the best villains or group of villains in both series.
I also liked the character development and execution much better too.
It felt like the Red Lotus characters got the same attention that Amon got in Book 1.
And conceptually, they were very unique in their motivation.
Zaheer to me felt like a very nietzschean villain.
Only in that he wanted to kill the idea of God.
Represented by the Avatar.
He wasn’t exactly nietzschean because he did have spiritual beliefs, nihilism is like
the belief in nothing.
And Zaheer very clearly believed in higher powers than himself.
Henry Rollins deserves a lot of credit for that cool creepy performance too.
Something about a villain that seems so together and calm makes him scarier.
He’s not dead either, so I’ll be interested to see how he’s referenced in book 4.
But Ghazan supposedly died in the lava flow, P’Li was killed by Suyin and Ming Hua was
shocked to death by Mako.
So Zaheer is all by himself in prison right now.
Number 1 - Amon
He’s still my favorite right now just because of the style, execution and performance of
his character.
I loved the costume and the grandeur of his anti-bending campaign.
He was a good analog for real life sinister political dissidents.
It made his mission very relatable.
Get people to believe that benders treat normal people like second class citizens.
So he’s going to level the playing field until everyone is equal.
Very good story arc.
We only saw him for one season but I feel like he was such a fresh challenge for the
avatar and had such a tragic life story, he ended up being one of the more interesting
villains.
Like Zuko if Zuko had gone darker instead of joining team avatar.
And the performance was so good.
There are probably only a few people who could match a performance from Steven Blum.
Such an amazing voice.
Mark Hamill maybe, or Grey Delisle.
Let me know who your favorite Avatar Villains are and if you think Kuvira will go down as
one of the best.
Don’t forget that it’s also possible that there could be a twist before the end and
some other villain could manifest.
The trailer doesn’t explain everything.
And as a quick sidenote.
If you do want to see more Steven Blum right now, he’s one of the main characters on
Star Wars Rebels.
They’re airing the first episode on Disney XD tomorrow night.
I’ll be posting one more bonus video tomorrow morning before my Episode 1 video.
Be sure to subscribe to get it.
Reminder too.
Book 4 episode 1 will post on the nick dot com website friday sometime before 12PM pacific
time.
If you watch the google play store too, sometimes episodes post there even earlier than that.
Right now click here for my book 4 trailer breakdown and click here for my non spoilery
Star Wars Rebels Episode 1 review.
Thanks for watching, now let’s all high five and get ready for Korra tomorrow!