The Avatar animated series has been nothing less than masterful, bringing relatable characters, amazing stories, and the beautiful world of Avatar to audiences around the world. Throughout the seven seasons of Avatar: The Last Airbender and The Legend of Korra, we have gotten some, simply put, amazing content, leaving fans craving for more since the series’ end. Luckily, with the creation of Avatar Studios as well as Netflix launching their own live-action Avatar series, fans will be eating well from the Avatar fruit very soon. While the original Avatar: The Last Airbender series received much stronger praise than that of The Legend of Korra, both series have created a lot of magic, and held great traction in the television animation scene.
From Aang and his Team Avatar fleeing the Fire Nation forces while attempting to get Aang to master all the four elements in order to end the 100-year war, to Korra and her Team Avatar fighting to keep peace and balance in a new world that was set up by Aang and his allies, both stories have plenty of meat to chew on. With Avatar: The Last Airbender being so highly acclaimed that it is seen as a near perfect work of art, and with The Legend of Korra doing its best to replicate the magic created by the former, this franchise has laid groundwork and created a vast lore that can be explored for decades to come. Now, let us dive into the seven current seasons of the Avatar animated series franchise, ranked!
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7 The Legend of Korra - Season Four: Balance
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The final season of The Legend of Korra was by no means a letdown. While it sometimes felt a bit unnecessary to the overarching story and bordered on the line of redundancy, it did a solid job of ironing out left-over plot threads from the previous seasons. Book four: Balance revolves around the consequences of the imbalance caused by Zaheer and his team of criminals against Korra and the Avatar World. With Korra recovering from her near defeat and death at the hands of Zaheer, after being mentally overwhelmed and literally paralyzed, Team Avatar kept moving on with their lives. Meanwhile, the Earth Kingdom became divided and weakened after losing their queen to the hands of Zaheer.
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With a corrupt metalbending faction, led by Kuvira, attempting to overtake control of the Earth Kingdom, Team Avatar must analyze their loyalties and band together to put a stop to her. While this season brought probably the most destructible and largest battles to The Legend of Korra, it still felt as if it could have been done as a comic book series and had done Justice just as well.
6 The Legend of Korra - Season Two : Spirits
The second season of The Legend of Korra was a bit underwhelming, relative to its first season, overall. While it did a great job of adding to Korra’s and her family’s backstories, utilizing a variety of cast and storylines, as well as delivering powerful dialogue, the plot felt flat. It was hard to get behind the main villain of the season, her uncle/leader of the Northern Water Tribe and his forces, when he was set up so obviously. Unalaq was a massive disappointment, overshadowed by his children most of the time, and ended up being a pawn for a much bigger threat, the spirit of darkness (Vaatu).
On the other hand, this season had cringing hilarity in the form of Unalaq’s daughter, Eska’s, ridiculous and short-lived relationship with Bolin, a member of Team Avatar. In addition, the visuals during this season were second to none in the series, and the story of the first benders, the spirit world, and the first avatar, Avatar Wan, was incredibly done. If it wasn’t for its near-miss with the ending of the season, as well as all the twists with Korra’s father and uncle, this season may have ranked higher.
5 Avatar: The Last Airbender - Season Two: Earth
The first entry on our list from Avatar: The Last Airbender is not to be looked down upon. Out of the three seasons of that series, all were very well done and overall received with high regard. This season was where we were introduced to Toph, and the young Team Avatar grew in strength in many ways. This season really dove into the story of Zuko and his uncle Iroh, being fugitives from the Fire Nation. In addition to giving us a strong arch for Team Avatar, Aang had to work extremely hard to become even a semi-decent earthbender.
As is common for Avatar: The Last Airbender, its second season took place predominantly in Earth Kingdom territory. We were introduced to a deeply corrupted and classist Earth Nation, complete with nefarious army forces and a sinister network of black market affairs. One of the most bitter-sweet moments of the entire series is when Team Avatar, namely Sokka, learns of The Day of The Black Sun from a book in an ancient library, only to have Apa, an animal team member, be stolen without Team Avatar being able to stop the perpetrators. Book Two: Earth is not a season to overlook or skim through if you are looking to get a complete Avatar experience.
4 The Legend of Korra - Season One: Air
Taking the middle spot on our list, The Legend of Korra - Book One: Air was our first introduction to Korra, the next Avatar after Aang. Right off the bat, you see how different her personality was from Aang’s and how much the tone of this series is more mature than its predecessor. Being a member of the Southern Water Tribe, compared to Aang, who was an Air Nomad. Korra is shown to be fiery, extremely confident, and definitely rebellious. We are also introduced to the newly formed Republic City, and are shown how the four nations have worked hard at keeping peace for sixty plus years.
In this season, we are introduced to all of Korra’s Team Avatar, unlike how Avatar: The Last Airbender created their team. The season revolves around Korra’s move to Republic City to be taught airbending by Tenzin, the son of Aang, and it takes off from there. While she struggles to learn airbending, she continues her rebellious streak by joining a probending team and getting involved in trying to stop an extremist anti-bending group. This season ends with the wild reveal that Amon, leader of the extremist group who has the power to strip others’ bending abilities from them, was actually a waterbender, who could even blood bend. He uses both these incredibly controversial techniques on Korra, which ends up helping her unlock her airbending abilities and finally stopping Amon.
3 Avatar: The Last Airbender - Book One : Water
The first season of Avatar: The Last Airbender set the stage for the franchise, introducing us to Aang, Katara, Sokka, Zuko, and many other pivotal characters for the future of the franchise. This season sets the groundwork and premise for the entire series and its follow-up series, The Legend of Korra. Aang is discovered in an iceberg by Sokka and Katara, after being essentially trapped there for literally 100 years, while Prince Zuko is on a relentless mission to find this Avatar that has not been seen for 100 years, after being banished from the Fire Nation by his father.
The two forces, Team Avatar and Prince Zuko’s fleet, have multiple run-ins, while Sokka and Katara try to help Aang find a waterbending master to teach Aang and Katara waterbending. The delicate emotion behind many of the season’s heartbreaking reveals, coupled with the fantastically-timed comedy, is a match made in animation heaven. There were really no missed marks in this season of Avatar: The Last Airbender, and it pretty much showed the world that Western anime can absolutely rival anime with the right vision, story, and team behind the project.
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2 The Legend of Korra - Book Three : Change
Nickelodeon
Taking the second spot on our list is the third season of The Legend of Korra, which was by far the most emotional and exciting season of that series. The season dealt with the repercussions of the previous one, where Korra elected to keep the spirit world directly connected to the physical world, which created a plethora of newly found airbenders in the world. While this essentially helped revitalize an Air Nation that was survived by only a handful of members, literally just Aang’s descendants, it also gave airbending to a character who ended up being the hands-down best villain character in the franchise, Zaheer.
While Korra, Team Avatar, and other allies worked to stop Zaheer and his band of powerful criminals, Korra was, in a sense, handicapped. At the end of the series’ second season, Korra lost her connection to her past lives forever, after the seeming death of Raava, the spirit that gave the Avatar their abilities. This means that Korra or any future Avatar can not reach into their past lives to seek wisdom, knowledge, or aid. Though Korra and Team Avatar came incredibly close to losing, with Korra almost dying and becoming paralyzed, Korra was able to dig deep within herself and become victorious in the end, regardless of the self-sacrifice.
1 Avatar: The Last Airbender - Book Three: Fire
Topping our list, Avatar: The Last Airbender - Book Three: Fire, is hands-down the best season in the series to date. The season is amazing for a number of reasons, and hardcore fans of the franchise hold this entry in the franchise with extremely high praise. This season hit so many developing plot points and drove home such impactful emotions that it will move you no matter how many times you watch it. It’s one of those pieces of work that is truly an art to be appreciated, being a piece of television that gives real-life value in its lessons and stories.
From Zuko officially joining Team Avatar and following his destiny of being good, to Katara learning bloodbending and refusing to use it as a common practice, to the final battle of the 100-year war, where Aang defeats Fire Lord Ozai without killing him, this season is a combination of mind-exploding fantasy with true relatability. In the final season of Avatar: The Last Airbender, audiences can really see the remarkable growth that Aang and his friends have had throughout the series, and how they are shaping up to be extraordinary world leaders, ready to shepherd the world into a new age of peace and prosperity.
