We draw inspiration directly and indirectly from all sorts of things, like movies, documentaries, TV dramas, novels, non-fiction books, animation, science and nature shows, and our own life experiences.
It is a long story how we finally ended up with the title simply being 'The Legend of Korra,' but in a poetic way, I think Korra's big Type A personality willed it to happen!
After 'Avatar' ended, I spent a lot of time watching MMA and kickboxing fights on UFC, WEC, DREAM, and K-1.
In an early version of the story, I thought Aang could shepherd a herd of twenty bison.
Some Nickelodeon executives were worried about backing an animated action show with a female lead character. Conventional TV wisdom has it that girls will watch shows about boys, but boys won't watch shows about girls. During test screenings, though, boys said they didn't care that Korra was a girl. They just said she was awesome.
As we wrote 'Book 1,' before the audience had ever laid eyes on Korra and Asami, it was an idea I would kick around the writers' room... The more Korra and Asami's relationship progressed, the more the idea of a romance between them organically blossomed for us.
Any political or philosophical agenda can and will be perverted by power and/or fear.
Korra and Aang ultimately stand for freedom, equality, and basic human rights, and I think Mike and I are fine with pushing that agenda.
We want our villains and antagonists to have distinct motivations.
From the inception of this series, Mike and I were very interested in exploring the theme of tradition versus progress. We always like the struggle for balance to be a central theme of our stories, so as we introduce all of these changes to the 'Avatar' world, we get to see how people react and try to realign themselves.
I am certainly proud to add 'Korra' to the pantheon of TV characters, which is perpetually sorely lacking in multifaceted female characters who aren't sidekicks, subordinates or mere trophies for male characters.
It seems to me virtually any ideology, no matter how intrinsically benign, can be used to oppress. And any group with power, no matter how well-meaning, ultimately corrupts and ends up exploiting its advantage to some extent.
We have always put the quest for balance at the center of our storytelling, whether it is the struggle to find it within one character, between a character and society, between disparate cultures or between humans and their environment.
When I watch a show, I want to feel like it is coming out of someone's head, not out of a boardroom.
Hopefully, when we're done with the 'Korra' saga we can put our stamp on a movie.
I always feel pressure, no matter what I do! I think it is what gets me up in the morning.
I just follow what inspires me as an artist and a storyteller, and stay true to myself in my work.
I try to make the kinds of things I want to see out there in the world, and hope they end up resonating with other people too.
I'm just making 'Threadworlds' out of the things I love and that I'm passionate about learning. When we created 'Avatar,' Michael DiMartino and I did the same thing.
Though we did have a few main characters in 'Avatar' who represented the non-benders of the world, most of the people we focused on were benders. However, benders are the minority in their world population.
