Like any action/adventure project, The Legend of Korra has given us our fair share of villains, evil-doers, and enemies for our heroes to face off against. Some villains are more prominent and inciting than others, and they all bring varying degrees of danger to the world of Avatar. While Korra, her Team Avatar, and the good forces at play stand ready to combat the foes of peace and harmony, some villains have fairly successfully disrupted the way of life, as well as the hierarchy of the newly shaped world of Avatar. From selfishly tyrannous individuals to characters who have created strong followings and actually make some good points for their causes, The Legend of Korra’s villains hold varieties of lawlessness and despicability.
While most good stories usually feature a villain, or villains, who have more to offer to the plot than just wanting to commit malice, some highly entertaining stories call for those characters, but not in The Legend of Korra. This series creates a vast, dynamic, and lush lore with characters (both good and bad) who have deep-rooted origins and, one way or another, have some incredibly meaningful merit behind their actions. One thing that the two currently produced and released Avatar television series have done fantastically is not only establish a foundation for what the Avatar world (and the characters who inhabit it) can be, but also maintain and garner it. In all fairness, some of the greatest aspects of these stories are their wrongdoers’ relatability and the points they are making out of their seemingly-evil actions.
7 The Earth Queen
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The daughter of the 52nd Earth King, Kuei (introduced in Avatar: The Last Airbender), Queen Hou-Ting was a heinous, pompous woman. While the 53rd Earth Queen wasn’t necessarily a long-standing threat for Korra and Team Avatar to go up against, she was an absolute tyrant who subjected her people to a highly classist regime. The great city of Ba Sing Se, along with the rest of the Earth Kingdom, was in complete duress, not too dissimilar from the state it was in about 80 years prior to when we met her majesty. Poverty, famine, hunger, disease, homelessness, and overall cruelty were just a few of the horrid conditions the people of the Earth Kingdom, with no connection to royalty, faced.
While the top 1% of the kingdom prospered and grew fat from the abundance of riches, the rest of the kingdom suffered greatly under her rule. Avatar Korra and Team Avatar were not only mortified when they came to see the way of life for the Earth Kingdom’s common folk, but the interactions they had with Queen Hou-Ting showed them she had zero remorse and not one thought of changing her ways. Through propaganda, finesse, and her force of secret police (the Dai-Li), the Earth Queen oppressed the common folk and ruled with an iron fist. Her reign came to an end when another villain of the series, Zaheer, took her life with his newly found airbending abilities.
6 Varrick
In The Legend of Korra, Varrick is both a friend and foe to Korra and her allies. Varrick being an individual with incredible vision, amazing engineering capabilities, and an entrepreneurial mind that was second to none, he was definitely someone who Team Avatar wanted on the side of good. Initially introducing himself in season two to the audience and Team Avatar as a person of good will and high status, he makes Bolin a movie star, seemingly helps Asami with her business, and gives offerings of other good fortune. Though it is quickly realized that he is playing two sides to the unrest that is prevalent in the various nations across the world of Avatar, he orchestrates a Water Tribe civil war, steals Asami’s legacy, and openly works to better his stake in many aspects of his personal and business life.
While it is a bit of a kick in the junk when his treachery is noticed and his villainous nature is exposed, he is a character who develops a lot and becomes more of an anti-hero in later seasons. He then rejoins Korra and her allies, using his high IQ to aid in the efforts to quell an uprising in the Earth Kingdom led by Kuvira, an uprising in which he indirectly assisted in starting. If Varrick stuck to his evil roots and continued to be an accomplice to the evildoers in the series, he certainly could have been higher on the list of threats Korra and her colleagues faced.
5 Unalaq
The distrustful younger brother of Korra’s father and the un-rightful chief of the Northern Water Tribe, Unalaq, was the main antagonist in season two of The Legend of Korra. He was the discoverer of spiritbending, at least that’s what he is shown to be, and he pins Korra up against her father during his attempt to get her to open the door, or bridge, to the spirit world indefinitely. He is successful in teaching Korra how to spiritbend, which extracts any evil intentions from lost spirits, returning them to their naturally good state of existence. Korra and Team Avatar come to find out that Unalaq is using Korra to release the great evil spirit Vaatu, which spiels out massive chaos and destruction to both the spiritual and physical worlds of Avatar.
While Unalaq is unanimously seen as the lamest villain of the series and has a bit of a cut and dry plot surrounding him, he is incredibly powerful in his physical abilities and political pull. He steals the Chief title from his older brother, gets Korra’s father incarcerated, trucks Avatar Korra into releasing Vaatu, and becomes a sort of Dark Avatar when merged with Vaatu’s essence. During his reign as the Northern Water Tribe’s and, technically, Southern Water Tribe’s Chief, Unalaq occupied the Southern Water tribe in an attempt to forcibly take control of the fractured tribe’s way of life. While Unalaq sees himself as a righteous, spiritual man, he was in fact a pawn in Vaatu’s mission to bring 10,000 years of darkness to the worlds of Avatar.
4 Amon
Amon is the first antagonist of The Legend of Korra, leading an equalist group in season one and having some incredibly powerful abilities. Not only did Amon have the ability to take away one’s bending, which he did to Korra (it didn’t last, obviously), but he could also bloodbend. Amon used propaganda to form a group of non-benders, hellbent on getting more equal rights for non-benders, for they felt as if they were unfairly treated and even discriminated against. While this argument held some merit, the reality was that there were a few outlaw groups of benders and bending thugs who preyed on the less fortunate and non-benders alike. It wasn’t the entirety of the bending population that took advantage of normal individuals, a classic, and true issue in the real world dynamics (minus the elemental bending powers).
To his followers, Amon was a non-bender but had the power to go up against the likes of the Avatar thanks to his advanced combat techniques, army of violent equalists, and his mysterious ability to extinguish a bender’s ability to bend altogether. While he was found out to be a fraud, actually being of waterbender origin, and losing in his fight to Korra armed with newly unlocked airbending abilities, he fled with his brother (a corrupt diplomat from Republic City) on a speed boat to start a new life. However, their new life would be halted before it even started when his brother, Tarrlok, took both of their lives in the middle of the ocean as a sort of retribution for both of their past sins.
3 Kuvira
On the topic of amassing a following, Kuvira had the largest one of the series, and there is no competition in that regard. Kuvira is a metalbender who, after the death of Queen Hou-Ting and the crumbling of the Earth Kingdom, took it upon herself to fill the void with leadership and attempt to bring the nation together under her rule and “protection”. Kuvira took advantage of the fractured Earth Kingdom, making a simple, one-sided offer to the cities’ leaders: offering protection and supplies for the foreseeable future, or leaving them to fend for themselves, inviting plunder, poverty, hunger, and disruption to their lives. Kuvira used her metal bender skill set to neutralize any threat to her regime, amassing a vast army and incredible power to make a play for the Earth Kingdom throne.
Kuvira was a near perfect match for Korra, especially during the time of her “unification” attempt, for Korra was at her lowest while Kuvira was at her highest. The two female characters share a lot and have very similar personalities and life stories; they are nearly perfect reflections of one another. When they meet in season four, Korra is at her lowest point, fractured from the previous season’s events and suffering from PTSD from her near-death experience; she is unconfident in herself and a far cry from the Korra we once knew. While Kuvira has overcome her past, she has become such a strong, pivotal figure and a dictator, thriving with power and the utmost confidence of anyone in the series. Through Kuvira’s efforts, she made Varrick create a weapon of mass destruction using his studies of spiritual energy and even almost overthrew Republic City during her conquest.
2 Vaatu
Vaatu is the great spirit of darkness in the Avatar world and has been at odds with Raava, the spirit of light, since the creation of all life. Vaatu is the overarching antagonist of The Legend of Korra in its entirety and has played a huge part in all the evil deeds that have happened in the series. He is inherently evil and has been searching for a way to be released from the prison that Avatar Wan, the first avatar, put him in 10,000 years prior to his introduction in season two. Though Korra, with the help of the avatar state, defeated him and his initial pawn, Unalaq, at the conclusion of the second season, Vaatu still managed to scheme his way into other points of Korra’s story and nearly accomplish his goal of bringing 10,000 years of darkness to the physical and spiritual worlds.
This immortal spirit has the power to negatively influence spirits and turn them into horrid monsters to carry out his evil intentions, as well as immense powers that rival the avatar, including the creation of a dark avatar. Vaatu brought much trouble to Korra, mentally and physically, as well as destroyed Raava (temporarily), which destroyed the avatar cycle, cut off Korra’s ties to her past lives, and essentially started a new cycle of avatars. Vaatu is a malicious being of spiritual energy who craves destruction, chaos, and disorder. Vaatu can never be completely defeated, as he and Raava are two halves of one whole, destined to do battle for the future of humanity at least every 10,000 years. While Korra was able to seal Vaatu back in his prison, the tree of time, he will be freed again one day and his mission will pick up where he left off.
1 Zaheer
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The Avatar series as a whole has had some very meaningful enemies that audiences can not help but appreciate. Similarly, Aang’s Team Avatar, as well as Korra’s, have encountered their fair share of villains who make some really important points in life that make you question what is the best course to attain lasting peace in the world of Avatar. While many fans have their favorite, most relatable villain, Zaheer is usually the unanimous pick for the greatest, most compelling villain in both of the current Avatar animated series. Zaheer is a long-time member of the Order of the Red Lotus, which is a distorted reflection of the once hidden, now prominent, Order of the White Lotus. In addition, he was the leader of a Red Lotus task force of four, who were tasked with the capture of Korra when she was young and just starting her avatarhood; ultimately, this mission failed, which landed the group in separate prisons.
While Zaheer was originally a non-bender, he gained airbending abilities while imprisoned after the events of the conclusion of season two, when new airbenders began to pop up all over the world. Zaheer’s becoming an airbender was possibly one of the worst things that could have happened to the world of Avatar, due to him being extremely fascinated with the teachings and texts of a legendary airbending nomad who was both highly enlightened and powerful. Zaheer used his newly discovered abilities to break himself and his three accomplices out of their respected prisons with near mastery of airbending, from his sheer intellect and prior study of the genocided civilization. With his evil task force reformed, he took it upon himself to not only dismantle the Earth Kingdom by killing Queen Hou-Ting, but he sent the world into a state of fear as his team tracked down the Avatar, as well as looked to overthrow the powers that governed the world.
Zaheer was a patient, competent, and compassionate man in a roundabout way; a man who wanted to see the world thrive but had a much more messed up way of accomplishing peace. Zaheer nearly executed Korra, having poisoned and defeated her before she acquired the necessary willpower to call upon the avatar state once again and put a stop to his plans. While Zaheer was locked back up in prison, even becoming a better man and gaining the ability to access the spirit world during this prison stint, his actions caused Korra more than just physical paralysis; they mentally and emotionally stayed with her for years after. In fact, you could say Korra was never the same after the battles against Zaheer, his team, and the Order of the Red Lotus.
