Legend of Korra: Why the Red Lotus is not so bad

Avatar the Legend of Korra Book 3 is coming to an end with a big clash. Before I get to the big clash let’s recap the set up for this season. The set up for this season, was the choice that Avatar Korra made with harmonic convergence, which fused the sprit and human worlds together as the portals to both worlds were kept open. The portals being opened new airbenders began to pop up and the air nation was reborn. A non-bender named Zaheer gained the ability to airbend. Zaheer is the leader of the red lotus, a group that tried to kidnap Korra, who broke out of his prison and broke out his friends. As a result he and his friends began to go on the move to search for the Avatar. Korra on the other hand decided to travel with Tenzin to recruit more airbenders for the recently reborn air nation. Eventually this led to Korra and Tenzin separating, on good terms, with Tenzin going to the northern air temples and Korra going to Zaofu the city for metal benders. After Korra was in Zaofu, Zaheer and the other 3 members of the Red Lotus showed up and tried to kidnap Korra. The kidnapping failed, leading Korra to pursue Zaheer and track him down. In the search the earth queen caught Korra. After being caught by the earth queen she escaped and crashed an airship, while Zaheer killed the earth queen liberating Ba Sing Se and held the entire air nation hostage after he fought Tenzin, asking for Korra to turn herself over to the Red Lotus.

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The Red Lotus motives are not necessarily bad as they are trying to create a better world then the one that currently exists. In order to understand this we need to go back to the origins of all of this. The Red Lotus is a splinter faction of the White Lotus. The White Lotus was a secret group best known as the group that liberated Ba Sing Se during Sozin’s comet. The White Lotus was formed to pass information between nations and political boundaries. After the liberation of Ba Sing Se the White Lotus revealed itself to the world and rendered it’s services to the Avatar. As a result tension was created and Xia Bau left the group, he felt, that the mission of the group was straying and the White Lotus would be bodyguards to the Avatar. Xia Bau created the Red Lotus as a result of the White Lotus mission changing. Fast forward to Zaheer, the Red Lotus goal is to stay on the path of passing down information and to surpass nations and political boundaries. Furthermore, the Red Lotus wants to destroy monarchies and kings based on the track records of past fire lords and the earth queen herself. The third objective of the Red Lotus is to teach the Avatar their methods rather then simply to want to kill the Avatar as all members are highly skilled benders and could easily kill the avatar. Another objective is that they are separate from their former member Unalaq. As Unalaq, betrayed Zaheer, wanted to open the two portals and release Vaatu to become the dark avatar. The Red Lotus wanted to release Vaatu to allow humans and the sprits to live peacefully together. The objectives of the red lotus are not bad and Avatar Korra does not challenge these ideas as she has demonstrated through her judgment to leave the sprit portal open so sprits may live with humans.

Korra disagrees with Zaheer and the red lotus on the method of obtaining these ideas. Korra disagrees with the method of killing the earth queen, even though she never made it public, as it is killing which is an unbalanced action. Furthermore, the amount of violence that Zaheer has enacted while leading the Red Lotus has also posed a question to Korra. This question is how much violence has to exist in order to maintain peace. Zaheer’s plan has another hiccup for Korra, as it would require the release of Vaatu, the same Vaatu that Wan released, that caused destruction and the death of his friends. The release of Vaatu does not sit well with Korra as it would lead to the destruction of the world. Finally, Zaheer’s plan in collapsing and destroying the walls of separation in Ba Sing Se has not created peace but rather created anarchy. In this anarchy looting has occurred along with destruction of property and lives lost all for the process of granting freedom and killing a queen. Korra does not disagree with Zaheer’s ideas but rather disagrees with his execution of these ideas, as they do not produce the desired results.