Although The Legend of Korra didn't reach the same astronomical heights as its predecessor, The Last Airbender, it still went a long way in giving fans of the original series some new stories in their favorite fantasy world, following the newest incarnation of the Avatar and her struggles in a more modern world setting.
For the most part, the writing for both Korra and The Last Airbender are fairly solid, though sometimes, as is the case with any TV series, cracks begin to show and inconsistencies emerge in characters. Even Korra, the main protagonist, isn't safe in suffering from some inconsistencies from time to time.
10 Her Energybending Giant Form Is Only Used One Time
In possibly the most controversial ending to a season in all of Avatar, Korra, after losing her connection to her past lives and the spirit of Raava, meditates inside the world tree and comes out as a giant in the form of spirit energy. Engaging in a kaiju size battle against the Dark Avatar, this seemed to be one of the stronger powers at her disposal, something she definitely would have used multiple times.
Instead, she only used this form against the Dark Avatar, even though it would have been quite useful against Kuvira's Titan in Book 4, among other scenarios.
9 The Flashbacks Of Wan
The nature of the spirits are a little inconsistent in general between The Last Airbender and The Legend of Korra, but one that impacts Korra directly is the nature of flashback with her past lives. In The Last Airbender, Aang sees certain memories of Roku as if he was present, though not through Roku's eyes. When Korra has flashbacks of Wan, she isn't present in the story and seems to be remembering Wan's past rather than seeing them through Wan's eyes.
How Korra interacts with her past lives is also wildly different to how Aang does, as he seems to be able to manifest their spirit whenever he wants, while all of Korra's interactions seem to take place inside her own head.
8 Her Reaction To Trauma
One of the best aspects of Korra is how it deals with a person's reaction to trauma. Korra goes through some very tough moments in her life, and the writers don't shy away from how those events would affect someone in real life, however, Korra's reactions to these events aren't as consistent as they appear at first glance.
In the conclusion of Book One, she hits a major low point after having her bending taken away by Amon, but took Raava being pulled out of her in stride and was able to address Republic City with her head held high in Book Two. Then, in Book Three, her failed assassination by Zaheer took such a hard toll on her that she fled into a life of solitude for years before returning to deal with Kuvira.
7 Her Trust For Her Family
Likely because of her being raised as the Avatar, Korra isn't as close to her parents as she is to Team Avatar or Tenzin's family. This changes somewhat in Book Two, but she still has a strained relationship with her parents for the majority of the season.
While she isn't particularly close to her mother and father, for some reason, she gravitates towards Unalaq and trusts him implicitly, resulting in not only her father's life being put in danger, but the whole world as a result of the spirits and Harmonic Convergence. Following Book Two, she goes back to being closer to Team Avatar as if nothing had happened during this season at all.
6 How Easily She Learned To Tame Spirits
Unlike Aang, Korra struggled a great deal with the spiritual side of being the Avatar, while being a prodigy when it came to the bending side. It took Korra an entire season to learn how to airbend, with her only being able to do so when Mako's life was in danger.
Then, in Book Two, she was able to perform a form of waterbending so spiritual that almost no living person knew of its existence on her first try. Korra may have been able to airbend by this point, but her connections to the spiritual side of the Avatar were still fairly weak at this point and her proficiency with this style of bending seems to come out of nowhere.
5 Metalbending The Titan
One of the biggest hurdles the characters had to face during Book Four was Kuvira's Titan, which threatened to destroy all of Republic City fairly easily. Unfortunately for all of the metalbenders, the outer shell was made of unbendable platinum, though the inside workings weren't, resulting in the characters needing to get inside the mech to do any real damage.
However, characters have been shown to be able to bend other elements through solid walls before, but the Titan seems to be the exception for not just Korra, but every other metalbender.
4 Her Waterbending
It's easy to forget that Korra is a master waterbender at times, since she prefers to use fire and earthbending more than anything else, with her adding airbending more often during the last couple of seasons. During the Titan's assault on Republic City, she shows off just how powerful a waterbender she is by encasing the entire Titan in a block of ice, without using the Avatar State.
This is a level of waterbending that even Katara never showed during The Last Airbender, and Aang only demonstrated this after mastering the Avatar State against Phoenix King Ozai. Considering she has had several tough battles against other waterbenders and never showed this level of power before, it brings into question just how much she holds back against some foes.
3 The Power Of Her Avatar State
One of the biggest problems some fans have with The Legend of Korra is how the Avatar State seems to be nothing more than a "booster rocket" as Tenzin put it, giving Korra a small boost in power rather than turning her into the Avatar equivalent of a nuclear weapon as it did with Aang.
Not only is Korra's Avatar State much weaker, but it is also very inconsistent in how strong it is. Against Kuvira, it was able to turn the tide of the fight in an instant, though not before her mental issues shut her down completely, but against Zaheer, she was barely able to keep up with the airbending master.
2 Metalbending, But No Lightning
While Aang was taught many bending techniques by his masters, he never learned any of the sub-bending techniques such as metalbending or lightning generation. Korra, on the other hand, went out of her way to make sure she could learn metalbending, making her the first Avatar seen to use this ability.
However, despite being around Mako quite a lot and lightning generation being common enough that it is used as a form of energy in Republic City, Korra never tries to learn it even though it would have been incredibly useful in every one of her battles. Korra isn't one to shy away from learning new techniques, so her casting this one aside is a little strange.
1 Experimenting With Energy Bending
After becoming kaiju-Korra, Korra should have realised that there was more to energybending than simply making herself into a giant or manipulating another person's bending capabilities, but she never tries to experiment with it.
Like with lightning generation, this is one form that would have been very useful in many of her battles, but she doesn't think to try and learn anything about it. Even after Jinora learns how to astral project, she doesn't try to learn this technique despite how useful it was in the handful of times Jinora used it.