meggannn:

crystalzelda:

sophran:

crystalzelda:

forever-makorra:

pritarch:

I visit ao3 under the korra tag, and all I see is

are you fucking kidding me

I am legitimately so tired of people belittling korra. Bending is a form or martial arts in its own right, the girl can fight even without bending and she is pretty damn good at it. I am so tired of the countless fics and fanarts putting Asami  in such a high pedestral and be treated as some sort of fucking master for poor Korra who cant do anything without fire

ugh

yes thank

Korra is an athlete at her core and has been studying and fighting since she was a young child. While I’m sure Asami and Korra could have a few fun and enlightening sparring matches, people need to stop with the belief that Korra cannot fight without using her bending, and that as accomplished Asami obviously is, the fact of the matter is that there’s no indication that her self defense classes would match the physicality and training that Korra, Mako or Bolin possess.

While I agree with the original poster and also agree that Korra is definitely athletic and we’ve been shown before that having a knowledge of bending forms means one can fight even without bending. All the same, though, there also isn’t any indication that Mako, Bolin, or Korra is better at fighting without bending than Asami is. In the series the entire Krew did go to toe to toe with the Equalists, and we never really see the Krew fight them without their bending or Asami fight them without her super glove. They’ve all shown great physicality, skill, and proficiency in their training. So to be honest, there isn’t really a problem with the idea of having any of them train each other in fic or having any of them be declared as better in the area of simple no trick combat, it’s just annoying that there is constantly a tone of Korra having to learn/atone/be bested by other characters in all those fics.

I base the observation that I believe Korra, Mako and Bolin to be more athletic than Asami for the simple reason that their lifestyle, career, livelihood, are all based on something they have been participating in since the earliest of ages. They are professional, career athletes, and Asami is not - she is well trained and educated in fighting, she can hold her own and has shown to be a very skilled combatant, but there is a difference between someone with skill and experience (not to mention that Asami had an electric glove which very much helped in her fights against Equalists) and people whose lives literally depend on their ability to fight and be good at it, even prior to the Equalist War.

Does Asami wake up at butt crack of dawn to train and fight all day, every day in order to master the elements/win probending matches/complete odd jobs to survive? There’s no indication of that. She seems to be very well rounded in terms of her activities and interests, so I don’t believe she devotes her life to fighting like Korra, Mako and Bolin do.

In the end though it’s very clear that they’re all incredibly competent and know their way in a fistfight.

Perhaps a relatively inconsequential point, but also, ep3 Korra seems to fight pretty well on her own without bending — I’d assume even the little amount of airbending training she’d been through at that point must have helped teach her avoidance tactics and how to fight with your bare hands and available resources when bending’s off limits. Most of the airbending practice moves we see her doing are all about learning how to avoid and redirect your opponent’s force where possible, something I imagine drives a lot of fighting for nonbenders in the Avatar universe. Korra of course is, I imagine, better at fighting with bending than without, but I believe she could hold her own decently given what we see in her fight against the doorman, at least enough to get away if she can’t win. Room for improvement, I’m sure, but she’s certainly not terrible.