[Be warned, I'm going to talk spoilers here]
Several years ago I've stumbled on Avatar: the Last Airbender cartoon, and even though it's supposed to be children's story, I liked it. Interesting characters are rare these days.
The Last Airbender follows a story of Aang, young Avatar (a wielder of all four elements of magic), who was supposed to uphold the balance of the fantasy world, but who was frozen in ice for a hundred of years, while the war waged by Nation of Fire ravaged the said world. Being extracted from ice, Aang starts on a journey to master all four elements of magic to be able to fight the Lord of Fire and stop the war. Such is the simplified plot.
The trailer below gives pretty good idea of the show, I guess.
The Last Airbender speaks of people's desire for power, their insecurities, their life paths.
Friends become enemies, enemies become friends.
...I wouldn't say it's meant for children only, because in my opinion if grown-ups can't find children's stories appealing, they're no good.
Seasons of the show tell us how Aang travels the world learning the elements and - subsequently - fights Nation of Fire. It ends with balance and peace restored (spoiler).
Legend of Korra begins 50 (or more) years forward in time, when avatar Aang is already dead and his power has passed down to a girl from Nation of Water named Korra.
Generally, I find Legend of Korra less interesting than story of Aang.
First of all, the world in Legend of Korra is a combination of magic and technology, a mix that is hard to pull off, and it hasn't been pulled off.
Secondly, Korra isn't as interesting as Aang. She's your typical over-confident teenager, a commonplace hero of commonplace cartoons. If Aang was wise and cunning by nature, Korra is impulsive and stubborn. Side characters also lack in charisma and uniqueness.
Season 1 of Legend of Korra tells us how a group of people plans a revolution to overturn the world order and destroy magic, so that non-magic-users would be as powerful as magic-users.
Season 2 of Legend of Korra tells us how certain group of people (you're getting a drift, yeah?) wants to gain power and rule the world by releasing the spirit of Evil imprisoned for centuries.
Season 3 of Legend of Korra revolves around a group of people (I guess you're not surprised by now), who want to reach 'ultimate freedom' by destroying all leaders of the world and thus making all people free and 'equal'.
This last concept of ultimate freedom was funny, because no one ever told us how that oh-so-secret organization would ensure that after a brief period of anarchy new rulers wouldn't take over the lands where leaders were destroyed. It didn't even look like main antagonists were power-hungry themselves, which would be a viable case, because they seemed so basking in the idea of chaos and anarchy and thought it was the only way humanity could live... So, they just 'knew' it would be for the best.
I guess you would agree with me, that humanity can't live without leaders. I'm not arguing that our present - or past, for that matter, - leaders are great and wise. I'm just saying that only rare individuals are able to live without so-called 'guidance', decide for themselves and take responsibility for those decisions. After all, responsibility is the most feared thing in the world. If big countries were to disappear, there would form smaller ones, or even groups of people living together, but there would always be a thing called 'leader'. Ultimate freedom may exist somewhere in Tibetan mountains among hermit monks, but humans as species are closer to 'herd' animals than we like to think.
Such stories remind me of our current political situation.
In the Last Airbender Nation of Fire started a war because it - or rather its ruler - wanted to rule the world, because... well... he thought Nation of Fire was the strongest, and the strongest must rule, it's their right.
And just because 'strong' think they are endowed to power, no 'ultimate freedom' is possible.
