If it weren't for Korra, a lot of the small spirits would have ended up getting corrupted/enslaved by Vaatu. It's not surprising at all that the weaker spirits respect/revere Korra due to her actions and because she houses the most powerful spirit in existence (aka Raava) within her.
Like the kami of Earth's Shintoism, the spirits in A:TLA vary immensely in strength, appearance, and behavior. Some are awe-inducing gods and others steal your socks that's just how they are.
Empathy does not work like that. It's not based in reason. It's much more subtle and unconscious than that, and based off the stupidest, most irrelevant things. There are a lot of creatures in mythology that consider contractual obligations sacred and will pay back people in kind, but that's not the same thing as respect or reverence. And keep in mind that Korra does NOT have Raava in her, so she's worthless. As I said, a reasonable explanation would have been that Korra is defunct as a container, so the best way to repay the avatar in this case would be to kill her. It's not to say that option has to happen, but it's to demonstrate how something with no empathy, but a devotion to serving the avatar might react.
And keep in mind just because it's similar to Shintoism and is an influence, that does not necessarily mean it is the same thing as it. Thus far, we don't even have an indication that the spirits are respresentative of various objects, aside from I guess the panda being the guardian of that one forest.
Come on now, that's a pretty ridiculous argument with some real strains in logic. If you have to resort to evolutionary psychology to justify your annoyance with spirits being helpful you're really over-thinking it (especially because they wouldn't be subject to natural selection in the first place. The mere lack of evolutionary pressure doesn't give you any positive information or conclusions in of itself). If we're going to use that logic we might as well say none of the spirits should be able to communicate with humans either.
And I don't know why you think my use of the word spiritual was a proxy for pacifism. It's not about the use of violence in of itself (even if it was, all of the past Avatars seemed pretty cool with killing Ozai anyway), it's about the explicit way the show presented how Kyoshi and Kuruk thought about and approached problems and how that differed from Aang. We have to work off what we're given, the content is resource constrained and necessarily limited. Kyoshi and Kuruk are pretty clearly intended to be a contrast against Aang, I don't see much merit in saying that was just a snapshot of their lives, it's a very common storytelling convention to use key events to exemplify and contrast. The burden of proof you're requesting from a television show is a little absurd.
My point wasn't to include evolutionary psychology, but to point out that your arguing from a very anthropocentric position. You're projecting empathy onto creatures that you have no reason to believe would possess it just because that's what humans do. I was just using evolution to point out how absurd that position is.
Kuruk was, all in all, shown to be a failure of an avatar. He was derided for his partying and constant fighting instead of attending to his avatar duties. He might have been an awesome avatar at other points of his life, but the parts we were shown were the parts where he was stated to be in the wrong. So 'Kuruk did it' isn't an argument to be made in favor of him. We are shown a more favorable view of Kyoshi, but even she does not paint her actions shown as either good or bad, just 'what had to be done'. Again, maybe she was an awesome avatar for most of her life, but by and large, just because we are shown very selective bits of those two avatar's lives does not mean we can either pass a value judgement of them, or assume that that value judgement (were we to have it) would be a good one.
That's a good point about 'avatarness'
I agree that WAS Korra's problem, but what I liked about this episode is that it showed how that's no longer the only thing holding Korra back. We even learned that the fighting ring wasn't exactly some test she was trying to put herself through just to see how far she's gotten. She was following her projection, trying to find out what it meant. Korra already knows she's not the sum of her bending, but what she's going through is something else.
This episode was more about Korra facing her trauma than actually any existencial questions about herself (although those are still there, a bit). She's physically traumatized and that trauma is the thing holding her back at the moment, which is what Katara also said. She needs to absorb it, instead of fighting it or avoiding
In fact, Katara said so herself. She can physically heal Korra back to normal, but it's her mind that will decide if she's recovered or no.
On the subject of the Swamp, which you touched upon.
The Swamp "calling" Aang was, I believe, was meant to simply imply that the Spirit World was calling through an almost "Living Force-style" power, which you refer to as the planet itself (and your theory about the Avatar Spirit being the Spirit of the World incarnate, as proposed originally by Bryke). LOK did kind of change that idea a bit, but the Swamp is still a big giant spirit/being that knows what's best for the world or itself. It could simply be a spiritual place like the Fire Nation spirit forest in The Search comics (I know your opinion of the comics, but it reinforces the notion that the Swamp is one of many special windows into the Spirit World)
I would say she's in a transformative process, but I'm not sure where the transformation is leading. I think she still THINKS fighting is the answer. After all, she's following her shadow self and the first thing she expects will help resolve her issues is if she can physically beat it. But we'll see where they're going with this.
As for the rest, as you said, you know my opinion of the comics. Whatever muse was with Bryke when they wrote TLA, she has left and nearly every meddling with the finished product they've done has been for the worse. I have to tangle with them when I'm reviewing products like Korra that mess with it, but I don't take that to be canon concerning TLA alone.
For the record, I hope your right. The lesson that violence isn't the answer to everything and that Korra is strong enough to stand on her own is something that I've wanted to be a central tenet of LoK since it's inception. It's too late to save the series, but it's better late than never.
Now, I'd love to continue this conversation with all of you, but my time has been very constrained lately. Good discussions. I'll be sad when Korra ends and we'll all have to find another series to collectively talk about.
