The Legend of Korra - What to Do When Canon Disappoints You

I am a big Avatar: The Last Airbender fan. I loved the animation, the plot, everything really. One of my tattoos is based on the Fire Nation symbol – mostly because I loved the design aesthetic but still. And while I was a low-key Zutara shipper (a fan of the teased but never realized couple of Prince Zuko, the antihero of the series, and Katara, one of the main protagonists), I was perfectly happy with the way the story went.

So when I found out they were making a sequel series, The Legend of Korra, I was excited. More of a world I loved! Yay! And yet, when it came out I just could not get into it. I tried. Several times. I made it through the first season and almost through the second, but I just could not connect with it. Maybe it was the characters, maybe it was the diesel-punk aesthetic, I don’t know. But it just didn’t work for me. So what happens when something you are a fan of stops working for you? Can you even still call yourself a fan anymore?

This is not a new question. Star Wars fans have been asking themselves this question since The Phantom Menace came out in 1999. Star Trek fans have been asking this with literally every new series, but particularly with Enterprise in the early 2000s and the new series, Discovery. And Harry Potter fans have been screaming it since 2016 and The Cursed Child. So how do we deal as fans with disappointing or unappealing new canon?

Quick defining of terms: Canon is the official text or body of work that was made by The Creator. As such it should be straight-forward but as with all things, gray areas emerge as creators can contradict themselves, retroactively change the story (I’m looking at you George Lucas), or add new information later, either online or in interviews.

There are four main ways I’ve seen (and personally used) to deal with disliking something within your fandom: Purist mode, headcanon, delude yourself, and resigned acceptance.

Way to Cope 1 – Purist mode

This is an especially popular method with people who are less into transformative aspects of fandom, and more into an obsessive love and knowledge of the canon material. In this method, it’s ok to hate a thing because it isn’t really canon. The best example of this is the rejection of Harry Potter: The Cursed Child as actually canon, as it wasn’t a novel by JK Rowling. The Super Carlin Brothers do a whole video on it: 

Way to Cope 2 – Headcanon

A thing I’ve heard from several male friends over the years is the there was only one Matrix movie and no sequels and “lalalala I can’t hear you” if you mention otherwise. This is an example of headcanon. Real canon might disappoint you, so you decide in your head that something else happened and stick with that. And if this method sounds extremely similar to writing fanfiction to “fix” parts of something you don’t like – it is. It’s exactly the same except its in your head so you don’t have to actually write it. You can of course write it down and make it fanfiction, if you want.

Way to Cope 3 – Self-Delusion

This is when you dislike something in your fandom, but you don’t want to admit it, so you just flat out lie to yourself: “It wasn’t that bad,” “Some parts were good,” and “It’s fine. It’s fine” And to be fair, you can honestly think some things were perfectly decent, or at least not horrible, even if they aren’t your cup of tea. But just as often, this can be a form of signaling to others who are excited about the work that you’re still “in the group.” Fandom backlash can be vicious, and critical examination or questioning decision in a work can spark a lot of negativity from other people in a fan community. The opposite of course is true – liking something that everyone hates is just as hard. I really liked Attack of the Clones when it came out - bought it on DVD and everything. But given the hatred of the prequels as a whole, having liked any of it at all for any period of time is considered embarrassing at best.

Way to Cope 4 – Resignation and Acceptance

Absolutely the most mature of responses. And, sadly, not that common. For me, acceptance comes with me disliking, or even hating something happening in something I am a fan of, but knowing that it is what it is and emotionally moving on while continuing to enjoy or accept the thing as a whole. I dislike a lot about Star Trek Voyager, but I accept it is what it is, enjoy what I enjoy about it, and just don’t watch those episodes I hate. And there can be major backlash from other fans for doing this. Personally, I get a lot of crap for not being a “real” baseball fan because I don’t pay as much attention to my team when the SF Giants suck. I don’t like watching them lose - it's depressing and makes me sad - so I don’t, and I get a lot of crap for it, even though it's not like I stop rooting for them or switch my allegiance to a different, better team. Recently, a number of Steven Universe theorists have been getting a lot of hate comments for their mixed feelings about a recent giant plot twist. None of the theorists are abandoning the show, or degrading it overall, but they are getting hate anyways because they aren’t wholeheartedly embracing the twist. Which is extremely unfair.

Any media consumed that you do not create yourself is going to take turns you disagree with. If you think something great went on too long and became bad, or there was a creative choice you hated, or even if it just stopped gelling with you, that’s totally fine. Being a fan doesn’t mean you have to like every single aspect of something. Some fans disagree – to them it’s an all in or all out thing. But, that’s just not how things work in reality. No one can be that hardcore all the time, for everything they are a fan of. Not liking The Legend of Korra doesn’t make me any less of a Last Airbender fan.