Bryan Konietzko

“In a lot of ways, their journeys are opposite of each other's: Aang was a peace-loving monk, through and through, whereas Korra is a dyed in the wool fighter.”

“We wanted the elemental 'bending' to be based on authentic Chinese traditional martial arts, believing this would lend a beauty and resonance to the animation and the fictitious disciplines. Once we had that idea, I started looking for a Kung Fu teacher/Martial Arts consultant. My search led me to Sifu Kisu and I began training with him right away.”

“After 'Avatar' ended, I spent a lot of time watching MMA and kickboxing fights on UFC, WEC, DREAM, and K-1.”

“We just don't subscribe to the conventional wisdom that you can't have an action series led by a female character. It's kinda nonsense to us.”

“Some Nickelodeon executives were worried about backing an animated action show with a female lead character. Conventional TV wisdom has it that girls will watch shows about boys, but boys won't watch shows about girls. During test screenings, though, boys said they didn't care that Korra was a girl. They just said she was awesome.”

“As humans our hangups seem to shape our interaction with the world around us. They are often the source of our intolerance and friction with people who think differently than us, and even the reason we build walls between us and the people close to us.”

“We really liked the magic of 'Harry Potter' and 'The Lord of the Rings,' but we could never figure out where the powers came from.”

“When I watch a show, I want to feel like it is coming out of someone's head, not out of a boardroom.”

“There is such a flood of TV shows, movies, video games, comics, and books, but somehow 'Avatar' is still being discovered by each new generation.”

“It seems to me virtually any ideology, no matter how intrinsically benign, can be used to oppress. And any group with power, no matter how well-meaning, ultimately corrupts and ends up exploiting its advantage to some extent.”

“Book 4 is the end of the 'Korra' series. So we've got 52 episodes planned. When all is said and done it will have taken I think about five years to make.”

“When Nickelodeon, in 2009, told us they wanted us to come back and do another series where we could do whatever we wanted, the first thought we had was: Let's do a story about the next 'Avatar.' That was the first thought. The second thought was: Let's make it a girl.”

“Animation is incredibly difficult - much like doing a giant sweeping fantasy novel.”

“Nickelodeon came to us at the end of 2009 with a twelve episode 'mini-season' already green-lit for a new series. They let us do pretty much whatever we wanted with it, as long as it was in the 'Avatar' universe and featured bending.”

“I am infamous for writing fight scenes beat for beat, punch for punch. I can't help it!”

“The social and political climate came from discussions about how we could find conflict in the wake of a 100-year-long war ending. But as we know in the real world, just because a war ends it doesn't mean that everything turns happy and peaceful. That provided us with some new kinds of conflict for us to explore in 'Korra.'”

“We're definitely still interested in the Avatar/Korra universe and fantastical world building in general, but I think many of the core themes and tones found in our two kids' series would be present as well in any sort of adult dramas we might be lucky enough to make in the future.”

“Stories often take their own course once you start to write them, especially when you have the benefit of a writers' room and a team of people augmenting and adding to the material.”

“I try to make the kinds of things I want to see out there in the world, and hope they end up resonating with other people too.”

“Early on, many years ago when we started 'Avatar,' the executive that we were working with said to make the sad scenes sadder, the funny scenes funnier, the scary scenes scarier. That was kind of permission to do what we felt comfortable with.”