Korra VS Rey ( The Legend of Korra VS Star Wars )
“Let me fall if I must fall. The one
I will become will catch me.”
— Baal Shem Tov
Avatar Korra, the most recent incarnation of the Avatar from The Legend of Korra.
Rey Skywalker, the scavenger girl turned legendary Jedi from Star Wars.
In a world that seeks to constantly undermine them and question their purpose, rising to carry out the legacy to some of the most legendary warriors in history —who have brought balance to all life— is no easy task. But these two women, after trial and tribulations, are able to overcome that challenge and become legends in their own right.
In a battle, which of these two would come up on top? That is what we are here to find out! Without further ado, let's jump in.
Fanart:
Korra:
“I've realized that even though we should
learn from those who came before us,
we must also forge our own path.”
The world consisted of 4 nations, each one with the ability to warp a unique element of the world to their will: Water, Earth, Fire, Air. Long ago all the nations lived together in harmony, but everything changed when the Fire Nation attacked. For a hundred years, the Fire Lord Ozai led the Fire Nation to wreak havoc on the other nations, decimating the Air Nomads and waging war against the Water Tribe and Earth Kingdom. It was during this time, the new Avatar re-emerged; a (1)12-year old Air Nomad named Aang.
The Avatar is the human embodiment of light and peace, destined to bring balance to all the nations in the world. They exist as a cycle, where a new Avatar would inevitably rise to fulfill the role left by the previous Avatar. Avatar Aang would master all the elements and eventually defeat the Fire Lord, restoring peace to all the nations and ending the hundred year war.
With the war over, peace prospered over the Nations. However, as Aang passed away and a new Avatar was reincarnated, the question arose. In a world that is already balanced —without war— is there a need for the Avatar?
Given that the previous Avatar was an Air Nomad, the following Avatar would be from the Water Tribe. A girl was born and raised in the Southern Water Tribe and trained to take on her duty. Her prowess in bending could even exceed Aang before her; having learnt 3 out of the 4 elements at the age of 4 years old. However, unlike her pacifistic predecessor, Korra was rebellious and obstinate, and intensely passionate.
Korra left the Water Tribe in search of the Air Nomads, with the goal of mastering the final element of air. Things seemed to be moving smoothly, until a group of radical non-benders hellbent on forbidding the use of bending started an Equalist Movement.
She would later end up in a civil war between her father's water tribe, and a rival group led by her uncle Unalaq. Unalaq would summon the dark spirit Vaatu and become the Dark Avatar; he would use this power to sever Korra's connection to her past selves. Following another near-death encounter with a group of Fire Anarchists, she couldn't take anymore. She went on her own journey, in hopes of finding herself once more and quelling a new invader that threatened to wipe the new Air Nation. She sought out Fire Lord Zuko, who helped her gain faith in herself. She would eventually stop the invasion and bring the city to peace.
Korra’s journey has been turbulent, perhaps the most turbulent out of any Avatar. She is the only Avatar to not be connected with other lives, the only Avatar to have had their bending removed, and the only Avatar who had to fight a Dark Avatar. But when the world needs her, she proves time again that she is just the person the prophecies dreamed of.
Rey:
“Something inside of me has always
been there. But now it's awake.”
A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, an evil Emperor ruled over the galaxy with a fist of iron and a heart of stone. Stood by his side was Darth Vader, an unstoppable force of power, and together the galaxy suffered under their rule. That was until a young man from the desert planet of Tatooine would rise up against the empire. Recruited by the Jedi, he would fulfill hisOfather's dream of being a Jedi Knight, and fight back against the Empire. He would succeed in redeeming Darth Vader to the light side and defeating the Emperor, liberating the galaxy.
A Jedi is a sort of Space Knight Police. They operate in tandem with the Force, an extra dimensional pool of energy for which they gain power from. They are legendary for their power and their good hearts —modest and kind unlike the cruel and heartless Sith that they opposed.
Following the fall of the Empire, the First order rose. Spearheaded by the mysterious Kylo Ren, the Empire returned to reclaim its throne. However, with Luke Skywalker gone, there was no one strong enough to oppose such a threat.
Meanwhile, on the barren planet of Jakku, a young girl drags a heavy slay across the sand, panting with each tug. Rey had lived alone for most of her life, orphaned with parents that abandoned her. Recruited into the Resistance, she would seek out Luke Skywalker in hopes of turning the tides.
However, when Rey found Luke, he was far from his glory days, and wanted little to do with the fight. Kylo Ren was a former apprentice of Luke Skywalker, and had fallen to the Dark Side, causing Luke to exile himself in isolation. Unable to convince him to leave, Rey would receive some training from him, and attempt to halt the invasion in whatever ways she could.
With the revival of the Emperor, Rey discovered the truth about her parents. Her parents were descendants of Palpatine, and that made her his granddaughter. She would join forces with Kylo Ren to defeat Emperor Palpatine, being challenged with her significance. Be a hero and die like the rest? Or help him in his journey of conquering the galaxy?
In the end, Rey chose to be a Jedi.
Ground Rules:
No outside help will be given.
No outside non-standard gear.
They will be in character.
They will be given only canon material.
Korra will be given everything canon to her TV Show “The Legend of Korra” and the previous TV series “Avatar: The Last Airbender”. Corresponding material such as the Novels such as Kyoshi Novels and the multiple Avatar Comics will be considered. Avatar Chibi Shorts are generally meant to be gag scenes, so they will not be considered. They are just meant to be funny and silly, which has little impact on the plot. If it was canon, there would be a massive heart-shaped mountain formation on Earth that can be seen from space thanks to Toph. The live action movies are too thankfully non-canon.
Material Considered:
Avatar: The Last Airbender
The Legend of Korra
Graphic Novels
Prose Novels
Miscellaneous Comics
* Note: There are supposedly new Avatar Movies coming out soon from 2024 to 2026, one of them starring Korra. I am unfortunately anchored to this point in the timestream, and do not yet have access to these movies. Naturally these will not be considered. In all fairness, Star Wars releases something new practically every year, so it balances out.
Disney when purchasing the rights to Star Wars elected to make their own continuity commonly referred to as the “Disney Canon”. A large amount of previously canon expanded material has since gone under a different continuity called “Star Wars Legends”, and is no longer considered mainline canon. Rey, being a product of the Disney Films, naturally only has access to the continuity from the Disney Continuity. This consists of the main nine movies, along with dozens of novels, comics, guidebooks and TV Shows.
Material Considered:
Episode I – IX
Corresponding Novels & Comics
TV Shows
* Note: The list of material is too long for a blog like this. For the long list of materials considered canon to the Disney continuity, I will be mainly cross-referring IGN’s definitive guide to the Star Wars Canon to Star Wars’s Wookiepedia’s Timeline of Canon media.
Scaling:
Korra:
Misc. Avatar Characters:
“Water, Earth, Fire, Air. Long ago, the
four nations lived together in harmony.
Then, everything changed when
the Fire Nation attacked. ”
In the world of Avatar, there are 4 elements: Water, Fire, Earth, and Air. One day, someone figured out how to telekinetically manipulate one of the four elements, and something extraordinary had been achieved. The world since has never been the same, as they divide into 4 independent factions in worship of the element they channel.
Korra —even in base— has proven superior to most, if not all, Benders in the world. By principle, as someone who is skilled enough to manipulate all 4 elements, it is only expected that the Avatar would stick out as someone above the rest. Not even the finest Benders in all of the realms hold a torch to the true capabilities of an Avatar.
Team Avatar:
"The greatest illusion of this world
is the illusion of separation.
Things you think are separate and
different are actually one and the same.
We are all one people, but we live as if divided.”
What is a hero without their friends to support them? As the name suggests, Team Avatar is a group of friends, typically a group of ragtag pals from multiple different factions of the world, that accompany the Avatar along their journey.
Korra’s version of the team consists of:
Mako, Bolin, and her girlfriend Asami
Aang’s version of the team consists of:
Katara, Sokka, Toph, Zuko and Suki.
Not only has Korra proven herself as the main powerhouse of her Team Avatar, she has also studied under Katara and Toph to master Water bending and Earth Bending respectively. Korra being above the 2 different Team Avatars makes sense.
The Avatars:
"The Avatar must be compassionate towards
all people, and the only way to do
that is to live with them.
The Avatar must experience
sadness, anger, joy, and happiness.
By feeling all these emotions, it helps you understand how precious human life is,
so you will do anything to protect it.”
It is said that there is only one individual at a time who can bend all four elements. The embodiment of the spirit of light who links our world to the realm of the spirits. Only one of such individuals comes about every generation, and they would bear the legendary title of the Avatar.
The Avatars are the keeper of balance between the four nations and such are incredibly powerful. It is considered the Avatar's duty to master all four elements and maintain peace and balance among the nations of man. The Avatar is a status not held by one single person, but multiple people throughout history. Bonded to the Spirit Ravaa, a new Avatar is reincarnated each generation to bring about peace once again.
Korra is the most recent incarnation, succeeding the Avatar Aang before her. While each of them have their own idiosyncrasies, they all draw upon the same source of power: The Spirit Ravaa. They hence should all be roughly equivalent in terms of power.
Aang:
“When we hit our lowest point,
we are open to the greatest change.”
For a hundred years, all the nations of Earth were at war. The Air Nomads had been entirely wiped out by the Fire Nation, which was now battling against the Water Tribe and the Earth Kingdom. The world was in chaos; they needed the Avatar. Thus, a new Avatar emerged after having been frozen in ice for a hundred years. He was an Air Nomad, one of the last that remained, and his name was Aang.
While there is much discourse over which of our two protagonist avatars, Aang and Korra, is stronger, it is generally agreed upon that they are of a similar caliber of power. They both have fought similar people, both have mastered all the elements and even additional bending forms such as Energy Bending, and both are powered by the same force which powers all Avatar.
It stands to reason that Korra could potentially even be more powerful than Aang, given a more developed body. Korra is biologically older in Legend of Korra than Aang in Avatar: The Last Airbender ,with her body being 21 years of age, whilst Aang’s body (despite being 112 years old) is only that of a 12 years old. She technically trained for longer, so it stands to reason that anything Aang can do with his power, Korra can replicate similarly.
The Spirits:
“In the Spirit World, your emotions become your reality.”
The Spirit World is the home of the spirits. It is a parallel plane of reality that coexists alongside the physical world, which is inhabited by Earthlings. Spirits are supernatural entities that embody different aspects of life and nature. Some spirits have clear purposes, like Tui and La, who control the rise and fall of the Moon and Ocean respectively. Some spirits’ purposes are unknown, like a meditating monkey.
Korra, as the Avatar, is supposed to be a bridge between the Spirit Realm and the Human Realm. As a result, she has had numerous encounters with spirits, even including the strongest spirit: Vaatu, the kite of evil. She should hence scale above the vast majority of them. This makes sense, given that she —and all the Avatars that precede her— is empowered by Ravaa, the spirit of Light and one of the most powerful spirits in existence.
Rey:
Misc. Star Wars Characters:
"A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away...."
Star Wars is a story that involves the struggle between an evil empire that seeks to rule over the galaxy, and a group of freedom fighters that seek to unify the universe. The overarching narrative explores the concepts of good and evil, community and justice, and the shades of gray in between them all.
Rey is a Jedi and is force–sensitive, which allows her to tap into the Force; the Force is a cosmic pool of energy that exists in all things, and the power it yields is unrivaled. Her status as the current leading Jedi in the Star wars Universe, leads her favor into scaling high into the verse.
The Jedi Order:
"To be Jedi is to face the truth,and choose.
Give off light, or darkness, Padawan.
Be a candle, or the night.”
The Jedi is an ancient order of protectors united by their ability to harness the power of the Light Side of the Force. In order (hehe pun) to access the Light Side of the Force, one must attain a state of inner tranquility, strive to protect the innocent, and quell the darkness of hatred and anger kd the Dark Side that so many have fallen to before.
Rey trains to be a devotee to the ways of the Jedi under the siblings Luke Skywalker and Leia Organa. She is not the most skilled Jedi, but her force-sensitivity is already above that of most Jedi. Her battles against Kylo Ren and Emperor Palpatine indicate that she is among the upper echelons of power among those who have called themself a Jedi.
Kylo Ren:
“Let the past die. Kill it if you have to.
It's the only way to become
who you were meant to be.”
Rey shares a mysterious connection with a former Jedi turned Dark Side warrior known as Kylo Ren. The son of Han Solo and Leia Organa, Ben Solo felt a calling to the Dark Side, and was seduced into the Empire. Kylo Ren is the leader of the Knights of Ren, Champion of the First Order, and apprentice to the Supreme Leader Snoke. Driven to destroy the past, he eventually crosses paths with a rogue girl who didn't know her parents. With her help, Kylo Ren redeemed himself, and returned to the light.
Rey and Ben share a special connection; a Force Dyad, where Rey and Kylo Ren are bonded not just in relations, but directly joined via the Force.
This bonds them mentally and spiritually. They can communicate to each other, help each other in battles, empower each other, and even partake in a duel, all from light years away.
Rey and Kylo Ren have proven on par with each other throughout their journeys. They have battled evenly against one another, fought alongside each other, and are even stated as equals in the light and dark sides of the Force.
They are Yin-Yangs to each other, serving as perfect equals that maintain balance in the light and the dark. The Skywalker and the Son of Solo stand shoulder to shoulder and each other's greatest rival and greatest ally.
Emperor Palpatine:
"Did you ever hear the tragedy of
Darth Plagueis the wise?”
Emperor Palpatine, otherwise known as Darth Sidious or his many other honorifics such as Senator, Supreme Chancellor, and Grandpa(?), is the Supreme Overload of the Galactic Empire that oversees all.
While channeling the strength of all the Jedi behind her, Rey absorbs power from the Force and overpowers Palpatine's lightning, allowing her to defeat Palpatine once and for all by reflecting the Lightning back at Palpatine.
This was done with help from all the Jedi giving her power following her and Kylo Ren's power having been drained from them. She later dies after defeating Palpatine, seemingly from the strain, but is eventually revived by Kylo Ren.
While Rey did defeat Palpatine, she needed the help of all and did perish from the strain irregardless. Whether this is usable will be covered in the FAQs.
Luke Skywalker & Darth Vader:
"You failed, Your Highness. I am a Jedi,
like my father before me."
Throughout all of the Star Wars Mythos, there have been 2 chosen ones who have stood out from the rest as something truly extraordinary. Anakin Skywalker, now Darth Vader, and Luke Skywalker, his son, are the 2 chosen ones destined to bring balance to the Force.
It is pretty clear that early Rey is no match for both of these legends. Old man Luke Skywalker —who has been chugging down green milk for decades— managed to defend against her when training her when he was not even trying. However, as Rey grows more skilled in the Force, things become less clear. Her battles against Emperor Palpatine suggest that she may be on similar levels, but the person who solidifies her scaling to these 2 figures of power would be from Kylo Ren.
The destruction brought about by Kylo Ren was stated to only be matched by Darth Vader, and the comparison has been made relatively clear that Kylo Ren takes after Vader in strategy and even design.
Meanwhile, Luke Skywalker had thought of Kylo Ren as his most treasured apprentice. He was under the impression that Ben Solo may have been the chosen one. While he was wrong, the assumption does have some merit behind it.
It is stated in a guidebook that Episode VII Kylo Ren would have defeated Episode V Luke Skywalker in a battle, attributing that they are likely on comparable levels of power and rewarding Kylo Ren the victory due to his anger and the power that brings him. Based on this, while she may be less powerful, Rey should be at least comparable enough to be able to downscale from both of the Skywalkers.
Power:
Starting from the lower ranges of power, on the Korra side, a group of Water Benders were able to freeze a large body of water to trap a large ship. Based on the size of these ships and accounting for the number of water benders, each Water Bender would need to output an energy yield of about 10.2 Kilotons of TNT to accomplish.
(Uprooting Fire Nation Ships using their ice is
something that Water Benders do routinely.)
Korra in her base form should also be roughly relative to Aang in his base form. Aang even without the Avatar State is able to cool large bodies of lava that surround a large city, and create huge explosions in the desert.
Aang even managed to split a large mountain in half while he was sleeping. The energy required to split a mountain of such size would require 1.37 Megatons of TNT to accomplish. Given that Aang did this whilst sleeping, this should be a good starting point for Korra’s attack potency.
Rey even before she was trained in the force should be comparable to a causal Old Luke Skywalker. He caused his entire Island to shake from simply emerging, which would need 15.1 Kilotons of TNT, which is equal to the bomb dropped on Hiroshima.
A Pre-Episode I Yoda could fight against living mountains, while a rookie Anakin Skywalker in training could move big starships fast enough to intercept missiles. This would require 476 Kilotons of TNT and 2.513 Megatons of TNT respectively.
Korra has a few of her own feats to put on the table, such as freezing a large amount of water to immobilize Kuvira's mech which gets to about 11.0 Kilotons of TNT.
In Avatar State, Korra redirected a blast from the Spirit Cannon which vaporized part of a mountain, earning about 149 Megatons of TNT —which is almost 3 times the energy released by the Tsar Bomb.
Korra also opens up the spirit portal, which causes a pillar of energy to shoot up and disperse the Everstorm, whilst creating the Northern lights, which gets to 8.10 Gigatons of TNT.
The Northern Spirit Portal opening yields
more than twice the estimated combined yield
of all the Nuclear Weapons in the world.
Rey gets to a similar level from scaling to Emperor Palpatine in their final battle. Emperor Palpatine during this time in the Battle of Exegol summoned a massive lightning blast to incapacitate all the Rebellion Ships. This lightning blast reached into the atmosphere, requiring energy akin to 14.7 Gigatons of TNT.
For Korra’s higher end feats, we look towards the previous Avatars. Avatars have consistently been shown as some of the strongest Benders in the series, with Avatars such as Avatar Szeto being able to erupt multiple volcanoes at once, and Avatar Roku carved enormous trenches through his island to block a landslide.
The most impressive direct feat achieved by an Avatar belongs to Avatar Kyoshi, who moved Kyoshi Island at such a high speed that it comes out to roughly 3.10 Teratons of TNT, or enough energy to destroy a small country.
While Korra scales to Avatar Kyoshi, Rey scales to Darth Vader. Anakin, whilst early on in his career as the Darth Vader, managed to create earthquakes and storms across the planet Mustafar, which needs at least 4 Teratons of TNT, putting Rey on similar levels as Korra.
For the high end of Korra’s statistics, we look towards the Spirits.
The specific ones worth mentioning are the Ocean and Moon Spirits “Tui and La”, who are responsible for the changes of the tide and the fall & rise of the moon.
Tui & La translate into Push & Pull, reflecting the
push and pull cycle that the tide has.
More specifically, we look towards Tui. The Moon Spirit's temporary death results in the direct destruction of the moon. Not only does characters like Aang vaguely scale to the Moon spirit on his own, but Aang has also fused with the Ocean Spirit. Of course, the Avatars also tap off the power of Ravaa, who should scale above the rest of the spirits. The amount of energy needed to overcome the gravitational binding energy of the moon comes out to about 32.6 Exatons of TNT.
For the high end of Rey’s statistics, we look towards the weapons from the Empire.
For this scaling, we specifically look towards Darth Vader. Darth Vader has been stated to possess “world-destroying fury”. As feats will show, this is not an exaggeration.
Vader has been established to be the most powerful weapon of the Empire, even while they had access to the Death Star. Darth Vader being comparable to the Death Star has been established since Day 1, himself stating that the power of the Death Star pales to the power of the Force.
“Don't be too proud of this technological terror you've constructed.
The ability to destroy a planet is insignificant next to the power of the Force.”
This is significant as the Death Star is infamously a planet destroyer, with a deadly laser that can annihilate a planet with a single shot. This would yield energies of as high as 181 Ronnatons of TNT, or enough energy to destroy a Dwarf Star.
This may sound like an exaggeration, but it is very true, with many feats backing up Planet Level Star Wars. Darth Vader would have another feat of such caliber when he withstood an energy blast from Darth Sidious when Darth Sidious was controlling a ginormous mountain of Kyber Crystals.
Kyber Crystal are rare gems that are able
to channel and amplify energy.
You will more commonly know these
gems in the form of LightSabers.
These Kyber Crystals were designed to power the 1,080 Xyston-class Star Destroyers of the Final Order, potentially even tens of thousands of them. A single one of these Star Destroyers can easily obliterate the planet Kijimi, outputting about 842 Zettatons of TNT.
A weakened and fatigued Darth Vader would later endure Emperor Palpatine’s full power Force Lightning and survive, cementing his scaling to these Xyston-class Star Destroyers. Rey, with the support from all of the Jedi, also blocked a similar blast from Palpatine.
Kylo Ren would too live up to the expectations set by Vader when he was called the strongest weapon in the First Order. Similarly to how Vader scaled above the Death Star, Kylo Ren scales above the Starkiller Base, a weapon that a military junta had access to.
The Starkiller base is an improved version of the Death Star, and packs significantly more power. While the Death Star destroys only a single planet at once, the Starkiller base can destroy multiple planets at once. In order for the Starkiller Base to shoot, the Starkiller Base drains half the energy of an entire star. This is further supported for when the Starkiller Base is destroyed, its reminiscence created another star.
Draining the energy of half a star would
yield a whopping 11 Foe of energy,
which is approximately 11 times the
energy released by a supernova.
Speed:
When it comes to speed, both Korra and Rey are significantly faster than the speed of sound, with both of them showing enough agility and speed to react to the majority of attacks that come their way.
The more impressive feats for Korra’s side would be from the numerous occasions her peers have reacted to blasts of Lightning from Fire Benders. Basically everyone from Zuko to Katara has dodged, blocked, or even redirected lightning from another character.
The leader of a lightning bolt (the part of the lightning that actually strikes objects) on average travels around 440,000 meters per second, which is over 1,000 times the speed of sound.
Specifically when Aang fought against Ozai in their final battle, Aang moved at Mach 2460 to react to lightning. That is 2460 times the speed of sound.
Meanwhile, Star Wars characters too have had numerous occasions where they react to lightning from the Sith. With their lightsabers, many Jedi have been able to block lightning, including when the Jedi duo Anakin and Obi-Wan blocked blasts from Count Dooku.
When Mace Windu fought against Emperor Palpatine in what would be his final battle, he managed to block a blast of Lightning that would require he move at Mach 2480, which is about the same level of speed Aang demonstrated.
Outside of blocking lightning blasts, Star Wars characters routinely react to light-speed attacks as well —not just routinely, but easily too.
These are referred to as lasers, and are even stated to accelerate beyond Light Speed. Light in a vacuum moves at 299,792,458 m/s, which is over 600 times the speed of lightning.
This is consistent, as characters like Obi-Wan can react in a nanosecond to block blast bolts. Moving a meter in a nanosecond would require one to move at several times light speed.
This makes sense. Afterall, Star Wars characters, even ones who are neither Jedi nor Sith, need to travel intergalactic distances in short periods of time. Faster-than-Light speeds would be needed to achieve such feats. This is made more evident with Hyperspace, where speeds go from faster-than-light to massively faster-than-light. Darth Vader managed to pilot a ship whilst in Hyperdrive, even dodging comets, using his future vision.
Kylo Ren was similarly able to pilot a ship whilst in Hyperspace, needing to avoid dense and narrow obstacles in the Blood Net. However, he did not even use future vision, only his own skill and speed.
When considering that moving in Hyperspace is likely several million times the speed of light, this means that most characters who can navigate serious obstacles in hyperspace can react at least faster than light.
This isn't a thing that is exclusive to Force-empowered characters. In fact, this is a routine thing in Stars Wars. Characters like Poe and Han Solo, who both do not have Force abilities, can also start and stop Hyperdrive whilst navigating difficult obstacles.
When piloting in Hyperspace, Anakin Skywalker was able to stop Hyperspeed before the ship collided into a planet. Given the speed of the ship and the distance of the planet, Anakin must have been reacting at almost 60 times the speed of light.
Even outside of Hyperspace, characters have traversed these massive distances by themselves. Following his death, Emperor Palpatine as a Sith Spirit flew all the way from Endor to Exegol to take on a different form. Given the huge distance between the 2 locations, Palpatine must have been flying over 2000 times the speed of light.
Korra unfortunately does not have many FTL arguments going for her. The best cases she has are from Spirit Energy. While Spirit Energy being light-based is a bit questionable (see FAQs), Spirit Vaatu was able to create an aurora with his aura.
In physics, auroras are caused by the interaction between charged particles from Solar Wind and Earth’s Magnetic Field, causing particles to move at 35,000 km/s or about
11.7% the speed of light.
The fastest feat in the series would be from the Moon Spirit (yeah them again) for when Yue’s soul became the moon spirit and traveled back to the moon. This would need her to travel at
22.5% the speed of light.
Abilities:
Korra:
It is impossible to mention any Avatar character without mentioning their ability to bend the elements. It's their thing. As the Avatar, Korra has mastery over a good majority of the abilities displayed over the course of the franchise.
Chi:
Chi, or Qi, roots back to Ancient China in Traditional Chinese Martial Arts and Medicine. It shares many similar variations all over the world, such as Prana in Yoga and Indian Medicine.
Chi is the energy force of one's being that courses through them at all times to form a system. In Avatar, Chi is the basis of Bending. Bending any element in Avatar is to control Chi until it can be extended beyond the body to act with the environment. A strong enough connection to Chi allows one to connect to their surroundings, and even the universe as a whole. It empowers and protects the user, and has protected both Korra and Aang from Blood Bending.
Water Bending
Hydrokinesis
Based on Tai Chi.
This martial art focuses on fluidity and adaptability of one's movement to create a continuous complete attack, very much similar to the flowy movement of water.
As a bender born in the Southern Water Tribe, Korra first mastered the art of waterbending. Trained under Katara, Water Bending enables Korra complete control over the element of water.
With WaterBending, Korra can manipulate water into large water constructs, creating huge pillars and tendrils. She can form water waves and move across water.
She most commonly uses water to attack opponents, launching water projectiles at high speed to deliver high damage. She also often uses water to launch herself far distances, quickly closing into melee range.
Subtypes:
Ice, Snow & Steam Bending:
Water doesn't just come in the form of a liquid, but can also come in the form of snow or steam.
Most useful would be converting fluid water into strong solid ice, allowing her to slide over water, freeze objects in their place, and form sharp icicle projectiles.
A previous Avatar, Avatar Kyoshi, even managed to freeze internal organs. However, whether Korra would do this or even know how to do this is debatable.
Healing:
By channeling water as a catalyst, a Water Bender can redirect energy paths around the body, leaning into the idea of chi and internal energy flow that makes up the human condition. By concentrating more energy into a wounded area, the corresponding wound would proceed to heal at an accelerated rate.
Plant Bending:
Plants are 80% to 95% water, allowing waterbenders to control them to their will. Whilst Korra hasn't shown the ability to Plant Bend, her teacher Katara has shown fluent in the art of Plant Bending. It is probable that Korra has some ability to bend plants.
Spirit Bending:
Mass and Energy share a relationship, bonded by equation E = mc²; as Mass increases, Energy increases, and vice versa. Spirit Bending converts energy and mass into another form of mass and energy, allowing Korra to manipulate the energy of spirits.
Energy bending is a variation of healing from Water Bending. By manipulating Chi, Korra can purify and balance corrupted or imbalanced Spirits and return them to the Spirit World.
Blood Bending:
Blood is on average 51% water, hence meaning that Waterbenders can in theory bend blood. Described as enforcing one's will over another's person, whilst this technique is something that Korra should be able to learn, the technique has been long banned by Katara due to the questionable ethical nature of the form. I still thought it was worth mentioning.
Earth Bending:
Geokinesis
Based on Hung Gar.
This martial art conditions the user’s strength and power. It focuses on hard-hitting attacks that rely on stable stances. The more stable and rock solid you are, the harder your hits.
Following WaterBending, EarthBending is likely the second element that Korra mastered. After having mastered Earthbending in childhood, she would later train with Toph to further hone her skills, becoming an extraordinaire in EarthBending.
Korra is able to manipulate rocks to fire chunks of earth as projectiles, shake the ground to disorientate her foes, and lift and carry people into the air.
Earthbending lets her create shockwaves from attacking the ground, and rips apart large waves of concrete. She can also raise walls to block attacks and use stones to ensnare opponents.
Subtypes:
Sand, Mud & Lava Bending:
Mud, Sand and Lava all contain a concentration of materials that grant Earthbenders the ability to manipulate them to their will. While Korra has rarely done it, presumably due to never having needed to within the series, she should be able to have some control over rock-concentrated substances like mud and sand.
Metal Bending:
The subtype of earthbending that Korra uses the most is MetalBending. In Metal, there are fragments of unpurified crude earth still present within the metal. It is possible to manipulate the structure of metal by bending the crude earth still inside of the metal. Any Metal is at Korra's fingertips to bend, with the exception of Platinum, because Platinum is apparently too pure. Metalbenders can manipulate the properties of metal, making them sticky or changing their density, whilst still maintaining its strength.
Korra would become the first ever Avatar to learn and master Metalbending. Her precision over metal is strong enough for her to bend mercury out of the sweat pores of her skin.
Fire Bending
Pyrokinesis
Based on Northern Shaolin Kung Fu.
This martial art is known for its boldness. By using aggressive strikes and good area control, a user is able to channel high energy through their limbs, outputting high levels of fire-power.
The third element that Korra mastered is FireBending from Master FireBender Yim, and it quickly became her main form of bending for hand-to-hand combat.
Fire Bending is unique among the elements as it is the only bending form that generates the element rather than manipulating it from a natural source. The Chi reverses within the stomach can form fire outside the body which FireBenders use in vicious attacks. Given her brash nature, the art of Fire Bending is suited for Korra, and it is her most used form of bending.
Korra can unleash fire attacks from any part of her body, even through her mouth. She can create fireballs and cause massive explosions.
She can even form constructs of fire, such as dagger-like constructs for close quarters combat, or shield-like constructs to block against Water Bending attacks.
She has encircled opponents in a ring of fire, and has used fire bending to propel herself through the air at high speeds.
Subtypes:
Lightning Bending:
In physics, during a thunderstorm, when the clouds and the ground hold a large enough potential difference in electrical charges to overcome the capacitance of air, there is a mass discharge of these charges across the air that we come to know as Lightning. By separating the positive and negative energies in the air, there is a large difference between the two that needs to be balanced. When they are balanced, this generates lightning.
Korra can manipulate the energies in the air to bend lightning to her will. Lightning is incredibly potent in Avatar, being able to take down characters like Zuko and even Aang in the Avatar State in a single hit.
Air Bending:
Aerokinese
Based on Ba Gua Zhang.
The martial art focuses on a circular walking pattern, relying on a principle of calmness to improve situational awareness and formulate solutions. It is a defensive style that provides good maneuverability, allowing chances in one’s course of movement quickly to dodge attacks.
Airbending is the last element Korra learned, and it is the element that she is the worst in. Taught by the son of Avatar Aang, Tenzin, Air Bending revolves around maintaining Zen which clashes with Korra’s brash fiery personality. She still excels in Air Bending, but not as much compared to the first three elements that she learned since childhood.
She can fire powerful bursts of wind, create large tornado vortexes, and suffocate targets.
She can control the density of air to form air constructs from shields, cushions, spheres and scooters that can act defensively or offensively.
Subtype:
Flight:
By manipulating the Air around her, Korra can fly around in the air. She does this with the help of a Glider. She can also use vortexes to propel her through air, similar to how she does it with water.
Energy Bending:
Energy bending is the ability to bend life energy. It existed long before the Avatar, pre-dating the 4 Nations and even the other 4 elements. Energy Bending is done by manipulating another's Chi, which can be used to restore or permanently remove the person's bending abilities.
With Energy Bending, Korra is able to free souls trapped in the Spirit World, unlock her cosmic self and manifest it while meditating in the Tree of Time, and deflecting the Spirit Cannon and inadvertently creating a Spirit Portal.
Avatar State:
The Avatar can further draw energy from the Spirit of Light Vaatu to tap into the godly Avatar State. The Avatar State increases the Avatar's innate power immensely, further boosting the power of the world’s most powerful bender into a force greater than one can possibly imagine. She originally gained more abilities via the connection to her past lives, but following her past lives getting cut off, she can no longer use any abilities learnt by them. Instead, she has to learn them herself.
Gear:
Korra predominantly fights with her bending, but she does have a few pieces of equipment that may be useful. Her glider that allows her to fly through the air can also act as a staff.
She also has access to Metal Cables which she can use to whip opponents via Metal Bending. During her training, she used these metal cables to attack at long ranges. The Republic City Police commonly use these, and could even swing around with them, similar to Spider-man's web slinging.
Resistances:
Korra has defenses against Blood Bending thanks to her Chi, which also protects her from Spirit Bending. Korra should also be immune to strong illusions, such as with Jetsun who is able to resist the effects of the Fog of Lost Souls which drives people mad and leaves them in a catatonic state, simply due to her spiritual nature.
Rey:
Rey is currently standing as the lead Jedi in the Resistance, and is one of the strongest people alive when it comes to the Force. The Force doesn't just give someone power, it gives them a plethora of abilities to go alongside it.
The Force:
Just as how all Bending stems from Chi in Avatar, (most of) all supernatural abilities in Star Wars stem from the Force. The Force is a cosmic energy field powered by life that binds the universe together across space-times. It connects dualities, such as life & death, or light & dark, yet also transcends them. The Force stems from life, and thus resides in all life forms. By tapping into this endless energy pool, one can become near unstoppable.
The strength of a Force connection is linked to midichlorians; microscopic intelligent lifeforms with a symbiotic relationship with the Force. Individuals with high concentration of midichlorians are deemed Force-sensitive, and have a far easier time tapping into the Force. Her body having a high amount of midichlorians, combined with being the daughter of the most powerful Sith in existence, makes Rey naturally gifted in the Force.
Force Abilities:
The Force offers their user more than just powers. It also gives their user access to a colorful range of abilities — some of which needs to be trained, some of which occurs passively.
Telekinesis:
The Force's most iconic ability is the ability to move objects with one's own mind. With it, Rey can enemies around like toys, throw her lightsaber like a boomerang, and use it on herself to levitate in the air and survive long falls. She can also lift large objects, like ships or debris, as shown above.
She can also use telekinesis to perform “Force Statis”. Force Stasis refers to holding an object, enemy or attack in place –either for a quick defense or a debilitating offense. She has used it to block Lightsaber strikes from Kylo Ren.
Other than stopping others from moving, Rey can stop others from moving her through immovability. Darth Vader and Palpatine were able to hold themselves in place with the Force, even when their ship was being blasted away and tumbling for tens of kilometers.
Jedi Mind Tricks:
The famous Jedi Mind Trick allows a Jedi to forcibly manipulate the mind of another being, making them do any action the Jedi wishes them to do. It's useful in getting out of sticky situations without resorting to violence, but can also be used in battle to daze and confuse enemies.
It is not unstoppable however, as other Force sensitive beings, a few alien species, and other strong-willed individuals can resist its effects. Some of the strongest minds can resist getting essentially mind-tortured by 3 of the strongest Jedi for extended periods of time.
(This has to be a meme reaction, please)
Outside of forcing others to do things against their will, a Force user can Probe into their opponents mind. Rey uses this to sense others emotions, thoughts, and memories. In battle, she can use her mind probing to throw “images” at her opponent, making them see hallucinations.
Force Amplification:
The Force can also boast one’s physicality. Depending on what the user invokes, it can make them stronger, faster, and have more stamina. Rey amplifies herself to make herself stronger, strike faster, control her landings, and jump large distances.
Force Sensing:
By tapping into the Force, Rey can increase her awareness of her surroundings. She can detect people from far away, both alive and dead, and sense others’ emotional states. She has used this against her opponents to sense when they drop their guard.
Her situational awareness increases to the point where blindfolds do not work on her, as her understanding of the surroundings from the Force can replace her vision.
In battle, Rey can expose enemies to her teammates, hide herself from radars, and increase her damage and stamina.
Force Sensing acts as a form of precognition, allowing her to predict her opponents next moves and instinctively counter them. However, it becomes less effective when Rey is fatigued or dealing with multiple attackers at once.
Other Rey abilities:
Rey has a few other abilities that she has shown, but they are not very applicable in a fight.
Psychometry is a specialized version of Force Visions where Rey can learn about the history of an object by simply touching it. It helps her learn critical information quickly.
(my guy is speaking in bar codes)
Rey learnt Force Healing from Luke Skywalker’s ancient Jedi texts. By transferring her life force to another individual, she can heal their wounds.
Whilst this sounds useful, Rey cannot heal herself. Inversely, Rey harms herself when healing other people, as it involves her giving a bit of her life energy to another person to heal their wounds rather than her own. There is a technique that involves taking others’ life energy and healing oneself with it, but that is explicitly only a Sith technique called “Life Drain”.
Other Force Abilities:
Outside of being trained by Luke Skywalker, Rey has also read through extensive portions of his sacred Jedi texts of countless teachings of Jedi throughout the ages. Similar to Korra with things such as Plant Bending, while we have never seen Rey pull these off, these relatively basic abilities should be within her knowledge.
Force Barriers protect the user from attacks with a tangible force field. They can defend against physical attacks, other force users, and even the vacuum of space.
Force Lightning:
As the daughter of Palpatine, Rey has also been able to use Force Lightning, an ability more so associated with the Dark Side of the Force. Described as the pure physical manifestation of force energy that is hotter than the sun, it is mainly used as an extremely strong offensive option; although it is not something that Rey likes to use, neither can she control well.
Oneness:
All the Jedi
In her final battle with Emperor Palpatine, Rey channels the power of all the previous Jedis to block Palpatine's lightning and redirect it back at him. The novelization refers to this powered up state as Oneness, which originates from Legends Lore. Outside of being a powered up states relating to her Jedi ancestors, very little is known about the Canon version of the form.
Gear:
Quarterstaff:
A metal stick that was Rey's main weapon choice at the beginning of her story. She can toss it like a projectile, spring off obstacles, disarm foes, spin around in place, or just smack things with. She later disassembles her quarterstaff to make her lightsaber.
Lightsaber:
A lightsaber is a true mark of a Force user. While Rey originally used lightsabers created by Luke and Leia, she would end up creating her own.
Lightsabers are made up of 5 main parts: the power cell, the casing, the focusing lens, the emitter and the kyber crystal at the center as its power source. Forged from a crystal that Rey repaired and part of Rey's old quarterstaff, a lightsaber can cut through basically anything.
NN-14 Blaster Pistol:
This may look like an ordinary pistol, but it may come to shock you that it is in fact an ordinary pistol. Gifted to her by Hana Solo, this laser pistol is her ranged weapon of choice. Don't be deceived, for it is deceptively powerful, strong enough to burst holes through solid rock walls.
Speeder:
An ungainly yet powerful repulsorlift vehicle which serves as Rey's primary form of transportation —until it got stolen. Despite its top-heaviness and being made out of scavenged parts, it is fast and powerful. It can travel at a top speed of 420 kph, making it faster than the fastest F1 cars.
Resistances:
The Force doesn't just give Rey a bunch of abilities, it also gives her resistances to other's abilities. For instance, Rey has shown great resistance to electricity, being able to recover quickly from lightning from Palpatine and shocks from a stun baton.
Rey, outside of being able to use Force telekinesis, is resistant against Force telekinesis. Amatuer padawans are taught how to counter Force telekinesis even before gaining a lightsaber. Rey should also have defenses for her mind and soul. Through raw willpower, Sith Lords such as Bane were able to resist the influence of the Valley of the Jedi as it attempted to attack his mind and ensnare his spirit within the nexus.
Following up on Rey's resistance to Soul Manipulation, by harnessing the Force around him, Anakin learnt to become completely immune to the Dark Reapers's effects. The Dark reaper is able to remove the Force from one's soul, regardless of whether they were Force-sensitive or not.
Jedi also can resist Matter Manipulation, specifically from Force Lightning, which entirely can disintegrate people to atoms —to the point where they have “never existed”.
Counters:
For as lethal as Rey's lightsaber is, Korra has two very good counters for it. Metal Bending would easily undo the metal in the lightsaber, making it non-functional. She might even be able to shift the Focusing Array in a lightsaber (the thing that focuses the energy of a powercell into a lightsaber blade) to cause the lightsaber to implode. Alternatively, she could use Energy Bending to harness the blade against Rey herself.
The Jedi Mind Trick can be countered by strong-willed individuals, which Korra is. The Jedi Mind Trick has to be used in great effort in order for it to have risky effects on the mind of the affected person, meaning that Rey would have to put in great effort if she uses the Jedi Mind Trick on Korra to any successful degree. Even then, characters like Tenzin were able to overcome the Fog of Lost Souls, which left its victims in catatonic states forced to relive their worst memories. Korra should be immune to Jedi Mind Tricks, including hallucinations or “image” throwing.
Korra's Mind Resistance >
Fog of Lost Souls ~=
The Jedi Mind Trick at high effort >
The standard Jedi Mind Trick Rey uses.
Korra's healing can heal herself, whilst Rey's cannot. Through Energy Bending, Korra could potentially tap into a small portion of the Force to amplify her own powers. (See FAQs)
Rey's resistance to Force Telekinesis and Matter Manipulation likely allows her to resist most forms of Bending —given that she has enough power to do so. It is also more versatile than Bending. Hydrokinesis, Pyrokinesis, Geokinesis, etcetera are all subsets of Telekinesis as a whole, so none of it would be something that Rey has never encountered before.
Her Telekinesis is more precise than Korra's Bending. Korra's Bending has only been shown to work down to a precision of about 50 micrometers in diameter, via Metal bending through her skin pores. Rey's Telekinesis should be as precise as Palpatine's Lightning, which can work on the atomic level: smallest ranging to about 30 picometers in diameter. That is millions of times smaller than what Korra should be able to do. Even assuming that Korra can manipulate to the molecular level, a water molecule is 0.27 nanometres in diameter —500 times smaller.
She is also immune to suffocation through Force Fields, which allows her to breathe in space.
Tertiary factors:
Korra infamously is very skilled, and is innately proficient in martial arts. At the age of 4, she was able to bend 3 out of the 4 elements, a feat that few have been able to achieve within their lifetime. She is skilled enough to take on multiple skilled Benders all at once even without her bending.
She has been trained by martial art experts such as Toph and Katara, who have become legendary from their adventures with Avatar Aang. She is also one of the few avatars to have learnt the more esoteric bending skills, such as Spirit and Metal bending.
She is also the only Avatar to have fought against a Dark Avatar, someone of equal power to her. Her skills and experiences are matched by very few.
Despite not having any prior training, Rey has shown impressive skill, being able to keep up with Kylo Ren. She only became more skilled after training under Luke Skywalker, and would eventually defeat Emperor Palpatine. Rey has shown remarkable intelligence, being able to make her own speeder and fix Anakin's broken lightsaber.
Lightsaber combat has various fighting styles, each with their pros and cons. While Rey does not have a specific style that she was taught, her style most closely leans to Shien and Djem So, Form V. This form is based on having a strong defense and an offensive counteracts catching their opponents while switching from offensive to defensive and taking them out.
Despite her training under Luke Skywalker, Rey has shown that is still a solid tier below the masters of Star Wars. Her aggressive fighting style is countered by more experienced and skilled fighters such as Luke Skywalker or even Kylo Ren.
Weaknesses:
Korra can be very hot-headed and brash, which often leads her into sticky situations when she is not paying attention. She can get lost in the fight and lose sight of overarching goals or lose situational awareness.
Korra is also one of the only Avatars to not have a connection to the past Avatars, meaning she will not be able to tap into their guidance. Even as the Avatar, Korra is still a bender, and follows universal Bender rules. For instance, Bending requires a lot of movement of the body in order to achieve the desired outcome. For Air Bending, light calm movements are needed; for Earth Bending, strong rigid movements are needed. Without this, bending becomes exponentially harder.
All elements, with the exception of fire, need to be present in order to be bent. If separated from a source of water, fire, or air, Korra would not be able to call upon those elements.
Rey can be hot-headed and brash, which often leaves her vulnerable to more skilled fighters who can capitalize on her openings. Kylo Ren in their final battle fought Rey with a passive calm demeanor whilst Rey was angry and aggressive, and hence did exceptionally well.
Tapping into the Force is taxing, especially when using more power. Rey has been shown to struggle to use things such as Force Precognition when under fatigue from the Force, which means she is unlikely to excel in a battle of attrition. Oneness too shares the same problem as it involves taking a large amount of energy from the Force, which has been shown to kill Rey before.
Jedi are still human without their Force abilities. When not in use, most of the offensive abilities do not work passively. Jedi, when they are off-guard, are more squishy and have far lower durability. This can cause them to be injured by regular blaster fire despite them having taken far more punishment in the past, simply due to being unprepared.
FAQs:
All the Jedi & All of the Avatars:
Korra and Rey have been able to draw power from all of their ancestors before them to exponentially increase their might: Rey has tapped into the energy of all the Jedi, and Korra has tapped into the experiences of all the Avatars. However, whether they would be able to gain access to the aid from the past generations of heroes during the fight is questionable.
For Korra, it is pretty clear cut that she should not be able to tap into the past lives of the Avatars. She technically did have a version of the Avatar State whereby she could learn from the experiences of the past Avatars, but following serious damage to Raava from Unalaq, all the previous lives would be erased from the spirit. Korra even after refusing with Ravaa was not able to retrieve back those previous lives. She would still be able to obtain the same levels of power from Ravaa, but she likely cannot learn from the centuries of experience from the past Avatars during the fight.
For Rey, she has a slightly stronger case going for her. After having her power drained by Palpatine, she calls upon all the spirits of all of the Jedi of yesteryear to give her strength and defeat Emperor Palpatine seemingly for good. While she has only done this once in a dire situation, there technically is not anything that implies that she would be unable to do it again. At the beginning of the Rise of Skywalker, we see Rey trying, albeit failing, to call out to the Jedi. In theory, she might be able to summon them again should the occasion arise. It is difficult to say for sure as little detail is given, even in the novelisation version.
That being said, calling upon all the Jedi —outside of the momentary power boast she gains— likely would have little effect on the actual fight. The amount of strain it puts on Rey is suicide for her, and we see Rey die from the strain after defeating Palpatine.
The Moon Spirit:
The Moon Spirit Tui, despite her limited appearances, is one of the most influential characters in power scaling Avatar, as she is responsible for both the strongest feat and the fastest feat in the series. She controls the rise and fall of the moon, which is a celestial body. Naturally this elevates the entire verse to another tier, so she is worth a deeper analysis.
The Moon Spirit is the personification of the moon, and represents herself on Earth in the form of a small fish-like entity. Avatar has always been unclear about the exact nature of spirits, with some spirits like Ravaa and Vaatu representing light and darkness, while some spirits seem rather purposeless. The Moon Spirit appears to be the former as the embodiment of the moon; not only does she control the rise and fall of the moon, but her life is also linked to the survival of the moon. When she dies, the moon is destroyed. This is seen in practice, as when Zhao killed the Moon Spirit, the moon disappeared.
For Power, the main issue is how Korra would scale to the destruction of the moon. The Moon Spirit, while having control of the massive rock revolving in the sky, has rather poor physicals. As a weak measly fish, Zhao easily killed her with a single rogue fire blast. Unless Zhao’s small fire blast is causally one-shotting the moon, it is unlikely that any of the main cast outside of the Avatars remotely scale to the energy needed to destroy the moon —at least not by scaling physically.
The stronger argument is from scaling to Ravaa herself. Ravaa and Vaatu are the strongest spirits, and both of them should solidly be above the Moon Spirit. While the manner of how Tui causes the rise and fall of the Moon is never made clear (be it through raw attack potency or special abilities), Ravaa and correspondingly Avatar State Korra should scale above that. ~32.6 Exatons of TNT
For Speed, Princess Yue after becoming the Moon Spirit seemingly ascends to the Moon. This could arguably be Yue ascending metaphorically ascending into the Spirit Realm rather than actually going to the moon, but in subsequent appearances of Yue, we see her moving back and forth from the Moon in the Spirit World. ~22.0% Light Speed
Spirit Lights:
When looking for speed feats, dodging beams of light is a very common occurrence in fiction to point towards for incredibly high speeds. In Avatar's case, the lightspeed arguments come in the form of Spirit Energy. As the name suggests, Spirit Energy is the energy produced by spirits —which can include massive columns of light such as Spirit Portals, to the passive light that emanates off the Avatar when in the Avatar State.
However, not every rouge laser is made of light, or travels at light speed. In order to prove that an energy blast is light speed, it must either:
Be stated to be lightspeed.
Follow enough properties of light to be considered light.
In the case of Spirit Energy, whilst it is not stated to be light speed, it follows many of the fundamental properties of light. For instance, it travels in straight lines and displays refraction. It diffuses and lights up the surrounding area when being emitted.
It is also referred to as light by characters and the writers, which backs up the claim further.
It is also called a laser by Varrick. He is credible as he is a highly intelligent scientist who invented the first motion picture projector, which heavily involves the refraction of light.
It does have some disqualifiers that potentially tank the credibility of Spirit Energy being light, however most can be potentially explained off in some way mostly due to the extremely weird and complicated properties of light.
For example, Colossus's laser is shown bending. However, light can naturally bend under a magnetic field by messing with magnetic polarity due to the Faraday effect. Spirit Bending does involve manipulation of magnetic fields, and energy from Spirit Vines (which is the power source of Colossus's laser) are harvested via electromagnetism.
Spirit Energy also gives off force, which is atypical to the properties of light, as light is made of photons which have no mass and hence no force. Spirit Energy's mass is what enabled Korra to deflect it in the first place. However, this can possibly be explained through the full relativistic formula for energy: E² = m²c² + p², where m is mass, c is the speed of light, and p is momentum.
Whilst the mass of a photon is 0, there is still energy from a photon, which could explain Spirit Energy having force. It could also be explained by how photons (whilst not having mass under normal conditions) have mass when traveling at relativistic speeds?
The Colossus cannon also cause explosions, which isn't explainable by any property of light.
Overall, whether Spirit Energy has demonstrated enough properties of light to move at light speed is up to interpretation and how strict you are on what you buy. Honestly, all of light's quirky properties are some high level university knowledge that I simply do not have, and hence cannot give a definitive answer on.
However, what is unarguable is Spirit Energy forming aurora compositions, such as Aang’s reawakening or the Northern Spirit Portal opening. The Spirit Energy trailed off in auroras, which in physics are caused by ribbons of light weaving across the Earth's Northern or Southern Polar Regions. They are caused by magnetic storms which send particles in Earth's magnetosphere at high speeds. When these particles seep into our magnetosphere, they slam into our atmosphere to glow off light. In order to produce a similar effect, Spirit Energy has to be moving about 11% the speed of light.
Firebenders moving the Sun?
Avatar scaling really does cause a lot of problems, don’t they?
In the Reckoning of Roku Novel, when the Benders were amped a thousand fold by the presence of a spirit, they were able to do remarkable things. As shown below, this includes manipulating the weather, controlling natural disasters, and moving massive land masses.
Most of these line up decently well with the statistics calculated for the average Bender. Taking the energy of a standard Water Bender from the instance of them freezing ice to stop a ship, and then multiplying that by 1,000, that gets to about 10 Megatons of TNT.
The Atlantic Oceanographic & Meteorological Laboratory from the U.S. Department of Commerce officially states the energy released from a natural disaster such as a hurricane typically yields about 600 Trillion Watts or 143 Kilotons of TNT.
A strong storm over a large city such as New York City would yield similar amounts at around 3 Megatons of TNT.
Both of which should be pretty well within even a single Bender's range of power given what has been calculated. If we use Aang splitting a mountain in his sleep as a baseline instead, a standard Bender would be able to output about 1.36 Gigaton of TNT, which would not make islands not too far-fetched.
The one that stands out are the Firebenders, who can supposedly:
The energy change of the course of orbit of the sun would be about 9.615 tenatons, about enough energy to destroy a Small Star.
However, it is pretty clear-cut to say that this is probably a hyperbole. It is a statement made to convey the growth in power of the Benders —and as in nature with the Novel medium— gives no illustration to back up such claims. This is already several million times greater than the Moon-Level feat, and several quadrillion times greater than anything else in the series. It doesn't help that it is also the oddball in the book. When Water benders and Earth Benders are moving clouds and islands, Fire Benders are moving the literal entire sun. It's quite an anomaly.
Fire Benders do get their powers from the sun, and lose their powers in the event of a solar eclipse, but they do not power themselves from the sun. They only draw power from the sun to fuel their own fire manipulation, not manipulate the sun’s own heat to make fire. It is similar to the Water Benders, where they draw power from the moon, but they do not manipulate the moon itself.
Besides, it is made pretty clear that manipulating energy on a cosmic scale is quite exclusively a thing that only the Avatar can do. Fire Benders, even ones that are increased by power by a thousand fold, still wouldn't gain such an ability.
This feat of the Fire Benders moving the Sun is likely not applicable.
Force VS Chi:
The Force is modeled after Chi, and hence share many similarities. Both Force and Chi revolve around the idea of life force existing in every single thing and being. It flows through everything: every spirit and every soul. By protecting that internal energy, one can move matter with their mind, control their soul, and connect with their surroundings. They function on very similar energy systems as well; characters like Aang or Luke Skywalker who have a stronger connection with life force would have a stronger control over life force.
However, the difference is how this life energy is brought about. Chi in Avatar is very in line with traditional Chi beliefs, whereby life energy comes internally from the spirit flowing through the body like how blood and water flows through our body.
The Force in Star Wars has life energy coming externally. The Force flows through all of everything, and it surrounds all living beings. It comes primarily from midichlorians, which are the building blocks of life.
Relevant to this fight, Korra would not be able to remove Rey's force abilities with Energy Bending. Chi works differently from the Force in the sense that Chi stems from each individual and comes from internal sources of energy, while the Force stems from a universal source of energy.
Chi would be akin to a sink where one has their own private supply of water that they draw upon.
Force would be akin to a large pool of water where everyone draws buckets from.
While Energy Bending can “cut off” the internal Chi that Benders draw upon, it would not be able to cut off external Force energy that Rey borrows power from. However, Korra may be able to tap upon Force energy herself, due to the similar energy systems that the Force and Chi follow.
Final Verdict:
Korra:
+ More skilled and experienced
+ More battlefield control
+ Has more gear overall
+ Is more versatile, but…..
+ Theoretically massively more experienced…
+ Can potentially tap into the Force
+ Not a bad character, y'all are just mean
+ One of the first LGBTQ+ representatives in Cartoon Network
+ Jeremy Zuckerman’s score is fire
= Intelligence
- …her abilities get countered heavily
- …but she lost that along with her connection to past Avatars
- More susceptible to being restrained
Rey:
+ Much stronger, faster, and more powerful
+ Has better Win Conditions
+ Her lightsaber is lethal…
+ The Force counters a majority of Korra’s abilities
+ Can still theoretically tap into Oneness…
+ John Williams’s score is fire.
= Experience
- …but it can likely be destroyed easily
- …but it is highly situational, and rather useless
- Mary Sue, but at least Kylo Ren was good
For the most part, Korra actually has the majority of advantages here. She has better training, with more intimate knowledge of martial arts compared to Rey. She is also definitely more experienced than Rey, and is more disciplined in bending than Rey is with the force. This makes Korra a lot more versatile, since while Rey is only limited to a few elementary abilities, Korra has shown multiple advanced bending techniques. Combined with her superior movement, she likely has better control over the battlefield.
If it was up to that alone,
Korra would easily be superior.
However, whilst Korra’s advantages are more plentiful, Rey's advantages are more game changing. There are 2 insurmountable factors that Rey has in her corner that Korra cannot overcome:
Rey’s superior statistics, and;
The Force’s passive resistances.
It is clear cut that Korra even at her best pales in comparison to Rey in terms of raw power. Being generous to Korra, Korra could potentially destroy objects as large as the moon via scaling off the Moon Spirit Tui, getting around 30 Exatons of TNT. However, even in the Disney Canon, Jedi on the tier of Rey are constantly being compared to planetary levels of destruction. The Death Star, the infamous ball with a planet-destroying laser, is established twice over to be inferior to the power of the force when channeled through Darth Vader. This is a relatively normal thing, with Darth Vader scaling to enough Kyber Crystals to power over a thousand ships, each one of which can blow up planets.
Even assuming the worst that Rey does not scale to Darth Vader, she most certainly is an equal to Kylo Ren; he meanwhile is referred to as the First Order's Ultimate Weapon when there is a literal laser in their arsenal that can destroy multiple planets with ease and drains half the power of a star to even fire, yielding 11 Foe of energy. The Starkiller Base’s energy output would be over a million billion billion times the energy it takes to destroy the moon.
Rey is also faster as well. Korra is no slouch, with her as well as other characters in her series consistently reacting to lightning. However, Star Wars characters have done the same. Lightning in Avatar is treated similarly to how Star Wars characters treat light. Star Wars have on multiple instances reacted to light-based attacks, and piloted light-speed ships whilst actively dodging debris. Even without Hyperspace, Force Spirits are able to move at thousands of times the speed of light, vastly superior to anything Korra has reacted to —even if we give Korra relativistic scaling.
With that big a difference in statistics, Korra would be on the backfoot. Being a more skilled and experienced fighter doesn't equate to much when your opponent is too fast for you to see and too strong for you to injure. Most of her bending and extra abilities are made useless by the fact that they aren't powerful enough to do meaningful damage against Rey. It also means that Rey can overpower most of Korra's abilities in spite of her novice force skills simply due to the power gap.
This is especially applicable in restriction techniques: Force Stasis and Bending. Rey needs little movement in order to use the Force. Combined with her power, Rey can easily break free from being trapped simply by opening the palm of her hand. Korra may be the Avatar, but her bending still requires a lot of movement, concentration and flow —meaning that if Rey restrains her, there is very little that Korra can actually do to escape outside of relying on the power of her own chi, which in this case isn't enough.
From that alone, a majority of Korra’s advantages become insignificant due to being unable to bypass the gap in speed and power. Being more skilled is good and all, but it hardly means much when your opponent is too fast to hit and too durable to injure. It is left up to Korra’s special abilities to secure a victory. That’s where the Force’s passive abilities and resistances come in.
Bending the 4 elements plus more is really cool, but telekinesis that can affect anything is simply a better form of that. The Force’s telekinesis is stronger than and more precise than Bending, which counters even the more advanced bending techniques such as Metal Bending and Lightning Bending; not even Blood Bending is as precise as the Force. The Force’s passive defenses would prevent Rey from being forcibly moved into the Spirit Realm, and also defend against Spirit Manipulation. Due to how the Force works, it is unlikely that Korra is able to remove the Force from Rey via Energy bending either.
That is not to say that Korra doesn’t have abilities that would work on Rey. Both Metal Bending and Energy Bending can likely nullify the lightsaber, either by manipulating the handle or manipulating the beam itself. Additionally, Korra’s energy bending, while it is likely unable to remove Rey’s powers, can allow her to access a small portion of the Force, which may help close the gap. However, looking at the big picture, Rey’s win conditions are better.
Korra is relying on either luck, or slowly wearing Rey until the gap is closed —which may ultimately be a fruitless effort. The power difference means that Rey only needs one good shot to take down Korra, and her speed advantage means that if she gets the chance, there is a high probability that she gets that winning shot off.
Korra’s skill, experience and tenacity would put up a hard fight, but Rey’s raw power and speed with the Force behind her back would ultimately emerge victorious against the Avatar.
Next time:
Alright….hear me out.
“A Super Villian!”
Megamind VS Gru
( Megamind VS Descpicable Me )
Final Comments:
Dedicated to a friend, you know who you are. <3
I hope you enjoyed the blog, even though your preferred character lost. Hope to see you soon.
Happy belated birthday!
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