| “ | It's true that when Wan fused with Raava, he tipped the scales in her favor. But this time I'll be here to level the playing field. When Harmonic Converguence comes, I will fuse with Vaatu and together we will become the new Avatar. A Dark Avatar. Your era is over. | „ |
| ~ Unalaq's plan for "spiritual balance"/power. |
| “ | With you out of the way, I will be the one true avatar! (...) NO! | „ |
| ~ The Dark Avatar preparing to destroy his niece, Korra, and his last words before she destroys him. |
Unalaq is the main antagonist of Book Two: Spirits of The Legend of Korra, the sequel to Avatar: The Last Airbender.
He is the former chief of the Water Tribe who was obsessed with fusing with Vaatu to plunge the world into darkness and end it to give it a rebirth and create an Age of Darkness and Suffering as he and his successors rule over the world as gods. His actions resulted in his brother Tonraq's banishment, Korra's decade of being locked away in the south, a civil war between the water tribes, the severance of the Avatars' connection to their past lives, humans and spirits coexisting and the return of new airbenders to the world for the first time in almost. A sociopath focused on his ambition for personal power, Unalaq is arguably the most dangerous human in the entire franchise.
He was voiced by Adrian LaTourelle.
What Makes Him Pure Evil?[]
In General[]
- Unalaq was intended to be a showcase on "good intentions going too far" like with every other main villain in the series, but unlike them, whose good intentions remained genuine even with whatever selfish side to them is present, as the season goes on, it becomes more clear Unalaq's good intentions of "bringing spiritual unity" is an empty rhetoric and that he is nothing but a self-serving hypocrite that is willing to betray his own ideals, upset the balance he preaches to maintain, and even sacrifice his own humanity, all just to have power over everyone else and claim both the spirit and physical worlds as his own. To give a clearer picture on how superficial Unalaq's good intentions are, nearly all of the spiritual imbalance, the very thing Unalaq claims to fight against, that we even see in the modern day are all orchestrated by Unalaq for amassing personal power.
- While not as horribly abusive towards them like Ozai is to his children, it is clear Unalaq has no regard for his children, disregarding his daughter Eska's mental breakdown over her marriage going wrong or letting Desna succumb to near-fatal injuries in Unalaq's attempt at opening the Northern Spirit Portal going horribly wrong. He even criticizes the faults in Tonraq and Tenzin's parenting, making him a hypocrite since they are ultimately better fathers.
- While Wan Shi Tong claims Unalaq is a true friend to all spirits, Unalaq just has a superficial affinity with them, willing to betray and endanger spirits for his own gain, especially taking into account his manipulative nature and how easily fooled Wan Shi Tong is placing doubts on how true the statement is.
- His service to Vaatu is not out of genuine loyalty, but out of a fanatic obsession and as a convenient way to achieve his own ends (Though Vaatu joining forces with him is mutually pragmatic on his part too)
- Overall, Unalaq was so vile in life that nobody even misses him when he is gone, not even his own family, with the closest to even caring about his death being Korra who only felt regret having to destroy him to comfort her cousins, who themselves are more concerned with explaining to their mother about their situation than this, with Korra herself having more hallucinations of him being an evil sociopath. To show how bad it is, Ozai of all people (who even Unalaq's former comrades demonized & despised) got an entire secret society dedicated to restoring him to the throne in the sequel comics, while no one even thought about avenging Unalaq out of sheer disgust for his crimes.
Past[]
- Hired a Barbarian army to attack the Northern Water Tribe and have them hide in a spiritual forest to exploit his older brother's reckless behavior and destroy the forest, which were the homes of many spirits, and have the angered dark spirits into attacking the Northern Water Tribe and cause multiple damages, all simply out of envy over his brother's birthright as the crown prince of the tribe and sought to organize his exile to be next in line.
- Started the plot with the Order of the Red Lotus to kidnap his young niece, Avatar Korra, to open the spirit portals and release Vaatu, and it's implied by Korra herself to also be jealousy for Tonraq fathering the Avatar despite all his work to usurp his position as Chief.
- When the plot to indoctrinate her into their beliefs was foiled by Tonraq, Zuko, Tenzin, and Sokka, he backstabbed his allies and left them to rot in prison, even having built the prison for P'Li where she is left in constant freezing temperatures for the rest of her life, to cover his involvement with the failed attempt to kidnap Korra and pursue his goal of fusing with Vaatu to become the Dark Avatar. Unalaq's goals even earned the disgust from Zaheer, who dismisses his ambitions to fuse with Vaatu as self-centered in motivation.
- Because of the attempted kidnapping, he is the reason for Korra's emotional immaturity, as Tonraq and Tenzin decided to have her training stationed in the South under the security of the White Lotus rather than travel the world as previous Avatars had. He even hypocritically uses their action to turn Korra against them and prove himself a better mentor when he was actually responsible for her being isolated in the first place.
Book Two: Spirits[]
- Tortured multiple spirits using his spirit bending to exert dark energy around them, corrupting them into dark spirits and have them attack the Southern Water Tribe, framing the Southern Water Tribe's lack of spirituality for it to make an excuse for him to take over. As the season's very first scene shows, these attacks actually have human casualties.
- Waged a civil war against the Southern Water Tribe in order to ensure he can rule both tribes, in which he cuts off the Southern Water Tribe from the world.
- Trying to spitefully ruin his brother's life further, be it by trying to turn Korra against him or arranging for a rigged trial for Tonraq and sentence him to death for treason despite knowing he had nothing to do with the plot to assassinate him. He only spares him of a death sentence and has Senna pardoned simply to keep Korra at his side.
- Threatens to kill the preteen Jinora if Korra does not open the spirit portal for him, by corrupting her soul to the point of disintegration. Even after Korra complies and opens the Northern Spirit Portal, he tries to kill Korra anyway and condemns Jinora to the Fog of Lost Souls, where her soul will be eternally driven to insanity.
- He assaults the Southern Water Tribe and viciously beats down Tonraq to near death, only sparing his life so that he can watch him win and beat his daughter.
- His final goal is to fuse with Vaatu and become the Dark Avatar, forcing the planet to an apocalyptic age of ten thousand years of darkness and suffering as he ravages the material world and enslaves all that's left of human and spirit kind to rule both worlds. His goals erased any sort of respect from any person, be it family, ally or spirits who all remember him negatively for his goals.
- He rips Raava, the light counterpart of Vaatu right out of Korra, then destroyed the latter by brutally beating her into oblivion, this causes Korra to lose her connection to the all the past Avatars, including Aang, Roku, Kyoshi, Kuruk, Yangchen, Szeto, Salai, and finally Wan.
- While Raava gets restored and fuses with Korra again, the act leaves permanent repercussions as Korra's connection with her predecessors was severed for good.
- In order to enforce his reign, Unalaq disrupts the balance and tips it to his side to peak his own power, literally giving up his humanity in the process so he can usher in his draconian reign to both worlds.
- Attempts to destroy Republic City in order to begin his global rampage.
- Trying to corrupt Korra's soul to death for getting in his way.
Trivia[]
- Unalaq is the only main antagonist in Legend of Korra to be Pure Evil as Vaatu is Near Pure Evil due to moral agency issues while Amon, Zaheer, and Kuvira are Inconsistently Heinous due to being well-intentioned extremists in their goals, having sympathetic or redeeming qualities, being on and off, and/or ultimately redeeming themselves.
- Unalaq was supposed to be a well-intentioned extremist like many of the other antagonists were. However, poor writing in the show's second season made it seem like he was just a delusional power-hungry warmonger. If his anti-villainous nature had been written into the show, it would have prevented Unalaq from being Pure Evil.
- Some viewers believe Unalaq is not Pure Evil as there is a possibility that he was manipulated by Vaatu, much like the demon did to Wan ten millennia ago, by encountering him in a trip to the Spirit World, where Vaatu implored his aid for having been "wrongfully" imprisoned for ten thousand years. However, when he neglected Desna in his injured state and yelled at Eska, his blatant lack of morals became painfully obvious to virtually everyone. Others believe that he genuinely wanted spiritual unity and believed he could control Vaatu like any other dark spirit, but his hands teach us more about him than his lips, as in reality, he proclaims to bring forth an age of darkness so that he may reign supreme, as even Korra claims that he does not desire unity, only power, and even Zaheer, one of his closest allies with similar beliefs and ideals, claims likewise.
- He is a foil to Tenzin, Jinora, and Wan, who are all PG:
- He and Tenzin are leading authorities in their nations, powerful in the spirituality of their element. They are both related to an Avatar. Tenzin lacks a connection to the spirits while Unalaq did. Unalaq had low regard for his family and willing to use them as pawns or betray them wherein Tenzin truly loves and cares for his family and is protective of them. They also mentored Korra, but while Unalaq used her for his own ends, Tenzin guided her so she could be a better Avatar.
- He and Jinora have an affinity with the spirits, and have spiritually guided Korra. They also learn spiritual techniques in their bending element. Jinora cares for her younger siblings even though they have friction whilst Unalaq constantly schemes against his older brother Tonraq.
- Both have an affinity with spirits, though Wan's is out of genuine kinship rather than manipulation. Wan's natural element is fire while Unalaq's is water. Unalaq became the first and only Dark Avatar by fusing with Vaatu, a NPE, while Wan became the very first by fusing with Raava, a NPG. Wan made the well-intentioned mistake of closing the portals to prevent further strife between humans and spirits while Unalaq's plan of opening them was for his own ends; while Korra ultimately agrees with Unalaq on keeping the portals open and the Avatar shouldn't be a bridge, she defends Wan was well-intentioned in his actions.
- It is unknown if the 2025 new Earth Avatar series (100 years after Korra) may have lost all connection to all past avatars, other than Korra due to Unalaq annihilating all of the past Avatars.
External Links[]
- Unalaq on the Villains Wiki
- Unalaq on the Avatar Wiki
- Unalaq on the Scrappy Wiki
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 Pure Evils
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