BRYAN KONIETZKO

Since the first announcement of 'Korra' a few years ago, our fan presence online has just been huge and it's really active online. And as TV distribution evolves, even between 'Book 1' and 'Book 2,' it's evolved even more, our audience is increasingly online.

We're always striving to make Avatar look like a cinematic, live-action movie.

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.

We feel like we're kind of movie guys working in TV. So we're looking forward to that day when we get to work in that medium.

I'll just say that America - us included - has a long way to go to catch up with the animated work being done in a handful of countries, namely Japan.

It's hard to surprise people with everything leaking on the Internet.

'Avatar' means so many things to so many different people. When I think of the creation of it, I think of me and Mike at the computer in a little apartment in Burbank.

Mike and I are always drawn to the idea that there is light and dark inside every being, rather than the old two-dimensional trope of good versus evil.

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.

In an early version of the story, I thought Aang could shepherd a herd of twenty bison.

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.'

'Korra' is its own series. Obviously it's tied in, in the same world, a similar story, but it's not just 'Book Four' of 'The Last Airbender.'

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.

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

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

It is a long story how we finally ended up with the title simply being 'The Legend of Korra,' but in a poetic way, I think Korra's big Type A personality willed it to happen!

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.

I am certainly proud to add 'Korra' to the pantheon of TV characters, which is perpetually sorely lacking in multifaceted female characters who aren't sidekicks, subordinates or mere trophies for male characters.

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.

From the inception of this series, Mike and I were very interested in exploring the theme of tradition versus progress. We always like the struggle for balance to be a central theme of our stories, so as we introduce all of these changes to the 'Avatar' world, we get to see how people react and try to realign themselves.

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.

It wouldn't be the Avatarverse without some hairstyle changes, now would it?

We don't dwell on the business of Korra restoring everyone's bending in 'Book 2,' but we figured she got around to helping the innocent people who lost it in the months between the seasons.

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.

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.