THEORY TIME:

in Avatar: The Last Airbender I think that different avatars struggle with different elements NOT because an element is their “elemental opposite” (i.e. water and fire, earth and air) but I think instead it has to do with their nature as a person. I haven’t read the comics or watched Korra in a while so idk if this is like real or not but bear with me.

anyways point is roku struggled with water (elemental opposite), aang struggles with earth (elemental opposite), but korra struggles with…air??? That doesn’t make sense, her elemental opposite is fire, so shouldn’t she struggle with that?

That’s why I think it has to do more with NATURE/PERSONALITY than ELEMENTAL OPPOSITES.

Korra is a headstrong person, so it makes sense that she would struggle with air as it has to do a lot with detaching yourself from the world. Multiple times in the show it states that the best air benders have done this, and even though the avatar can’t it still is a fundamental part of the mentality of air bending. It makes sense that it would be hard for her because she gets frustrated when she can’t do it, since everything else came so easy to her. But this frustration is WHY she has a hard time doing it. Air is something you have to have the patience and dedication to master, not that korra doesn’t have this as she eventually is able to master it, but it’s why it was harder for her.

Aang has a hard time with earth bc it’s almost the opposite of that. Aang isn’t a headstrong person and he often doesn’t fight in the offensive. Air bending from what we’ve seen of it seems to be more reactionary, where as earth bending is very much a strike first kind of element. The reason why aang needed a teacher like toph (someone who waited a listened) was because that was as close to air bending philosophies that he was going to get in an earth bending teacher. Because of her methods he’s able to master it but because earth bending goes against his nature of acting on the defensive it was very hard for him.

Finally roku. I honestly don’t know that much about him (again haven’t read comics) but from what I’ve seen of him he seems to be reluctant to act. While this is disminishing him to his fatal flaw, if it affects him that greatly, it must be a crucial part of him. Water bending, to me seems like an element that by definition is all about flow. Yue says that water benders learned water bending by watching the moon push and pull the tides and copying this. If the moon stops, or hesitates, it would throw the world out of balance. Because roku is someone who is more hesitant to make decisions, water was a difficult element for him.

if I forgot anything important pls lemme know but I think that this is super interesting to think abt/consider