Janet Varney and Dante Basco Have Advice for the Next Avatar

Dante Basco: I don’t know if I was prepared or not, but I already knew. I already went through the comics [which finally answered that question]. I was fine with that because I’m hip to the situation. 

Janet Varney: I think by that time [creators and showrunners] Mike DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko knew that answer was going to be very available. So they intentionally planted it in [the Korra premiere] as like a little tip of the hat.

Dante Basco: A little wink to the audience.

Obviously the podcast still has a lot to cover with Korra but, speaking of the comics, do you have any plans for how you’ll tackle them in the future? Could this possibly be a good chance to get an official radio play of those comics out there?

JV: Oooo, a radio play would be fun. Talking about the comics has definitely been something that we talked about from the beginning. It’s just a matter of timing and what the powers that be decide about the when’s and how’s of it all. But we’ve weaseled in as much as we can on the podcast with people like [comic writers] Faith Erin Hicks and Gene Luen Yang. We’ve been like “come to the podcast, let’s lay the groundwork.”

DB: A little radio play of the comics would be fun.

JV: We did one for “Turf Wars” during the pandemic with Seychelle Gabriel [Asami], Mindy Sterling [Lin Beifong], David Faustino [Mako], and P. J. Byrne [Bolin].

There needs to be a version that comes with the book and it says, “when you hear the firebending sounds, turn the page.”

DB: *firebending sounds*

JV: Jeff Bennett [Radio broadcaster in Korra] can do all the stage directions!

The just-announced Avatar: Seven Havens is set to be a sequel to Korra and will feature an Earthbender who discovers she’s the next Avatar. What advice do you two have to whoever ends up playing this new Avatar? 

JV: Get ready for a wild ride, my friend.

DB: Take it in stride. Have a good time on the journey. It’s a journey – the whole thing. You get to go through the show, the fanbase, and just being a part of this wonderful world.

Janet, do you what you were told when you were brought in to do Korra? Especially since you were coming into a franchise that already had a huge fan base. 

JV: When we had started recording, Sarah Noonan, who was heading up casting, grabbed me outside of Studio A, took me by the shoulders, looked deeply into my eyes and said, “Are you ready for your life to change?” I was like, “Sarah, I love you, but I’ve been told that before because it’s Hollywood.” Dante knows.

DB: Sometimes it’s yourself telling you that.

JV: So you get really good at pushing that into the background.

DB: You have to or we’d all be put away a long time ago.

JV: But Sarah was more right than anyone ever has been. Yes, my life is completely different and so much of my life is connected to this thing that she was dead-on about.

DB: No one told me that at all, not even Mike and Bryan. No one knew this was gonna happen the way it happened. It was like, “we’re doing a show. We all have done shows, so let’s just have a good time.” I don’t think anyone was prepared for it to be what it became. Truly.

Janet, due to events in – Foreshadow Report! – the Korra series, this new Avatar in Seven Havens is not going to have the ability to call on all the past Avatars. What do you think an Avatar will be like with only Korra to call on for advice?

JV: First of all, I just want to point out: it’s not Korra’s fault. I just wanna cover my bases. Let me just go ahead and remind everyone that losing that connection to the past Avatars was definitely not her fault. You wanna go ahead and blame someone? You can blame any number of people. You wanna blame Unalaq? Go for it. You wanna blame Vaatu? I welcome you to do so.

DB: Vaatu for sure. Vaatu has the biggest blame in this situation.

JV: At least Vaatu is …there has to be dark and light, right? But Unalaq? Gross ambition. Come on, guy.

DB: These shady Waterbenders out there. There’s all these nice Waterbenders but when there’s bad apples it’s very bad.

JV: Genuinely though: we don’t know any details about Seven Havens. Even if we did, we could not say!

Dante, maybe there could be another descendant of Zuko who sounds suspiciously like him.

JV: Who knew that was such a dominant trait?

DB: It’s such a dominant trait, it just happens in every generation. You talk about people reincarnating? That voice reincarnates every generation. If you get great grandpa’s voice? That means you’ve got to do something special in your life. Don’t squander that.

What are you both most excited for people to hear in this season of the podcast?

JV: Dante has been predicting what he thinks might happen. Every episode we revisit what he did predict for whatever Korra episode we’re watching and then we look to the future. I want to give you an extra shout out, buddy, because it’s not easy being wrong about something. But right after you found out you’re wrong about one prediction, now you have to make a new prediction about the episode. You showed up for that every time. It’s a decent track record.

What’s the hit-to-miss ratio?

DB: At least 50/50.

JV: It might not be 50/50… but, yeah, you know what? Let’s call it 50/50! 

DB: I’m excited for the whole audience to get into Korra again. It’s the 20th anniversary of Avatar and that’s amazing but going into revisiting (or for me, the first time) the Korra world in its entirety? It’s very fascinating to take a look at the Korra world in a new space and time. For fans of the podcast, they’ve seen me on the spot kind of defending Fire Nation for many years now. There are good folks in the Fire Nation!

Some have economic anxiety.

DB: Yeah, but I like to see Janet now a little bit on the hot seat. Not just Janet, I’m gonna have to throw the whole Water Tribe under that bus.

There are some evil Waterbenders in Korra! 

JV: What a gift we gave you. It’s like we made it for you.

DB: There’s a whole world thinking ill thoughts of the Fire Nation and I want to point the camera a little at the Water Tribe for a while.

JV: The whole Industrial Revolution thing has been so fun and great to dig into. It’s such a different piece to talk about with our guests. That setting is so rich and it’s something that we see the guests bringing up time and time again. It’s just an aspect of the show that really excites people because it’s closer to our technology. It opens up different perspectives from people on what is valuable about bending. I think it’s really fun to get into.

The newest season of Braving the Elements is now available wherever you get your podcasts.