Of course it doesn't, how it's consistently presented in Korra does. It's akin to the Plinkett review of StarWars Episode I when talking about how slow burn politics and political discourse made for poor childrens entertainment, and LoK has that in spades over AtlA.
There's nothing in the background about politics in LoK, Politics is to LoK as the 100 year war is to AtlA, it's the reason for everything that happens. Amon and his brother are entirely political, where as the Firelord is not. Amon is a political terrorist and his brother is a council member and all of the events of the show are because of their political maneuverings. Korra wouldn't be in Republic city if it wasn't for Amon fermenting the equalizer movement.
What's in the background is the affect of bender's being oppressive against non-benders in relation to the politics. We never see any of this stuff stuff that Amon and Tarrlok are fighting for and against, so it's in the background. It's consistently portrayed poorly in LoK, while it's treated much more seriously in ATLA.
Again this comes down to portrayal. Blood bending is portrayed as even more disturbing in LoK than it was in AtlA and has a greater emphasis in the story than Blood Bending did after its introduction in AtlA. They never would have shown a human being contorting in AtlA the way Aang was when he confronted Amon's father. The intended effect was to make it seem like Aang was seconds away from being torn apart, which is why he entered the Avatar state. We never see blood bending pushed that far in AtlA.
This obviously does not show the contortions but it's the closest I could get. Even how Toff is blood bent, the way her head is (or rather isn't) manipulated as she hands over the keys is pretty unsettling.
Also when you mention genocide, it's coming from a line from the most 2 dimensional villain evil mc badguy in the series. Amon has more to him than the Firelord ever did and we actually see Amon carryign trough on his own genocide, where as it's only mentioned in AtlA once or twice amid other things. So again how things are presented is important. And yeah I like the bloodline plot, but it was one of many focuses of the show, and I wasn't arguing that AtlA didn't end up having a lot of political threads in it.
They showed a human being contorted as much as Hama was by Katara. It's not any darker.
What are you talking about? Genocide of the airbenders is what the entirety of ATLA started upon. Ozai planning to wipe out the Earthbenders is an addition to that. Amon isn't any more three dimensional than Ozai or Sozin was.
How do you define maturity beyond 'I like these characters more, ergo'?
Because I'm struggling to see it. AtlA relied on the tired trope of having a character acting out like a child for the most immature of reasons (not that we can blame them completely, they were like 12). Then of course the rest of the group would ostracize them for a completely obvious misunderstanding and there would be a forced and predictable reconciliation.
This was like, at least, -a third- of the entire series and it got really old by the end. I certainly wouldn't call that maturity.
And how refreshing was it to see Asami Sato not wring her hands or monologue or spend episodes being excessive moody over her father? It was great when she simply said 'I love you dad' and defied the trope all the way through despite her problems with Mako (that were likewise not over emphasized). That's maturity. Bolin and the group quickly getting over their love triangle and coming together as a team? That's maturity.
Korra 'getting what she wants all the time' isn't a lack of maturity, it just denies her another moment to demonstrate maturity. Yes, Korra did act immature with the whole Mako thing, but she backed off and it wasn't until the end when it came up again. Considering she spent her entire life being trained as the Avatar under lock and key, I think she turned out pretty ok.
Their situations are completely different. These are kids thrust upon on a journey to save the world and are forced to grow up quickly. Them acting out immaturely on occasion doesn't take away from all of the times they reacted as well they could during a war. Asami did react maturely. But that's the only instance. Bolin did not at all, what are you even talking about? He only gave up in the end after the three of them constantly bickered and continued sabotaging each other during the tournament. Korra having no moment to show her maturity is not an excuse for her to be immature. That doesn't even make any sense.
I'm making a point (that you agree with I guess) that characters, even central ones, don't have to undergo large transformations over the course of a story. Sometimes the narrative is the story as much as the characters in it.
It did happen though, at least the first part. She started heeding her masters advice for patience and strategy instead of just charging in all the time. She managed to start connecting to the spirit world because of everything she went through before that point, and finally being able to open up to other people and admit weakness was a part of that. Being able to actually sit down and meditate is something she refused to take seriously at the star of the series; it took everything that happened prior and getting locked in a box for her honestly try, but she did.
Now in terms of 'getting what she wants, I agree and I wish they hadn't done 'I love you', but this doesn't make her a bad character, just a lucky one. I would have loved it have Mako chosen Asami and have Korra come to terms with that and be happy for them.
It would have been a much stronger ending!
Yeah it took her getting locked in a box to attempt to be patient. And that's the only instance of it.
Yet he continues to be immature and act out for completely selfish reasons all the way to the end of the series. By the end of it the people I was watching it with consistently chastised Aang for being a twit. Aang is arguable at his most selfish at the end as the stakes continued to rise and that's not solely because he was struggling with the idea of killing the Firelord. A magic Sea Turtle saved the world, not Aang, and Aang got everything he wanted too.
So... eh?
It is not selfish to not want to take a life. The Lion Turtle gave him an out, but it was an extremely costly out if he failed. It relied on him being pure of spirit, which if he sacrificed what he believed in would have made him lose that ability. If you recall, he had Ozai in his sights with the redirection technique but chose not to. After that he was struggling on what to do and was afraid again. He wasn't handed any thing on a platter like Korra was with the airbending, the Avatar State and Energy bending. She is absolutely handed control over the Avatar State and energy bending when Aang had to struggle for those things. Even his learning of the bending arts were far more reasonable as he had to accept the thinking of those styles (going with the flow, standing your ground, letting your emotions fuel you). Korra exhibits non even a bit of airbending thinking in the end.
LoK is pretty similar to AtlA in that the majority of characters don't get a lot of development relative to the running time for each, 12 episode run or not. And further more I'd argue that it's not always necessary.
The principal characters in ATLA all had development throughout the series. That is not the case with LoK.