title: Miranda Lambert

text: In May 2021, Lambert became the first female artist to open her own bar in the Lower Broadway entertainment district of downtown Nashville, Tennessee. Named Casa Rosa (Spanish for "Pink House") and opened in partnership with TC Restaurant Group, the 17,400-square-foot Tex-Mex-themed establishment features live music on three of its four stories, plus a rooftop bar, and is decked out in mostly pink decor and various memorabilia from Lambert's career (including the giant birdcage from the "Bluebird" music video). At the bar's opening night party on May 25, 2021, Lambert performed a duet of "Summer Nights" from "Grease" with her husband Brendan McLoughlin, amidst a star-studded lineup of performances from other country singers.


title: Miranda Lambert

text: Lambert also has her own clothing line titled "Idyllwind", a brand of wine with the "Red 55 Winery" imprint, and owns The Pink Pistol boutique in her hometown of Lindale, Texas.


title: Miranda Lambert

text: In 2009, Lambert opened MuttNation Foundation, with her mother, Bev. The organization focuses on rescue animals and shelters, and Lambert has been vocal about the cause being very close to her heart. The core issues MuttNation works on are:


title: Miranda Lambert

text: In 2017, in the wake of Hurricane Harvey's devastation, MuttNation rescued dozens of animals as a part of its emergency/natural disasters objective.


title: Miranda Lambert

text: In 2014, Lambert opened Redemption Ranch, a shelter in Tishomingo, Oklahoma, her adopted home town where she lived with Shelton.


title: Miranda Lambert

text: To support the foundation, Lambert released a line of pet products in 2019 that are sold inside Tractor Supply Company stores.


title: Miranda Lambert

text: In September 2022, MuttNation partnered with Greater Good Charities via the global nonprofit's GOODS Program to provide 2 million pet meals to help families going through economic challenges to stay with their beloved pets.


title: Miranda Lambert

text: In 2006, Lambert began dating singer Blake Shelton. They got engaged in May 2010 and were married on May 14, 2011 at the Don Strange Ranch in Boerne, Texas. On July 20, 2015, the couple announced that they were divorcing after four years of marriage.


title: Miranda Lambert

text: In December 2015, it was confirmed that Lambert was dating R&B singer Anderson East; they met at Nashville's Live on the Green Music Festival in September of that year. In 2016, Lambert paid $3.4 million for a 400-plus acre farm, with three residences, near Primm Springs, Tennessee. In April 2018, it was confirmed that Lambert and East had broken up months earlier after two years of dating. Lambert started dating Turnpike Troubadours frontman Evan Felker in February 2018. His estranged wife, Staci, has alleged that he left her suddenly to be with Lambert. They broke up in August 2018.


title: Miranda Lambert

text: On February 16, 2019, Lambert announced on social media that she married New York City Police Department Officer Brendan McLoughlin on January 26, 2019, in Davidson County, Tennessee.


title: Miranda Lambert

text: Lambert has nine tattoos of various objects and symbols, and the word "tumbleweed". In June 2019, she added a tattoo on her forearm for her marriage to McLoughlin.


title: Miranda Lambert

text: In April 2018, Lambert won the ACM Award for Female Vocalist of the Year for the ninth consecutive year, surpassing Reba McEntire as the most awarded in the category in 2017. In November 2015 she became the first woman to have won the Country Music Association Awards' Album of the Year twice. She has won three Grammy Awards out of twenty-five nominations. and was the 9th female artist in the show's history to win Entertainer of the Year at the 2022 ACM Awards.


title: Joe Cocker

text: John Robert "Joe" Cocker (20 May 1944 – 22 December 2014) was an English singer known for his gritty, bluesy voice and dynamic stage performances that featured expressive body movements. Most of his best known singles were recordings of songs written by other song writers, though he composed a number of songs for most of his albums as well, often in conjunction with songwriting partner Chris Stainton.


title: Joe Cocker

text: His first album featured a recording of the Beatles' "With a Little Help from My Friends", which brought him to near-instant stardom. The song reached number one in the UK in 1968, became a staple of his many live shows (Woodstock and the Isle of Wight in 1969, the Party at the Palace in 2002) and was also known as the theme song for the late 1980s American TV series "The Wonder Years". He continued his success with his second album, which included a second Beatles song: "She Came In Through the Bathroom Window". A hastily thrown together 1970 U.S. tour led to the live double-album "Mad Dogs & Englishmen", which featured an all-star band organized by Leon Russell. His 1974 recording of "You Are So Beautiful" reached number five in the U.S., and became his signature song. Cocker's best selling song was the U.S. number one "Up Where We Belong", a duet with Jennifer Warnes that earned a 1983 Grammy Award. He released a total of 22 studio albums over a 43-year recording career.


title: Joe Cocker

text: In 1993, Cocker was nominated for the Brit Award for Best British Male. He was awarded a bronze Sheffield Legends plaque in his hometown in 2007, and received an OBE the following year for services to music. Cocker was ranked number 97 on "Rolling Stone"s 100 greatest singers list.


title: Joe Cocker

text: Cocker was born on 20 May 1944 at 38 Tasker Road, Crookes, Sheffield. He was the youngest son of a civil servant, Harold Norman Cocker (1907–2001), at the time of his son's birth serving as an aircraftman in the Royal Air Force, and Madge (née Lee). According to differing family stories, Cocker received his nickname of Joe either from playing a childhood game called "Cowboy Joe", or from a local window cleaner named Joe.


title: Joe Cocker

text: Cocker's main musical influences growing up were Ray Charles and Lonnie Donegan. Cocker's first experience singing in public was at age 12 when his elder brother Victor invited him on stage to sing during a gig of his skiffle group. In 1960, along with three friends, Cocker formed his first group, the Cavaliers. For the group's first performance at a youth club, they were required to pay the price of admission before entering. The Cavaliers eventually broke up after a year and Cocker left school to become an apprentice gasfitter working for the East Midlands Gas Board, later British Gas Corporation, while simultaneously pursuing a career in music.


title: Joe Cocker

text: Cocker is not related to fellow Sheffield-born musician Jarvis Cocker, despite a rumour to this effect (particularly in Australia, where Jarvis Cocker's father, radio presenter Mac Cocker, allowed listeners to believe that he was Joe's brother), although Joe was a friend of the family and even did some babysitting for Jarvis when he was an infant.


title: Joe Cocker

text: In 1961, under the stage name Vance Arnold, Cocker continued his career with a new group, Vance Arnold and the Avengers. The name was a combination of Vince Everett, Elvis Presley's character in "Jailhouse Rock" (which Cocker misheard as Vance), and country singer Eddy Arnold. The group mostly played in the pubs of Sheffield, performing songs of Chuck Berry and Ray Charles songs. Cocker developed an interest in blues music and sought out recordings by John Lee Hooker, Muddy Waters, Lightnin' Hopkins and Howlin' Wolf. In 1963, they booked their first significant gig when they supported the Rolling Stones at Sheffield City Hall.


title: Joe Cocker

text: In 1964, Cocker signed a recording contract as a solo act with Decca and released his first single, a recording of the Beatles' "I'll Cry Instead" (with Big Jim Sullivan and Jimmy Page playing guitars). Despite extensive promotion from Decca lauding his youth and working-class roots, the record was a flop and his recording contract with Decca lapsed at the end of 1964. After Cocker recorded the single, he dropped his stage name and formed a new group, Joe Cocker's Blues Band. There is only one known recording of Joe Cocker's Blues Band on an EP given out by The Sheffield College during Rag Week and called "Rag Goes Mad at the Mojo".


title: Joe Cocker

text: In 1966, after a year-long hiatus from music, Cocker teamed up with Chris Stainton, whom he had met several years before, to form the Grease Band. The Grease Band was named after Cocker read an interview with jazz keyboardist Jimmy Smith, where Smith positively described another musician as "having a lot of grease." Like the Avengers, Cocker's group mostly played in pubs in and around Sheffield. The Grease Band came to the attention of Denny Cordell, the producer of Procol Harum, the Moody Blues and Georgie Fame. Cocker recorded the single "Marjorine" without the Grease Band for Cordell in a London studio. He then moved to London with Chris Stainton, and the Grease Band was dissolved. Cordell set Cocker up with a residency at the Marquee Club in London, and a "new" Grease Band was formed with Stainton and keyboardist Tommy Eyre.


title: Joe Cocker

text: In 1968, Cocker found commercial success with a rearrangement of "With a Little Help from My Friends", another Beatles song, which, many years later, was used as the opening theme for "The Wonder Years". The recording features lead guitar from Jimmy Page, drumming by B. J. Wilson, backing vocals from Sue and Sunny, and Tommy Eyre on organ. The single remained in the top ten of the UK Singles Chart for thirteen weeks before eventually reaching number one, on 9 November 1968. It also reached number 68 on the US charts.


title: Joe Cocker

text: The new touring line-up of Cocker's Grease Band featured Henry McCullough on lead guitar, who would go on to briefly play with McCartney's Wings. After touring the UK with the Who in autumn 1968 and Gene Pitney and Marmalade in early winter 1969, the Grease Band embarked on their first tour of the US in spring 1969. Cocker's album "With a Little Help from My Friends" was released soon after their arrival and made number 35 on the American charts, eventually going gold.


title: Joe Cocker

text: During his US tour, Cocker played at several large festivals, including the Newport Rock Festival and the Denver Pop Festival. In August, Denny Cordell heard about the planned concert in Woodstock, New York and convinced organiser Artie Kornfeld to book Cocker and the Grease Band for the Woodstock Festival. The group had to be flown into the festival by helicopter due to the large crowds. They performed several songs, including "Feelin' Alright?", "Something's Comin' On", "Let's Go Get Stoned", "I Shall Be Released" and "With a Little Help from My Friends". Cocker would later say that the experience was "like an eclipse ... it was a very special day."


title: Joe Cocker

text: Directly after Woodstock, Cocker released his second album, "Joe Cocker!" Impressed by his version of "With a Little Help from My Friends", Paul McCartney and George Harrison allowed Cocker to use their songs "She Came In Through the Bathroom Window" and "Something" for the album. Recorded during a break in touring in the spring and summer, the album reached number 11 on the US charts and garnered a second UK hit with the Leon Russell song, "Delta Lady".


title: Joe Cocker

text: In August 1969, Cocker performed at the Isle of Wight Festival at Wootton Bridge, Isle of Wight, England. Throughout 1969 he was featured on variety TV shows like "The Ed Sullivan Show" and "This Is Tom Jones". Onstage, he exhibited an idiosyncratic physical intensity, flailing his arms and playing air guitar. At the end of the year Cocker was unwilling to embark on another US tour, so he dissolved the Grease Band.


title: Joe Cocker

text: Despite Cocker's reluctance to venture out on the road again, an American tour had already been booked so he had to quickly form a new band in order to fulfill his contractual obligations. It proved to be a large group of more than 20 musicians, including pianist and bandleader Leon Russell, three drummers – Jim Gordon, Jim Keltner, and Chuck Blackwell, and backing vocalists Rita Coolidge and Claudia Lennear. Denny Cordell christened the new band "Mad Dogs & Englishmen", after the Noël Coward song of the same name (with its refrain, "Mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun"). Cocker's music evolved into a more bluesy type of rock, comparable to that of the Rolling Stones.


title: Joe Cocker

text: During the ensuing Mad Dogs & Englishmen tour (later described by drummer Jim Keltner as "a big, wild party"), Cocker toured 48 cities, recorded a live album, and received very positive reviews from "Time" and "Life" for his performances. However, the pace of the tour was exhausting. Russell and Cocker had personal problems; Cocker became depressed and began drinking excessively as the tour wound down in May 1970. Meanwhile, he enjoyed several chart entries in the United States with cover versions of "Feelin' Alright" (originally recorded by Traffic) and "Cry Me a River".


title: Joe Cocker

text: His version of the Box Tops' hit "The Letter", which appeared on the live album and film, "Mad Dogs & Englishmen", became his first US Top Ten hit. After spending several months in Los Angeles, Cocker returned home to Sheffield, where his family became increasingly concerned with his deteriorating physical and mental health. During this time, in periods between work, Cocker wrote the overture played by the UK Prime Minister Edward Heath on the occasion the Prime Minister famously conducted a live orchestra while in office. In the summer of 1971, A&M Records released the single "High Time We Went". This became a hit, reaching number 22 on the US "Billboard" Hot 100 chart, but was not issued on an album until November 1972 on the "Joe Cocker" album.


title: Joe Cocker

text: In early 1972, after nearly two years away from music, Cocker went on tour with a group that Chris Stainton had formed. He opened with a performance in Madison Square Garden which was attended by about 20,000 people. After touring the United States, he embarked on a European tour where he played to large audiences in Milan and Germany. He then returned to the United States for another tour in autumn 1972. During these tours the group cut the songs that would be part of his newest album, "Joe Cocker". A mixture of live songs and studio recordings, the album peaked at number 30 on the US charts.


title: Joe Cocker

text: In October 1972, when Cocker toured Australia, he and six members of his entourage were arrested in Adelaide for possession of marijuana. The next day, in Melbourne, assault charges were laid after a brawl at the Commodore Chateau Hotel, and the Australian Federal Police gave Cocker 48 hours to leave the country. This caused huge public outcry in Australia, as Cocker was a high-profile overseas artist and had a strong support base, especially amongst the baby boomers who were coming of age and able to vote for the first time. It sparked hefty debate about the use and legalisation of marijuana in Australia, and gained Cocker the nickname "the Mad Dog".


title: Joe Cocker

text: Shortly after the Australian tour, Stainton retired from his music career to establish his own recording studio. After his friend's departure and his estrangement from his longtime producer Denny Cordell, Cocker sank into depression and began using heroin. In June 1973, he kicked the habit but continued to drink heavily.


title: Joe Cocker

text: At the end of 1973, Cocker returned to the studio to record a new album, "I Can Stand a Little Rain". The album, released in August 1974, was number 11 on the US charts and one single, a recording of Billy Preston's "You Are So Beautiful", which reached the number 5 slot. Despite positive reviews for the album, Cocker struggled with live performances, largely due to his problems with alcohol. One such instance was reported in a 1974 issue of "Rolling Stone", which said that during two West Coast performances in October of that year he threw up onstage.


title: Joe Cocker

text: In January 1975, he released a second album that had been recorded at the same time as "I Can Stand a Little Rain", "Jamaica Say You Will". To promote his new album, Cocker embarked on another tour of Australia, made possible by the country's new Labor government. In late 1975, he contributed vocals on a number of the tracks on Bo Diddley's "The 20th Anniversary of Rock 'n' Roll" all-star album. He also recorded a new album in a Kingston, Jamaica studio, "Stingray". However, record sales were disappointing; the album reached only number 70 on the US charts.


title: Joe Cocker

text: In 1976, Cocker performed "Feelin' Alright" on "Saturday Night Live". John Belushi joined him onstage doing his famous impersonation of Cocker's stage movements. At the time, Cocker was $800,000 in debt to A&M Records and struggling with alcoholism. Several months later, he met producer Michael Lang, who agreed to manage him on the condition that he stay sober. With a new band, Cocker embarked on a tour of New Zealand, Australia and South America. He then recorded a new album with session work by Steve Gadd and Chuck Rainey, and a new, young bassist from Scotland, Rob Hartley. Hartley also toured briefly with Cocker's friends in 1977. In the autumn of 1978, Cocker toured North America promoting his album, "Luxury You Can Afford". Despite this effort, it received mixed reviews and only sold around 300,000 copies.


title: Joe Cocker

text: In 1979, Cocker joined the "Woodstock in Europe" tour, which featured musicians like Arlo Guthrie and Richie Havens who had played at the 1969 Woodstock Festival. He also performed in New York's Central Park to an audience of 20,000 people. The concert was recorded and released as the live album, "Live in New York". Cocker also toured Europe and appeared on the German television recording amphitheatre "Rockpalast", the first of many performances on the show. In 1982, Cocker recorded two songs with the jazz group the Crusaders on their album "Standing Tall". One song, "I'm So Glad I'm Standing Here Today", was nominated for a Grammy Award and Cocker performed it with the Crusaders at the awards ceremony. The Crusaders wrote this song with Cocker in mind to sing it. Cocker then released a new reggae-influenced album, "Sheffield Steel", recorded with the Compass Point All Stars, produced by Chris Blackwell and Alex Sadkin.


title: Joe Cocker

text: In 1982 Cocker recorded the duet "Up Where We Belong" with Jennifer Warnes for the soundtrack of the film "An Officer and a Gentleman". The song was an international hit, reaching number 1 on the "Billboard" Hot 100, and winning a Grammy Award for Best Pop Performance by a Duo. The duet also won an Academy Award for Best Original Song, and Cocker and Warnes performed the song at the awards ceremony.


title: Joe Cocker

text: Several days later, he was invited to perform "You Are So Beautiful" with Ray Charles in a television tribute to the musician. In 1983, Cocker joined a star-studded line-up of British musicians, including Jimmy Page, Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, Steve Winwood and Bill Wyman for singer Ronnie Lane's 1983 tour to raise money for the London-based organisation Action for Research into Multiple Sclerosis, in particular because Lane was beginning to suffer from the degenerative disease. The tour included a performance at New York's Madison Square Garden. While on another tour that year, Cocker was arrested by Austrian police after refusing to perform because of inadequate sound equipment. The charges were eventually dropped and Cocker was released.


title: Joe Cocker

text: Shortly after the incident, he released his ninth studio album, "Civilized Man". His next album "Cocker" was dedicated to his mother, Madge, who died when he was recording in the studio with producer Terry Manning. A track from the album, "You Can Leave Your Hat On" was featured in the 1986 film "9½ Weeks". The album eventually went Platinum on the European charts. His song "Love Lives On" was featured in the 1987 film Harry and the Hendersons. His 1987 album "Unchain My Heart" was nominated for a Grammy Award, although it did not win. "One Night of Sin" was also a commercial success, surpassing "Unchain My Heart" in sales and yielding his final Top 20 hit in the United States, "When The Night Comes", written by Bryan Adams, Jim Vallance and Diane Warren that peaked at number 11 in January 1990.


title: Joe Cocker

text: Throughout the 1980s, Cocker continued to tour around the world, playing to large audiences in Europe, Australia and the United States. In 1986 he met the Italian singer Zucchero Fornaciari, who dedicated a song ("Nuovo, meraviglioso amico", in "Rispetto") to the English bluesman. After that Cocker took part in some concerts of the promotional tours for the albums "Blue's" (1987) and "Oro Incenso & Birra" (1989). In 1988, he performed at London's Royal Albert Hall and appeared on "The Tonight Show". After Barclay James Harvest and Bob Dylan, Cocker was the first to give rock concerts in the German Democratic Republic, in East Berlin and Dresden. The venue, the Blüherwiese, next to the Rudolf–Harbig–Stadion, bears the vernacular name Cockerwiese (Cocker meadow) today. He also performed for US President George H. W. Bush at an inauguration concert in February 1989. In 1992, his version of Bryan Adams' "Feels Like Forever" made the UK Top 40.


title: Joe Cocker

text: In 1992, Joe Cocker teamed with Canadian rocker Sass Jordan to sing "Trust in Me", which was featured on "The Bodyguard" soundtrack. At the 1993 Brit Awards, Cocker was nominated for British Male Solo Artist. Cocker performed the Saturday opening set at Woodstock '94 as one of the few alumni who played at the original Woodstock Festival in 1969 and was well received.


title: Joe Cocker

text: On 3 June 2002, Cocker performed "With A Little Help From My Friends" accompanied by Phil Collins on drums and Queen guitarist Brian May at the Party at the Palace concert in the grounds of Buckingham Palace, an event in commemoration of the Golden Jubilee of Elizabeth II. In 2007, Cocker appeared playing minor characters in the film "Across the Universe", as the lead singer on another Beatles' hit, "Come Together", Cocker was awarded an OBE in the Queen's 2007 Birthday Honours list for services to music. To celebrate receiving his award in mid December 2007, Cocker played two concerts in London and in his home town of Sheffield where he was awarded a bronze Sheffield Legends plaque outside Sheffield Town Hall.


title: Joe Cocker

text: In April and May 2009, Cocker conducted a North American tour in support of his album "Hymn for My Soul". He sang the vocals on "Little Wing" for the Carlos Santana album, "", released on 21 September 2010. In the autumn of 2010, Cocker toured Europe promoting his studio album "Hard Knocks".


title: Joe Cocker

text: In 2000, Cocker was the opening act in select cities in the United States and Europe for Tina Turner's Twenty Four Seven Tour.


title: Joe Cocker

text: He returned to Australia in 2008 and again in 2011, the latter of which featured George Thorogood and the Destroyers as an opening act.


title: Joe Cocker

text: On 20 March 2011, Cocker took part in a benefit concert for Cornell Dupree at B.B. King's Blues Club in New York City. Dupree played on four Cocker albums: "I Can Stand A Little Rain" (1974), "Jamaica Say You Will" (1975), "Stingray" (1976) and "Luxury You Can Afford" (1978). Dupree's band Stuff was also Cocker's backing band on a tour promoting "Stingray" in 1976.


title: Joe Cocker

text: Cocker kept recording and touring throughout his later years. 2012's "Fire it up", which would turn out to be Cocker's last studio album, was followed by an extensive tour, consisting of a US leg in 2012 and a European run in 2013. He played 25 shows in Germany alone on the European leg of the tour, which reflects the popularity Cocker enjoyed there. The full show of 22 April at Cologne's Lanxess Arena was recorded and released on CD and DVD under the title "Fire it up Live" later in 2013. The last concert on the tour, which was to be Cocker's final live performance, was at the Loreley Open Air Theatre in Sankt Goarshausen on 7 September 2013.


title: Joe Cocker

text: In 1994, fellow Yorkshire musician Philip Oakey, on behalf of his group, the Human League, said that Cocker was their "hero".


title: Joe Cocker

text: The two remaining living ex-Beatles, Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr, were among those who paid tribute to the singer following his death, while Cocker's agent, Barrie Marshall, said that Cocker was "without doubt the greatest rock/soul singer ever to come out of Britain". McCartney commented:


title: Joe Cocker

text: On 11 September 2015, a "Mad Dogs & Englishmen" tribute concert to Joe Cocker was performed at the Lockn' Festival featuring Tedeschi Trucks Band, Chris Stainton, Leon Russell, Rita Coolidge, Claudia Lennear, Pamela Polland, Doyle Bramhall II, Dave Mason, John Bell, Warren Haynes and Chris Robinson, among others. In commemoration, a Joe Cocker Mad Dogs and Englishmen Memory Book was created by Linda Wolf to celebrate the event. In late 2021, the feature-length documentary "Learning to Live Together" was released documenting the reunion concert.


title: Joe Cocker

text: In 2017, a feature-length documentary film about Cocker titled "Joe Cocker: Mad Dog with Soul" was released.


title: Joe Cocker

text: In 1963, Cocker began dating Eileen Webster, also a resident of Sheffield. The couple dated intermittently for the next 13 years, and separated permanently in 1976.


title: Joe Cocker

text: In 1978, Cocker moved onto a ranch owned by Jane Fonda in Santa Barbara, California. Pam Baker, a local summer camp director and fan of Cocker's music, persuaded the actress to lend the house to Cocker. Baker began dating Cocker, and they married on 11 October 1987. The couple resided on the Mad Dog Ranch in Crawford, Colorado.


title: Joe Cocker

text: While performing a concert at Madison Square Garden on 17 September 2014, fellow pop musician Billy Joel stated that Cocker was "not very well right now" and endorsed Cocker for induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame before his tribute performance of "With a Little Help From My Friends". Cocker died from lung cancer on 22 December 2014 in Crawford, Colorado, at the age of 70. He had smoked 40 cigarettes a day until he quit in 1991. Cocker is buried in the town cemetery in Crawford, Colorado.


title: The Legend of Korra

text: The Legend of Korra (abbreviated as TLOK), also known as Avatar: The Legend of Korra or simply Korra, is an American anime-influenced animated television series created by Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko for Nickelodeon. A spin-off to DiMartino and Konietzko's previous series "", which aired from 2005 to 2008, the series ran for 52 episodes ("chapters"), separated into four seasons ("books"), from April 14, 2012, to December 19, 2014. It has been continued as a comics series.


title: The Legend of Korra

text: As with its predecessor, the series is set in a fictional universe in which certain people can manipulate, or "bend", one of the four elements: water, earth, fire, or air. Only one individual, the "Avatar", can bend all four elements, and is responsible for maintaining balance in the world. The series follows Avatar Korra, the successor and reincarnation of Aang from the previous series, as she faces political and spiritual unrest in a modernizing world.


title: The Legend of Korra

text: The main characters are voiced by Janet Varney, Seychelle Gabriel, David Faustino, P. J. Byrne, J. K. Simmons and Mindy Sterling, and supporting voice actors include Aubrey Plaza, John Michael Higgins, Kiernan Shipka, Lisa Edelstein, Steve Blum, Eva Marie Saint, Henry Rollins, Anne Heche and Zelda Williams. Several people involved in the creation of "Avatar: The Last Airbender" (such as designer Joaquim Dos Santos, writer Tim Hedrick and composers Jeremy Zuckerman and Benjamin Wynn) returned to work on "The Legend of Korra".


title: The Legend of Korra

text: Like its predecessor, "The Legend of Korra" received critical acclaim. The series has been lauded for its writing and production values, and has been nominated for and won awards such as the Annie Awards, a Daytime Emmy Award, and a Gracie Award. The series was also praised for addressing sociopolitical issues such as social unrest and terrorism, as well as for going beyond the established boundaries of youth entertainment with respect to issues of race, gender, and sexual orientation. The series' final scene, intended to depict the beginning of a same-sex romance between Korra and Asami Sato, was unprecedented at the time and has been credited with paving the way for LGBT representation in children's television programming.


title: The Legend of Korra

text: "The Legend of Korra" was initially conceived as a twelve-episode miniseries. Nickelodeon declined the creators' pitch for an "Avatar: The Last Airbender" follow-up animated movie based on what then became the three-part comics ", " and "", choosing instead to expand "Korra" to 26 episodes. The series was expanded further in July 2012 to 52 episodes. These episodes are grouped into four separate seasons ("Books") composed of twelve to fourteen episodes ("Chapters") each, with each season telling a stand-alone story. Beginning with episode 9 of season 3, new episodes were first distributed through the Internet rather than broadcast. "The Legend of Korra" concluded with the fourth season.


title: The Legend of Korra

text: "The Legend of Korra" is set in the fictional world of "Avatar: The Last Airbender", 70 years after the events of that series. The people of the world belong to four nations: the Water Tribes, the Earth Kingdom, the Fire Nation, and the Air Nomads. The distinguishing element of the series is "bending", the ability of some people to telekinetically manipulate the classical element associated with their nation (water, earth, fire, or air). Bending is carried out by spiritual and physical exercises, portrayed as similar to Chinese martial arts. As a result of a genocide in the series's backstory, there is only one living family of airbenders at the time of the series.


title: The Legend of Korra

text: Only one person, the "Avatar", can bend all four elements. Cyclically reincarnating among the world's four nations, the Avatar maintains peace and balance in the world. "The Legend of Korra" focuses on Avatar Korra, a seventeen-year-old girl from the Southern Water Tribe and the successor of Avatar Aang from "The Last Airbender".


title: The Legend of Korra

text: The first season is mostly set in Republic City, the capital of the United Republic of Nations, a new multicultural sovereign state founded by Avatar Aang after the end of "The Last Airbender". The 1920s-inspired metropolis is described as "if Manhattan had happened in Asia" by the series' creators, and its residents are united by their passion for "pro-bending", a spectator sport in which two teams composed of an earthbender, waterbender, and firebender throw each other out of a ring using bending techniques. Rapid technological growth has displaced the spirituality of bending, and what was considered a renowned martial art in "Avatar: The Last Airbender" is now commonplace, with benders in Republic City using their abilities to commit crime, compete in spectator sports, and fulfill everyday jobs. The second season adds the southern polar region, home of the Southern Water Tribe, as a main setting in addition to Republic City, while the third and fourth seasons take place largely in the Earth Kingdom.


title: The Legend of Korra

text: The first season, "Book One: Air", sees Korra move to Republic City to learn airbending from Tenzin, Avatar Aang's son. She joins a pro-bending team alongside the brothers Bolin and Mako, and befriends Asami Sato, heiress to a leading engineering corporation. The ambitious politician Tarrlok enlists Korra to fight the anti-bender uprising of the "Equalists", led by the masked Amon, who strips benders of their abilities. Korra and her friends, aided by police chief Lin Beifong, unmask Amon as a waterbender himself and Tarrlok's brother, ending the Equalists' coup.


title: The Legend of Korra

text: In the second season, "Book Two: Spirits", Korra's uncle Unalaq, chief of the Northern Water Tribe, seizes power in the southern tribe. While Korra's friends seek support against Unalaq, Korra learns of the first Avatar, Wan, who fused his soul with the spirit of light, Raava, to imprison Vaatu, the spirit of darkness. Unalaq frees Vaatu during the Harmonic Convergence, a decamillennial alignment of planets, and unites with him to become a dark Avatar. After defeating Unalaq, Korra chooses to leave open the portals between the material world and the spirit world, allowing a new coexistence of spirits and humans.


title: The Legend of Korra

text: The third season, "Book Three: Change", begins as nonbenders begin developing airbending powers as a result of Harmonic Convergence, and Tenzin, Korra, and her friends attempt to recruit them to re-establish the extinct Air Nomads. One new airbender is Zaheer, the leader of the anarchist Red Lotus society. The Red Lotus assassinates the Earth Queen, throwing her kingdom into chaos, and captures Korra to attempt to kill her and end the Avatar cycle. They are defeated by Korra's friends and the new airbenders, but Korra is severely injured and psychologically traumatized.


title: The Legend of Korra

text: The final season, "Book Four: Balance," takes place three years later. Korra slowly recovers from her mental and physical trauma. The metalbender Kuvira, assigned to reunite the fractured Earth Kingdom, declares herself head of the new, authoritarian "Earth Empire". Kuvira builds a spirit-powered superweapon and attempts to conquer Republic City. When Korra and her friends destroy the weapon, defeating Kuvira, the blast creates another portal to the Spirit World. The series ends with the prospect of democracy for the former Earth Kingdom, as Korra and Asami leave together for a vacation in the spirit world.


title: The Legend of Korra

text: Korra (Janet Varney) is the series' 17-year-old "headstrong and rebellious" protagonist, and Aang's reincarnation as the Avatar. Her transformation "from brash warrior to a spiritual being", according to DiMartino, is a principal theme of the series. The character was inspired by Bryan Konietzko's "pretty tough" sister, and by female MMA fighters, notably Gina Carano.


title: The Legend of Korra

text: The series focuses on Korra and her friends, sometimes called "Team Avatar": the bending brothers Mako and Bolin, and the non-bender Asami. Mako (David Faustino), the older brother, is a firebender described as "dark and brooding" The character was named after the late Mako Iwamatsu, the voice actor for Iroh in the first two seasons of the original series. His younger brother Bolin (P. J. Byrne) is an earthbender described as lighthearted, humorous, and "always [having] a lady on his arm". Asami Sato (Seychelle Gabriel), the only non-bender among the leading characters, is the daughter of the wealthy industrialist Hiroshi Sato.


title: The Legend of Korra

text: The other main characters are the airbending master Tenzin, one of Aang's grown children (J. K. Simmons). Tenzin's family include his wife Pema (Maria Bamford) and their children Jinora (Kiernan Shipka), Ikki (Darcy Rose Byrnes), Meelo (Logan Wells), and Rohan. Jinora is calm and an avid reader. She is an airbender and joins the main cast since season 2; Ikki is described as "fun, crazy, and a fast talker"; Meelo is hyperactive; and Rohan is born during the third-to-last episode of Book One; Republic City police chief Lin Beifong (Mindy Sterling) and Korra's animal friends Naga and Pabu (both Dee Bradley Baker, the voice of a number of animals including Appa and in the original series). Pabu was inspired by Futa, a famous standing Japanese red panda. Jeff Bennett as the voice for Shiro Shinobi, fast-talking probending match announcer in Book One. He also does the voice-overs for the short recaps during the opening sequence of each episode.


title: The Legend of Korra

text: The romantic interests of Korra and her companions are less in the foreground than in "Avatar", and feature mainly in the first two seasons. In Book One, Bolin pines for Korra, who is interested in Mako, who dates Asami. By the end of the season, Mako has broken up with Asami and entered a relationship with Korra. This ends around the end of Book Two, during which Bolin suffers from an abusive relationship with the waterbender Eska. In the fourth season, Bolin dates the airbender Opal, while Asami and Korra become closer friends. The series' final scene indicates a romantic connection between them. Mike DiMartino wrote that the scene "symbolizes their evolution from being friends to being a couple". They both are in a relationship in comics.


title: The Legend of Korra

text: "Book One: Air" features two main adversaries for Korra: the Equalists' masked leader Amon (Steve Blum) who has the power to remove a person's bending-powers, and the ambitious, charismatic politician Tarrlok (Dee Bradley Baker), who resorts to increasingly repressive methods against the Equalists. Tenzin's parents (Eva Marie Saint), and Avatar Aang (D. B. Sweeney), main characters of the "" series, also made recurring appearances, along Chris Hardwick and Kate Higgins voiced Sokka and Toph Beifong, also made guest appearances. Amon's lieutenant is voiced by Lance Henriksen, and Asami's father Hiroshi Sato by Daniel Dae Kim. Sato's character, the self-made founder of Future Industries, was inspired by Theodore Roosevelt and by the Japanese industrialists Keita Goto and Iwasaki Yatarō. Richard Epcar as the voice for Saikhan, captain of the Republic City Metalbending Police Force. Both Amon and Tarrlok are identified as the sons of mob boss Yakone (Clancy Brown). Korra is also supported by General Iroh (Dante Basco, who voiced Zuko in the original series), a member of the United Forces who is described as "a swashbuckling hero-type guy". He is named after Iroh, Zuko's uncle in the original series.


title: The Legend of Korra

text: "Book Two: Spirits" features Tenzin's and Korra's families, including Tenzin's elder siblings Kya (Lisa Edelstein) and Bumi (Richard Riehle) as well as Korra's father Tonraq (James Remar) and mother Senna (Alex McKenna). Book 2 also introduces John Michael Higgins as the corrupt businessman and inventor Varrick, with Stephanie Sheh voicing his assistant Zhu Li, along with Korra's uncle Unalaq (Adrian LaTourelle), aided by his twin children Desna (Aaron Himelstein) and Eska (Aubrey Plaza), and Vaatu (Jonathan Adams), the spirit of disorder. Spencer Garrett joined the cast as the voice for Raiko, the president of the United Republic. The season also explains the Avatar mythos though the first Avatar Wan (Steven Yeun) and Vaatu's polar opposite Raava (April Stewart). Making a few appearances in Books Two and Three, Greg Baldwin reprises Iroh from the previous series. Set six months after the events of the first season, "Book Two: Spirits" sees Mako as a police officer, Asami in charge of Future Industries, and Bolin leading a new pro-bending team with little success.


title: The Legend of Korra

text: The anarchist antagonists introduced in "Book Three: Change", the Red Lotus, comprise the new airbender Zaheer (Henry Rollins), the armless waterbender Ming-Hua (Grey DeLisle, who previously voiced a dark spirit), the combustionbender P'Li (Kristy Wu), and the lavabender Ghazan (Peter Giles). Supporting characters include the Earth Queen Hou-Ting (Jayne Taini), the retired Fire Lord Zuko (Bruce Davison), Lin's half-sister Suyin Beifong (Anne Heche), Suyin's trusted advisor Aiwei (Maurice LaMarche) and her captain of the guards Kuvira (Zelda Williams). New airbenders are also introduced in the season including the young thief Kai (Skyler Brigmann) and Suyin's daughter Opal (Alyson Stoner), both of Earth Kingdom origins and the love interests of Jinora and Bolin respectively. Jim Meskimen voices a Republic City merchant and later airbender named Daw, as well as Suyin's husband, the architect Baatar. Jason Marsden as the voice for Huan, second oldest son of Suyin, along Marcus Toji voicing Wei and Wing are the twin sons of Suyin. Greg Cipes as the voice for Tu, the cousin of Mako and Bolin, along Susan Silo voices a their grandmother Yin.


title: The Legend of Korra

text: The final season, "Book Four: Balance", features Kuvira as Korra's antagonist at the head of an army bent on uniting the Earth Kingdom. The cast is also joined by Sunil Malhotra as Prince Wu, the vain heir to the Earth Kingdom throne, and Todd Haberkorn as Baatar Jr., Suyin's estranged son who is Kuvira's fiancé and second-in-command. Philece Sampler voices the aged Toph Beifong, another returning character from "Avatar" whose young adult version was voiced by Kate Higgins in Books 1 and 3. April Stewart was cast as Zuko's daughter, Fire Lord Izumi, in a minor role.


title: The Legend of Korra

text: The art design of Republic City, described as "if Manhattan had happened in Asia," was inspired by the 1920s and incorporates influences from American and European architecture from that time period. Elements of film noir and steampunk also influenced the city's art concept. The design for the metalbending police force is based on 1920s New York City police uniforms, crossed with samurai armor.


title: The Legend of Korra

text: The fighting styles employed by characters in the original show "Avatar: The Last Airbender" were derived from different distinct styles of Chinese martial arts. Set 70 years later, the fighting style in the multicultural Republic City has modernized and blended, with the creators incorporating three primary styles: traditional Chinese martial arts, mixed martial arts, and tricking. The pro-bending sport introduced in the series was inspired by mixed martial arts (MMA) tournaments.


title: The Legend of Korra

text: Chinese martial arts instructor Sifu Kisu consulted on "Avatar: The Last Airbender", and returned as a consultant for the fight scenes in "The Legend of Korra". MMA fighters Jeremy Humphries and Mac Danzig were credited with "providing a lot of the moves you'll see in the Probending arena," and Steve Harada and Jake Huang provided the stylized flips and acrobatics of "tricking" to the series' fighting style.


title: The Legend of Korra

text: "The Legend of Korra" was co-created and produced by Bryan Konietzko and Michael Dante DiMartino at Nickelodeon Animation Studios in Burbank, California. To illustrate the length of the production process (about 10 to 12 months per episode) and the overlap of the various phases, Konietzko wrote in July 2013 that their team was already developing the storyboards for the first episode of "Book 4" while the last episodes of "Book 2" were not yet finished.


title: The Legend of Korra

text: Production of the series was announced at the annual Comic-Con in San Diego on July 22, 2010. It was originally due for release in October 2011. Tentatively titled "Avatar: Legend of Korra" at the time, it was intended to be a twelve-episode mini series set in the same fictional universe as the original show, but seventy years later. In 2011, the title was changed to "The Last Airbender: Legend of Korra", and again in March 2012 to "The Legend of Korra". The premiere was eventually delayed to April 14, 2012. South Korean animation studio Mir was involved in the pre-production, storyboarding and animation of the series which allows the studio more creative input on directing the martial arts scenes that the series and its predecessor are known for.


title: The Legend of Korra

text: According to animation director Yoo Jae-myung, Nickelodeon was initially reluctant to approve the series and suspended production because, according to Konietzko, conventional wisdom had it that "girls will watch shows about boys, but boys won't watch shows about girls". The creators eventually persuaded the channel's executives to change their mind. Konietzko related that in test screenings, boys said that Korra being a girl did not matter to them.


title: The Legend of Korra

text: The creators wrote all of the episodes of the first season themselves, omitting "filler episodes" to allow for a concise story. Once the series was expanded from its original 12-episode schedule to 26 and then to 52, more writers were brought in so that the creators could focus on design work. Joaquim Dos Santos and Ryu Ki-Hyun, who worked on the animation and design of the original series, also became involved with creating "The Legend of Korra", as is storyboarder Ian Graham. Jeremy Zuckerman and Benjamin Wynn, who composed the soundtrack for the original series as "The Track Team," also returned to score "The Legend of Korra".


title: The Legend of Korra

text: The second season, "", premiered on September 13, 2013, and concluded on November 22, 2013. It consists of fourteen episodes. Animation work was done by the South Korean animation studio Mir as well as the Japanese animation studio Pierrot. Studio Mir was expected to solely work on "Book 2", but executive director Jae-myung Yoo decided that Studio Mir would animate "The Boondocks" instead because the animation process was less rigorous. Pierrot was eventually called in to fill the void and animate "Book 2". According to Jae-myung Yoo, Studio Mir was later contacted and re-asked to animate "Book 2". Yoo feared that, if "Book 2" failed, Studio Mir and Korean animators would have their reputations tarnished for Pierrot's failures. Consequently, Studio Mir accepted the offer and worked alongside Pierrot.


title: The Legend of Korra

text: The third season, "", aired its first three episodes on June 27, 2014, soon after some episodes were leaked online. It takes place two weeks after the events of "Book Two: Spirits". Episodes nine to thirteen were streamed online, rather than being broadcast as a television program.


title: The Legend of Korra

text: "", the final season, was produced in parallel to the previous two seasons. The crew, at one point, worked on approximately 30 episodes at the same time: post-production for season 2, production for season 3 and pre-production for season 4. Some production steps, such as color correction and retakes, continued up until the date of the series finale, December 19, 2014. Season 4 started online distribution a few months after the third season's finale on October 3, 2014. After Nickelodeon cut the season's budget by the amount required for one episode, DiMartino and Konietzko decided to include a clip show, which reuses previously produced animation, as episode 8 ("Remembrances") instead of dismissing many of the creative staff. Studio Mir was helped by its companion studio, a subunit called Studio Reve, while working on Book 4.


title: The Legend of Korra

text: Concerning the development of the much-discussed final scene intended to show the friends Korra and Asami becoming a romantic couple, Bryan Konietzko explained that at first he and DiMartino did not give the idea much weight, assuming they would not be able to get approval for portraying their relationship. But during the production of the finale they decided to test that assumption, approached the network and found them supportive up to a certain limit. They decided to change the final scene from Korra and Asami only holding hands, to also facing each other in a pose referencing the marriage scene a few minutes prior and the pose made by Aang and Katara in the finale of "".


title: The Legend of Korra

text: "The Legend of Korra" was produced mainly as traditional animation, with most frames drawn on paper in South Korea by the animators at Studio Mir and scanned for digital processing. Each episode comprises about 15,000 drawings. The series makes occasional use of computer-generated imagery for complex scenes or objects, most noticeably in the animations of the pro-bending arena or the mecha-suits of the later seasons.


title: The Legend of Korra

text: While "The Legend of Korra" was produced in the United States and therefore not a work of Japanese animation ("anime") in the strict sense, "The Escapist" magazine argued that the series is so strongly influenced by anime that it would otherwise easily be classified as such: its protagonists (a superpowered heroine, her group of talented, supporting friends, a near-impervious villain who wants to reshape the world), its themes (family, friendship, romance, fear, and death) and the quality of its voice acting as well as the visual style are similar to those of leading anime series such as "", "Bleach" or "Trigun". A notable difference from such series is the absence of lengthy opening and ending sequences set to J-pop songs; to save broadcast time, "The Legend of Korra"s openings and endings last only a few seconds. The series mostly abstains from using the visual tropes characteristic of anime, but does occasionally use exaggerated facial expressions to highlight emotions for comic effect.


title: The Legend of Korra

text: As in "Avatar", the series adds to its Asian aesthetic by presenting all text that appears in its fictional world in traditional Chinese characters, without translating it. For example, on the "Wanted" posters seen in the episode "The Stakeout", the names of the protagonists are written as 寇拉 (Korra), 馬高 (Mako) and 愽林 (Bolin).


title: The Legend of Korra

text: "The Legend of Korra" is set to music by Jeremy Zuckerman, who previously wrote the music for "Avatar: The Last Airbender" with Benjamin Wynn. For "The Legend of Korra", Zuckerman is the sole composer while Wynn is the lead sound designer; the two collaborate with Foley artist Aran Tanchum and showrunner Mike DiMartino on the soundscape of the series. Konietzko and DiMartino's concept for the score was to blend traditional Chinese music with early jazz. On that basis, Zuckerman composed a score combining elements of Dixieland, traditional Chinese music and Western orchestration. It is performed mainly by a string sextet and various Chinese solo instruments, including a dizi (flute), paigu (drums), a guqin, an erhu and a Mongolian matouqin.


title: The Legend of Korra

text: A soundtrack CD, "The Legend of Korra: Original Music from Book One", was published on July 16, 2013. Music from "Korra" and "Avatar" was also played in concert at the PlayFest festival in Málaga, Spain in September 2014. The series's soundtrack was nominated as best TV soundtrack for the 2013 GoldSpirit Awards.


title: The Legend of Korra

text: On July 16, 2013, Nickelodeon and Sony Music Entertainment's Legacy Recordings released "The Legend of Korra: Original Music from Book One". To date, it is the only soundtrack officially released for either "The Legend of Korra" or "Avatar: The Last Airbender".


title: The Legend of Korra

text: The first season ("Book One: Air") aired in the United States on Nickelodeon on Saturday mornings between April 14, 2012, and June 23, 2012. Unlike its predecessor, the series was broadcast in high-definition. It was broadcast in other countries on the local Nickelodeon channels beginning in August 2012.


title: The Legend of Korra

text: The second season ("Book Two: Spirits") began airing on Nickelodeon in the United States on September 13, 2013, on Friday evenings. The season ended on November 22, 2013.


title: The Legend of Korra

text: The third season ("Book Three: Change") began airing on Nickelodeon in the United States on June 27, 2014, also on Friday evenings, two episodes at a time. The broadcast was announced one week in advance after several episodes of the new season were leaked on the Internet. After the first seven episodes aired to low ratings, Nickelodeon removed the last five episodes from its broadcast schedule. The remainder of the episodes were then distributed online via Amazon Video, Google Play, Xbox Video and Hulu as well as the Nickelodeon site and apps. "The Escapist" compared "The Legend of Korra" to "Firefly" as "a Friday night genre series with a loyal fan following built up from previous works by the creators that is taken off the air after the network fails to advertise it properly or broadcast episodes in a logical manner." Series creator Michael DiMartino said that the series' move to online distribution reflected a "sea change" in the industry: While "Korra" did not fit in well with Nickelodeon's other programming, the series did extremely well online, with the season 2 finale having been Nickelodeon's biggest online event.


title: The Legend of Korra

text: The fourth season ("Book Four: Balance") began distribution in the United States on October 3, 2014, through Nick.com, Amazon Video, iTunes and Hulu. Beginning on November 28, 2014, with episode 9, the fourth season was officially premiered back on television on Fridays on Nicktoons.


title: The Legend of Korra

text: In Germany, the first and second seasons received a German-language broadcast on Nickelodeon Germany. The third and fourth seasons are broadcast in 2015 on the German Nicktoons pay TV channel. In France, only the first season has been broadcast on Nickelodeon France and J-One. A fandub project to complete the French dub was launched in 2015.


title: The Legend of Korra

text: In 2017, the Kenya Film Classification Board banned "The Legend of Korra", together with the cartoon series "The Loud House", "Hey Arnold!", "Steven Universe", "Clarence" and "Adventure Time", from being broadcast in Kenya. According to the Board, the reason was that these series were "glorifying homosexual behavior".


title: The Legend of Korra

text: Since August 14, 2020, "The Legend of Korra" is available for streaming on Netflix in the United States.


title: The Legend of Korra

text: All episodes of the series have also been released through digital download services, DVD and Blu-ray formats. The DVD releases contain extra features such as audio commentary from the creators, cast and crew for some episodes, and the Blu-ray releases contain commentary for additional episodes.


title: The Legend of Korra

text: The series premiere averaged 4.5 million viewers, ranking it as basic cable's number-one kids' show and top animated program for the week with total viewers. "The Legend of Korra" also ranks as the network's most-watched animated series premiere in three years.


title: The Legend of Korra

text: "Book One: Air" drew an average of 3.8 million viewers per episode. This was the highest audience total for an animated series in the United States in 2012.


title: The Legend of Korra

text: "Book Two: Spirits" premiered with 2.6 million viewers. Suggested explanations for the reduced number of broadcast viewers were: the long period between seasons, a change in time slot (Friday evening instead of Saturday morning), the increased availability of digital download services, and generally reduced ratings for the Nickelodeon channel.


title: The Legend of Korra

text: "Book Three: Change" aired on short notice in June 2014 after Spanish-language versions of some episodes were leaked on the Internet. The season premiered with 1.5 million viewers. After declining TV ratings in the third season, Nickelodeon stopped airing the series on its main network and shifted its distribution to sister channel, Nicktoons and online outlets. The online distribution is where the show had proven to be much more successful.


title: The Legend of Korra

text: "The Legend of Korra" received critical acclaim for its production values, the quality of its writing, its challenging themes and its transgression of the conventions of youth entertainment.


title: The Legend of Korra

text: On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the show currently has an average score of 89%, based on critic reviews. Its first season holds a score of 91% with an average rating of 8.25 out of 10, based on 11 critic reviews, with the website's critical consensus saying, ""The Legend of Korra" expands the world of "Avatar: The Last Airbender" with narrative substance and crisp animation – and progresses the drama and action with a female lead." The second season holds a score of 67% with an average rating of 8.35 out of 10, based on 9 critic reviews. Both "Book Three: Change" and "Book 4: Balance" receive the score of 100% based on 9 critic reviews, with average ratings of 9.5 out of 10 and 9 out of 10 respectively.


title: The Legend of Korra

text: David Hinckley of the "New York Daily News" wrote that the "visually striking" series is "full of little tricks and nuances that only true fans will notice and savor, but nothing prevents civilians from enjoying it as well." Writing for "Vulture", Matt Patches highlighted the second season's loose, handheld-style cinematography – challenging for an animated series – and the "weird, wonderful", wildly imagined spirits fought by Korra; "a Kaiju parade with beasts that mirror velociraptors". Max Nicholson for IGN described the third season as "easily the show's most consistent season to date, delivering complex themes, excellent storylines and unmatched production values." And Oliver Sava, for "The A.V. Club", characterized it as a "truly magnificent season of television, delivering loads of character development, world building, socio-political commentary, and heart-racing action, all presented with beautifully smooth animation and impeccable voice acting".


title: The Legend of Korra

text: The styling of the setting – a fusion of Asian and early 20th century American elements – was noted by critics as "beautiful and innovative", but criticized for cultural appropriation by a non-diverse creative team and voice cast, and for jettisoning "authentic cultural traditions in favor of embracing white industrialized civilization".


title: The Legend of Korra

text: Before the first season's finale, Scott Thill of "Wired" hailed "The Legend of Korra" as "the smartest cartoon on TV," able to address adults' spiritual and sociopolitical concerns while presenting an "alternately riveting and hilarious ride packed with fantasy naturalism, steampunk grandeur, kinetic conflicts, sci-fi weaponry and self-aware comedy." In "The Atlantic", Julie Beck characterized the series as "some of the highest quality fantasy of our time", appreciating it for combining nuanced social commentary with ""s "warmth, whimsy, and self-referential wit". Brian Lowry of "Variety" felt that the series "represents a bit more ambitious storytelling for older kids, and perhaps a few adults with the geek gene."


title: The Legend of Korra

text: At TV.com, Noel Kirkpatrick commented favorably on how the second season of "one of television's best programs" handled the necessary quantity of exposition, and on its introduction of the theme of conflict between spiritualism and secularism. Covering the third season, Scott Thill at "Salon" described Korra as one of the toughest, most complex female characters on TV, despite being in a cartoon, and considered that the "surreal, lovely sequel" to "Avatar" "lastingly and accessibly critiques power, gender, extinction, spirit and more — all wrapped up in a kinetic 'toon as lyrical and expansive as anything dreamt up by Hayao Miyazaki or George Lucas". David Levesley at "The Daily Beast" recommended the series to those looking for "beautifully shot and well-written fantasy on television" after the end of "Game of Thrones"s most recent season, noting that in both series "the fantastical and the outlandish are carefully balanced with human relationships and political intrigue".


title: The Legend of Korra

text: Several reviewers noted the sociopolitical issues that, unusually for an animated series on a children's channel, run through "The Legend of Korra". According to "Forbes", by telling "some of the darkest, most mature stories" ever animated, "The Legend of Korra" has created a new genre, "the world's first animated television drama". Thill proposed that the Equalists' cause in season 1 reflected the recent appearance of the Occupy movement, and DiMartino responded that though the series was written before Occupy Wall Street began, he agreed that the show similarly depicted "a large group of people who felt powerless up against a relatively small group of people in power." Beck wrote that "The Legend of Korra" used magic to illustrate "the growing pains of a modernizing world seeing the rise of technology and capitalism, and taking halting, jerky steps toward self-governance", while portraying no side of the conflict as entirely flawless. Alyssa Rosenberg praised the show for examining issues of class in an urban setting, and a guest post in her column argued that the struggle between Korra and Amon's Equalists reflected some of the ideas of John Rawls' "luck egalitarianism", praising the series for tackling moral issues of inequality and redistribution.


title: The Legend of Korra

text: Writing for "The Escapist", Mike Hoffman noted how the series respected its younger viewers by explicitly showing, but also giving emotional weight to the death of major characters, including "one of the most brutal and sudden deaths in children's television" in the case of P'Li in season 3. By portraying Korra's opponents not as stereotypical villains, but as human beings with understandable motivations corrupted by an excess of zeal, the series trusted in viewers to be able to "resolve the dissonance between understanding someone's view and disagreeing with their methods". And, Hoffman wrote, by showing Korra to suffer from "full-on depression" at the end of the third season, and devoting much of the fourth to her recovery, the series helped normalize mental health issues, a theme generally unaddressed in children's television, which made them less oppressive for the viewers.


title: The Legend of Korra

text: Summing up Book Four, Joanna Robinson for "Vanity Fair" described it as "the most subversive television event of the year", noting how much of the season and series pushed the boundaries of what is nominally children's television by "breaking racial, sexual, and political ground": It featured a dark-skinned female lead character as well as a bevy of diverse female characters of all ages, focused on challenging issues such as weapons of mass destruction, PTSD and fascism, and was infused with an Eastern spirituality based on tenets such as balance and mindfulness. Levesley also highlighted the "many examples of well-written women, predominantly of color" in the series. Oliver Sava at "The A.V. Club" noted that the series had "consistently delivered captivating female figures"; he considered it to be first and foremost about women, and about how they relate to each other "as friends, family, and rivals in romance and politics".


title: The Legend of Korra

text: Moreover, according to Robinson, the series' final scene, in which Korra and Asami gaze into each other's eyes in a shot mirroring the composition of "Avatar"s final moments in which Aang and Katara kiss, "changed the face of TV" by going further than any other work of children's television in depicting same-sex relationships – an assessment shared by reviewers for TV.com, "The A.V. Club", "USA Today", IGN, Moviepilot and "The Advocate". Mike Hoffman, on the other hand, felt that Korra and Asami's relationship was not intended as particularly subversive, but as something the writers trusted younger viewers, now often familiar with same-sex relationships, to be mature enough to understand. Megan Farokhmanesh of "Polygon" wrote that by portraying Korra and Asami as bisexual, the series even avoided the error of assuming sexual orientation, as many other TV series did, to be a strict divide between "gay" and "straight". In 2018, "io9" ranked the series' final scene #55 on its list of "The 100 Most Important Pop Culture Moments of the Last 10 Years". As "Korra" was made widely available again on Netflix in 2020, Janet Varney called her role as the voice of Korra "the most profound and meaningful part of my career" on account of the impact the ending had on queer fans. "Vanity Fair" said that the show's creators "fought hard" for the ending with Asami and Korra, which has "plausible deniability that it’s all platonic."


title: The Legend of Korra

text: "The Washington Post" and "Vulture" have since credited "The Legend of Korra" with changing the landscape of LGBT representation in western animated children's cartoons, paving the way for more overt queer content in shows such as "Adventure Time", "Steven Universe", and "She-Ra and the Princesses of Power".


title: The Legend of Korra

text: The first season of "The Legend of Korra" received numerous accolades. It received two nominations for the 2012 Annie Awards; Bryan Konietzko, Joaquim Dos Santos Ryu Ki-Hyun, Kim Il Kwang and Kim Jin Sun were nominated in the category of Best Character Design in an Animated Television Production, and the first two episodes were nominated in the category of Best Animated Television Production for Children. The series was also nominated for the "Outstanding Children's Program" award from among the 2012 NAACP Image Awards, which "celebrates the accomplishments of people of color". IGN editors and readers awarded the series the "IGN People's Choice Award" and the "Best TV Animated Series" award in 2012, and it was also nominated for "Best TV Series" and "Best TV Hero" for Korra. The series also took second place (after "") in a TV.com readers' poll for the "Best Animated Series" of 2012. The first season also received three Daytime Emmy Award nominations, winning in the category of "Outstanding Casting For an Animated Series or Special."


title: The Legend of Korra

text: The second season received fewer awards and total nominations than the first; it was nominated for three Annie Awards in 2014, winning in the category of "Outstanding Achievement, Production Design in an Animated TV/Broadcast Production." It was nominated for two more IGN awards, being nominated for "Best TV Animated Series" and winning the "IGN People's Choice Award" for the second year in a row.


title: The Legend of Korra

text: The third and fourth seasons, combined into one entry, were nominated for six IGN awards, winning the "People's Choice Award" for the third time in a row, as well as "Best TV Animated Series" for the second time, "People's Choice Award for Best TV Episode" for "Korra Alone", and "People's Choice Award for Best TV Series" for the first time. The third and fourth seasons were nominated for two Annie Awards; "Best Animated TV/Broadcast Production for Children's Audience," and winning "Outstanding Achievement, Storyboarding in an Animated TV/Broadcast Production."


title: The Legend of Korra

text: Like its predecessor series, "The Legend of Korra" has a broad fandom, including on social media and at fan conventions. Most fans are young adults, according to "The Escapist", but many are children and younger teenagers.


title: The Legend of Korra

text: According to Merrill Barr writing for "Forbes", few series "boast as vocal a fan base as "The Legend of Korra"", including such popular series as "Game of Thrones" and "Orphan Black". In January 2015, after the series ended, the media reported on a fan petition to have Netflix produce a series in the "Avatar" universe garnering more than 10,000 signatures only in 2015.


title: The Legend of Korra

text: The "A.V. Club" and "io9" noted that the live-action TV series "Warrior", for which NBC ordered a pilot in early 2015, has a premise almost identical to that of "The Legend of Korra": It is to be about "a damaged heroine" who "works undercover with physical and spiritual guidance from a mysterious martial arts master to bring down an international crime lord" in a "contemporary multicultural and sometimes magical milieu".


title: The Legend of Korra

text: In an interview with GLAAD's Raina Deerwater, ND Stevenson, creator of the series "She-Ra and the Princesses of Power" talked about queer representation in animation, situating "The Legend of Korra" alongside "Steven Universe" as an inspiring series that has taught young fans to expect "nothing less than a variety of solid queer representation and central queer characters.".


title: The Legend of Korra

text: "The Legend of Korra" is continued in a graphic novel trilogy series written by DiMartino and published by Dark Horse Comics. The first trilogy, "", was drawn by Irene Koh and takes place immediately following the series finale, focusing on Korra and Asami's relationship in the aftermath of Kuvira's attack. The first volume was published on July 26, 2017, the second volume was published on January 17, 2018, and the third and final volume was published on August 22, 2018. A sequel, "", was published in three volumes in May 2019, November 2019, and February 2020.


title: The Legend of Korra

text: Hardcover art books detailing each season's creative process have been published by Dark Horse, similar to the art book published about "Avatar: The Last Airbender":


title: The Legend of Korra

text: In July 2013, Nickelodeon published a free interactive e-book, "The Legend of Korra: Enhanced Experience", on iTunes. It contained material such as concept art, character biographies, animatics and storyboards.


title: The Legend of Korra

text: In March 2013, PixelDrip Gallery organized a "The Legend of Korra" fan art exhibition in Los Angeles with the support of the series's creators, and later published a documentary video about it. Another art exhibition supported by Nickelodeon to pay tribute to "The Legend of Korra" and "Avatar" was held from March 7 to 22, 2015 at Gallery Nucleus in Alhambra, California.


title: The Legend of Korra

text: An adult coloring book, "The Legend of Korra Coloring Book" () with art by Jed Henry was released in July 2017.


title: The Legend of Korra

text: "Book One: Air" was adapted as two novels by Erica David, aimed at readers ages twelve and up. The novelizations were published by Random House in 2013:


title: The Legend of Korra

text: Activision published two video games based on the series in October 2014. The first, titled only "The Legend of Korra", is a third-person beat 'em up game for Xbox One, Xbox 360, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 3, and Microsoft Windows. Despite the game's developer PlatinumGames being known for well-received action games, the game received mixed reviews. The second game, "The Legend of Korra: A New Era Begins", is a turn-based strategy game developed by Webfoot Technologies for the Nintendo 3DS. Nickelodeon also makes several Adobe Flash-based browser games based on "The Legend of Korra" available on their website.


title: The Legend of Korra

text: IDW Publishing released a series of board games based on "The Legend of Korra". The first is an adaptation of the series' pro-bending game; that was financed through Kickstarter and released in fall 2017. Korra is a playable character in the fighting game "Super Brawl Universe" for iOS and Android, and is a playable character in the racing game "" for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and Microsoft Windows. Korra also appears as a skin for Skadi in "Smite". She is also a playable character in "Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl".


title: The Legend of Korra

text: A 12-inch figurine of Lin Beifong, as well as a graphic t-shirt, was announced at the 2015 San Diego Comic-Con. Mondo released a figurine of Korra and Asami holding hands in March 2018.


title: The Legend of Korra

text: In 2013, before the premiere of "Book Two: Spirits", Nickelodeon released three animated short videos online titled "Republic City Hustle" that cover part of the lives of Mako and Bolin as street hustlers before the events of the first season. They are written by Tim Hedrick, one of the writers for "Book Two: Spirits", and designed by Evon Freeman.


title: The Legend of Korra

text: In August 2012, "Variety" reported that Paramount Animation, a sister company of Nickelodeon, was starting development of several animated films, with budgets of around US$100 million. According to "Variety", a possible candidate for one of the films was "The Legend of Korra". Series creator Bryan Konietzko later wrote on his blog that no such film was in development. In July 2013, he said that he and DiMartino were far too busy working on multiple seasons of the TV series in parallel to consider developing a film adaptation at that time. A film centered around Korra and two other films related to Avatar were announced from Paramount and Avatar Studios in June 2022.


title: Game

text: A game is a structured form of play, usually undertaken for entertainment or fun, and sometimes used as an educational tool. Many games are also considered to be work (such as professional players of spectator sports or games) or art (such as jigsaw puzzles or games involving an artistic layout such as Mahjong, solitaire, or some video games).


title: Game

text: Games are sometimes played purely for enjoyment, sometimes for achievement or reward as well. They can be played alone, in teams, or online; by amateurs or by professionals. The players may have an audience of non-players, such as when people are entertained by watching a chess championship. On the other hand, players in a game may constitute their own audience as they take their turn to play. Often, part of the entertainment for children playing a game is deciding who is part of their audience and who is a player. A toy and a game are not the same. Toys generally allow for unrestricted play whereas games come with present rules.


title: Game

text: Key components of games are goals, rules, challenge, and interaction. Games generally involve mental or physical stimulation, and often both. Many games help develop practical skills, serve as a form of exercise, or otherwise perform an educational, simulational, or psychological role.


title: Game

text: Attested as early as 2600 BC, games are a universal part of human experience and present in all cultures. The Royal Game of Ur, Senet, and Mancala are some of the oldest known games.


title: Game

text: Ludwig Wittgenstein was probably the first academic philosopher to address the definition of the word "game". In his "Philosophical Investigations", Wittgenstein argued that the elements of games, such as play, rules, and competition, all fail to adequately define what games are. From this, Wittgenstein concluded that people apply the term "game" to a range of disparate human activities that bear to one another only what one might call family resemblances. As the following game definitions show, this conclusion was not a final one and today many philosophers, like Thomas Hurka, think that Wittgenstein was wrong and that Bernard Suits' definition is a good answer to the problem.


title: Game

text: French sociologist Roger Caillois, in his book "Les jeux et les hommes (Games and Men)"(1961), defined a game as an activity that must have the following characteristics:


title: Game

text: Game designer Chris Crawford defined the term in the context of computers. Using a series of dichotomies:


title: Game

text: Crawford's definition may thus be rendered as: an interactive, goal-oriented activity made for money, with active agents to play against, in which players (including active agents) can interfere with each other.


title: Game

text: Other definitions, however, as well as history, show that entertainment and games are not necessarily undertaken for monetary gain.


title: Game

text: Games can be characterized by "what the player does". This is often referred to as gameplay. Major key elements identified in this context are tools and rules that define the overall context of game.


title: Game

text: Games are often classified by the components required to play them (e.g. miniatures, a ball, cards, a board and pieces, or a computer). In places where the use of leather is well-established, the ball has been a popular game piece throughout recorded history, resulting in a worldwide popularity of ball games such as rugby, basketball, soccer (football), cricket, tennis, and volleyball. Other tools are more idiosyncratic to a certain region. Many countries in Europe, for instance, have unique standard decks of playing cards. Other games such as chess may be traced primarily through the development and evolution of its game pieces.


title: Game

text: Many game tools are tokens, meant to represent other things. A token may be a pawn on a board, play money, or an intangible item such as a point scored.


title: Game

text: Games such as hide-and-seek or tag do not use any obvious tool; rather, their interactivity is defined by the environment. Games with the same or similar rules may have different gameplay if the environment is altered. For example, hide-and-seek in a school building differs from the same game in a park; an auto race can be radically different depending on the track or street course, even with the same cars.


title: Game

text: Games are often characterized by their tools and rules. While rules are subject to variations and changes, enough change in the rules usually results in a "new" game. For instance, baseball can be played with "real" baseballs or with wiffleballs. However, if the players decide to play with only three bases, they are arguably playing a different game. There are exceptions to this in that some games deliberately involve the changing of their own rules, but even then there are often immutable meta-rules.


title: Game

text: Rules generally determine the time-keeping system, the rights and responsibilities of the players, scoring techniques, preset boundaries, and each player's goals.


title: Game

text: The rules of a game may be distinguished from its aims. For most competitive games, the "ultimate" aim is winning: in this sense, checkmate is the aim of chess. Common win conditions are being first to amass a certain quota of points or tokens (as in Settlers of Catan), having the greatest number of tokens at the end of the game (as in Monopoly), or some relationship of one's game tokens to those of one's opponent (as in chess's checkmate). There may also be "intermediate" aims, which are tasks that move a player toward winning. For instance, an intermediate aim in football is to score goals, because scoring goals will increase one's likelihood of winning the game, but isn't alone sufficient to win the game.


title: Game

text: An aim identifies a Sufficient Condition for successful action, whereas the rule identifies a necessary condition for permissible action. For example, the aim of chess is to checkmate, but although it is expected that players will "try" to checkmate each other, it is not a rule of chess that a player "must" checkmate the other player whenever possible. Similarly, it is not a rule of football that a player must score a goal on a penalty; while it is expected the player will try, it is not required. While meeting the aims often requires a certain degree of skill and (in some cases) luck, following the rules of a game merely requires knowledge of the rules and some careful attempt to follow them; it rarely (if ever) requires luck or demanding skills.


title: Game

text: A game's tools and rules will result in its requiring skill, strategy, luck, or a combination thereof, and are classified accordingly.


title: Game

text: Games of skill include games of physical skill, such as wrestling, tug of war, hopscotch, target shooting, and stake, and games of mental skill such as checkers and chess. Games of strategy include checkers, chess, Go, arimaa, and tic-tac-toe, and often require special equipment to play them. Games of chance include gambling games (blackjack, Mahjong, roulette, etc.), as well as snakes and ladders and rock, paper, scissors; most require equipment such as cards or dice. However, most games contain two or all three of these elements. For example, American football and baseball involve both physical skill and strategy while tiddlywinks, poker, and Monopoly combine strategy and chance. Many card and board games combine all three; most trick-taking games involve mental skill, strategy, and an element of chance, as do many strategic board games such as Risk, Settlers of Catan, and Carcassonne.


title: Game

text: Most games require multiple players. However, single-player games are unique in respect to the type of challenges a player faces. Unlike a game with multiple players competing with or against each other to reach the game's goal, a one-player game is a battle solely against an element of the environment (an artificial opponent), against one's own skills, against time, or against chance. Playing with a yo-yo or playing tennis against a wall is not generally recognized as playing a game due to the lack of any formidable opposition. Many games described as "single-player" may be termed actually puzzles or recreations.


title: Game

text: A multiplayer game is a game of several players who may be independent opponents or teams. Games with many independent players are difficult to analyze formally using game theory as the players may form and switch coalitions. The term "game" in this context may mean either a true game played for entertainment or a competitive activity describable in principle by mathematical game theory.


title: Game

text: John Nash proved that games with several players have a stable solution provided that coalitions between players are disallowed. Nash won the Nobel prize for economics for this important result which extended von Neumann's theory of zero-sum games. Nash's stable solution is known as the Nash equilibrium.


title: Game

text: If cooperation between players is allowed, then the game becomes more complex; many concepts have been developed to analyze such games. While these have had some partial success in the fields of economics, politics and conflict, no good general theory has yet been developed.


title: Game

text: In quantum game theory, it has been found that the introduction of quantum information into multiplayer games allows a new type of equilibrium strategy not found in traditional games. The entanglement of player's choices can have the effect of a contract by preventing players from profiting from what is known as "betrayal".


title: Game

text: Many sports require special equipment and dedicated playing fields, leading to the involvement of a community much larger than the group of players. A city or town may set aside such resources for the organization of sports leagues.


title: Game

text: Popular sports may have spectators who are entertained just by watching games. A community will often align itself with a local sports team that supposedly represents it (even if the team or most of its players only recently moved in); they often align themselves against their opponents or have traditional rivalries. The concept of fandom began with sports fans.


title: Game

text: Lawn games are outdoor games that can be played on a lawn; an area of mowed grass (or alternately, on graded soil) generally smaller than a sports field (pitch). Variations of many games that are traditionally played on a sports field are marketed as "lawn games" for home use in a front or back yard. Common lawn games include horseshoes, sholf, croquet, bocce, and lawn bowls.


title: Game

text: A tabletop game is a game where the elements of play are confined to a small area and require little physical exertion, usually simply placing, picking up and moving game pieces. Most of these games are played at a table around which the players are seated and on which the game's elements are located. However, many games falling into this category, particularly party games, are more free-form in their play and can involve physical activity such as mime. Still, these games do not require a large area in which to play them, large amounts of strength or stamina, or specialized equipment other than what comes in a box.


title: Game

text: This class of games includes any game in which the skill element involved relates to manual dexterity or hand-eye coordination, but excludes the class of video games (see below). Games such as jacks, paper football, and Jenga require only very portable or improvised equipment and can be played on any flat level surface, while other examples, such as pinball, billiards, air hockey, foosball, and table hockey require specialized tables or other self-contained modules on which the game is played. The advent of home video game systems largely replaced some of these, such as table hockey, however air hockey, billiards, pinball and foosball remain popular fixtures in private and public game rooms. These games and others, as they require reflexes and coordination, are generally performed more poorly by intoxicated persons but are unlikely to result in injury because of this; as such the games are popular as drinking games. In addition, dedicated drinking games such as quarters and beer pong also involve physical coordination and are popular for similar reasons.


title: Game

text: Board games use as a central tool a board on which the players' status, resources, and progress are tracked using physical tokens. Many also involve dice or cards. Most games that simulate war are board games (though a large number of video games have been created to simulate strategic combat), and the board may be a map on which the players' tokens move. Virtually all board games involve "turn-based" play; one player contemplates and then makes a move, then the next player does the same, and a player can only act on their turn. This is opposed to "real-time" play as is found in some card games, most sports and most video games.


title: Game

text: Some games, such as chess and Go, are entirely deterministic, relying only on the strategy element for their interest. Such games are usually described as having "perfect information"; the only unknown is the exact thought processes of one's opponent, not the outcome of any unknown event inherent in the game (such as a card draw or die roll). Children's games, on the other hand, tend to be very luck-based, with games such as Candy Land and Chutes and Ladders having virtually no decisions to be made. By some definitions, such as that by Greg Costikyan, they are not games since there are no decisions to make which affect the outcome. Many other games involving a high degree of luck do not allow direct attacks between opponents; the random event simply determines a gain or loss in the standing of the current player within the game, which is independent of any other player; the "game" then is actually a "race" by definitions such as Crawford's.


title: Game

text: Most other board games combine strategy and luck factors; the game of backgammon requires players to decide the best strategic move based on the roll of two dice. Trivia games have a great deal of randomness based on the questions a person gets. German-style board games are notable for often having rather less of a luck factor than many board games.


title: Game

text: Board game groups include race games, games, abstract strategy games, word games, and wargames, as well as trivia and other elements. Some board games fall into multiple groups or incorporate elements of other genres: Cranium is one popular example, where players must succeed in each of four skills: artistry, live performance, trivia, and language.


title: Game

text: Card games use a deck of cards as their central tool. These cards may be a standard Anglo-American (52-card) deck of playing cards (such as for bridge, poker, Rummy, etc.), a regional deck using 32, 36 or 40 cards and different suit signs (such as for the popular German game skat), a tarot deck of 78 cards (used in Europe to play a variety of trick-taking games collectively known as Tarot, Tarock or Tarocchi games), or a deck specific to the individual game (such as "Set" or 1000 Blank White Cards). Uno and Rook are examples of games that were originally played with a standard deck and have since been commercialized with customized decks. Some collectible card games such as "" are played with a small selection of cards that have been collected or purchased individually from large available sets.


title: Game

text: Some board games include a deck of cards as a gameplay element, normally for randomization or to keep track of game progress. Conversely, some card games such as Cribbage use a board with movers, normally to keep score. The differentiation between the two genres in such cases depends on which element of the game is foremost in its play; a board game using cards for random actions can usually use some other method of randomization, while Cribbage can just as easily be scored on paper. These elements as used are simply the traditional and easiest methods to achieve their purpose.


title: Game

text: Dice games use a number of dice as their central element. Board games often use dice for a randomization element, and thus each roll of the dice has a profound impact on the outcome of the game, however dice games are differentiated in that the dice do not determine the success or failure of some other element of the game; they instead are the central indicator of the person's standing in the game. Popular dice games include "Yahtzee", Farkle, Bunco, Liar's dice/Perudo, and Poker dice. As dice are, by their very nature, designed to produce apparently random numbers, these games usually involve a high degree of luck, which can be directed to some extent by the player through more strategic elements of play and through tenets of probability theory. Such games are thus popular as gambling games; the game of Craps is perhaps the most famous example, though Liar's dice and Poker dice were originally conceived of as gambling games.


title: Game

text: Domino games are similar in many respects to card games, but the generic device is instead a set of tiles called dominoes, which traditionally each have two ends, each with a given number of dots, or "pips", and each combination of two possible end values as it appears on a tile is unique in the set. The games played with dominoes largely center around playing a domino from the player's "hand" onto the matching end of another domino, and the overall object could be to always be able to make a play, to make all open endpoints sum to a given number or multiple, or simply to play all dominoes from one's hand onto the board. Sets vary in the number of possible dots on one end, and thus of the number of combinations and pieces; the most common set historically is "double-six", though in more recent times "extended" sets such as "double-nine" have been introduced to increase the number of dominoes available, which allows larger hands and more players in a game. Muggins, Mexican Train, and Chicken Foot are very popular domino games. Texas 42 is a domino game more similar in its play to a "trick-taking" card game.


title: Game

text: Variations of traditional dominoes abound: Triominoes are similar in theory but are triangular and thus have three values per tile. Similarly, a game known as Quad-Ominos uses four-sided tiles.


title: Game

text: Some other games use tiles in place of cards; Rummikub is a variant of the Rummy card game family that uses tiles numbered in ascending rank among four colors, very similar in makeup to a 2-deck "pack" of Anglo-American playing cards. Mahjong is another game very similar to Rummy that uses a set of tiles with card-like values and art.


title: Game

text: Lastly, some games use graphical tiles to form a board layout, on which other elements of the game are played. Settlers of Catan and Carcassonne are examples. In each, the "board" is made up of a series of tiles; in Settlers of Catan the starting layout is random but static, while in Carcassonne the game is played by "building" the board tile-by-tile. Hive, an abstract strategy game using tiles as moving pieces, has mechanical and strategic elements similar to chess, although it has no board; the pieces themselves both form the layout and can move within it.


title: Game

text: Pencil and paper games require little or no specialized equipment other than writing materials, though some such games have been commercialized as board games ("Scrabble", for instance, is based on the idea of a crossword puzzle, and tic-tac-toe sets with a boxed grid and pieces are available commercially). These games vary widely, from games centering on a design being drawn such as "Pictionary" and "connect-the-dots" games like sprouts, to letter and word games such as "Boggle" and "Scattergories", to solitaire and logic puzzle games such as Sudoku and crossword puzzles.


title: Game

text: A guessing game has as its core a piece of information that one player knows, and the object is to coerce others into guessing that piece of information without actually divulging it in text or spoken word. Charades is probably the most well-known game of this type, and has spawned numerous commercial variants that involve differing rules on the type of communication to be given, such as "Catch Phrase", "Taboo", "Pictionary", and similar. The genre also includes many game shows such as "Win, Lose or Draw", "Password" and "$25,000 Pyramid".


title: Game

text: Video games are computer- or microprocessor-controlled games. Computers can create virtual spaces for a wide variety of game types. Some video games simulate conventional game objects like cards or dice, while others can simulate environs either grounded in reality or fantastical in design, each with its own set of rules or goals.


title: Game

text: A computer or video game uses one or more input devices, typically a button/joystick combination (on arcade games); a keyboard, mouse or trackball (computer games); or a controller or a motion sensitive tool (console games). More esoteric devices such as paddle controllers have also been used for input.


title: Game

text: There are many genres of video game; the first commercial video game, "Pong", was a simple simulation of table tennis. As processing power increased, new genres such as adventure and action games were developed that involved a player guiding a character from a third person perspective through a series of obstacles. This "real-time" element cannot be easily reproduced by a board game, which is generally limited to "turn-based" strategy; this advantage allows video games to simulate situations such as combat more realistically. Additionally, the playing of a video game does not require the same physical skill, strength or danger as a real-world representation of the game, and can provide either very realistic, exaggerated or impossible physics, allowing for elements of a fantastical nature, games involving physical violence, or simulations of sports. Lastly, a computer can, with varying degrees of success, simulate one or more human opponents in traditional table games such as chess, leading to simulations of such games that can be played by a single player.


title: Game

text: In more open-ended computer simulations, also known as sandbox-style games, the game provides a virtual environment in which the player may be free to do whatever they like within the confines of this universe. Sometimes, there is a lack of goals or opposition, which has stirred some debate on whether these should be considered "games" or "toys". (Crawford specifically mentions Will Wright's "SimCity" as an example of a toy.)


title: Game

text: Online games have been part of culture from the very earliest days of networked and time-shared computers. Early commercial systems such as Plato were at least as widely famous for their games as for their strictly educational value. In 1958, "Tennis for Two" dominated Visitor's Day and drew attention to the oscilloscope at the Brookhaven National Laboratory; during the 1980s, Xerox PARC was known mainly for "Maze War", which was offered as a hands-on demo to visitors.


title: Game

text: Modern online games are played using an Internet connection; some have dedicated client programs, while others require only a web browser. Some simpler browser games appeal to more casual gaming demographic groups (notably older audiences) that otherwise play very few video games.


title: Game

text: Role-playing games, often abbreviated as RPGs, are a type of game in which the participants (usually) assume the roles of characters acting in a fictional setting. The original role playing games – or at least those explicitly marketed as such – are played with a handful of participants, usually face-to-face, and keep track of the developing fiction with pen and paper. Together, the players may collaborate on a story involving those characters; create, develop, and "explore" the setting; or vicariously experience an adventure outside the bounds of everyday life. Pen-and-paper role-playing games include, for example, "Dungeons & Dragons" and "GURPS".


title: Game

text: The term "role-playing game" has also been appropriated by the video game industry to describe a genre of video games. These may be single-player games where one player experiences a programmed environment and story, or they may allow players to interact through the internet. The experience is usually quite different from traditional role-playing games. Single-player games include "Final Fantasy", "Fable", "The Elder Scrolls", and "Mass Effect". Online multi-player games, often referred to as Massively Multiplayer Online role playing games, or MMORPGs, include "RuneScape", "EverQuest 2", "Guild Wars", "MapleStory", "Anarchy Online", and "Dofus". , the most successful MMORPG has been "World of Warcraft", which controls the vast majority of the market.


title: Game

text: Business games can take a variety of forms, from interactive board games to interactive games involving different props (balls, ropes, hoops, etc.) and different kinds of activities. The purpose of these games is to link to some aspect of organizational performance and to generate discussions about business improvement. Many business games focus on organizational behaviors. Some of these are computer simulations while others are simple designs for play and debriefing. Team building is a common focus of such activities.


title: Game

text: The term "game" can include simulation or re-enactment of various activities or use in "real life" for various purposes: e.g., training, analysis, prediction. Well-known examples are war games and role-playing. The root of this meaning may originate in the human prehistory of games deduced by anthropology from observing primitive cultures, in which children's games mimic the activities of adults to a significant degree: hunting, warring, nursing, etc. These kinds of games are preserved in modern times.


title: Rachel Riley

text: Rachel Annabelle Riley (born 11 January 1986) is a British television presenter. She co-presents the Channel 4 daytime puzzle show "Countdown" and its comedy spin-off "8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown". She is a mathematics graduate.