You're listening to song exploder where musicians take apart their songs and piece by piece tell the story of how they were made. I'm Rishikesh, your way.

This episode contains explicit language.

In this episode, composer Jeremy Zuckerman will break down his score for the final scene of the final episode of the groundbreaking animated series The Legend of Korra.

Spoilers are ahead, but honestly, as someone who's seen every episode,

I don't think these spoilers will detract from how much you'll love the franchise if you've never seen it, and you decide to start after this.

So, in 2005, Nickelodeon premiered an animated series called Avatar, The Last Airbender, about a young boy and his friends who have to keep peace and balance in the world.

It combined fantasy and martial arts. It ran for four seasons, won an Emmy and a Peabody, and in 2012, spawned a sequel called The Legend of Korra.

This time, the story was about a girl Korra, who was a teenager. And just as the characters were older and the world they inhabited was older, the themes of the show matured as well.

In December 2014, after four seasons of its own, the series aired its finale.

The finale made headlines, because in the very last scene, Korra and her female companion Asami come together as a couple romantically.

Composer Jeremy Zuckerman used a mix of Chinese and Western instruments for the series.

Coming up, he deconstructs the music he wrote, reflects on the significance of that scene, and also what it felt like to close the curtain on a franchise he'd been working on over the course of 12 years of his life.

Now, here's Jeremy Zuckerman on the final piece of music for The Legend of Korra.

The Legend of Korra is about a teenage girl. I think she was 17 when the show starts.

And Korra is this hot-headed girl, and she's kind of cocky.

She sort of acts before she thinks a lot. And over the course of the show, she really develops as a person.

And really, to me, the show was really about finding yourself.

This is Jeremy Zuckerman. I did the music for The Legend of Korra.

Today, we're going to be talking about the final cue from the finale.

I knew what I wanted to do with it, because I've been wanting to develop the end credits for the whole series.

That's my favorite cue, I think, of the whole series. Such a simple little thing.

When Korra started, I was going, like, I was mostly going through some stuff.

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