Did it hurt?
Expectations. That's all anyone has ever had for the young Avatar Korra. The entire world had set the bar high, too high for a mere 17-year-old to meet. They blindly threw their trust at her, adding to the already hefty load on her shoulders, dragging her down, leaving her desperately clinging to their hopes for her.
But for what?
So that the world would accept her as their Avatar? But who are they to judge?
Being the avatar already means that people will expect highly, too highly of them, or believe that they could solve everything. But they can't. They're only human. She's only human. She's only a child.
One wrong move, one accident, and faith in her would be lost. But why? Can't they see that she is not too different from them?
But no. The Avatar would never fall. She was far too great. Nothing could drag her down.
Oh, how blissfully oblivious they were.
Another man, a figure for a different group of people, arose from the same expectations as everyone else to the same level as the avatar's. But unlike her, he was embracing it, perched on it as though it were some sort of metaphorical throne, while she was barely clinging onto her own.
From that moment, the universe seemed to decide that one could only meet their own expectation burdens if the other did not. The two had been sent on a path, with a cruel twist of fate struck in the middle.
Of course, things don't always go as planned. Sometimes, people defy fate itself, just to subconsciously reach their own destinies.
The master of all the elements became a simple air bender, and the voice for nonbenders became a filthy lying bender.
Both fell, but while she managed to grasp a tiny rock of Hope far below everybody else's expectations, he kept falling. He never found his way back up.
Oh, how she had failed the world. Perhaps, she had always been thought too highly of. Perhaps she was the 'runt' of the Avatars. Perhaps she isn't perfect. Maybe she never was.
Now, the whole world wonders if it were painful to fall from such a height. To have everyone's expectations come crashing down to reality.
Did it hurt?
Yeah, it did.