Before you watch: the earlier Avatar series and Seven Havens

Do you need to watch Korra or The Last Airbender first?

No, but it helps. Seven Havens opens 225 years after Korra with an all-new cast, and episode 1 explains the Avatar, the four elements and why the havens fear her from scratch. Nobody from the earlier series appears in the first six episodes. What you miss without the old shows is the weight of the references: who Korra was, what the spirit portals are, why the Order of the White Lotus trains the Avatar, and what the "old world" in Karthik's vault used to look like.

If you have time for one thing, make it The Legend of Korra Book 2 ("Spirits") and Book 4 ("Balance"). Those two seasons set up the portals, the spirit energy and the industrial world that Seven Havens says collapsed. If you have time for nothing, read the recap below and you will be fine.

The 10-minute recap: what Seven Havens assumes you know

From Avatar: The Last Airbender (2005–2008)

• The Avatar is one person per generation who can bend all four elements, reborn in a fixed cycle: water, earth, fire, air. Korra was water, so an earthbender Avatar after her is what the cycle predicts. Pavi →
• The Avatar State is the Avatar drawing on the power of every past life at once.
• The Order of the White Lotus is a secret society that protects and trains the Avatar. In Seven Havens it still exists; Karthik and Jae belong to it.
• Aang ended the Hundred Year War. Years are counted from that point: 0 AG.

From The Legend of Korra (2012–2014)

• The world industrialised. Republic City had cars, radio, film and airships; by Book 4 there were mecha suits and a spirit-vine superweapon. This is the "tech boom" the Seven Havens creators keep mentioning. Technology →
• Korra lost the past lives. In Book 2 the dark spirit Vaatu destroyed Raava, the light spirit inside the Avatar, severing the link to every previous Avatar. Korra re-fused with Raava, but Aang and the rest were gone for good. Any Avatar after her starts with no ancestral memory, which matters a great deal for Pavi.
• Korra left the spirit portals open. At the end of Book 2 she chose to keep the north and south portals open so spirits and humans would share the world; Book 4 ended with a third portal torn open in the middle of Republic City. Paramount+'s Seven Havens primer says portals now connect the two worlds. What happened to Korra →
• How it ended. Korra defeated Kuvira, the Earth Empire fell, and the series closed with Korra and Asami walking into the spirit world together. The comics Turf Wars and Ruins of the Empire continue directly from there.

Everything between that ending and the Cataclysm is unknown. The show has only said that history blames Korra.

Watch order in 2026

Release order is the right order; Paramount+'s own guide agrees, with one twist: the new Aang film sits between the two series in story time but is best watched after Korra, because it leans on the original's ending.

Comics and novels, if you want more: the Dark Horse Korra comics (Turf Wars, Ruins of the Empire, Patterns in Time) pick up right after the show, and the Kyoshi and Yangchen novels cover earlier Avatars. None is required.

Timeline

Years are counted from the end of the Hundred Year War (AG). Korra begins in 170 AG; Seven Havens is "225 years after Korra's time", so roughly the 390s AG. The Cataclysm sits somewhere in the gap and has not been dated on screen.

Where to stream each series (US, checked October 17, 2026)

Outside the US: Paramount+ where it operates, SkyShowtime in its European markets (Seven Havens from October 17, 2026). Availability of the older series varies by country.

Questions people ask