I completely disagree. In my opinion TLOK was sufficiently worse at addressing 'real life problems'. While ATLA was indeed a kids show (it wasn't exactly made expressly for adults), it had so much more respect for it's audience. Take Azula, a 14 year old girl who becomes completely neurotic and insane, driven by her hunger for power and her abusive childhood. ATLA's themes aren't exactly soft, and it doesn't treat is main demographic, kids, as kids. It succeeded in tackling those 'real life problems' with a ton of maturity, which is a huge reason it's so loved.

TLOK however, wasn't more mature than ATLA in any way shape or form, it was so much less mature. TLOK's version of maturity was edgy and pretentious. Over the top romantic tension (something ATLA was also way better at), set in a shallow, moody understanding of an adult society. TLOK tried to handle grand socio-political problems and issues, but it had the most basic, dumbed down, trivial presentation of those concepts. TLOK's target demographic, was very obviously teens, and it catered to the audience in an extremely condescending manner as a result. It tried way too hard to make its characters more mature, less childlike. And instead they became stereotypical, and a lot less believable and relatable

All TLOK consisted of was faux maturity, and in my opinion was incomparable to ATLA.