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Sydin posted:Tenzin completely dominating Zaheer in their airbending fight was the best, and made up for the fact that he ended up jobbing anyway once the rest of the Red Lotus stepped in. The sound design for airbending is rad too.
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Dec 24, 2014 22:11
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Sydin posted:Tenzin completely dominating Zaheer in their airbending fight was the best, and made up for the fact that he ended up jobbing anyway once the rest of the Red Lotus stepped in. Jobbing is an unjustified loss that occurs for plot reasons. I don't think there's any good reason why Gahzan and Ming Hua wouldn't tip the fight in the Red Lotus's favor. Maybe Tenzin can beat them all individually, but they're still more or less masters, and three together is enough to beat him.
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Dec 24, 2014 22:15
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TFRazorsaw posted:Jobbing is an unjustified loss that occurs for plot reasons. Perhaps I'm using the term wrong, I meant it in the sense that Tenzin's role throughout the series has been to be a pre-established master/badass, who loses in order to increase the tension or hype up a villain. In S1 he loses to the platinum mechs & is captured by Amon, in S2 he fails to calm or fight the spirits in any manner, in S3 he's taken completely out of the running by the Red Lotus, and in S4 he's knocked out by Kuvira's mech, and his team of airbenders quickly follow suit. He certainly has his moments, such as defeating Amon's hitsquad or completely wrecking Zaheer until Pi'Li stepped in, but most of his fight time is spent losing so that something looks more threatening.
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Dec 24, 2014 22:24
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So Tenzin is basically Worf? I don't know how to feel about that.
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Dec 24, 2014 22:27
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Sydin posted:Perhaps I'm using the term wrong, I meant it in the sense that Tenzin's role throughout the series has been to be a pre-established master/badass, who loses in order to increase the tension or hype up a villain. In S1 he loses to the platinum mechs & is captured by Amon, in S2 he fails to calm or fight the spirits in any manner, in S3 he's taken completely out of the running by the Red Lotus, and in S4 he's knocked out by Kuvira's mech, and his team of airbenders quickly follow suit. He certainly has his moments, such as defeating Amon's hitsquad or completely wrecking Zaheer until Pi'Li stepped in, but most of his fight time is spent losing so that something looks more threatening. well, yes. I don't think that's necessarily bad, though.
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Dec 24, 2014 22:28
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Writh posted:Least Favorite: The spirits Actually, that's something I really liked about the spirits: they could be total stubborn assholes with no regard whatsoever for human life. And, really, why should they? I utterly hate the idea of innately good mystical creatures - as if the human idea of morale and civilization is somehow compulsory for every being. Instead, we get spirits who care only about a single thing and think nothing of loving people over in pursuit of it (i.e. collecting knowledge), and genuinely nice spirits who go out of their way to help someone personally (the little spirit guiding Korra to Toph), and total rear end in a top hat spirits who think nothing of humans but come to trust and respect them (the awesome lemure spirit in S2). As weird as the "turning" of spirits was, I think they handled the character of spirits in LoK pretty well. That little spirit should've had a speaking role in the finale.  Oh, and while we're doing this: Favorite character - torn between Tenzin and Lin (except S2); both felt incredibly genuine to me, and they had probably the most natural sounding dialog in the entire series. Hard to choose... If I had a separate vote for villains, I'd easily pick Tarrlok, just like SpiderHyphenMan. That murder-suicide is still one of the most amazing single scenes of all four scenes, period. Comedy option: Varrick, because of that ultra-smug smile and the fact that he never stops being goofy, even as a villain. Least favorite - I don't want to say Bolin, since he's sometimes actually quite funny & a blast in every action scene... Maybe Meelo? Then again, even Meelo was part of some really great jokes... Yeah, I'll have to go with Unalaq. His fight with Tonraq and the Kaiju finale was great, but that hardly had anything to do with his character. He sucks and he was stupid. Funny how no-one so far named Mako as least favorite (he actually really grew on me during S3 - S4). Wouldn't have thought that at the end of S1 / during S2. Well, guess he got a lot of competition later.
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Dec 24, 2014 22:29
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TFRazorsaw posted:well, yes. I don't think that's necessarily bad, though. It's not really bad, if anything it's more Korra doing things the opposite of Avatar. In AtLA, the role of the old masters was decidedly to show up when the going got rough and completely dominate everybody. In Korra, they either often lose outright or barely contribute. Toph was really the only one to buck this trend in LoK, and even then she implied that because of her age she really wouldn't be able to do much more than a few bursts of assistance. I just really liked Tenzin, and was kinda sad he spent most of seasons 1 and 2 getting kicked around. So it was nice to see him get to hands down win a battle, even if he ultimately lost the greater fight.
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Dec 24, 2014 22:34
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I joked with my wife after the episode where the spirits refused to help that if I was Korra, after the battle was over I would go to the North and South Poles and close the portals (this convo was before the third portal was created) "There, now you don't have to help anyone you selfish assholes. The Avatar has a new purpose. I will be the wall and deportation team for our world," as I lock the doors forever.
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Dec 24, 2014 22:38
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So what happens now? The bulk of Kuvira's forces are presumably still around. And the dissolution of her troops dissolves the only stability in the region. Republic City is in ruins and thousands of evacuated refugees are left homeless in mainland Earth Kingdom. Spirit vine technology exists and if it falls into the wrong the resulting arms race could have catastrophic effects on both the spirits and the world itself. Do all those Earth Kingdom nationalists just go back to their day jobs? Does the resulting power vacuum lead to further tribalism and anarchy in the region? Do people suddenly respect Wu's authority to abolish the monarchy? Maybe I'm over thinking this cartoon but now seems like a bad time to go on a vacation.
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Dec 24, 2014 22:39
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Sydin posted:Perhaps I'm using the term wrong, I meant it in the sense that Tenzin's role throughout the series has been to be a pre-established master/badass, who loses in order to increase the tension or hype up a villain. In S1 he loses to the platinum mechs & is captured by Amon, in S2 he fails to calm or fight the spirits in any manner, in S3 he's taken completely out of the running by the Red Lotus, and in S4 he's knocked out by Kuvira's mech, and his team of airbenders quickly follow suit. He certainly has his moments, such as defeating Amon's hitsquad or completely wrecking Zaheer until Pi'Li stepped in, but most of his fight time is spent losing so that something looks more threatening. It stops being the Worf effect when you lose to something literally nobody else but Korra in the Avatar state could possibly take on their own (Red Lotus, Robutt). Tenzin clowned Zaheer and he was dealing with 3 of them at once, it's just that P'li and her power are broken and impossible to deal with when they're on an airship doing their thing. E: ^^ it's almost like the last 2 minutes of the show weren't actually that well thought out in terms of how they fit in the show or something. The first series had a similar problem (completely glossing over the possibility of a civil war aside from a passing mention by Iroh before the battle) but it at least left it on the note that there was a lot of rebuilding for the hero to do. TheKingofSprings fucked around with this message at 22:49 on Dec 24, 2014 |
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Dec 24, 2014 22:42
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Chiminey posted:So what happens now? The bulk of Kuvira's forces are presumably still around. And the dissolution of her troops dissolves the only stability in the region. Republic City is in ruins and thousands of evacuated refugees are left homeless in mainland Earth Kingdom. Spirit vine technology exists and if it falls into the wrong the resulting arms race could have catastrophic effects on both the spirits and the world itself. depends on how likely those people are to listen to Kuvira when she tells them to give up the cause. But do consider the fact that a good number of them have been coerced.
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Dec 24, 2014 22:47
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LEGO Genetics posted:so you're saying SHAFT should animate the next series of Avatar If it was focused on the Spirit World, I think Shaft's particular style would work for such a strange place. However, I don't think they're right for a setting in the human world.
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Dec 24, 2014 22:51
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Oh Snapple! posted:The wisdom of a little girl that promptly runs the gently caress off and leaves the person she's supposed to be guiding lost in a strange world because she saw something pretty Season 1 Jinora was a fun side character. Post season 1, the writers turned her into a bland, personality-less plot radar who could use her magical intuition to tell characters where they needed to go to advance the story. She's "wise" in the sense of a bad D&D character, in that "wisdom" is a mechanical statistic that she started with and everyone tells us she has a high score in. Compare this to Iroh. Everyone calls him an old fool, but we know he's wise because he keeps helping people using the lessons he learned traveling the world. It's like Bolin not being able to lavabend instead of metalbend. Instead of telling us something about the character like Zuko being unable to lightningbend because he can't quiet his inner turmoil, it's just a dry mechanical fact.
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Dec 24, 2014 22:58
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SpiderHyphenMan posted:Best ATLA Character: Objectively Zuko. One of the greatest characters in the history of television Lol
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Dec 24, 2014 23:01
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Writh posted:I joked with my wife after the episode where the spirits refused to help that if I was Korra, after the battle was over I would go to the North and South Poles and close the portals (this convo was before the third portal was created) "There, now you don't have to help anyone you selfish assholes. The Avatar has a new purpose. I will be the wall and deportation team for our world," as I lock the doors forever. It really bothered me when the spirits compared her to Unalaq. I thought it was a very unfair comparison. Unalaq was trying to trick them into TAKING OVER THE WORLD!!!! (more or less) Korra was asking them to help defend their new homes - which she willingly opened the way to let them have. It seemed like a really bad writing choice.
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Dec 24, 2014 23:36
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Cosmic/spiritual forces tend to have a black and white view of what they can or can't do. Not to mention their presence on the battlefield could lead to escalation considering using spiritual power is now much more on the table.
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Dec 24, 2014 23:38
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TFRazorsaw posted:Cosmic/spiritual forces tend to have a black and white view of what they can or can't do. Not to mention their presence on the battlefield could lead to escalation considering using spiritual power is now much more on the table. Actually - taking over the world vs defending homes should fall into "black" and "white" fairly easily. Their morality is more along the lines of Blue and Orange. Not easy to put into human style morality. Did make the spirits seem like they were unfit to live in the material world though.
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Dec 24, 2014 23:43
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Microcline posted:It's like Bolin not being able to lavabend instead of metalbend. Instead of telling us something about the character like Zuko being unable to lightningbend because he can't quiet his inner turmoil, it's just a dry mechanical fact. Bolin COULD learn to metalbend, he's just bad at it.
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Dec 24, 2014 23:47
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My favourite thing about lightningbending from ATLA was that it was basically implied you basically have to achieve enlightenment or just be a straight up psychopath. I guess in Korra they found some way around that because a nobody triad boss and uh, Mako, figured it out.
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Dec 24, 2014 23:52
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Eej posted:My favourite thing about lightningbending from ATLA was that it was basically implied you basically have to achieve enlightenment or just be a straight up psychopath. I guess in Korra they found some way around that because a nobody triad boss and uh, Mako, figured it out. Bending gets easier over time as people develop techniques that use it. This is an established thing even in the first show. I mean the show has ten billion metalbenders running around when previously it required a blind girl who was uniquely attuned to seeing things in a way only she could to do it. mauman posted:It really bothered me when the spirits compared her to Unalaq. I thought it was a very unfair comparison. Korra wasn't asking them to help defend their homes. She was asking them to help the humans fight other humans. That was sort of the issue there. As far as we know, Kuvira would not have actually attacked the spirits and even her assault on the Spirit Vines was accidental. If she took over Republic City then there's nothing saying she would have tried to kill all the spirits or whatever. The spirits were being exploited by Kuvira for her war, not actively warred upon like Republic City was. It's a pretty good thing Korra was called on it and the spirits did in fact tell her to gently caress off, instead of Korra being allowed to use the spirits as her personal army. ImpAtom fucked around with this message at 00:01 on Dec 25, 2014 |
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Dec 24, 2014 23:55
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If harvesting the spirit vines isn't attacking the spirits, why did they get so pissed off about it and attack random unrelated humans? Basically spirits are alien invaders from another universe and you just can't reason with them. Eej posted:My favourite thing about lightningbending from ATLA was that it was basically implied you basically have to achieve enlightenment or just be a straight up psychopath. It's funny how often those two things get the exact same result in this franchise. I mean Zaheer of all people achieves enlightenment. The murderous, fanatical anarchist. And Azula is a lightning bending prodigy not because she's emotionally centered, but because there's something deeply wrong with her. If I wanted to be an overinterpreting rear end in a top hat and stir up poo poo I'd say it's some kind of negative commentary on certain interpretations of Buddhist ideas of detachment.
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Dec 25, 2014 00:02
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I remember reading somewhere that lightningbending was really rare at the time of ATLA but I guess Korra really took a big dump on firebenders in general so them being everywhere isn't that unexpected. e: The Sharmat posted:It's funny how often those two things get the exact same result in this franchise. I mean Zaheer of all people achieves enlightenment. The murderous, fanatical anarchist. And Azula is a lightning bending prodigy not because she's emotionally centered, but because there's something deeply wrong with her. Well, he did kinda achieve enlightenment in that he was completely freed of all earthly attachments and fully realized his philosophy that nothing should be able to restrict his freedom. That's still a form of enlightenment! Eej fucked around with this message at 00:05 on Dec 25, 2014 |
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Dec 25, 2014 00:02
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ImpAtom posted:As far as we know, Kuvira would not have actually attacked the spirits and even her assault on the Spirit Vines was accidental. What about her harvesting the Na'Vi spirit grove for a vine supply? I know they don't actually show much of that, but it's not exactly a side-effect of her conquests.
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Dec 25, 2014 00:06
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Eej posted:Well, he did kinda achieve enlightenment in that he was completely freed of all earthly attachments and fully realized his philosophy that nothing should be able to restrict his freedom. That's still a form of enlightenment! But that's the thing. Enlightenment turns out to make you really loving scary.
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Dec 25, 2014 00:08
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I'll play, because this is actually a non-awful use of this thread. Favorites: Sokka, Zaheer, Lin (s2 excepted), Aang, Suki, Toph, previous lives (as a whole I really liked these) Oh and this man over here:   Least favorites: Amon got ruined for me hard by the end of s1. The reveal of him was okay but how he was handled was just meh, props for the murder-suicide resolution. Unalaq for obvious reasons, Mai because she always bored me, loving Meelo especially in s4. Notable things: I wanted to love Bolin a whole lot more then I do, but they pushed his "humor" too far at times. While I don't think Mako is a good character altogether after s3 and s4 he is noticeably better and no longer on my worst list. I kinda want to put Raava and Vatuu on the least list, not because of the idea behind her but they are just not interesting to me. The only interesting thing about Raava is her bond with the avatars.
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Dec 25, 2014 00:09
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quote:If harvesting the spirit vines isn't attacking the spirits, why did they get so pissed off about it and attack random unrelated humans? That didn't strike me as something the spirits decided to do. Remember Heibai in ATLA. Mucking about with spiritual forces disturbs their balance and causes them to act disruptively. There wasn't a will behind what those spirit vines were doing in republic city.
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Dec 25, 2014 00:10
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Heibai absolutely was acting under his own will. But I suppose that could be different from the vines. If it actually doesn't bother the spirits that much then Republic City is gonna make a mint off of spirit vine energy in the future.
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Dec 25, 2014 00:12
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I thought the forest being burned down was what made him violent and act contrary to his more peaceful nature?
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Dec 25, 2014 00:21
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Yeah. And if someone walked up and punched you in the face you'd probably also act differently. Does that mean you were compelled to do it? Spirits are weird man I dunno
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Dec 25, 2014 00:23
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Chiminey posted:So what happens now? The bulk of Kuvira's forces are presumably still around. And the dissolution of her troops dissolves the only stability in the region. Republic City is in ruins and thousands of evacuated refugees are left homeless in mainland Earth Kingdom. Spirit vine technology exists and if it falls into the wrong the resulting arms race could have catastrophic effects on both the spirits and the world itself. Wu goes back and abdicates. The earth kingdom troops go back to the earth kingdom with Wu. At that point, my guess is that the earth kingdom would turn into a loose federation of districts (kinda like modern day switzerland). Republic city rebuilds and continues at the focal point of the industrial renaissance, with a side dish of spirity stuff due to the vines and portal. Spirit vine technology is banned like bloodbending is, with maybe the spirits getting a bit more involved in making sure that people don't play with it. It's not as though people aren't used to the Avatar taking a break and having to sort stuff out for themselves.
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Dec 25, 2014 00:25
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westyx posted:It's not as though people aren't used to the Avatar taking a break and having to sort stuff out for themselves.
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Dec 25, 2014 00:34
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I know it's been talked about to death but I was curious about some reactions to the last scenes outside of the tumblr crowd who get way too involved in that sort of thing and its been pretty positive. Even a couple of the negative blogs point out that they didn't like that they ended up together, to them, it just seemed like they didn't have enough screen time by themselves that it doesn't feel earned or that their characters were sacrificed to the inclusion god (and they point out the blog where the creator says they did it for the queer community). They used Varrik and Zhu Li as an example of having a lot of screen time together, especially towards the end, that Korra and Asami are lacking. But I'd argue that Korra and Asami's go back into season 3 as well and their's was more of a budding relationship rather than an evolution of Varrik and Zhu Li's ongoing one. Still, I won't argue against that they could have used more one on one dialogue. But others, holy poo poo, it makes the gimmicks posted on here look lightweight by comparison. So much homophobia hiding behind the excuse of "poor writing" that it's crazy.
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Dec 25, 2014 00:56
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ImpAtom posted:Korra wasn't asking them to help defend their homes. She was asking them to help the humans fight other humans. That was sort of the issue there. As far as we know, Kuvira would not have actually attacked the spirits and even her assault on the Spirit Vines was accidental. If she took over Republic City then there's nothing saying she would have tried to kill all the spirits or whatever. The spirits were being exploited by Kuvira for her war, not actively warred upon like Republic City was. That's a pretty convenient way to look at things when your (your referring to the spirits) response is, "gently caress you got mine." Kuvira's acts against the spirit vines wasn't an accident. She used a machine to make sure the vines in the swamp were generating enough Varricks for her purposes. Her forces getting attacked and the abductions in Republic City was just an unforeseen result of her actions. Memory might be off a bit but I believe she told her men to strip the all the vines while in the swamp. To assume a newly appointed dictator who just told the world she would crush them if they got in her way wouldn't build a massive weapons stock pile is considerably naïve (not calling you naïve but that line of thinking). Honestly, though never stated, so I will not use this a crux of my point at all, I imagine after seeing what the vines could do she went after Republic City for the chiefly for the vines. Unless the United Republic is just one city why wouldn't she start by pushing their boarders back to reduce their overall resources. If the spirits perceived no threat from Kuvira why did they leave the city? She may not have said nor intended to kill off the spirits but in season three a spirit stated plainly to Korra something along the lines, "Vines, spirits, what the difference? Seems like the Avatar should know that." I have no idea how that would have directly effected them but clearly something was gonna happen or the vines wouldn't have attacked and then when that failed the spirits wouldn't have bailed. It would be like if Korra asked the benders of Republic City to help and they all said, "Nah I'm gonna just go to the fire nation till this blows over." Korra's request was something along the lines of, "We need your help to defend the home and world share and are building together." She was not asking for offensive army but rather help in protecting the city. A brief addressing of Heibei: That panda knew what it was doing because when Aang showed it the acorn and said the trees would grow back it was suddenly pacified. If we were to believe it was unable to control itself because of the destruction or that it was some kinda spirit/nature compulsion the acorns either shouldn't have worked or their shouldn't have been a problem in with Heibei in the first place? DOWN WITH THE SPIRITS! P.S. Anyone else disappointed we didn't get to see the Fire Nation?
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Dec 25, 2014 01:01
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Aang is crushing on Kataara pretty hard by the end of the pilot Sokka and Yue undergo a tale of starcrossed lovers within what is more or less a week. Sokka is also making out with Suki by the point of their second meeting. Mai and Zuko pair up offscreen (with a comic being made later to explain it). Given all that, and considering the creators said Korra and Asami are just then discovering their feelings and starting a relationship in the finale, I think it's more than fine. I dunno, it kind of feels like people are saying LGBTQ relationships have to work twice as hard.
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Dec 25, 2014 01:04
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Jackard posted:"why did you turn into a baby again you ruined everything!?!" Ya gotta be careful otherwise the Avatar here becomes the Avatar in Ultima. While a very strong force for good and is an inspiration, they are both still human, mortal, and the changes they implement sometimes cause more trouble than the problems they solve. I am not sure who my most and least favorite is. I'm a huge fan of Boleyn and Toph's daughters but honestly I don't hate any of the cast, as even the villains serve important story purposes. I do like that basically everyone contributes. The mains, the adults, and the kids. Nobody is completely worthless at helping to save the day in some fashion. Even Boomi and the farting Damian Wayne lend a valuable hand!
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Dec 25, 2014 01:06
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Writh posted:It would be like if Korra asked the benders of Republic City to help and they all said, "Nah I'm gonna just go to the fire nation till this blows over." A lot of them did though. I mean they evacuated the city. That's kind of the thing to note there. Korra didn't go there to evacuate the spirits. She went there to ask them to fight when they are effectively as much civilians as the people they were evacuating. The spirits, of their own free will, probably should have helped but they're spirits and don't want to be involved with human matters. Korra coming to them was absolutely her trying to get forces she wouldn't have otherwise no matter how she coached it and the spirits were right to call her on that.
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Dec 25, 2014 01:07
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Captain Rufus posted:Ya gotta be careful otherwise the Avatar here becomes the Avatar in Ultima. While a very strong force for good and is an inspiration, they are both still human, mortal, and the changes they implement sometimes cause more trouble than the problems they solve. Kya didn't help at all 
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Dec 25, 2014 01:07
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I can't wait to read conservative news articles about how nickelodeon wants to corrupt ARE CHILDREN with their gay agenda.
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Dec 25, 2014 01:11
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Writh posted:P.S. Anyone else disappointed we didn't get to see the Fire Nation? Very much so. Beyond the fact that it would be interesting to see how the Fire Nation's culture has changed in the 70ish years since Ozai's cult of personality collapsed, the Fire Nation was just really interesting from an art direction perspective, as they based it off a lot of cool volcanic landscapes in Iceland. I feel they missed an opportunity there in Korra Alone. Rather than a montage of her walking through various areas, have her actually interact with them beyond that one fish merchant on Kyoshi Island. Have her wander poorer, backwater Fire Nation towns where people hate the Avatar and romanticize the 100 Year War as a better time for the Fire Nation. And/Or have her visit richer, more metropolitan cities where Fire Nation citizens don't care that the Avatar has vanished, since things are going well for them.
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Dec 25, 2014 01:12
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ImpAtom posted:A lot of them did though. I mean they evacuated the city. That's kind of the thing to note there. Korra didn't go there to evacuate the spirits. She went there to ask them to fight when they are effectively as much civilians as the people they were evacuating. I concede, to your point about them being civilians but I don't see it so much as asking the spirits to be her army as her asking them to help protect the city they all lived in. But again, if I look at them as civilians and not as magic monsters it makes sense that they would just flee. I assume to much of them based on their magical, and as far as I know immortal nature, that being involved in a confrontation like this wouldn't bother them but that is a wrong assumption to make. They've been cowardly dicks for over 10000 years and are only really tough when they have humans drastically out numbered. I still think the spirits were taking way to broad a strokes trying to compare her to Unalaq. If you crash at my place long enough I'm gonna ask you to pay rent. Yeah they don't wanna be involved in human matters. That's how they spin it at first, next thing ya know everyone's back on the Lionturtles. And why were humans there because spirits drove them there. Give it a few Avatars and those portals will be getting closed agan. WAN WAS RIGHT SPIRITS GET THE gently caress OUT!
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Dec 25, 2014 01:31
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