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Well I'm hella glad to see that the shrill hyperbole that drove me from the last thread is alive and well here as well  Anyway, I thought the episodes were great, though parts of the third episode's animation were as spotty as the stuff book 2 offered. Really loving the villains; I've been wanting an evil airbender on this show forever and now I get what I want~ One thing I did notice, though...when that guy on the bridge in the first episode said that he didn't want to be an airbender and begged Korra to "make it stop," and Korra said that she couldn't? Weeeelllll....technically, she could. She can take his bending away pretty easily, really. Sithsaber posted:Eastern reality is cyclical and symbiotic so he thought he was linking up with a necessary and inevitable cosmic force. Raava gets to be dickish, stale and stiff as her supremecy stagnates, and Vaatu is set to tear that poo poo down. This is evaded through half assed balance (achieved through dissipation and not synthesis) even though korra never articulated what she learned in the tree (reducing Vaatu to plain old corruption) and Korraverse was set up for building societal upheaval the avatar would be increasingly unable to mitigate.
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Jun 29, 2014 23:00
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| # ¿ May 15, 2024 01:40 |
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Sure, and it's not that "yin" is bad and "yang" is good. They're metaphysical attributes, not moral ones. Yang represents sunlight and laughter and life and joy, but someone who murders a bunch of other people in a fit of rage would still be exhibiting "yang" energy...forceful, fiery, fierce yang energy. Vaatu and Raava visually resemble opposing forces of yin and yang but are not true depictions of those things (nor do I think they were intended to be). I think the closest they get to being yin-yang archetypes is when they say that both of them actually exist within the other.
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Jun 29, 2014 23:22
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Pfft, the fact that he didn't say his parents were killed by firebenders was the biggest indication that he was lying. I like how the little play they put on with Mako the firebending villain was probably hella racist by this world's standards.
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Jun 30, 2014 05:50
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I think it might be the visual position of the plaque that strikes us as a distinctly-Asian element. That kind of placement of picture frames is a little rare for western households, whereas for Asian families it can be a common sight even today. Not to mention the worshipful way that Bolin/Mako's grandma treats it, more as an altar instead of just, y'know, a picture of someone you like and respect. I don't know much about Catholicism in practice, but I assume people don't literally pray to the Pope?
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Jul 2, 2014 05:36
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I shall consider it a wasted opportunity of Equalist-level proportions if this scene doesn't occur somehow 
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Jul 12, 2014 23:51
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The Avatar's always been much more of a folk hero than he or she has ever been supported by the ruling authorities; that's been the case way back from Wan to Kyoshi to Roku to Aang and now to Korra. Aang's relationship with Zuko was probably close to an ideal situation, but I can't otherwise remember a single instance through five whole "seasons" of this series where a person of authority actually deferred to the Avatar's decisions if those decisions conflicted with their own goals. And it's not just the ruling class; even the citizenry only ever gives the Avatar the time of day so long as he or she doesn't step on their toes. It's one thing to pay lip service to the idea of a Chosen spiritual leader setting the world to rights, and quite another thing to actually come face to face with this so-called messiah and the reality sets in that he or she's just a person like anyone else...or, worse, just a kid. Being the Avatar gives Korra and Aang a lot of social advantages depending on context, but "People always do what you say" is absolutely not one of them. As far as Aang winning more fights than Korra...eh, I seem to recall Korra winning quite a number of fights and Aang losing a bunch as well, and maybe the overall ratio does favor Aang (if you care about that kind of thing)...but then, folks holding Aang and Korra to different standards is unfortunately old news by now. In any case, this book has been pretty great so far. I've been wanting to see a villainous airbender for a helluva long time and Zaheer is definitely delivering on that front. It actually occurs to me that there shouldn't be anything preventing him from bending, like, anime-style air blades that just cuts someone apart with the wind if he really wants to push airbending to its logical conclusion. I doubt we'll see someone cut apart on this show, but maybe we'll see him really cut loose with something like that.
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Jul 16, 2014 07:07
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I really do like Mako and Bolin this season. They've found that great chemistry that seemed a bit underutilized before, with Mako being a debbie downer while Bolin is stupidly excited about everything.
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Jul 18, 2014 05:42
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I have a feeling that the subset of airbending is not going to be something as straightforward as sound or even astral projection. With all the emphasis they've been putting on the more esoteric origins of airbending -- gurus were mentioned twice in this latest episode, with Guru Lahima being brought up for the third time this season -- and with one of the upcoming episodes of the season being titled "Enter the Void," I predict that the airbending subset is going to be voidbending. Just as metal is considered an element in Chinese metaphysics (and Suyin specifically referred to it as one of the elements in the sixth episode), the void is an element in Japanese philosophy that has some connections with sky and air. How in the world would you bend the void and what would it even do or look like? No idea whatsoever. On a related note, I realized if I existed in this universe then I would absolutely be Otaku, which is both encouraging and discouraging.
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Jul 19, 2014 20:05
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Aces High posted:I can't recall if they even mentioned this or not but since most of the new Airbenders were non-benders before does this mean Opal was a black sheep in her family? A non-bender surrounded by benders like Bumi? Aces High posted:Also, is Team Avatar just gonna continue chilling in Metal City and Opal is going to NAT by herself? That doesn't seem like something Su would allow but Korra didn't sound like she was preparing to move out when speaking with Tenzin.
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Jul 19, 2014 22:29
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To be fair, Jinora probably is as good at airbending as Tenzin since Tenzin doesn't seem to be that good. I will say that I'm getting a little antsy about them putting Jinora in danger so Kai can rescue her all the time.
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Jul 21, 2014 05:29
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Listen Rowling, I know you love your Celtic crap but I have it on good authority that putting animal parts in wooden sticks doesn't actually imbue it with mystical potential!
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Jul 21, 2014 05:35
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Jinora gets to show off her passive nurturing spirit powers a lot but Kai's the one who gets to beat people up when she's in danger, despite the fact that she's the near-master while he's been trained for like a week. She gets helplessly grappled by the Dai Li, despite being the one person in the room who should be able to avoid that most easily, so that Kai can show off his violence. Both of them are put in the same cages by the poachers this week and, yes, both of them contribute to their escape, but Jinora's the one who ends up being the literal damsel carted off by outlaws while the menfolk cowboys chase her down. Also keeping in mind that she spent half of the last season in a spirit coma -- despite being the actual spirit guide -- waiting for others to come to her rescue. It's not that big a deal and maybe the whole point is that Jinora's just not so good at action scenes, but it does make me antsy. I don't think any other character's been depicted the way she is in the show so far, and so her treatment stands out.
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Jul 21, 2014 06:19
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 SPECULATION TIMEWe know, from upcoming episode titles and some Nickelodeon website filenames, that these villains are the Order of the Red Lotus. The White Lotus exists, as far as we know, in order to promote unity and cohesion between the four (now five counting the United Republic) (well, six now that the Water Tribes are officially split) different nations. If the Red Lotus is the opposite of that, then their goal is to maintain the division and seclusive nature of the world's nations. For some reason. But if so, that would explain why they want to hunt down the Avatar, who pretty much personifies the unity of the separate nations, and why they seems to have plans for the president of the United Republic, which was Avatar Aang and Firelord Zuko's grand experiment in bringing separate nations together as one whole new thing. I predict, then, that by the season's end they're going to end up working with the Earth Queen, who also hates the Avatar and the United Republic for taking Earth Kingdom territory. The one giant honking massive problem in this analysis is, of course, the fact that the Red Lotus themselves are comprised of four different kinds of benders working together, which seems counterproductive to that whole division of nations thing. But hey, maybe they just don't see the hypocrisy in that. v  v
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Jul 22, 2014 05:44
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Doesn't that actually make it sound like the queen is going to emerge victorious or something? Which would certainly be the case if she allies with them.
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Jul 22, 2014 05:58
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Spergatory posted:Not really. Their advice was: Yangchen as well. Aang was all "You're an Air Nomad like me, you understand why it's wrong to kill!" and she replied, in no uncertain terms, "Yes, but we as Avatars don't have that luxary." Aang didn't misunderstand any of the past Avatars in the least, and they certainly weren't trying to subtly direct him towards discovering energybending or something. No, he managed to find that method -- which wasn't so much the third option as it was what he was trying to accomplish in the first place -- in spite of their instructions, by sticking to his own convictions.
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Jul 22, 2014 19:54
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What about throwing up all over myself? Can I try that? (I can't believe how invested I am in this show  )
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Jul 23, 2014 21:38
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I'm going to make the completely objective, indisputable claim that even at its very utter worst, Legend of Korra was still many times better than absolutely everything else on Nickelodeon.
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Jul 24, 2014 06:08
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Has the thread gone mad from grief? To say nothing of Shyamalan's film fiasco, there's no way a live action version of Korra would do any remote kind of justice to the kind of effects it deserves, much less on a TV budget. The whole point of the series is to be a cartoon.
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Jul 24, 2014 07:17
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Where's she getting that water from, thin air? Immersion ruined.  no that looks pretty great
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Jul 26, 2014 01:04
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Goddamn this was a great episode. They're not gonna make Toph's daughter into a villain, y'all. In fact she did a great thing by sending the new Team Avatar on a mission to have adventures around the world, and I'm beyond excited to see what's gonna happen next.
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Jul 26, 2014 06:07
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Preview clip from the next episode. Korra does the thing. 
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Jul 26, 2014 19:05
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I seem to recall that the only people who ever lavabended before Ghazan were past Avatars like Roku and some other guy. So while it could be a firebending thing, the fact that Ghazan does it probably shows that it's strictly earthbending-related. Waterbending into ice and steam actually makes sense to me considering that they're just changing the shapes of the same substance into one thing and another. And water is the element of change, so it makes "sense" that it'd be the easiest to shift between one form and the next...solid, liquid, and gas. I mean, "make sense" insofar that it's some kind of literal moon magic, of course. It actually makes me wonder some things about earthbending. Can it "repair" rocks and stone? Like if someone smashes all the rocks around you to tiny gravels, can you somehow gather those pieces back into bigger rocks? If you knock a block of stone out of the ground as benders on the show tend to do, can you put that block back exactly as it was and repair the cracked ground you just made so that there was no damage to the earth at all, or is there just gonna be a cracked block there forever? BrianWilly fucked around with this message at 06:45 on Jul 27, 2014 |
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Jul 27, 2014 06:42
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It suddenly occurs to me that the only reason Aiwei suggested Lin go to the acupuncturist was because she was threatening to search every nook and cranny of Zaofu in her (in retrospect, justifiably) paranoid state and might have uncovered his plot. Anyway, check out this extended, in-depth demo of the Platinum Games...game. Some of those finishing moves are pretty full tilt anime  , but it's pretty great to see a lot of bending techniques from the show straight up replicated in game format. Fire jets! Ice shard barrage! Breakdancing! It's too bad we only seem to be able to play as Korra herself, but maybe some potential sequels could add other playable characters? Maybe?
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Jul 28, 2014 20:10
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Huh......welp, I hadn't given much (if any) credence to the whole "Su's a traitor" theory until I saw this just now. And here's the full image for context. Is it Zaheer? It certainly looks more like him than it doesn't. The idea that the fearsome foursome met while working in the circus would certainly explain a whole lot of things about them, especially how they've specialized in unusual and unique forms of bending. But it doesn't explain why Su was instrumental in stopping them during their attack, not just explaining to Bolin in detail how to stop a combustion bender, but also shredding Zaheer's glider when he went after Lin and Korra. edit: Also like, why Su would even have a picture of her and a known criminal out right there in the open for anyone to friggin' see, if that's really him. BrianWilly fucked around with this message at 20:59 on Jul 28, 2014 |
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Jul 28, 2014 20:57
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ImpAtom posted:I don't know. They're certainly similar but that guy has markings around his eyes and big bushy eyebrows which are easily the most distinguishing feature on his face. I don't think he's actually Zaheer. It may be nothing of course.
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Jul 28, 2014 21:37
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Well, the HQ version of that photo wasn't shown in the episode and only revealed at Comic-Con, where...well, I guess it's also meant to be seen publicly  , but yeah.Again though: thirty years. That's an even longer time difference between, say, when Toph and Aang were depicted as fresh-faced teenagers on ATLA and when they were shown as hardened serious adults on this show. I don't think it'd be strange for "Zaheer" (if that's really him) to be shown with wide-eyed youthful enthusiasm when he was working in a circus with his friends, and for him to have physically changed into a much rougher, more narrow-eyed man after all that must have happened to him over the years, including thirteen years in air jail. Even Firelord Ozai was a baby once!
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Jul 28, 2014 22:06
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I will say it's a bit odd that Korra can't seem to just Avatar State her way out of those restraints. Well, maybe she does, in the very next frame of the scene.
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Jul 29, 2014 02:50
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It's funny that the Equalist plot might get more resolved in the game than in the show. Now, when I say funny...
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Jul 29, 2014 05:10
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Yeah but it also involved a massive teaching moment and one of the apex bits of character interaction/development of the series. A better comparison would probably be the end of Book 1 where Aang just gets Koizilla powers out of the blue and smashes all the poo poo when, by all rights, they really should have lost that battle, but didn't because
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Jul 30, 2014 05:53
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More airbenders might very well just continue to pop up in more places throughout the world. Along with those who refused to become air nomads when Tenzin and Korra offered, there could very well end up being many many more that haven't been found yet. And if leaving the spirit portals open changed the rules, you might not even need to be a direct descendant of any airbenders to become one.
BrianWilly fucked around with this message at 23:08 on Jul 31, 2014 |
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Jul 31, 2014 19:11
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Good lord, this season is unreal. Loved the episode. Total jaw drop when Zaheer just friggin' teleported across the spirit world and threw Aiwei into the mist. And I thought the Pai Sho scene between Bolin and Asami deserves some props for being just a quiet, fun little character interaction sequence that totally worked. Also enjoyed how totally in over their heads Mako and Bolin were, when fighting the Red Lotus. Too bad my speculation about the Red Lotus' motivations were super wrong, but hey on the bright side someone else's spec was super right! The one thing that made me twitch was when Zaheer was talking about Unalaq and said "He allowed me and my friends to stay in prison -" PROPER GRAMMER, FOOL.  It's "He allowed my friends and I"! Guess you're not so smart after all!
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Aug 1, 2014 20:09
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.......one sounds more right to me and is therefore the correct one.
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Aug 1, 2014 20:19
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The spirit world isn't the Avatar-verse afterlife. I think one of the creators outright said it on a commentary track, but basically Iroh and all the rest of the folks in the Mist are special cases. In general, we can assume that people in this world reincarnate when they die.
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Aug 1, 2014 23:27
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There's definitely something going on with the Pai Sho game. At first I thought it was a simple chance vs deliberation, chaos vs order, anarchy vs law dichotomy as exemplified by the Red Lotus and the White Lotus, but if the Red Lotus was formed relatively recently, there might be something else it's trying to say as well. Something else that's interesting was that, looking back, even Tenzin outright told Korra that her job wasn't to do the president's job, but to keep balance. But then again, he also implied that the president's job wasn't unimportant...it just wasn't Korra's job. Also really looking forward to Old Man Zuko, who's probably the Grand Master of the White Lotus of this time, explaining a bunch of this poo poo when he finally meets Korra. agghghghh don't disappoint me, show
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Aug 2, 2014 00:32
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I'm just waiting for the whole "New growth cannot exist without the destruction of the old" thing to end up being that Laghima was just talking about his beloved bonsai garden or something.
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Aug 2, 2014 10:21
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Just give her a gun.
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Aug 2, 2014 23:46
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uMMMmmm speaking of more violent forms of bending... BIG SPOILER GIF posted on Nick's own website.  "Instead of offering her a breathe mint, Zaheer decides to get to the root of the Earth Queen's problem." r u SRS Nick.com
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Aug 7, 2014 02:46
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Well c'mon let's not blow it out of proportion.
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Aug 8, 2014 22:58
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Yeah I don't really care about the exact scale of whatever 'cuz this season's been giving me a whole lot of what I've been wanting from the series. The best franchises are the ones that have been able to deal with both big and small threats and have them feel like necessary, riveting stories. Moreover, there's a lot of finer bits of characterization here that only work because they grew out of events that have already transpired. It's not as simple as switching the places of two big threats and just calling it a day.
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Aug 9, 2014 22:34
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| # ¿ May 15, 2024 01:40 |
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I think Zaheer found Korra because Aiwei met him in the spirit world and told him she was at Zaofu. Even Jinora mentioned that there was a limit to how far she could project her spirit, in the physical world.
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Aug 10, 2014 02:23
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