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It starts before Shabbos this is so nice!
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Jun 28, 2014 00:00
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| # ¿ May 15, 2024 13:44 |
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So Korra/Asami is canon now?
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Jun 28, 2014 00:32
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Ha, they animated Debate and Discussion.
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Jun 28, 2014 00:46
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YOU CAN loving FLY NOW@ GO TO THE G-DDAMN AIR TEMPLE ALREADY
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Jun 28, 2014 00:52
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Did they think we didn't like Dante's voice enough?
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Jun 28, 2014 01:02
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My new pet theory:Before they tried to kill Korra, the Gang of Four killed Aang. I don't have evidence to back it, but it makes sense.
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Jun 29, 2014 02:32
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Sithsaber posted:Reddit already disproved this theory. Awwww. Oh well. I do like the new bad guys.
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Jun 29, 2014 02:52
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One of the things that is not great about the current animation crew is that fights are super fast, so there's not a lot of time to see the bending moves. People are also doing stuff that clearly violate whatever laws of bending were set up in ATLA, but I think part of that is the show's dedication to always showing us new moves every fight, which I have to respect. Also no one's invented the gun yet. It wouldn't be the END of bending, but it would be the end of bending as a close-combat option. Part of that is probably that it's on Nick; they don't want the enemies to just have a lot of guns, but even in ATLA the Fire Nation had super-advanced tanks which could turn themselves upside down but somehow, not guns. It would also be silly. "We've got these four super-benders who want to take out the Avatar. We also have a guy with the gun. Both have about equal chance. The guy with the gun will just be faster." Or whatever, they couch crush her with a rock while she's sleeping. Wouldn't require a whole lot of bending. She would have to use the Vaatu cheat code to get out of that.
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Jun 29, 2014 07:42
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AshB posted:There is nothing shameful about supporting the show by watching it as it's officially released. I don't know how official my "don't have a television/livestream viewing" was.
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Jun 29, 2014 17:56
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...I actually kind of liked a lot of last season. Not all of it, but a lot of it. I liked it a lot more than season 1 even if it ultimately made less sense. And it revealed the real secret of the Avatar universe, which is that every Avatar since the first has just been making poo poo up as they go along. Never figured out Unalaq's plan, though. Raava was clearly just going to destroy the universe. I don't know why he would be up for that. That seems like a bad deal, even for him.
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Jun 29, 2014 21:14
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Sithsaber posted:She bore witness to everything in that world tree, at least briefly making her a tao God with a inherent understanding of the energy of the universe etc etc. Energy bending is a epiphenic underlying skill that isn't dependent on training. (Unless the lion turtle just gave Aang his power of energy bending which would mean that the power is gone because the lineage is broken) Instead of that, I'm pretty sure Korra just meant that she "couldn't" take away the future of a people because of the uncertainty of its future forebears. Nonetheless the key challenge for Aang was that his own spirit had to be "unbendable" to not be destroyed by the process of de-bending someone, and Korra is bendable as poo poo. Her mood turns on a dime and she has very little certainty about who she is (other than being the AVATAR, yes, we get it already Korra) and what she's supposed to be doing. I would be very surprised if Korra was able to de-bend someone. It would really take away from Aang's triumph over Ozai.
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Jun 30, 2014 00:04
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ConfusedUs posted:Anyone know why this isn't up on iTunes or Amazon Instant yet? I suspect that Nick is doing such a lousy job of publicity and burning off episodes quickly because this show doesn't make a lot of money for them so they don't give a poo poo, and would rather get back to a show that sells toys. This includes bothering to put it up on iTunes.
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Jun 30, 2014 01:10
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Fried Chicken posted:We see here energy bend int he fight though? What went down between her and Unalaq was exactly what the Lion Turtle described. Like Aang and Ozai Korra and Unalaq both become colored energy beings. They start pushing their energy at the other and their respective color slowly overwhelmes the other until it covers them completely, with the eyes being last of all. The difference is while Aang didn't destroy Ozai, Korra does destroy Unalaq. The whole threat to energy bending is you corrupt the other and destroy them, and Unalaq and Vatuu were being corrupting force to create dark spirits. That's true.
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Jun 30, 2014 01:11
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On Tenzin and airbending: I know this had to had to happen the way it did for plot/character reasons, but Tenzin really could have sold airbending school much better. "Hi! I see you have a power you currently can't control. Well, it turns out I'm the only airbending teacher on the planet, so why don't you come to my temple for a couple months, all expenses paid, and I'll show you how to properly airbend so you can use it in your life without destroying everything around you?" That's how cults get people in.
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Jun 30, 2014 01:24
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Superstring posted:Gotta admit. The vegetarian thing would give me pause. I would just plan to cheat behind Tenzin's back.
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Jun 30, 2014 01:34
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The Taint Reaper posted:Skybison Burgers. Naw, they're like regular burgers but a little gamey and $4 more.
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Jun 30, 2014 02:09
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Superstring posted:If the Shaolin Kung Fu flicks I watched as a kid are any indication, it happened all the time. I actually know a bunch of Buddhist monks and nuns who try to be vegetarian, but they end up cheating, either out of hunger or desperately needing more protein/iron in their diet.
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Jun 30, 2014 02:10
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Darth Walrus posted:This is the most likely explanation. Airbenders are incredibly new, and that means that the first nation to train them en masse is going to have an enormous tactical advantage. Combine that with the fact that the Earth Kingdom has a lot of fantasy North Korea to it (and thus a gigantic military fetish), and you have all the reason you need. I don't know why people are making all these North Korea comparisons. It's really Empress Dowager Cixi and the late Ching Empire all the way (except that historians are revising their opinion of Cixi in some interesting books), right down to the empire land being taken by foreigners.
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Jul 1, 2014 02:26
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ShadowCatboy posted:To be fair, the North Korea comparison was pretty decent in the original series given the severe information control being conducted by the Dai Lee. You know, "There is no war in Ba Sing Se," along with the use of "handlers" (Ju Dee) who are required intermediaries between foreign visitors and the rest of the populace. Actually, North Korea is ALWAYS at war with America, and is ALWAYS right about to win (given the chance), and the brainwashing is kind of different. They don't force you to believe it. They just say it and say it and say it until you DO believe it. It's taken for granted that you believe it. The Dai Li were far more 1984 than any particular country.
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Jul 1, 2014 07:25
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Sorry, double post.
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Jul 1, 2014 07:26
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People genuinely used to worship the Emperor, who ruled with the Mandate of Heaven. Modern Asian regimes have copied that because they're not dummies. Mao created a cult of popularity around himself leading up to the Cultural Revolution so that he could use public sentiment to eliminate his enemies, which at that point was everybody. Since the regime he's founded has never fallen (just altered over time) and his real history has never been shown in China, people still think of him as a god who could do no wrong and make a pilgrimage to his mausoleum.
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Jul 1, 2014 18:50
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Nick just tweeted that they are re-airing the first three episodes this Friday instead of new episodes. https://twitter.com/NickelodeonTV/status/484037279879815168
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Jul 1, 2014 20:42
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Jorenko posted:I think it's actually because Unavaatu created the vines there in the first place (during the finale kaiju battle), and they're a magnet for the spirits. Also, spirits seem to be dicks. Even the nice ones turn immediately evil if you piss them off.
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Jul 1, 2014 22:11
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Sithsaber posted:If humans learned to live in BALANCE this wouldn't be a issue*. Even when humans were starving to death on the back of giant lion turtles and spirits had the run of the place, spirits were more or less dicks. Or the dicks were the proactive ones.
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Jul 2, 2014 01:08
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computer parts posted:This isn't true incidentally, post-Mao the CCP distanced themselves from him about as much as you can do while still acknowledging that he founded your country. I'm sorry, my post-Mao history of mainland China isn't as good as it should me (I mainly know a lot about Tibet, where Mao is still heavily pushed). I just finished "Wild Swans" but that ends in the 80's and has a heavy emphasis on the Cultural Revolution. The Maoists in Nepal and India are pretty wild about him.
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Jul 2, 2014 01:56
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Superstring posted:
My mom believes that and she is NOT Chinese.
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Jul 2, 2014 05:11
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meristem posted:Yeah, that's one thing I'm apprehensive about after Amon - I keep thinking, 'yeah, that guy who quoted the Airbending guru, after the Harmonic Convergence shouldn't he be capable of realising that maybe the Avatar is needed, once in ten thousand years?', and then I remember Amon, become sad and adjust my expectations. At least he'll probably go out spectacularly. I just really, really want these villains to EXPLAIN what they're up to and what their end game is. I'm still not sold on why Unalaq thought teaming up with the embodiment of evil who was bent on destroying the world was a good strategy for him. If their attitude is, "Hey, we don't think the Avatar should be in charge of the world; that's a dictatorship" that would be one thing, but last season kinda confirmed that you need one around. Also, Harmonic Convergence is something that everyone seemed to know about immediately after Korra found out about it but it somehow never came up before, despite being a couple months away.
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Jul 2, 2014 05:43
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Charlz Guybon posted:Well, they do have radio now. A lot easier to spread information around. Random prisoner who's name I don't know yet knew about it, Unalaq knew about it, the Fire Sages knew about it, and yet Korra and Tenzin had no loving idea. It just seemed like a plotline that should have been seeded earlier in the series, but probably wasn't thought up yet.
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Jul 2, 2014 06:08
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Genocyber posted:Why are you quoting something from season 1(?) of TLA when we have more recent information from Korra season 2? It has shown that that avatar state is not just connecting to the past avatars but connecting with Raava as well. Korra can still do that bit. Because the world-building was incredibly consistent in ATLA but is not in ALOK.
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Jul 3, 2014 06:51
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ImpAtom posted:This isn't particularly contradictory, no. The Avatar Spirit was a thing since ATLA and it was different from the power of the past lives. I meant it more in general. For example; "People can only bloodbend during the full moon." "Oh look here are some people who can do it anytime and we're not going to explain it." "People need to move their limbs to bend." "Oh look no they don't." "The Avatar's power come from the combination of past lives." "No it's all this spirit we've forgotten about and are not in contact with."
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Jul 3, 2014 06:57
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First Bass posted:
You're right; I guess I'm just frustrated at so many things not being explained, when ATLA went through great lengths to explain every little last bit of bending. We got a whole episode on chakras for Chrissakes. On a kid's show. Combustion Man was the exception to a general rule. We knew why Korra could blood bend on the full moon and why Toph could metalbend. We had the intrinsic properties of inner fire explained to us by multiple people over multiple seasons. Then Tarlokk's dad just comes along and psychic bloodbends all over the place and Sokka has to draw a connect line to Combustion Man because yes, it's a new bending that they don't understand, but we also get Amon, whose powers are also never explained. Was he chi-blocking bending with blood bending? Why did he go for the back of the neck (I think Amon is like a pressure point but the show never actually went into this)? Unalaq's good spirit bending was explained but what was that purple evil spirit bending? What did it do? What were the consequences? I just feel that the show has, in its desire to do more without a solid plot structure, gone a little off the rails. Maybe they're just not taking the time they had with a longer set of episodes for ATLA, or because the writing staff is different (and smaller). I admited ATLA because of its impressive internal consistency and genuine desire to offer you a chance to understand how its unique bending world worked. ALOK doesn't seem to want to make the effort.
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Jul 3, 2014 08:16
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RyuujinBlueZ posted:It's almost like Korra is set 70 years after Avatar and the world has changed and advanced in that time. As I recall, Zuko couldn't Lightningbend because of personal problems, internal conflicts, not because he was physically incapable. It's a skill that could probably fairly easily be taught at all Firebenders, and odds are good at least a small percentage of them will be able to pull it off. Just like Metalbending becoming the cornerstone of the Republic City police force. Those people aren't all Toph's kids, they're benders who were taught a new skill and now put it to functional use. I would be fine with all of this if somebody in the show took the time to explain the mechanics of how new skills were popping up. Bending's been around for 10,000 years. An Industrial Revolution (which, to be fair, was caused by war and fire bending) isn't really going to change that. If they explained how Amon's powers worked instead of us speculating, I would say, "Oh, that's neat. It's cool that you thought of that world-changing ability but still kept it within the logic of the universe you've created." The same thing with Unalaq's evil spirit bending - I just wanted to know how it worked. The show didn't take the time to explain it to me.
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Jul 3, 2014 20:20
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SpiderHyphenMan posted:Also, with regards to the new airing schedule, my theory, as someone who knows absolutely nothing about the inner workings of Nickelodeon or any television network, is that their eagerness to finish off the season is related to Book 3 not being on iTunes, Amazon, or even the official website. Again, I have literally nothing to back this up, but considering Korra is such a heavily serialized show on a network that is not known at all for that sort of thing, along with the fact that there is no legal way to watch episodes that you have missed, leads me to this hypothesis. My theory is that they realized the show doesn't sell toys, and since they don't make money off of adults dressing up at Comic-Con, they decided to get it out of the way to focus on shows that do sell toys and are watched by their target demographic. Seriously. The network is for-profit. Even if the shows are good shows, their bottom line is about selling advertising space to companies that want to sell products to children. That's why we saw commercials for super soakers while watching Korra. That is their advertising set. Korra is expensive and they're probably losing money on it. They're not a charity.
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Jul 3, 2014 20:23
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DrSunshine posted:Have you guys never watched/read a shonen anime/manga before? LoK pretty much follows the standard shonen power-creep model to the tee. In the first series, bloodbending was like this "Oooh, super scary, super-strong forbidden art I seem to remember DBZ was nothing but power creeping. There were no other plotlines. They either discussed how they were getting bulked up or they were talking about how bulked up they were going to get. But LOK isn't an anime.
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Jul 3, 2014 23:05
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", same as lightningbending and metalbending. So in order to make new antagonists seem like a credible threat after the time-skip, they had to show these as more common-place and try to push it the next step up with psychic versions of the same techniques. It's just like in Bleach, One Piece, or Naruto!
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DrSunshine posted:It totally is an anime! No way she has a nose.
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Jul 3, 2014 23:19
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Nichael posted:I get why they're saying that, but it's kind of ridiculous that they're touting being out of the loop technologically and culturally as a reason to watch. Guys they REALLY need to sell those super soakers they advertise at every commercial break. They got drunk and bought a storehouse full of them.
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Jul 6, 2014 23:00
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I don't know why the leaks were such a big deal. For starters, they were in Spanish. They weren't the first three episodes, and I didn't watch them because Korra as a show is more narrative than episodic. It just didn't interest me. Episodes 1 and 2 of Book 1 leaked a couple weeks ahead of the premiere, as I recall, and Nick didn't change their schedule.
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Jul 12, 2014 01:10
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Last night I caught up on Sylvia Chan's new book on Dowager Empress Cixi, on whom the Earth Queen is quite clearly based. She's been mostly misunderstood by historians (which is explained in the book) but new documentation is giving her a makeover. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empress_Dowager_Cixi Dowager Empress Cixi (1835 – 1908) was a Manchu woman born in the late Ching (Manchu dyansty) who was chosen as concubine to Tongzhi but was raised in status almost equal to the actual empress when she produced his only son. She outlived four emperors - her father-in-law, her husband, her son, and her stepson - and she ruled behind the throne for long periods during the reigns of the last two. Even though she did not have a strong education, she became a sophisticated diplomat and reformer. During her day she was mostly extremely popular for being a strong and competent ruler when the emperors were very weak in personality. She lived during a long period of decay and destruction of the Chinese empire. She was raised during the Opium Wars, when Britain forced China to open trade with the west. Over time more sovereignty was conceded. She attempted to modernize the army to keep up the arms race with Meiji Japan, which was rapidly becoming a major naval power and invaded Korea, which at the time was under Chinese rule. Since she couldn't actually rule, court etiquette forced her into retirement when her son and then her stepson came of age, which were disastrous periods for Chinese history. The traditional political forces in the Forbidden City shut down her reform programs, and China was completely unprepared for the war with Japan in 1894. Each war caused the loss of territory with tremendous financial hardships forced on the loser. China was in debt when the Western powers who had traditionally respected her decided to take chunks out of China's shorelines and Russia demanded a railroad and more control over Manchuria. Intelligent nobles basically begged for her to come back into power, but it was already too late. Frustration with outside forces and loss of Chinese dignity lead to the Boxer Rebellion, which was poorly equipped and only succeeded in losing more territory and rights to foreign powers. She attempted more reforms, and continued that program until her death in 1908, when she named Puyi emperor. The Ching dynasty was overthrown almost immediately after her death. Fun facts: - Cixi was for the modernization of China, especially its military. She introduced the first railroad, telegraph lines, and electricity. She bought the first gun ships and would have spent more money had she had complete power over the government. She changed the educational system to teach modern subjects instead of exclusively teaching Chinese classics. She learned English. She discouraged corruption. - She was an especially talented leader, negotiating China's way out of several disasters or at least limiting their scope. She preferred winning over political enemies over punishing them, though she did inflict revenge on people. She had very few people actually executed; she thought it was in bad taste. She maintained good relationships with foreign envoys (despite not being allowed to see them until very late) and sent out the first Chinese diplomatic missions to Europe and the United States. She accepted criticisms from censors and rarely punished them. - People were either terrified of her or loved her; she loved to laugh and was generally a very amicable person when not in an official meeting. She outlawed various barbaric practices, including foot binding. - She did love nature and gardens, which was difficult for her since most of her life she was not allowed to leave the Forbidden City. When foreign forces burned down the Summer Palace during her husband's reign, she spent a good portion of her life trying to restore them, for which she was criticized, as it was a major expenditure and possibly the only time she used corrupt methods to get the money she needed. Today it is still considered the gem of the tour of the Forbidden City. - She loved birds and animals. On her birthday she would buy 10,00 captive birds and set them free. She ended the habit of breeding undersized "sleeve" dogs which were malformed so they could be carried around in clothing and promoted healthier breeds. She also loved Chinese Opera, essentially making into the form it is today at the Peking Opera House. She even wrote operas herself. - In public she wore a Manchu headdress which was in fact very heavy; in private she was allowed to remove her jewels to lighten the load. So yeah, tons and tons of parallels. Until the 1980's she was a villain of Chinese history, responsible for the decay of the empire, but a lot of the historical documents from her time were written by her enemies (failed assassins like Kang the Silver Fox) and she did not respond because explaining the situation would have caused scandals. For the Earth Queen to be upset about loss of land to the United Republic and conspiring to develop new military technology makes complete sense to me. dj_clawson fucked around with this message at 07:05 on Jul 13, 2014 |
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Jul 13, 2014 07:02
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Bongo Bill posted:Zaofu's gleaming art deco lotus design is spectacular and it reminds me of Metropolis in a big way. Keeping guys like Varrick and that "truth-seer" Aiwei around makes me wonder what other sinister secrets are under that utopia. Considering the series' track records on utopias, I think there's a 100% chance that if there's not a huge problem with the city now, there's going to be one within 3 episodes. Also, Kya losing to a guy who's been airbending for 3 weeks when she was raised with Tenzin? She must genuinely suck as a bender.
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Jul 13, 2014 07:31
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| # ¿ May 15, 2024 13:44 |
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achillesforever6 posted:So basically she got the Nero treatment where all we learned of her was from the writings and propaganda of her enemies? Yes. The late Ching dynasty was also a complicated period, with a lot of players, a succession of bad/lazy/dumb emperors, and the CCP was not super interested in understanding the past they turned their back on.
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Jul 14, 2014 01:39
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