He said it paid pretty well, so it may still be a specialty skill still.
And officers of the law aren't necessarily "regular chumps"

 

Firebending is what she's best at because it's highly physical in nature, unlike water and airbending, which are more spiritual than physical. Makes sense that she'd default to what she's best at.

 

Yeah, I agree with Churchy. I don't think it necessarily undermines the skill set completely. It pays well and he got the job very quickly so that made me think that it was a rare skillset, still. Though less than before obviously, and I think that makes sense really considering the whole reason for Republic city. Zuko and Aang wanted to mix bending and knowledge from all over and I think all the advancement - including the problems with the equalists - stems from this.

Oh, and for the metal benders, we've not seen too much of them yet but I thought they were like SWAT/special forces. The 100 year advanced version of the Dai li (sp?), so it seems fitting to me that they be excellent earth benders, capable of metal bending.

 

Toph started a metalbending school immediately after the events of the first series according to 'The Promise'. And seeing as there is a statue of her as an adult outside the police headquarters in Republic City, it makes sense that the police officers are all metal benders. Toph or her daughter probably trained each one personally.

 

I agree with the metalbenders are the SWAT/elite, not the whole police force idea.

Also: note the officer in the park (episodes 1, 3) - he didn't try any bending at all to stop Korra's escapes. Methinks that most of the police are either normal people or average benders.

 

It seemed to me like Korra was using the traditional earthbending that Toph taught Aang, yet Bolin was saying that while that style was strong, it would get her beaten in a pro match. I think they have to move a lot faster, and react much more, with 3 possible opponents and having to worry about moving backward.

I also think that might be the reason that the bending we see in pro matches isn't as impressive/flashy as the bending we saw in the last season or the beginning of the first episode. The limitation of earthbenders using only the small disks is pretty bad however.

 

I'm sure there are. Here is Bryan Konietzko's pro-bending explanation. As you can see, the sport is meant to be a very controlled form of 'King of the Hill' (water and earth supply can only be taken from the zone you're in, no headshots with fire or earth, etc etc). Huge displays of 'I'm trying to kill you' bending probably aren't kosher with the rules.

 

There's a written copy of the rules here.

The simple version:

Waterbenders can't do blasts more than one second long, have to draw water from the metal grates in their current zone, have to use liquid water (no ice or steam) but are allows to aim for any part of an opponent's body.

Earthbenders can't aim for an opponent's head, can only use the discs from their current zone, can't intentionally split the discs or change their form, but are allowed to bend as many discs as they are able.

Firebenders can't do blasts of more than one second, can't aim for an opponent's head but can produce their own fire (there's no must draw fire from X source like the other bender types). I'd be very surprised if they are allowed to throw lightning around either but the rules don't say anything about it.

 

Not really. Professional wrestling is fake. Its actors pretending to fight according to a script someone else has worked out. Pro-Bending is 'real'. Two teams fight according to the rules and the better team wins (though I suspect we're going to have a match-fixing episode sooner or later). True, it's more sport than a combat simulation but that doesn't really matter. The fact that the rules downgrade most of the high-end bend stuff doesn't make it a professional wrestling analog, any more than fencing is (which also gets rid of most the lethal and high end sword stuff).

 

If they spend their time practicing this shitty limited bending while simultaneously living in a world that doesn't really have much need for heavy applications of their bending due to their steampunk technology, it makes sense that they are pretty weak compared to Aang and co who had to bend constantly every day.

 

I agree with ^

Mako and Bolin fighting against Lieutenant Lightning showed that they really are as much athletes as they are fighters: they're used to controlled, rule-based combat where people always hit them from the front and are always a certain distance away. The natural response to someone fast and melee-based like LL would be to blow them away with a big blast, but neither of the brothers do that sort of thing a lot. Toph would laugh at Bolin's little wall of rock.

I like that they aren't afraid to kick the crap out of the heroes. No pain, no character development.

 

Comparing pro-bending to fighting is pointless - one is a game, and the other is, well, combat. It's a contest of aim and agility, not a battle.

Heh. Funny though: what if that's why Tenzin looks down on it so much? Not because it trivializes an ancient and sacred tradition, but because it's a silly game so far beneath the hardcore warfare he secretly craves.

 

Maybe not because he craves warfare, but it could be because he was raised by the Avatar himself and arguably the strongest water bender in the Avatar Universe, as well as being the nephew of the strongest benders of the other elements. If you see that level of bending as a child, I can't imagine getting much excitement out of this new crap.

 

While bending in this new era does seem to have been trivialized to an extent, I still don't find myself that disappointed. I mean, sure people are using lightning in factories, or bending in competitions, or metalbending handcuffs, but I've yet to see anyone do anything mind blowing. This level of bending just seems like the natural progression of a bending society.

I'm not disappointed because I haven't seen Mako use fire to fly, or Bolin control the molecular structure of crystals, or Korra cover herself in water and become an avatar of destruction against a fleet of hundreds. I'll be disappointed if I don't see anything like this, but we are only 3 episodes in. I'm pretty sure there's a lot more epic-leveled bending around the corner.

 

I'm enjoying this show even more than the original so far. Thanks for making me aware of its existence.

 

For a partial explanation of why bending has changed so much from the original series, read this interview with Dos Santos, A:TLA's and ToK's art director.

Excerpt:

 

I think the Legend of Korra is great - but different from the original Avatar, and ultimately it is, for me, inferior.

1) The main reason is the lack of epicness. Things in general just don't compare, in terms of size and scope, to the happenings in the original Avatar. In particular, as others have noted, bending seems to be diminished.

Perhaps this observation is unfair, given that we've largely only seen pro-bending (a sport with restrictive rules). Still, weak bending doesn't just occur during the pro-bending matches. It happens when individuals are fighting for their lives. When Mako and Korra chase and fight the equalists, when Mako and Bolin are escaping the equalist hideout, and also in the triad fight we saw in the first episode. The amount of fire and earth being bended (especially earth) do not compare to the stuff thrown about even by ordinary grunts in the first series.

Maybe this comes with the series' main theme of modernity and industrialization - people have less of a need for bending; for practical reasons people are just less good at it. Perhaps (if bending is largely a spiritual enterprise) bending is diminished by the spread of science and the rejection of tradition (and so on).

This could make an interesting theme, but it still has the effect of making the series (so far) just less exciting and awe inspiring.

A further note: while Aang travelled the world on his epic adventure, Korra is located in Republic City. This necessarily means that we see less incredible sights (Kyoshi Island, the Northern Water Tribe Capital, Ba Sing Se etc). The entire adventure seems less world-important and instead more provincial. There is a purposelessness about; just passively being in Republic City, rather than flying across the world on a journey to defeat the Fire Lord.

Sort of like having a Pokemon story localized in Pallet Town with the hero fighting against bloody pidgeys and rattatas instead of battling your way through gyms to the Indigo Plateau.

2) The themes/ideas discussed in the Legend of Korra, further, just do not match up to those in the original Avatar. In AtlA, Aang was dealing with heady and serious stuff like genocide, war and imperialism. The premise is implicit in the title - Aang is the last airbender. In contrast, Korra deals with rather trivial and banal things. Equality and discrimination (and whether benders abuse their power) seem to be the main issue here, and and such things are serious to be sure, but just don't compare to having your whole bloody people murdered and then having to save the world. In this way LoK is again less epic than AtlA.

3) The heroine. Everyone and their mother agrees that Aang was rather bland as a hero. He is cliched as a hero - the naive and innocent boy upon whose shoulders the burdens of the world are thrust. That was alright because we had an awesome new world to explore. However, Korra shows another kind of protagonist cliche - the protagonist as brash and impulsive.

Personally, I could have made done with someone more interesting. Someone who relied more on thought and cunning than power(Sokka). Someone with less than pure motivations - does the Avatar really have to want to bring justice and balance to the world? Aang would have a strong reason to since everyone he loved was killed by the Fire Nation; but for Korra she has no similarly strong personal reason. Why not have someone who cares more about power and perfection (Azula) be the Avatar. Fuck, that would be awesome. Even having someone like Zuko would be interesting - the internal angst might get tiring after a while, but at least that means that the Avatar would be slowly reconciled to his/her duties - and not just accepting of it outright.

Additionally, I anticipate alot of angst coming up, what with a teenage Korra, two potential love interests, a romantic rival - bleh. One great thing about Aang is that he was too young for this kind of shit. Even all the Katara stuff was rather tangential to his carrying out his Avatar duties.

The last point about Korra is that she just isn't Avatar-like or hero-like. She's too stubborn, too selfish, too immature, too pampered to make a really likable hero, or a believable Avatar. Aang at least had his own gravitas. Even if his refusal to commit to serious violence means that he is less effective at actually saving people, it lends him a sort-of moral high ground; it shows his principles and shows that he stands for something. Combined with his rather spiritual outlook on life, he has Avatar-like dignity, even though he's an naive child. Korra just comes off as irritating and petulant.


That said, I do like certain aspects of LoK:

1) For one, things are more subtle, less certain, and more complex. I don't think Aang really faced any serious internal dilemmas in his adventure. He obviously had to stop the Fire Nation (guilty of killing and oppression on a massive scale) - they were obviously the bad guys. His main dilemma towards the end (killing for the greater good, or not) was resolved by a third alternative (a cop-out, I think). There was always a clear distinction between what was good and what was bad, and ultimately characters (Zuko, Iroh) who felt conflicted chose what was clearly good.

On the other hand, LoK opens interesting new questions: do benders really oppress people? It's certainly true that benders have power, and the old maxim is power corrupts. It's easy to rob a poor peasant family if there's no danger to yourself - if you can shoot fire from you fist and they can't. Even Korra herself seems to use her bending liberally and thoughtlessly - roughing up the Equalist protestor, pushing about the power-hungry councilman's irritating envoy; things which are essentially bullying if you subscribe to the idea that you ought not physically intimidate other people simply because they annoy you.

So it's interesting that perhaps Amon has a good motivation and a good point - though his methods are themselves disagreeable. Personally I enjoy this greater moral complexity - it's not just clear cut Unicorns vs Voldemort; it's something Korra will have to struggle with and decide for herself.

2) We get to see the political machinations in Republic City. This might make things interesting; so far the councilman's machinations and manipulation of Korra (e.g. using the press to provoke her, at the banquet, to agree to join his taskforce) prove to be rather clever and quite amusing. The political side of things add another dimension to the story; another challenge that the Avatar will have to overcome. I don't think this was adequately explored in AtlA: would the Fire Nation really accept the legitimacy of a disgraced prince; whether a single girl (Azula) could really take over an opposing capital's secret police; and so on.

I prefer AtlA, but still I'm not complaining.