All the blimps, boats and ground troops were destroyed or knocked out.

 

That, and there's plenty of motivation for Tenzin to not go after Amon. He's the last airbending master left in existence. Period. If he gets taken out (bending sealed or killed), you've effectively crippled all airbending in the universe for several hundred years, as the three remaining airbenders, two of them children, are forced to rebuild hundreds of years of techniques from scratch.

That's what stretched my suspension of disbelief. You're telling me Amon neither has A, a bounty on the only source of airbending knowledge in the world, or B, a soldier who would recognize Tenzin, a city council member, and think, hmm, you know what would be really good for equality? Neutering one of the four elements while he's knocked the fuck out on the ground.

 

Tenzin has a staff, you see him use it for half a second in episode 3, I think.

 

Just watched the latest episode - it bugged me quite a bit that we've still seen no sign of the Avatar state and that the other pro bending team were stripped of their abilities. Their leader's foppish arrogance was awesome, and now we've got no way of Korra and her minions to beat them squarely down. Isn't that how this was supposed to go, like most stories? The hero prevails against unfair odds, with the figures of authority on the wrong side, etc, etc.

Bah. I suppose this series is subverting cliche and being a valid story when I just want to see massive-scale epic bending.

Things my mind suggested while watching that are interesting to consider, but unlikely to be true:

- Maybe Amon is the fight announcer guy, with his white as fuck face and pencil moustache. <- exceedingly unlikely, but would be awesome

- Amon seemed to move like an airbender when avoiding attacks. Coincidence, or is there something going on there to watch for?

- Perhaps Tenzin isn't an airbending master. He can airbend, and airbend well enough to teach and use his talents, but is he truly at the level of a master, or is his knowledge beyond a certain point purely theoretical?

- Pabu/Lin OTP

 

When Amon had her directly in his grasp her chi was blocked so she couldn't bend anyway.

 

Derp. You're totally right. I completely missed that.

 

I finally mustered up the courage to watch this series. It may be a bit sexist, but in my experience action-oriented shows with teenage female leads--even good ones like Kim Possible and Buffy at times--tend to be about romance and/or social drama rather than action, and I didn't want one of my favorite series ruined in that regard. Thankfully, although there are some romance subplots, Korra has proven to be not entirely focused on whether Zuko Mk. II likes her or not. Shame on me for doubting the quality of the writing staff.

From the flashes that Korra gets when unconscious, my theory is that Amon used to be a bender of some kind, but older!Aang took away his bending due to being pacifistic. He then gained a grudge and began hating/envying benders--If he can't bend, then no one can bend. He then learned Energy-Bending somehow--perhaps it takes away your current form of bending, but anyone can learn EB? The story about his face is probably a lie to get sympathy from non-benders, a la Joker. The flashes are memories from Aang trying to let Korra know what's going on.

The whole getting your bending taken away thing was handled really well, in my opinion. Someone here made it for there to be a sort of rape-y vibe to it, but it feels like it is a lot worse than that--especially to the Avatar. Getting your bending taken away would be like a surgeon losing his hands, an athlete his legs, or a painter his eyes. To have such a huge part of what makes up your identity threatened would shake the very core of any person. To have it taken away would be enough to cause most people to go catatonic. For the Avatar, it would be a thousand times worse. Most benders, even those in positions like Chief Lin Beifong where bending is a massive part of what they do, would still be able to pick up the pieces of their life and move on in one way or another. For Korra, bending is EVERYTHING to her. If the Avatar can't bend, then there is no point to her. She would probably be driven to suicide, and who knows how the cycle would fix itself? Amon has proven he could take it all away, and even worse, she may not be able to stop him.

 

Considering the chemical grenades that block bending the drug idea doesn't seem that far fetched.

So far its only shown Amon to completely strip individuals of their bending that have been acting somewhat villainous in their own right. I'm betting that its to gain as much popular support as possible and that's why he hasn't directly gone after Tenzin, targetting someone like Tenzin who is by no means blatantly corrupt could cause him to lose support. Thinking about it I can't remember anyone they've attacked in any way that hasn't been a "bad guy" or gotten in their way, even the announcer was broadcasting their movements in detail to anyone with access to a radio.

I'd bet against it but it wouldn't completely shock me if Korra and Amon end up on the same side later in the series, would be a parallel with Zuko.

 

No, but the metalbenders were in the stadium solely to stop them which would definitely be getting in their way. They also didn't really harm them in any lasting way.

 

Comedic effect, obviously.

 

Or it could have just been rule of funny... though I'm not sure if Dr Sarcasm was being sarcastic or not when he suggested it. Admittedly its a weak point as I'd still have to resort to rule of funny as to why they didn't just yank away the mic or tell him to stfu. Still, typically in cartoons including The Last Airbender the protagonists or innocents are the main victims of the villains. In contrast the main victims of Amon have been a bunch of gang members, an obviously cheating professional team, and Korra when she threw down a gauntlet in the press conference.

To me it seems like they're being careful with how their image is portrayed, Korra had to be attacked and threatened so they didn't appear weak after being publically called out. Another point to this is how they're playing to a crowd with first stripping the gangsters of power in front of a mass of people they're recruiting and then attacking the probending championship. It makes sense that they'd avoid things that are too villainous since the majority of their forces are recent recruits from the general population instead of zealots. Ideally you want to gain recruits but at the very least you don't want to lose your current crop.

You'd want to start them out attacking people that nearly noone would object to, like gang members, and ease into more objectional things after they're already committed. The probenders, despite being cheating pricks, are a gradual step in this as they can't be considered as in the same class as the gangsters. I'm mostly just impressed with how the writers are handling Amon, I find his methods far more believable than I would if he was rushing and hitting Tenzin/the council immediately.

 

Ok take back everything we thought about Tenzin's abilities. He's a boss. Overall though, excellent episode,

Spoiler

Mr. Sato's

Equalist speech really showed how fanatical Amon's followers can be.

 

My tivo failed to record this ep, so I had to watch a shitty version on TVlinks. Bah.

I liked Tenzin's air gyro-scooter surfboard thing he did during the fight. That was pretty epic.

 

That was a rather enjoyable episode. Finally got to see Tenzin in action. Though it seems like neither he or Beifong are as good as their father/mother respectively. I don't recall them getting knocked out by things that often.

Still, nice amount of character development from Ms. Sato. They're doing a pretty good job with making this series seem more mature than the previous.