Thats funny, because your guess about it looking like cheaply made anime was actually quite accurate. Apparently the first half or so of this Korra season is made by the same studio that animates the Naruto anime (and used to animate Bleach), which tends to have lots of poorly animated episodes. The previous season was made by some studio called Mir, which is either filled with more skilled people, or cares more about quality. So now you know why it looks so ugly.

For what its worth, the later half of the season (which we will soon reach) will again be animated by Mir, as will the next two books, so hopefully when that happens, the quality will improve. The animation quality atleast.

Hopefully the story quality will also improve, once we properly get to the spirit thing the season is going to be about (I presume Korra was transported to the spirit-world or somesuch after being eaten by a spirit).

 

Some impressions:

• Iroh's voice is so jarring.
• Korra isn't feeling very nuanced.
• Next week, do we get a C-plot where Rohan is potty trained after much hilarity? I don't dislike the characters but the threads surrounding Tenzin don't feel like they're going anywhere.
• I reacted to how unusually poor the animation looked in the previous episode. Glad to hear they're going back to Mir.

 

Well, that episode sucked.

Not sure from whom Tenzin learned how to train and befriend animals because it sure as hell wasn't Aang, not to mention that it didn't really go anywhere. Seemed quite out of character for Tenzin to have these views on animals.

The incompetent police officers are a cliché I am quite sick off, as is the president being an unhelpful authority picture.

Bolin started to get on my nerves this episode as well, what with the dumb interview and all.

Am also a bit sick of people actively trying to make enemies out of the Avatar, one would think that antagonizing the living embodiment of the elements who can singlehandedly wreck armies is a bad idea but nope, apparently she is not a big deal.

Which I can't blame them for, seeing that Korra doesn't put up nearly as good of a fight as she should. Not sure if there is a point there because of her lacking spirituality or not having opened up the chakras or something but it is annoying.

One positive thing was the having broken up with Mako thing although I am not all that certain that this is going to remain that way. At least I hope it does.

Bullshit on the twins catching up on Korra. Besides, what made them think they could take on Korra? Sure, she didn't have earth there, and fire was most likely less useful there and they knew her airbending wasn't as advanced as those other two but still man, forcing the avatar to play hard in that location seemed suicidally risky.

Overall, bad episode and all my hopes from last episode were dashed. Just hope this will lead Korra into thinking about going "fuck this, I am in charge now" and I would like to see her go the tyrant avatar road from here on.

 

I feel, seeing as how Korra's uncle is turning out to be a less than desirable mentor figure that this whole section with Tenzin is going to be about him learning how to be a better mentor to Korra when they inevitably reteam. I mean, he admitted that he's unhappy being the 'alpha lemur' and I can't imagine Aang taught Tenzin by being dominating.

Anyway, different as they are, I can't bring myself to hate the Tenzin and family sections. I generally find them quite affecting, and their characterisations seem far more real than what we get from Korra and her stomping around.

EDIT: ninja'd a bit by Nemrut about the Aang thing though. However with the president: he's unhelpful but I think you can see that Korra's initial speech affected him. I'm hoping he won't just be contrarian and that we'll see him struggling with his choice - in the way that Korra should be struggling and isn't.

Yeah, I've thought that about the spirits this entire season. It feels like it was a mistake to give her conscious avataring at the end of the last season, she could've just got air bending and her first spiritual experience and it wouldn't have changed too much so far.

And yes, the distance issue jarred me out of the episode. As did the fact Korra was immediately miles out at sea. . . on a speed boat . . . going to the fire nation capital? :l

I'm open to the possibility that Varrick will be the real, blasé villain of the show (in the manner that his materialism is all that's important and spirits or no, he doesn't care) and Korra's uncle will turn out to be pursuing noble goals amorally. Or not.

Spoiler

'If you can't make money during a war then you flat out can't make money'

I see some parallels between him and the Earth King and that may be why I'm hoping they switch it up to make it a bit fresher.

 

I get that Korra is stupidly stubborn and rash, but why would she just straight up ignore Mako telling her it was Firebenders who blew up that cultural centre or whatever? It's not like it was just a theory or something, he saw and fought with them. That's not just stupidity, it's the plot making no sense whatsoever. She didn't even question it and she thinks going to the Fire Nation for help is a good idea.

 

To be fair, Republic city is full with criminal benders of all nations. Don't think Korra doubted that there was a fire bender who did it, but rather that he was send by the Northern Water Tribe since that is the kind of thing you would expect a criminal gang to be hired for.

 

Gonna crash this thread. Just because I can.

So I watched the first two episodes of the new season. They're shit. The writing's shit. It's tired, it's a horrible caricature of what could've been an incredibly engrossing narrative.

And fucking hell, man. I'm a glass-half-full kind of guy when it comes to TV writing. I give second chances. And third chances. And occasionally fourth ones. And. Jesus fuck. I could go on and on about LoK's flaws - especially in Season 2, even just the little that I've seen - but that's not productive and honestly, a bunch of rants on the subject have already been posted all over the place by more eloquent people than I.

So, in lieu of a rant, here's my personal headcanon of the Legend of Korra's universe and lore, and how I'd have written it. This is in part inspired by Lord Raine's rage-fueled Elder Scrolls or Mass Effect rants. Hats off to you, buddy.


--- --- ---


Right. So. Season 1 was actually really interesting up until the pants-retarded Tarrlok/Noatak backstory kicked in, and having Amon be a one-season throwaway villain.

I say: Fuck that shit.

Amon as a recurring villain whose narrative significance on par with that of Fire Lord Ozai in A:TLA would've been fantastic. Then, you know, the stakes would be even higher in the event of a civil war plotline - as it is, the spirits are a kind of cheap plot device that aren't really doing anything, and the whole North/South Water Tribe dealio feels bland and forced.

The failings of The Legend of Korra pretty much boil down to too much focus on romance, not enough attention to the lore and backstory, and badly written characters with not enough character growth. In essence, all of the characters are two-dimensional at best.

So. My solution?

Make Amon every single bit the genuine threat he is advertised to be.

Amon is a name that's been in mythology for millennia. Amon (Aamon) is a figure in demonology - the Marquis Amon, supposedly the seventh in line in the hierarchy of demons with forty infernal legions under his command. Wikipedia describes him as "...a wolf with a serpent's tail who can breathe fire, or as a man with dog's teeth in a head like a raven, or as a raven-headed man. He tells of all things past and future. He procures feuds, and reconciles controversies between friends and foes."

That's a decidedly Judeo-Christian view of the figure, and when you look at the Egyptian pantheon of gods, we see a figure called Amun (Amen) - considered to be the chief deity as a fused entity with the sun god Ra during the Middle Kingdom (Amun Ra, Amen Ra). He's considered by some scholars to have been the root figure of the demon Amon. The Greeks considered him synonymous with Zeus, the Romans with Jupiter - the commonality being that these deities were all the chiefs of their respective pantheons.

There's also Amon of Judah, ruler of the Kingdom of Israel in the 7th century BC, who is famous for committing his father's sin of idolatry and subsequently being assassinated for it.

The bolded bits are especially relevant to Amon's canonical character - because it's not difficult to draw parallels between the father/son pairs of Manasseh/Amon and Yakone/Noatak, in terms of their ruthlessness, and their hunger for power. What's more interesting is that Noatak assumed the mantle of Amon, taking an ideal and forging himself as an icon for his own selfish interest.

Amon's a name steeped in lore, and has a history of idol worship and cult behavior. That much is consistent with LoK's handling of the character. The identity of Amon was a persona that Noatak assumed - a mantle of power, if you will. It gave him the authority to preside over the non-bending masses, empowering the non-benders of the world and challenging the status quo. The power Amon wielded was able to inspire the downtrodden majority (non-benders) to rise up against the empowered and privileged minority (benders) - at least to the non-benders of the world. He made promises, and he had the power to back them up. He was simply disingenuous about his claims.

But what if he wasn't a false idol? Alternatively, what if the mantle that Noatak assumed had greater significance than in the original canon?

Amon was the People's Champion. He was the icon that stood for the powerless masses, the common people. He was, if you'll forgive my phrasing, an avatar of the people. Eastern philosophy has a nearly universal fascination with balance, and the mythology of ATLA/ATLOK is no different. The Avatar is ostensibly there to keep the peace and maintain balance between the bending nations, and to a lesser extent, between man and nature, between the mortal world and the Spirit World. But the Avatar's chief role in history has been to keep the balance between the various peoples of the world - and this depends on the benders of the world being divided into their respective bending groups and staying within their own communities and tribes.

But populations increase, advances will be made, and at some point, that no longer holds true. The Fire Nation needed to expand if it wanted to keep growing - Ozai's megalomania or not. The Nation clearly had the means to do so - and given the willingness Fire Nation citizens expressed in their war effort, they also possessed the motive. There was a social imperative for the nation to conquer other peoples, regardless of the Fire Lords' motivations for war.

However, once the powers of the world are unified into the big fat melting pot that is Republic City and the United Forces, this changes drastically. We end up with a different sort of imbalance in the world, and the social structures inherent to the world of Avatar are now turned on their heads. Before, benders were the leaders of the world by necessity. This is no longer true. In the past, whoever possessed more numerous and more powerful benders would achieve power (the Fire Nation war machine, the Dai Li of Ba Sing Se), thus necessitating an impartial mediator in the Avatar. The fact that the Avatar's reincarnations rotated from one bending tribe to the next is also indicative of this - nobody can keep the ultimate trump card that is the Avatar for too long before the mantle of power passes to the next group.

Thus, it's in a given group's best interests to produce, train, and maintain a community of benders. This results in the division of the population into benders and non-benders, where privilege and resources flow towards the benders for the benefit of the entire community. And it worked. At least until the rise of the Fire Nation 100 years before the events of ATLA - which was likely sparked by an industrial revolution in my personal opinion.

But then you get post!Aang Avatarverse, where that formula no longer works. We have Republic City, the central seat of power in the world and a cooking pot of multiculturalism and intenationalism. The social necessity of putting benders at the top and keeping them there is now gone. Coupled with the rising standards of living and significant socioeconomic and technological advances, the social worth of a bender diminishes greatly. Benders are now construction workers, power plant workers, cooks, athletes, and law enforcement, rather than the warrior-leaders they were expected to be in the past. This shift in social responsibilities means that in this new world, you don't need to be a bender to be important. We have fossil fuels that run machines, instead of firebenders. We see cars and planes remove the need of earthbenders from public transit. We see flying machines and blimps and zeppelins make it so that airbenders no longer possess a monopoly of the skies (though they are only a handful in the world at the moment). The disparity in the net social worth of a bender versus that of a non-bender is nearly gone.

So what was the point of all that exposition? What I mean to say is, is that it is no longer feasible to have a single Avatar to keep the balance. Benders and non-benders are now arguably on equal footing, introducing a new world order. This change in social dynamics means that the Avatar system itself has become unbalanced. Essentially, the Avatar as a spiritual entity is reliant on the fact that the peoples of the world are separate from each other, rather than a single body of people. That is its principle flaw.

Amon is the entity that corrects that imbalance.

In my headcanon, Amon would be the world trying to balance itself out. The Avatar system is in place to maintain balance - and in a world with a new social order (and subsequently new mystical order), the Avatar system must update to keep up with its changing needs. Korra is the latest in a long line of bending Avatars. Amon, on the other hand, is a new being that serves as a sort of anti-Avatar.

Yin to Yang. Avatar to Amon.

I like to imagine Amon to be a faceless, nameless man. He could have once Noatak, bloodbender and brother to Councilman Tarrlok. He could have once been that non-bender farmer's son whose family was murdered by a rogue firebender.

Amon's canonical backstory holds true, up to a certain point. It could be that Noatak dies as he escapes from the clutches of his abusive father Yakone, somewhere along the line. It could be that he dies in an explosion caused by his brother Tarrlok. The when of it doesn't really matter - that's really up to the requirements of the narrative. What matters is the mantle of Amon, and not the man the assumes it.

Noatak perishes, and enters the Spirit World. His face is stolen by Koh the Face Stealer, such is his pain and suffering in the face of the injustice in the world. Another soul follows - the farmer's son, perhaps, and then another. Without his face, Noatak(?) loses his emotions, and comes to recognize the "true" way of things - everything exists in balance. Existence and void, bending and non-bending. Noatak becomes something else, recognizing the imbalance present in the Avatar itself. That something is Amon.

After eons in the Spirit World, the being that is now Amon gains enough power to return to the mortal world. But to live in the mortal world, he needs a mortal body - an identity, a face, a mask.

So he obtains a mask from Koh the Face Stealer in a moment of poetic justice. He could have stolen it, he could have won it off of the spirit in a battle of wits. The details, again, are irrelevant. The face he snatches from Koh's hands isn't his original face - though if that face is Noatak's is now entirely subjective. No, the face he obtains is the iconic mask of Amon. He dons it, and takes on the mantle of Amon - and returns to the living world. He is a new man, and dedicated to the ideal of balance in the world, now an entity that is no longer human, and the perfect opposite to the Avatar.

Underneath the mask, he has no face. But he is also a being of many faces, for Amon is the mask and not the man. Amon now truly embodies the ideals that Noatak fraudulently touted, who really can take away the ability to bend, totally dedicated to the cause and is a force to bring balance to the instability presented by the Avatar itself.

In my headcanon, the Avatar can be said to fight imbalance from without - they combat external threats. Nature, the elements, famine and strife. The Avatar is humanity's way of achieving balance with the world, which is why it is afforded the combined elemental powers of humanity. Amon would then combat internal threats - social imbalance, inequity, injustice, and over-hightened emotions. Where the Avatar is humanity's way of achieving balance with the world, Amon is humanity's way of achieving balance with itself. Hence the Spirit Bending and spiritual nature of his power - he punishes wicked benders by taking away their bending.

So, in my interpretation? Ideally, I'd make a Book One AU where Amon has always been the anti-Avatar, and never a fraud. But since we're talking Book Two here...

The Equalist revolution is halted by the revelation that Amon was a fraud. But one man is not a movement. The ills of society that had people so fired up did not simply disappear. My Book Two: Spirits would revolve around the return of Amon, even after the disappointment the people faced. This is a new Amon, they say. The real Amon, who has existed alongside Noatak's False Amon all this time.

The narrative would begin a year after the events of Book One. Korra travels the world at the behest of Tenzin and the new leader of the Republic City, to quell any pockets of Equalist resistance. But the Equalists are smarter now, and led by the new Amon, leading her on a wild goose chase, much to her frustration. When word comes in that spirits are rampaging in the lands of the Southern Water Tribe, Korra jumps at the chance to stave off the monotony.

But once she gets there, the entire city is being overrun by rampant spirits - only the intervention of Unalaq saves Team Avatar from certain death. All seems dire, but Unalaq reveals that the spirits may be calmed with the opening of the Spirit Portal, to realign the world. Korra and her companions travel to the Portal, being set back and overwhelmed by the spirits that now swarm the frozen wastes. Just when they are about to fail, the Portal opens in a burst of light, and the aurora returns. Team Avatar and their attendants make the trek to the Portal to see Amon striding out of the caves.

Dun dun dunnnn.

In any case, that's all I've got at the moment. Sorry for the massive wall'o-text.

 

I will give you my firstborn son in exchange if you write this. Even a oone-shot will do.

 

Oh and if you make it so Korra isn't a stupid raging cunt that would be appreciated ;p

 

I am boggled. Amnesia is the last resort of desperate writers.

 

I suppose it says a lot about the show when I completely forgot about it last night. Guess I'll have to dig around online.

 

It just keeps getting worse and worse. The incompetent cops, the "reveal" of another villain, the "unexpected" doublecross, Mako's hypocrisy with now going behind the back of the police while ratting out Korra before for doing the same thing...and now the amnesia.

Only upside is that I hope instead of Korra's old personality, a new one will emerge, one who is more of a tyrant.

 

Says a lot that that can be considered an upside.

Meh. Stopped watching halfway through the previous episode anyway. Call me when the first avatar episode(s) start.

 

I think they will both air next week as a double special or somesuch. After that, there will be a one week break.

 

I actually enjoyed this episode quite a bit more than the previous couple, even with the horrible cliche amnesia clincher at the end. The dialogue and the back and forth had a much more natural flow. Also, Varrick has officially become one of my favorite characters.



Most hilarious evil smirk in a cartoon ever?

 

Spoiler

Pretty interesting pair of episodes. I liked the development of Wan and I thought the origin story was done decently.

Some random observations

- It seems that the origin story for the four nations subverts the traditional lore - rather than people learning air, water, fire, and earth bending from sky bisons, the moon, dragons, and badger moles respectively, it seems that different lion turtles bestowed the knowledge to create the four nations.

- The end of the second episode had it that Wan sealed the two spirit portals to prevent anyone from releasing Vaatu. But of course, Harmonic Convergence is coming soon and Unalaq already has the Southern portal open, and wants the Northern one opened as well. Presumably, he's going to force a Sophie's choice unto Korra to force her to open the Northern one ; one would seem to infer that Unalaq possibly wants to release Vaatu, the only question is motive. Releasing Vaatu could risk sending the world into darkness for 10000 years and unless Unalaq is cast as a token misanthrope, it's difficult to see why he would do so.

Here's a theory : Unalaq grows up tutored in the way of the spirits. He grows to appreciate them more than humans and in particular, feels that the world would be better off if occupied by the spirits rather than the humans. So, he prepares for a long game in which he overthrows his brother's place as Chief and instigates a civil war to either cause further chaos by invoking more dark spirits and / or serve as cover to open both portals in time for Harmonic Convergence, release Vaatu, and wipe out humans so spirits can rule the world. A problem with this idea is that presumably Unalaq would know that Vatu would convert the spirits into dark spirits, and presumably Unalaq wouldn't want the spirits to remain like that. Also, another question is how likely is it that anyone has knowledge of events from 10000 years ago. Perhaps the library of Wan Shi Tong - but that was supposed to be sealed forever. We'll obviously get more information as the series progresses.

- Perhaps the incidence of the dark spirits coincides with the coming of the Harmonic Convergence, and growing power of Vaatu.

- We get perhaps an explanation here as to why killing an Avatar in the Avatar State ends the Avatar cycle - Raava is the fulcrum by which humans are able to harness more than one element to begin with. When a human enters the Avatar State, Raava essentially comes to the forefront, making that person stronger, but also leaving her vulnerable and consequently, she can die. And if she dies, then she cannot migrate to other benders to continue the Avatar cycle.

 

I really liked this episode, when I didn't enjoy the season so far. Not only was the animation better (stylized!) the story was well-told and there was very little Korra in it.

Is it bad that I don't enjoy the main character of the show?

 

Wow. Now those were two great episodes. Script. Art. Story. Music. Everything was top notch.

No... I don't think it subverts the canon explanation of bending at all. If anything, it cements it. If I recall, the Aang gang was talking about who the first bending masters were, and how the four nations learned to master bending by observing them. But they never say where the ABILITY to bend came from.

Spoiler

This Lion Turtle biz explains that quite well.

 

This, so much.

I especially loved the art style whenever someone was bending an element.

 

Wow, incredible episodes. Probably the first LoK episodes that I think could stand against even the strongest ones from the original series.

And yeah, I thought that Juan (Huan?) training with the dragon and learning the dance was the callback to the old masters. It would have been neat to see the badgermoles, bison, and... the moon.

It's also another reminder of how much I fucking love the music in Avatar.

One last inane observation:

But how can I master all four elements in only a year? - Aang
Because you have done so before. - Roku