Board 8 > watching Avatar: The Legend of Korra - Long Live the Queen [spoilers]

(+) Yeah! (+)

Moving right along.

KORRA - Season 3, Episode 10

Recap: Zaheer brings Mako and Bolin as prisoners to the Earth Queen and strikes a deal: intel on her Airbenders for Korra. However, Korra and Asami manage to escape captivity in the desert. With no leverage to be had from the Earth Queen, Zaheer assassinates her and incites riots in Ba Sing Se.

Well, it's going down now.

Zaheer continues to be great. I love that his voice isn't actually gruff - the dude actually kind of sounds like a dork, like Zuko. He seems genuinely bummed out in 3x08 when his little airglider staff gets ripped up by the Steelbenders. I dunno if it's intentional, but it doesn't detract from him at all - especially when he's ripping the air out of the Earth Queen's lungs.(How's that for finding a silver lining? You miss out on the Avatar, but at least you get to throw the capital of the Earth Kingdom into disarray.) Or how about when he shows up at Mako and Bolin's cell, they lunge... and he KO's both in one hit before asking them to deliver a message. Guy's just so reasonable-sounding... even when the thing he's saying is, 'No need for alarm. All I need is to make an announcement to the whole city!'

One reason why the image of BSS's walls falling is so powerful - the segmentation of the city. We know what it means for the outer walls to fall, but ever since TLA, we've known that the inner walls protect the upper class from the smallfolk in the Outer Rings. The groundwork has been laid for what this means politically. I'm getting hype!

Hannibal Lekorra and Asami escaping is incredibly predictable, but it's not awful. There are some minor bright spots in it. The guard who's way nicer than he has any business being - Korra actually has to deal with him after escaping, in a rare touch. The desert and the giant animal underneath it generally feel like a Star Wars situation ('That's no spirit...' I can't be the only one who wanted to shout 'IT'S A SPACE STATION!' Korra gets blamed for Spirits like she's Obama, and Lin is subdued and grumpy - classic Lin! - when they reunite: 'Thanks for ditchin' me back at Zaofu...' she mutters, but we all know she's not gonna do anything about it.

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* As for Mako/Bolin and Bolin's failure to Metalbend... it's kind of embarrassing that the Earth Kingdom is using metal bars to hold its prisoners. This Bolin-Metalbending-angst arc is really dumb.

* Awesome beginning to this episode as Bolin chats with his captors about their time in captivity, talking about the stories they'd make up to amuse themselves... and (seemingly accurately!) shipping Ghazan and Ming-Hua. (I don't think I consciously realized it before, but she's physically armless. That explains why she's so psycho-eyed!)

* Once again, the Earth Kingdom is the Hufflepuff House of the Avatar universe. At least this time the Dai Li are getting punked by the Red Lotus...

* Asami gets in a great dis on Cabbage Corp, lmao.
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Tag!

I want to comment on something you said but am resisting
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I love the way Ming-Hua's waterbending replaces her arms
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I like it how for years fans ot ATLA in the internet theorized how Aang would be much stronger if he could take air from people's lungs but were like "nah, this show isn't dark enough for that".

Same thing with bloodbending.

SeabassDebeste posted...

This Bolin-Metalbending-angst arc is really dumb.

It's his dream!

And yeah I didn't notice she was armless for a while too. Unlike the other Red Lotus members that all possess something special, she's unique for what she's missing.

Lots of water benders use tentacles, but because she doesn't normally have limbs, she IS the tentacles. Gives her a unique feel in fights and how she moves around
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Zaheer continues to be great. I love that his voice isn't actually gruff - the dude actually kind of sounds like a dork, like Zuko

Henry Rollins IS a dork. A badass dork, but a dork.
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Best villain in either series

Zaheer killing the Earth Queen is a total Darth Vader moment.

God, everything Zaheer does is great. I think he is straight-up the best villain in all of Avatar.
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Zaheer is pretty fantastic.

Even when I was watching TLA I thought that air benders could be super powerful cause they could just drain air from people's lungs. Glad to see it in action.
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Not_an_Owl posted...

Zaheer killing the Earth Queen is a total Darth Vader moment.

God, everything Zaheer does is great. I think he is straight-up the best villain in all of Avatar.

Hmm.

Well, Zaheer isn't likely to make it out of Season 3, which sucks. Azula and Ozai might not be as good per scene, but they have that epic, personal, series-spanning feel that Zaheer lacks due to the structure of the show.

BlackDra90n posted...

Zaheer is pretty fantastic.

Even when I was watching TLA I thought that air benders could be super powerful cause they could just drain air from people's lungs. Glad to see it in action.

It's neat how it seems like the creators paid attention to the fan community. I like that we've gotten both Waterbending and Airbending villains in TLOK. Hama was a minor Waterbending villain, but generally speaking, you notice that the bad guys are the ones using Bloodbending and offensive Ice (as we know from Katara in TLA.)
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S4's villain is pretty good too. Just not Zaheer.

KORRA - Season 3, Episode 11

Recap: Mako and Bolin commandeer an airship and escape Ba Sing Se with their family. They reunite with Korra and deliver Zaheer's message: Meet me at the Northern Air Temple. Zaheer gets to the meeting spot first and explains the hostage situation to the Air Nation.

I don't have a ton to say about this episode, oddly. It's enjoyable enough to watch, but the thrust of it moves pieces around, somewhat less interested in paying off or being its own story.

The first half of the episode is an action escape sequence. Is it a little ridiculous that Mako and Bolin escape so cleanly with the airship? Well, sure. But let's not let that get in the way of a cool action scene. Could there be some real emotion in Grandma's decision to stay? Well, yeah. It's a sadly compressed scene that could easily have breathed better without, say, an episode of Kai chasing bison poachers.

Wait, but let me cool it with the butthurt for the moment. I do like the wind-down scene where everyone reunites. Mako's awkwardness is back on full display. Even more awkward: Grandma calling Asami really beautiful as the Avatar, and when Korra reappears, switching compliments entirely - 'You are very muscular for a woman!' Lin is also typically grumpy and fun here: 'Good, you guys aren't dead.' ('Don't get all mushy on me, Chief!')

So moving on to the obvious extended climax of the episode - four benders take down the entire fledgeling Air Nation. The action scenes are spectacular, and I love that Tenzin is stronger in the Air Temple than he was in Republic City - it's an art that combats humans much stronger than it does metal. I'd say he has the upper hand on Zaheer in single combat, which is GREAT. It's only when multiple Red Lotus can come at him at once that he succumbs. In a typical move, you can't really have the mentor winning the biggest battles, even if he's the strongest.

Kya and Bumi are also wonderful here, with their final fall being a hilarious echo of their first spotlight episode, the sibling conflict one.

I have just one major disappointment with the assault on the Air Temple, which is that the showrunners teased me so bad with Kai's death. I mean, intellectually I should've known they'd never do it, but I got so hype seeing him getting shot out of the air. His return at the end of the episode unfortunately was a tragic punctuation on an otherwise sterling second half.

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* Pretty lukewarm on Iroh in this episode.

* Meelo is the f***ing worst. It's unclear whether he or Kai should die first. Maybe they could have an Agne... Kai. Huh, one more thing ruined for me by Kai.

* I don't really care for Combustion Woman's style of fighting. That said, it makes her an incredibly useful support fighter, which does work well.
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sparky sparky boom woman *
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Tag
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I do like P'Li's ability to bend around her combustion beams

but yeah its not a very diverse technique, just raw power
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Tenzin vs. Zaheer is an awesome fight. Throughout the series we've never really seen Tenzin cut loose and fight at his full potential, he's always been overshadowed by Korra or someone else. Meanwhile, Zaheer has been effortlessly punking everyone he comes across... until the airbending fanboy comes up against the heir of Aang and learns what a true airbending master looks like. Not only does Tenzin hold his own against a dude who seemed unbeatable up to this point, he very clearly has the upper hand until the other Red Lotus peeps step in to save Zaheer. It's one of Tenzin's best moments in the series.
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It was great that Tenzin was kicking Zaheer's ass on his home turf (which makes sense since it would be kinda meh if Zaheer was beating him down having JUST gotten airbending a couple days ago) and required all four of them to beat Tenzin down
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still wonder what Zaheer brought to the team before he was an airbender
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htaeD posted...

still wonder what Zaheer brought to the team before he was an airbender

He was the leader and the one who brought them together
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He does 99% of the thinking.

Plus I wouldn't be surprised if he was a good fighter too. They put him on a lone jail cell on the top of a mountain for a reason.

ZeldaTPLink posted...

He does 99% of the thinking.

So he was a mindbender?
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ZeldaTPLink posted...

Plus I wouldn't be surprised if he was a good fighter too. They put him on a lone jail cell on the top of a mountain for a reason.

Yup. Plus my usual caveat: we KNOW he's a badass, JUST LOOK AT HIM!

Not_an_Owl posted...

Tenzin vs. Zaheer is an awesome fight. Throughout the series we've never really seen Tenzin cut loose and fight at his full potential, he's always been overshadowed by Korra or someone else. Meanwhile, Zaheer has been effortlessly punking everyone he comes across... until the airbending fanboy comes up against the heir of Aang and learns what a true airbending master looks like. Not only does Tenzin hold his own against a dude who seemed unbeatable up to this point, he very clearly has the upper hand until the other Red Lotus peeps step in to save Zaheer. It's one of Tenzin's best moments in the series.

Despite that each individual Red Lotus member is incredible, they're not remotely unbeatable, and there are very few of them. Tenzin gets his ass handed to him by the mechs in Season 1, and he lets his entire family get kidnapped when he's trying to escape Amon at the end of the season.
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KORRA - Season 3, Episodes 12-13

Recap: Korra agrees to trade herself for the Air Nation, but neither side has been dealing in good faith. Sparky Sparky Boom Woman is lost and Zaheer gains flight in the void she leaves. He poisons Korra to induce the Avatar State, but she breaks free of her prison and, after dueling Zaheer, is rescued by the collective force of the Air Nation. Ghazan and Ming-Hua are killed in combat and Zaheer re-imprisoned. Jinora graduates Air Nation Academy. Kai survives.

Well, I'm disappointed.

When you have enemies this great, you want them to kick ass. You want them to have a lasting impact. You want them not to get reduced to being weaker in single combat than lower-tier good guys simply because pairing off that way makes for a nice tie-up. You want there to be actual lasting consequences from their actions when they've gained great strength - especially if a bad guy is gaining a legendary, unknown power at the eleventh hour and is seriously pissed off that his girlfriend has just been killed.

Instead, you have Tonraq surviving (WHY???), Kai surviving (WHY?????), another pointless, effortless escape from the Air Nation (UGHHHH), Mako killing Ming-Hua with Lightning (She's seriously never been hit by it before, waving around giant water arms constantly attached to her body?! I mean, yeah, she's standing in water this time, but ugh, this is a world where Lightning is a common industrial skill!), lava behaving nothing like the way it should and thus making Ghazan's power level super-confusing (there's literally nothing different between lava and rock, so the fact that no one thinks to bend the lava that Ghazan bends is incredibly stupid), and... well, Zaheer actually acquits himself like a f***ing boss against Korra, so hard to hate on that.

Yeah, I'm butthurt about the ending of this season. I never once felt a moment of tension or emotion during any of the battle scenes other than rage that the good guys survived. Which is kind of astounding considering that there were so many good guys who could have potentially died. The perfect opportunities were there for Tonraq and for Kai - two awful characters who can nonetheless be mourned and used to show credibility - and for some reason they get magicked into survival with no damage at all. f***. Lin also basically sacrifices herself to get P'Li... but she makes it out with minimal damage, too. No price is paid whatsoever!

The Great Zaheer is gone for now, and despite his most badass ability only coming into play at the end of Episode 12, his most lasting feat was already done in Episode 10.

There are some clear plus sides, of course. Zaheer's showdown against Korra is fantastic. I love his fighting - the defensive style of Airbending allowing him genius counterstrikes. While it's not on that level, I felt definite echoes of Aang vs Ozai. Despite the stupid decrease in their power levels, Ghazan and Ming-Hua still produce some fireworks. P'Li's method of attack is incredibly lame, but she at least has acrobatic dodging skills, making her defensive tactics appealing, if not the offensive techniques.

Also, that final graduation scene is actually pretty neat.

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* I like that the table is set for next season already - rebuilding Ba Sing Se. Random Steelbender mook Kuveera looks like she's going to play a role, too. Korra will likely be spending much of it wheelchair-bound, which means maybe she'll finally learn a little bit on how to operate politically.

* 'Say hello to the Earth Queen for me!' I'm really bummed that such an awesome line didn't go anywhere.
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Yes, this series has been more adult and actually had multiple antagonists die - but remember it's still a Nick cartoon. Good guys deaths aren't going to be a big thing.
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tage
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SeabassDebeste posted...

Kai surviving (WHY?????)

Kai dying in an actually dramatic way would be way more than he deserves. They should have done something like this with him:

http://i.imgur.com/V1l4tN3.gif
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c7E-F66SDyg
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SeabassDebeste posted...

it's kind of embarrassing that the Earth Kingdom is using metal bars to hold its prisoners

Metalbending is still pretty rare. It's really only common in Republic City and Zaofu. Also I'm sure they have metal-proof cells for metalbenders, but they won't throw non-metal benders into those.

also dat airbending assassination
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oh god Tenzin vs Zaheer so good.... most brutal camera pan ever
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SeabassDebeste posted...

Kuveera

Nailed it

I do love how they gave her a real name in that episode so you knew she was gonna be important later

But yeah for your complaints, watch season 4

SeabassDebeste posted...

(there's literally nothing different between lava and rock, so the fact that no one thinks to bend the lava that Ghazan bends is incredibly stupid)

It is different, like lightning and blood and metal, Bolin just figured out how to lavabend (which is pretty random and a total deus ex, though I guess they did drop that hint back at Zaofu that Bolin was super impressed by lavabending so maybe he practiced it a bit)
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I watched the season alongside a lot and it's actually amazing how often Kuvira shows up and how diligent she is.
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- Season 3
- Complains about lack of lasting consequences.

What.

Sorry dude, in a show made for Nick, putting Korra on a wheelchair is the extent of what Zaheer can do.

AndI loved that ending. So powerful.

I wouldnt say the Red Lotus was nerfed

the good guys just finally started getting good attacks in

hell even with the lava bending, Bolin couldnt overpower Ghazan

I dont know, I was not disappointed at all

also needs more mention of P'li's brutal end
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I honestly didn't expect the wheelchair near the end. I just assumed they were gonna pull a Season 1 and have it be magically better.
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Toph was a great Earthbender, but she literally invented Metalbending just to get out of prison. The odds of at least one Earth Nation prisoner discovering Metalbending just seem too high to use metal bars. It's not even like we're talking about foreign prisoners, even!

foolm0r0n posted...

oh god Tenzin vs Zaheer so good.... most brutal camera pan ever

Which camera pan is this? I feel like a dope right now for not knowing.

foolm0r0n posted...

It is different, like lightning and blood and metal, Bolin just figured out how to lavabend (which is pretty random and a total deus ex, though I guess they did drop that hint back at Zaofu that Bolin was super impressed by lavabending so maybe he practiced it a bit)

Bumi Airbends to save his life without former practice. I'd say that the groundwork for Bolin lavabending is there, since the fixation on his inability to Metalbend is clearly setting the stage for him to do something cool.

ZeldaTPLink posted...

Sorry dude, in a show made for Nick, putting Korra on a wheelchair is the extent of what Zaheer can do.

AndI loved that ending. So powerful.

Azula conquers the Earth Nation in the name of the Fire Nation and cripples Aang's ability to use the Avatar State. Katara and Sokka's father is taken hostage (requiring a MUCH more intense breakout) by the Fire Nation.

Overall, Zaheer and the Red Lotus felt like major underdogs in their battle, and unfortunately, they got stomped by the favorites badly.

htaeD posted...

I wouldnt say the Red Lotus was nerfed

the good guys just finally started getting good attacks in

hell even with the lava bending, Bolin couldnt overpower Ghazan

I dont know, I was not disappointed at all

also needs more mention of P'li's brutal end

I was really disappointed it only took Mako and Bolin to beat Ming-Hua + Ghazan. So much for them being so much stronger than regular benders. Nothing clever about their combined victory, either.

P'li's end... I mean, she's a Sparky Sparky Boom Woman, so yeah, her end was pre-ordained. I mentioned my disgust that Lin's 'sacrificial' move wound up not being a sacrifice at all.

Team Avatar is just too deep and too good for the Red Lotus to seem like a credible threat. It wouldn't be as bad if we weren't teased with the possibility of death. If the show treated the battles as what they were - a mockery of the Red Lotus as a threat - it would be fine. Instead, you give us moments like 'Say hello to the Earth Queen!' and Lin preparing to sacrifice herself and Kai getting blasted out of the sky - all with no payoff.

I'm happy Korra's in a wheelchair, though. Will make for a more interesting S4.
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well we just see it differently then
it didnt feel like a mockery to me at all

I suppose I can see why fakeouts would get annoying after a while to others
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So if you can't use stone or metal to make you earth kingdom jail cell then what should they use?
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Soap.
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solid platinum obv
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I can see what you mean about Mako and Bolin winning their 1v1's. That seemed too easy. I think the rest of it is all fine though.



They could make jail cells out of wood or something like Ghazan's prison but I think for your every day prisoner that's overkill. Unless you know you have a metal bender on your hands, the cost is too high!
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Yeah, the point about logistics is pretty fair. This universe is just kind of ridiculous in terms of keeping people imprisoned.
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Magneto's Plastic Prison from X-Men 1 for everybody! There are no Plastic Benders are there?!
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Is there even plastic in that world?
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Magneto_defeated_by_wooden_gun.mp4
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CoolCly posted...

I can see what you mean about Mako and Bolin winning their 1v1's. That seemed too easy. I think the rest of it is all fine though.

Honestly this might be the tipping point for me, like a boulder that breaks the camel's back. It was just everything on top of everything else. If this had been toned down - maybe 3-on-2 with Asami, or even 4-on-2 with a wounded Tenzin getting in a cheap shot - then I could have swallowed the whole finale better.
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I really like Bolin. I'm not sure he quite measures up to Sokka, which he is obviously the Korra analogue to. But he's great overall.

I don't really care for Mako. To me he's nearly as bland as Sokka from the movie. That's not good.

But I don't really buy either of them as " best benders in the world" or anything. They are pretty good, and are valuable as trusted allies to follow Korra around and support her. But that doesn't make them the best.

Toph was clearly a prodigy, and Katara and Zuko were clearly world level benders by the end, even if they couldn't 1v1 Azula. But a lot of that came from watching how they trained and grew across 3 seasons.

Mako and Bolin are just pretty good benders who throw down when Korra needs them to. They just don't seem that refined and skilled. That's what makes them beating Ghazan and Ming-hua feel so bad.
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KORRA - Season 4, Episode 1

Recap: Three years after the assassination of the Earth Queen, the Earth Kingdom prepares to coronate the late Queen's sheltered and privileged great-nephew, Wu. However, Kuveera has been taming the bandit hordes around the Earth Kingdom and exacting feudalistic oaths of fealty from the states. Meanwhile, the Avatar is a nameless, underground cage fighter.

The thing about Korra is that season openers always do this.

This is one of the most exhilarating episodes of the show's run, top to bottom. It begins from as early as the narrator's opening: THREE YEARS HAVE PASSED (love the narrator!), like WHAAAAAAAAT? Within the first minute, Asami's looking different, Mako's looking different, Team Avatar has been split up for we-don't-know-how-long, and we're told to expect Korra at the coronation. And the episode squeezes us with that tension - the longer we go without Korra showing up, the more intense it is when she does - and it all leads up to Tonraq telling us she's MIA. Oh yes.

The hits are constant throughout the episode. Prince Wu is magnificently characterized, with Mako helpless trapped in his bodyguard role. He's spoiled beyond belief and loves the finer things in life (he loves massages, he lives in an incredibly gaudy 1920s-style hotel/palace building) - with virtually no demonstrated eye for why he's being given these privileges. The crowd to receive him is mixed; you can see why he gravitates toward the mindless fangirls - we see what we want to see - and doesn't realize that there are dissidents until Mako throws him into the car... at which point, he freaks out about the strawberry on him. Mako reminds him that it's bee stings to which he's allergic, not strawberries. 'Oh, right, always get those two mixed up.'

This dude promises to be amazing.

But more than that, I did not expect this to be the direction Kuveera took. She's f***ing fantastic so far. She's being characterized as almost overtly evil, complete with handsome androgyny and a suspiciously German efficiency with steel. Her words are never evil, but you can see from how the Governor of Yai reacts to her that he knows what her 'protection' really means. (I'd like this to be shown before told, but I can forgive the point.) She doesn't get a lot of subtle quirks, but her personal armies, her attempts to unite a fragmented a nation, the fear she's inspiring, her absolutely brutal competence and charisma - it's f***ing phenomenal.

Her being painted this black probably tips the hand of future events a little too much, but she didn't exactly extort anyone: as far as we know, she's not the one inciting the bandits. She's just frighteningly authoritarian and ambitious as a solution - and while Yai is certain to lose its sovereignity... its citizens will be fed. (It's when we see what exactly she's contracting those bandits to do that I'm gonna start rooting against her!) Everything about her - and Bolin, who's going to get to see it all unravel - so promising.
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And that's the thing. Every season of TLOK has started out incredibly promising but been unable to live up to it all. TLA was an epic crawl over sixty episodes, slowly unfurling more details about the world. Few and far between were the episodes that unleashed MASSIVE HYPE over the setting - the Northern Water Tribe and City of Secrets and Lies being by far the most notable. In TLOK, each season is relatively self-contained, and we're inundated with a new world of possibilities and intrigue each season.

Yet the web of possible storylines necessarily has to collapse, and with such a limited number of episodes, we almost inevitably lose much of the promised complexity in those storylines. Season 1 didn't ever show us the lives of the regular Equalists; Season 2 turned its villain into a caricature who wanted to fly a kite; Season 3 depended heavily upon its villains and short-changed them in the end, having their crowning achievement happen outside the point-of-view of any of the main characters, and never really having them score a decisive victory over the good guys. Even in TLA, the insane wave-function of intrigue in BSS essentially collapsed into 'Long Feng sucks at life and is evil, so just beat him up.' So I'm going to withhold my hype.

... But I can't help the optimism, and I'm going to try to justify it. If the political/'arc' story stays focused on Kuveera, Wu, and the stability of the Earth Kingdom, it'll have twelve episodes solely focused on its primary players. That's more than Long Feng, more than Amon (who necessarily remained enigmatic), more than Zaheer even (who spent half his season busting his family out of prison and most of the rest on the run). Aside from filling in her backstory, we seem to know exactly what's up with Kuveera, meaning we can build her up, get to know and love and hate her, and tear her down - all while examining the consequences of her actions. That leaves a ton of space for Bolin to pontificate her morality, Wu to mature as a political ruler, and Korra to regain her purpose.

So against my better judgment, yeah, I'm hype as f***.

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* Kai is way more tolerable now that he's a mid-/older teen. I appreciate what Tenzin is trying to have the Air Nomads do for sure. Are they trying to tease Kai/Opal now that they're closer in age and working close proximity and always wearing tight clothing (so goofy!) around each other? Jinora is wordless this episode and Bolin/Opal is clearly not working out.

* Fantastic touch in the crowd scene I mentioned before: Among the picketers are Kuveera supporters.

* Bandits have become so pervasive that no one bats an eye that they have access to airplanes. Jeez.

* Fearless President Raiko remains as much of a schmoozer as ever. I love his consistent presence since Season 2: just because you disband a corrupt political council doesn't make the world peachy-keen.

* Probably worth noting: Varrick is in the brigade of Kuveera. He has a tendency to back winners and love war. I don't know if he'll be a major factor this season, always good to see!
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again technically Bolin was about to lose til Mako jumped in

and Ming-Hua was pretty low on water

(I can keep justifying it <.<)
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