/a/ - Avatar

Well that was a nice episode, although it was more of a character development episode than a plot one, if that makes sense?

The thing Toph kind of points out about the prior villains was actually pretty interesting (how they embodied things the Avatar also stood for, such as equality, freedom etc., but took it to too much of an extreme).

Overall, I enjoyed it and the ending was all the more statisfying for all the work we've seen Korra undergo during the flashbacks. Seems that the plot will pick up again in next week's episode though in a big way.

Have to say, I've really enjoyed how they've been able to show and explore the gradual recovery Korra's undergone, rather than just waving a make wand by just having Katara fix everything at the end of the Book Three finale.

"It was hot. I was on a blimp. I think a giant turtle showed up."
Pretty apt way of describing the finale tbh.

This was a nice episode. Very ATLA in vibe. And I'm glad we got an episode centered around the Air babies -- even if Meelo is still disgusting looking and annoying to all high hell.
I liked the callbacks to the previous villains. I'm a sucker for cameos like that.. and Toph's lesson about them is pretty accurate.. if not obvious. Really, Korra? You needed somebody to tell you they were extremists cause you hadn't figured that out?

I'm also still completely baffled as to how Kuvira moves around the world and does all these grand plans with no one even attempting to stop her. She's moving an entire continent to invade Zaofu and.. no one's doing anything to stop her? Raiko's holding Tenzin back to "talk about the problem"? Why did they even let her leave Republic City in the first place after openly declaring she went rogue?!
I dunno man. I just don't know what's happenin'

>>118350
>Why did they even let her leave Republic City in the first place after openly declaring she went rogue?!

Because doing that would 100% guarantee a war with her Empire, which is very real in fact even if its legitimacy is questionable. They're hoping to deal with the situation peacefully.

>>118351
What Empire? If they'd captured Kuvira, most of her followers would either tuck tail or sputter and crash without her. It's not like we've seen any sort of established hierarchy or generals by her side, it seems to just mainly be her running the show. I somehow doubt her hold on the Earth Kingdom is as strong as she claims; most of the towns she's saved were brought in by force, so the loyalty would be more or less split among the people.

She also outright told the leader of Zaofu to her face that they would soon get attacked. That's an open act of aggression. Am I to assume Su just went back to Raiko and they were all perfectly fine letting her walk out the city to begin preparing said attack? "We don't want her starting a war with us, so we're just gonna let her invade your city. Sorry Beifong."

I'm gonna reserve most of my doubts, because all of that only happened last episode and we didn't really see any development in this one, but still.. It all comes off as really shitty leadership skills from people like Raiko and Tenzin. They're like the Neville Chamberlains of the Avatar world.

>>118352

>What Empire?

The one the series explicitly says she spent 3 years setting up. Also, like I said in another thread, support for Kuvira is at least open enough that they'll sell clothing of her in the streets of a foreign country, and have people openly cheer for her in the middle of what was basically insubordination and treason. Again, in a foreign country and in the middle of a diplomatic ceremony, no less.

I haven't seen the episode, but this honestly sounds like we need to see how this'll go. There hasn't been enough shown to say "she overestimated her hold on the Earth Kingdom." She has a war map that puts most of it under her direct command on her super-train after all.

Kuvira pretty much has an entire continent under her control by this point, and considering her effective PR campaign means there are probably more people in the former Earth Kingdom that like her than ones who don't, I'd imagine things would go south fast if the other nations were to just openly declare war on her...

...Especially considering how Republic City both relies on the Earth Kingdom for trade (I think they mentioned that ore comes from there or something?) in addition to also potentially being on Kuvira's shopping list (historically they WERE part of the Earth Kingdom after all, that's what the Promise comic was all about).

Hence why Tenzin wants to attempt to find a diplomatic solution to the problem. They allowed her to suppress bandits and reunite the continent under the unspoken agreement that she hand over things to Wu once she completed her task... even though allowing her to do it enabled her to get the resources and support she'd need to strike out on her own if she wanted to.

Declaring war on her at this point would just make the fragile peace she'd constructed shatter, leaving it up to the next extremist with an agenda to come along and start trouble all over again.

>>118353
You chose to focus on the first line of my statement and completely ignored the rest.
I mean, I guess that's a valid approach to an argument..

Public support =/= military control or might.
Hypothetically, just because people sell Putin shirts in the middle of NY City doesn't mean he could realistically go to a UN summit and openly declare he's gonna annex California in a week scot-free. That makes no sense whatsoever and would never fly.

Republic City also isn't a country; just an autonomous city-state of sorts. Which is part of the Earth Kingdom that's being completely taken over. Even more red flags should have gone up in Raiko's head to shut down this woman and lift away her privileges. But no, instead he lets her waltz away with her convinced felon buddy.

Again, we'll have to wait and see what happens in the next few episodes. Other than Zoufu's complete fall, anyway. I'll look back and mercilessly judge Raiko's incompetence when the season's over.

Overall a good episode but the resolution to Korra's metal poisoning problem was weak. If Korra's problem was that she was disconnected from the people she loved then why did it occur when she was living with her family, who loved her? If the problem was that Korra was still fighting past battles then why was she able to heal herself after meeting Jinora, Ikki, and Meelo?

Another problem was that Korra learned nothing from this whole experience, so you could effective cut episodes 2 and 4 without having any impact on the plot. Seriously the plot could have been that Korra decided to travel the world after she was healed and the 3 airbenders just needed to find her.

>>118355

I feel that this is going to be a major problem with the plot of this season. Since the leaders of the Water Tribes, Fire Nation, Air Nomads, and Republic City just let Kuvira declare herself Empress of the Earth Kingdom and leave Republic City it won't make any sense if they're later shown opposing her being the empress.

Judging by how the story is going after Korra returns to Republic City everyone will agree to overthrow Kuvira and put Wu on the throne without any real attempts at diplomacy or a discussion about who deserves to be on the throne.

>>118357
I see it as a discussion and there being some middle ground as Kuvira isn't completely in the wrong on this. Still think we'll see her encountering a couple of regional warlords that lead her to this more Militant Path.

>>118355

Well, I had figured what I said applied to all of your comment. Again, she's popular, she wouldn't have gotten cheers from the common citizen if she was somehow unpopular. Also, now that I've watched the episode, we're not sure if Kuvura's actually left Republic City. Also, your Putin example is off. It's one thing to say Putin was gonna annex California. It's another if he says they're gonna annex some part of Russia that's actually in Russia during a time when he led the forces that united Russia again shortly after Russia fell into a massive state of civil unrest following the death of the last Russian leader.

(You'll notice neither we nor the UN get directly involved when other countries start really messing with each other, especially where World Superpowers are concerned.)

Also, United Republic of Nations (of which Republic City is the capitol) has a Government that doesn't answer to anybody else, not the Avatar, Fire Lord, or Earth King/Queen. Elected officials, borders (shown in the first episode, no less, which the Earth Queen mentioned hating because those lands used to belong to her Kingdom) and a standing military. You're a Country when you have all those things.

And? Kuvira isn't attacking Republic City or the United Republic, she's attacking Zhaofu, an actual autonomous city state within the Earth Kingdom using Earth Empire forces. It might not even actually be Republic City's place to get involved just from a political standpoint. I mean, sure, we know she's a bad guy because we have the benefit of the narrative helping us. People in Republic City who hated Wu? Like the ones the series actually showed us? People who were appreciative of the humanitarian aid and order she brought to what were basically lawless lands in the wake of the near total collapse of the Monarchy?

Those people probably don't think so.

>>118356

>Another problem was that Korra learned nothing from this whole experience

Total bullshit. Toph literally told Korra what to learn from her past enemies. I don't understand how you can miss this.

All of the other BS aside here's my personal highlights of this episode. Very fucking good episode.

-Ikki getting a chance to truly shine. Middle siblings always get the short end of the stick. Here we see her showcasing many sides of her character. The most lol-worthy were her moments channeling Aang while she was "bound" by Mario and Luigi in that guard-shack. She charmed them over to her side and hit it off with them ala Aang and the prisoners in Avatar Day. "Hit me with one of those macaroons", scratching her nose in the background while the two mooks are scheming, and outright using her arms to point out where they searched for Korra on the map they laid out.

-Meelo is a hax artist, subverting the expected 'lol childish portrait' joke everyone was expecting. Him successfully macking on the older girl was great.

-Kuvira propaganda everywhere!

-The dark turn Korra took as she witnessed her most harmful losses at the hands of her enemies and the words of wisdom Toph had to offer afterward. This is all working toward tying this whole show in a bow and I can't wait for the conclusion.

-Korra reuniting with the airkids. They just love her so, so much and Korra's tears of happiness when they responded to her Calling rattled my heartstrings. Their relationship is my favorite non-familial relationship in Legend of Korra.

-Double meaning of the title of the episode. The Swamp wound up 'Calling' the Air Kids in its own weird and violent way when it sensed they were close to Korra. And Korra used the Banyan-Grove tree to make her Calling to those who loved her. Loved the parallel to ATLA here.

-The animation and score during Korra expelling the remaining metallic poison from her body. Such a stirring scene, I've watched it numerous times already. Jeremy Zuckerman and Studio MIR are fucking awesome and nobody should take them for granted.

>>118356
It was kind of a bit more complicated than that... More like she was still focused on her past defeats, the trauma of which was subconsciously making her want to stay hurt so she wouldn't have to be the Avatar any more.

Her realising that it was her own fear that was defeating her (as evidenced by her seeing her reflection after the flashback, making her see what her fear was doing to her) helped her come to terms with her trauma and enabled her to get herself better.

The Airkids showing up just provided the extra motivation, as prior to meeting Toph Korra seemed to think that her problem was primarily a physical one (hence why it took her so long to recover from her injuries despite her parents and Katara working for literally years to help get her better).

'Cause telling someone that it's all in their head and they should just get over it is a lot different from the person actually realising what was wrong and trying to fix it themselves.

>>118363
True its all part of the process, one has to understand their own problem to fix it. I don't think she's fully healed either. We know she' has a coming encounter with Kuvira before going back to Republic City. I think her PTSD will trigger during that fight.

The scene of the deforested area made me wonder whether Kuvira was going to eventually take on a sort of Materialist Progress vs. Nature/Spirituality angle, like in Princess Mononoke, though probably way more one-sided. I forget if we already got a touch of that in the original series though.

>>118360

And what did Korra learn from her past enemies? If she didn't learn anything useful then the whole thing was a waste of time.

>>118363

But that's the opposite of what was shown. Korra continued to fight Toph even though she kept getting hurt, so it's clear that her subconscious wasn't preventing her from fighting. Also if Korra was afraid of fighting she wouldn't have tried fighting everything she came across without any hesitation.

So the episode still makes no sense because Korra acted in the opposite way she should have acted if she didn't want to get hurt.

>118364

Don't count on it. Bryke have a tendency to drop early problems so they can have more fight scenes.

>>118383
Her enemies were right but they went too far and lost their focus. Korra needs to find the balance between the ideologies. The Pai Shou game foreshadowed that eventuality.

>>118350
>You needed somebody to tell you they were extremists cause you hadn't figured that out?
Its hard to have that awareness. There's always that twinge of doubt present whenever she faced her adversaries. "What if they're right." "What if the world doesn't need an avatar/needs more contact with the spirits" and such. The "maybe I'm doing it wrong" mentality is constantly present.

At least its a step up from Book 1's
"wow hey maybe the government is heavily leaned against benders."
"hey fuck you man bending's the best thing in the world"

>>118383

>But that's the opposite of what was shown. Korra continued to fight Toph even though she kept getting hurt, so it's clear that her subconscious wasn't preventing her from fighting. Also if Korra was afraid of fighting she wouldn't have tried fighting everything she came across without any hesitation.
You know the show has always made a clear distinction between comedic/cartoon violence and actual war/fighting violence, since the very first ATLA episode, right? Training with Toph fell into the former.