The Legend of Korra

[deanb]

But there's only a small amount of Water Tribe left though. The search wouldn't take that long. Also they have to start the search for the avatar again when he escapes anyway. Much easier to hunt down a baby than a flying kid that's zigzagging all over the place and building up many allies and resistances along the way.

[Mister Jack]

It's impossible to tell who the avatar is as a baby. Their powers don't manifest until they get older. If they decided to just kill the entire water tribe to eliminate all doubt (because that worked so well the first time they tried it) then the avatar would just be reborn in the earth kingdom, which is extremely difficult to wage war against.

[TheMightyEthan]

Yeah, they'd just get into this endless cycle of trying to track down the Avatar, kill him, he's reborn elsewhere, lather, rinse, repeat. They figure it'll be easier if they just capture him and hold him prisoner, that way they don't have to worry about him being reborn for a good 70 years or so.

[CorgiShinobi]

Yep, not to mention the controversy it would cause for the next Avatar to be born from the Fire Nation. I mean, if somehow you were to eventually kill the Earth Kingdom born Avatar, you'd then eventually have a political dilemma with a weakened force. Would they try to bring the Avatar to their side as a fellow Fire Nation citizen, or would they know it's the Avatar's destiny to oppose them and thus having to turn against their own kind, especially someone so young.

 

Even though it has been 100 years, only the Water Tribe has genuinely suffered. The Fire Nation still isn't that large, but the Earth Kingdom can not last forever against such ruthless leaders and politicians. Of course, this is only possible because the Avatar was trapped away in a block of ice, the Fire Nation's best case scenario.

 

EDIT: As for the "self-taught" question, it's not that straight forward.

 

If anything, the Avatar at a young age is an untapped powerhouse. Aang has the built-up power of all the previous Avatars, but his own physical being doesn't have the experience. I imagine any Avatar is, much like we saw Korra in "A Leaf in the Wind," the ultimate visual learner. Monkey see, monkey do.

 

Also, you'll see in Book Two: Earth that Aang really struggles with earthbending. He does try all the moves he sees, but bending also has a psychological and spiritual side. Book Two tackles the spiritual, whereas you'll see the "mental stuff" in Book Three: Fire. You should already know by now Aang's feelings about firebending.

Edited April 12, 2012 by Atomsk88

[Mister Jack]

Anybody watch today's episode?

[TheMightyEthan]

I did. So far I'm really enjoying this show.

[Mister Jack]

And just in case anyone doesn't already know this, if you miss it on tv Nick is streaming the latest episodes on their website.

[CorgiShinobi]

Oh yeah, totally caught it on television today. Didn't know about anyone else, but my impressions anyway.

 

A great introduction to Amon and the Equalists. It's refreshing to see a competent enemy, unlike average Fire Nation soldiers. Of course, the larger the army, the larger amount of standard soldiers. The Equalists are a small elite force, and every non-bender has to be trained in either chi blocking and/or offensive tech to tackle benders. So yeah, if you have a small group they've got to be very formidable for the plot to have any respect, which Legend of Korra did.

 

Now, for the spoiler bit...

 

Amon probably isn't using energybending, but a more harmful chi blocking technique. Targeting the head rather than limbs and joints. Amon looked completely unaffected, and I say this because Aang himself required great effort against Ozai in energybending. Thus it's assumed only the Avatar can use energybending.

 

Then again, energybending was the precursor to all bending, so it's assumed this was the bending in the early ages. It could be that Aang's energybending was highly stylized for the finale and because Ozai was such a powerful opponent. Now, if this is the case, where and how did Amon learn energybending. Only the last lion-turtle has the knowledge of energybending, and the spirit carnation of Aang should any recent Avatar need the knowledge.

 

 

Now as far as Korra and Mako...

 

I'm not against the possibility of a relationship, but I felt like it was rushed a little too soon. The ending of the second episode hinted at a "beginning" of feelings, but Korra has supposedly already expressed some deeper interest than just... interest. Now Korra is a teenage girl, so you can expect a faster "occurrence" of feelings, especially since she has been somewhat sheltered as the new Avatar. Still, I think maybe if it had been around the middle of the season or whenever they get to their second round of the pro-bending tournament you would get to see these feelings. Not really opposed, and I greatly enjoyed the teasing from Jinora and Ikki.

 

Edited April 22, 2012 by Atomsk88

[Mister Jack]

 

As far as shipping goes, I think the showrunners are just fucking with us right now. They've done it before, but we'll see.

 

The possibility of Amon being an energybender came to mind, but it just doesn't seem to fit when he actually does it. Not only is there no flashy light show involved, but he is able to do it pretty much effortlessly to several people one after another. Aang, the friggin messiah, struggled just to do it once.

 

I definitely think there's something supernatural going on, though. He said he was granted the power by spirits. Maybe he's just lying to make himself look better, but maybe he's not. Maybe he DID cut some kind of deal with one of the spirits to get the power. That's my current theory at least.

 

Edited April 22, 2012 by Mister Jack

[CorgiShinobi]

Amon is a giant fraud, that's my theory.

 

 

He's probably a firebender from a family who longed for Fire Nation rule. Now that that isn't a reality, he seeks to cause this new "peaceful" world into chaos by having the non-benders revolt against all those who bend.

 

So maybe he's Azula's son!

 

But not really... or really...

 

 

 

EDIT: Oh, and when Mako and those other firebenders were using lightning generation in that power plant, I got giddy with how lightning was being featured in this industrial world. If you think about it, lightning was pretty freaking special in The Last Airbender. Only Ozai, Azula, and Iroh would generate lightning whereas Zuko was taught to redirect it.

 

I guess Legend of Korra kinda nerfs it because lightning was suppose to be this master level skill because it requires... blahblahblah

Edited April 22, 2012 by Atomsk88

[Mister Jack]

I do think his whole tragic backstory is made up bullshit. But he definitely wasn't lying about being able to take away people's bending.

[CorgiShinobi]

Alright, a bit more info from some research on Amon's... you know...

 

 

"Removal" of bending. Think back to Combustion Man, the firebender who sent blasts of chi through his third eye. Everyone in the world of Avatar has a third eye, a part of the chi pathways and etc. Amon is placing a hand on the target's head like you see in energybending, but that's it. Aang also had to place another hand on the target's chest. So, he could be blocking chi through the third eye and perhaps this is more harmful.

 

But either way, even regular chi blocking is only "healed" by time. No matter how skilled a waterbender healer is, chi paths can not be "unblocked" forcibly. Perhaps in time the chi will return to these victims, but for who knows how long. Perhaps long enough to take over the world?

 

Edited April 22, 2012 by Atomsk88

[TheMightyEthan]

I'm mildly irritated by the apparent ease with which people can bend lightning and metal. Both of those in the original series were supposed to be OMG HOLY CRAP I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU CAN DO THAT. Metal bending even more so than lightning bending. Now I'm willing to give metal bending a pass because maybe it was only hard cause no one had invented it yet, and throughout her life Toph was able to figure out how to teach the technique to others beyond "you just have to be the greatest earth bender ever."

 

The lightning though really bugs me, because that was an established art that was very difficult. I wish they'd just made it so the fire benders were heating boilers to drive turbines to generate electricity, rather than creating the electricity directly.

[Mister Jack]

Well it has been 70 years. Maybe they found a way to make it easier or artificially induce lightning in a bender.

[deanb]

So I finished Avatar. Pretty good. Though

 

I'd have maybe paced out Azulas madness a bit. She kinda went from being all evil n such, to becoming Firelord and then becoming insanely paranoid n such in the space of 2 episodes. I loved the sleep deprivation and play episodes near the end. I liked combustion man too, though he seemed hugely OP.

Also kinda sucks that they never changed the beginning at all. It got more n more out of place as time went on to state that Aang pretty much just knew Air bending and had "a lot to learn". Especially towards the end..

 

 

As for Korra

 

I agree with Ethan on the whole "she's more of an earth bender" type, and TLA did make it pretty clear the difficulty was meant to be in the opposing element not the opposing philosophy. Amon seems a pretty cool bad guy, looks like he could be fairly consistent. I like the time period, so not gonna be too picky on the somewhat rapid changes, though the lightning is annoying, another bit of a retcon there I imagine. Metalbending was more of a "never thought of that before" kinda thing, just required a bit more finesse than needing to be super special. And the Dai Li had plenty finesse, and there was plenty of them. In fact I wouldn't be surprised if the Dai Li are the precursor to the metalbending Republic City Police. As for the style, it's using a fair bit of 3D, which is kinda nice, leading to some somewhat sweet animation, though got pretty confusing in the fight against the equalist dudes when the camera was spinning all around em.

 

Oh last night I commented on Twitter it'd be nice to see The Facestealer some more. Aang had a minor run in with it and one of the past lives was shown to have a negative experience too. I think this is even more of a possibility with the fact Amon comments on losing his face and that the Spirits have talked with him....(Oh I agree I don't think it's energy bending, but a gift given by the spirits). I figure Aang will no doubt be back too given how frequent Roku was brought in. Obviously we don't need an episode ala the "Ruko n Sozin are BFFs" episode since we have 3 series of Aangs past (though there's obviously around 60 years missing, like the building of Republic city and how everything went after the war ended)

 

I don't think Tenzin is going to last overly long btw. He's both the Avatars son, the only Master Airbender and the current Avatars teacher (and a councillor), he'd be a pretty nifty target. That and JK Simmons might be a somewhat pricey VA. Tenzin is LOKs Iroh I guess, the older wise man that guides the characters along.

 

 

p.s I asked this on twitter: Anyone know if the other two pro-benders are Zuko n Sokkas VAs? I checked IMDB and it does list Zuko VA as being in LOK, but with no listed role. So maybe he's back but as Zuko (I think that's elder Zuko at the start as "Fire")

[Mister Jack]

Tenzin is voiced by J.K. Simmons?

[deanb]

Firelord Ozai was Mark Hamill too. They both have little things that give them away. Hamill slips into the joker everynow n then with Ozai, Simmons is a bit better, I'd say I've only noticed it's him cos what with it being Portal 2's anniversary I've being getting back into all that sorta stuff. Shame Twitter only has 140 characters.

[Mister Jack]

I recognized Mark Hamill, but I guess I've just gotten used to hearing J.K. Simmons yelling about lemons or Spiderman. I didn't recognize his normal voice at all.

[TheMightyEthan]

Yeah, I didn't recognize JK Simmons at all. I did catch that Ozai was Mark Hamill when Zuko confronted him in that underground cave (can't remember what exactly tipped me off).

[CorgiShinobi]

About a certain spirit

 

Not really sure why I might put this in a spoiler tag, but whatever.

 

Anyway, I can't see Koh (the Face Stealer) being behind this, as far as a spirit being involved. Koh only had a grudge against Avatar Kuruk because of that Avatar's arrogance. Kuruk's time was a peaceful one, so as the Avatar he would merely display his power to impressive people (especially women). Koh was displeased with this and so he lead Ummi into the Spirit World, and you know the rest.

 

Amon having his face stolen is a good idea, though I'm sure his eyes would also be gone too. Still, it's not like there hasn't been any retcon already.

 

 

As for metalbending, I'll repeat "discovery over difficulty." It requires seismic sense so that the earthbender can locate the tiny amounts of earth remaining in the metal. I don't know if seismic sense is something that can be taught, but it's required for metalbending so even a master earthbender could be unable to metalbend if they do not possess seismic sense.

 

So yeah, there is some difficulty to it as well as simply saying, "Hey, you know we can bend metal too" isn't enough. Because of this, even those with seismic sense in the past probably never thought to look at metal and wonder if they could bend "non-rock" stuff.

 

EDIT: Oh, and as for Zuko...

 

he's still alive. He didn't step down from the throne until he was 83 (167 ASC, three years prior to LoK) and now is an unofficial ambassador. His daughter is now the one on the throne, though you have to wonder why he would stay Fire Lord for so long. Probably to make sure the Fire Nation's sins to the world would be properly reconciled.

 

Edited April 22, 2012 by Atomsk88

[deanb]

Aang was taught seismic sense. He was even shown using it in the battle against Ozai. As best I can tell it involves semi-earthbending while blind (at least for the training part)

[CorgiShinobi]

True, just I didn't know if that was because he was the Avatar who is pretty much capable of all bending and each subsequent known technique.

[VicariousShaner]

I think that an explanation for Korra's "Earthbender personality" may be a result of the 70-year timeskip. The tribes, now not under the influence of the Fire Nation may have become closer and more integrated. The huge cities that were shown were obviously made out of benders of all types. It's very possible that the personalities became less segregated from one tribe to another.

[TheMightyEthan]

I was under the impression that the different personalities of the various bending disciplines had more to do with the bending itself rather than the tribe. Each type of bending requires a certain outlook/philosophical approach, so when you're that kind of bender you're immersed in that philosophy for your entire life, and that shapes your personality.

 

Re: metal bending, that stuff about using seismic sense to detect trace amounts of unpurified earth in the metal is on the Avatar Wiki page, but I don't remember anything about that being in the show, and their citation is just to the episode where Toph metal bends. Without some official source saying that's the case I'm ignoring that and going with the (to me) more obvious explanation that metal is just as much "earth" as stone is, and that's why they can bend it, forget that "trace amounts" stuff. As far as seismic sense goes, I always figured it was a thing that any earthbender could do, just most don't need to cause they can see normal-wise, so they never learn it.

[CorgiShinobi]

You're right that a typical earthbender wouldn't need seismic sense, other than them having a "threat detection" technique, though Toph needed it to see and make sense of the world.

 

Because of her reliance on seismic sense, she discovered the pockets of un-purified earth in metal. It would be like someone walking around with a magnify glass constantly, and because of that constant use she saw the little bits of earth. When Guru Pathik is speaking to Aang and giving the analogy of earth and metal, it's a spoken description of why Toph has discovered metalbending.

 

Think of all the earthbenders ever chained up, or in containment with surrounding metal. You'd have to think that at one point someone would think that they could bend metal, but nope. They probably failed, and they failed because they didn't bend the earth within the metal. Metal is being manipulated along the points of the un-purified earth.

 

 

Heck, when Katara and Aang are trying to breach the hull of the Fire Nation "giant drill," Aang sarcastically remarked how he wish he was a "metalbender." The idea has to have popped up, but the method was never discovered until Toph.

 

Looking this up I saw there is a book/comic of Toph training three kids in metalbending, but since I've never read it or even seen it, I don't know how she went about it. Sometimes the books aren't even considered canon, just a "neat sidestory."

 

EDIT: Man, I had a lot of grammatical errors... (and a few spellings).

 

EDIT2: Well, well, it's part of a graphic novel that is suppose to be canon. First issue was this last January and details event one year after TLA ended. The second will be this coming May!

Edited April 23, 2012 by Atomsk88