The Legend of Korra

[Mister Jack]

[Waldorf and Statler]

AHAHAHAHAHAHAAHHA OH GOD.

 

I love the Korra community. SO fucking much. I can't like your post enough.

[Waldorf and Statler]

Just saw the newest episode. If you don't mind watching a relatively LQ stream of the video maybe an hour after it originally airs on Nick, you should join/subscribe to the AvatarLegends channel in youtube and their website. After about an hour they post links to their youtube channel for the website where they have working and fast streams of the video, later on they post better quality too.

 

Now to discuss this week's episode.

 

Nice to see them responding to a question I've been asking myself for a while now: why hasn't Korra been shown practicing airbending? It sucks that she's apparently having a harder time than Aang did with earthbending, but to be fair maybe she also needs to go on a bending-hike-thing by herself until she can learn to at least shoot a puff of air.

 

As to Tarrlok, it seems like he's related to Yakken [however you spell it] as we can finally see in the flashback he was bloodbending team avatar throughout the council meeting/trial. Tarrlok's revelation was surprising as this now means that either Katara taught this Yakken person how to bloodbend and he taught others, or they figured out by themselves like the original lady did.

 

Next week's episode will probably be what I mentioned above. Korra dealing with the spiritual world and probably having to finally use airbending to escape wherever they're taking her. Once she can communicate with the spirit world and her past lives, she should hopefully be able to use the Avatar State

 

[Mister Jack]

GAAAH CLIFFHANGER

[CorgiShinobi]

Gawd, took me forever to watch an online stream of the episode. The thing would keep buffering every 10 seconds, so I had to let the episode play on its own because it would only play smoothly if it had already played the scene. Sometimes it's difficult to wake up before 9 AM on a Saturday.

 

Anyway, this was a great episode, especially for relationships and conspiracy theories.

 

 

First off, I'm going to say we can't rush the Avatar State. It's something everyone has been dying to see since Ep. 3, but we have to remember the Avatar State is the Avatar's ultimate defense and offense. Arriving to it so soon would dampen it's effect in LoK, much like being a Super Saiyan after the Cell Saga in DBZ.

 

However, I can guarantee that Korra is going to be spiritual next episode. She's going to be alone with herself, and of course her past lives. Now that we've seen that bloodbending has advanced in some ways, much like metalbending, it seems to have become a threat. It at least is well-known to Korra, though perhaps that is because Katara warned her of it. I'm also glad Tarrlok's villainy final revealed itself because after a while it was becoming too obvious the guy was a "weasel-snake."

 

Like I said in my previous theory, Tarrlok has some connection to Yakone.

 

 

Interesting fact, "Yakone" is an Inuit phrase meaning "blood in the snow," so take that to what you know.

 

P.S.

Freakin' Ikki, droppin' bombs and chasing after Pabu. She's become my favorite airbender kid now.

[deanb]

Just watched it.

 

So first a comment I meant to make a while back (I may have already in fact): Don't some of the backgrounds seem a bit half-baked? Just rough sketchwork.

 

As for episode at hand

 

Yep glad Tarlok was finally shown to be fully evil, and neat to have them fighting off against each other. Probably not going to go well for the rest. Wouldn't be surprised given how obviously pro-amon's points the new law was that the other council members may be being manipulated by Tarlok like others (directly or indirectly). And I'd also wager he's somewhat in league with Amon. I wonder if blood bending is related to the bending removing? btw that law thing was so terribly handled. It just seems so obviously stupid that it's hard to imagine only Tenzin saw issue with it. Though we don't have much character development of other council members to know if they're total morons or not.

 

Also was the blood bending woman killed? Couldn't she have taught others? Either after Katara or before they ever met. The way Katara was with blood-bending I doubt it's something she'd have taught others to use.

 

I'm not sure Avatar State is much special given Aang went into it several times in just the first few episodes of TLA. Unless we're meaning the full on controlled Avatar State. Which yeah I reckon will be a while away since Korra is yet to even do the defensive mechanism one.

 

Kind of a shame "Teeam Avatar MkII" were only offical for less than half an episode. Do hope the next one is a spiritual one. LoK is starting to drag a bit in those elements. She's still only on her first few elements, never done any spirit world stuff or avatar state stuff. LoK is big on ideas compared to TLA, but it's pretty small in scope compared to TLA atm. To which I'm also hoping we're now going to see some non-republic city stuff n how it's changed since TLA.

 

[CorgiShinobi]

Well, the next episode is titled "Out of the Past" and the brief synopsis of it is "Korra tries to make sense of her visions while Tenzin and Lin Beifong search for Equalist's hostages." So yeah, what we're expecting is probably going to happen.

 

Then after that is an episode titled, "Turning the Tides" and I can't help but think something big will go down given the title alone.

 

As for a certain lady...

 

Hama was imprisoned by the villagers, and so it is highly unlikely that she escaped her Fire Nation village prison, ran off, and was able to find waterbenders who would accept and learn bloodbending. As such, Katara was the only one to learn bloodbening under Hama, and it seems very unlikely that Katara would have taught such a malicious form of bending.

 

Still, as we've discussed before, bloodbending seems to be something that others could have caught onto on their own. I would accept a storyline where a pupil of Katara's pulled a "Tom Riddle" and weaseled the knowledge out of her in so much as to ask if there was anything destructive waterbending could do.

 

However, Yakone appears to be around the same age as Avatar Aang, Sokka, and Toph in the flashbacks. As I mentioned in my past post, Yakone's name itself implies that he came to the knowledge of bloodbending, let alone the latest flashback displaying some kind of bloodbending. That's the thing now, somehow bloodbending has surfaced again and it has almost taken on this "The Force" attribute.

 

It could be part of Amon's trick too, and perhaps Yakone had a legion of bloodbenders under his wing as one man alone couldn't have been such a destructive force in infamy. I say this too because in the flashback you see a few people doing some arm movements in the background.

 

[TheMightyEthan]

I feel like such an idiot, it totally didn't click for me that that's what was happening in the flashback. Which is funny because I instantly recognized what Tarrlock was doing.

[Little Pirate]

Gahhhh these cliffhangers! Dammit this series is amazingly well written/animated.

 

And fartbending.

[CorgiShinobi]

You know, perhaps it is best that I don't always catch an episode on Nick...

 

 

 

 

(And LP, I promise to make that a GIF as soon as possible!)

Edited June 3, 2012 by TheMightyEthan
Spoiler tags, it's less than a day old. :P

[TheMightyEthan]

So forgive me if I'm way behind the curve on this one, but I now have a theory as to why it appears that every firebender (or at least a lot of them) can bend lightning also:

 

In TLA it was explained that lightning came from calm, deliberate manipulation of energy, and that the Fire Nation had perverted firebending to be based on rage and emotion. So my thought is that Zuko, in reforming the Fire Nation, also worked to bring firebending back to its origins, and that the change in focus allows more people to bend lightning because it's no longer at odds with the basis of their firebending.

[Mister Jack]

I like this theory.

 

As for how bloodbending got out, though, who can say.

[CorgiShinobi]

That's what I think too, Ethan. Now that people are trained in firebending not as a form of militaristic domination, but as a martial art, that firebenders who are at peace with their emotional state can manipulate lightning.

 

Sure, Mako's parents are dead, but he has his brother and has probably come to the realization that as a child it was out of his control. Zuko had an internal struggle, which was personified by how he was related to both Fire Lord Sozin and Avatar Roku. His sister, though a manipulative and cruel girl, was mentally comfortable with herself and her actions. As her mental state wore, she could still manipulate lightning, but it was noticeably more radical.

 

P.S.

Thanks for the spoiler tags! I didn't think about how early it was still.

[Waldorf and Statler]

How has afro circus gotten this popular?

 

It's not even funny. In the slightest. He just used a rhythm that was already existing and said "Afro circus" on top.

[Mister Jack]

It's only funny in the sense that it completely ruins the built up drama from the episode itself.

 

But yeah, Madagascar sucks.

[CorgiShinobi]

Believe it or not, I was really picky on the exact pattern of the lightning for a continuous loop, but I got it down! Considering you can download the preview clips anywhere and anytime, I thought I'd go for a cool Asami scene.

 

 

 

 

EDIT: Nevermind, lol! I figured out how to change the rate. By default, a video clip animation goes by 0.03 seconds per frame. However, that's not quite a full second for 30 frames (0.9). I tried a rate of 0.035(1.05), but Photoshop changes it to 0.04. So, it's 30 frames for 1.2 seconds. Probably best for the lightning, and doing the full scene was going to take up a full 1MB of a GIF.

 

Still, what do you guys think? I would suggest not staring at it too long...

Edited June 3, 2012 by Atomsk88

[Mercurial]

Ya that fucking hurts my eyes.

[CorgiShinobi]

Eh, I put it back into spoiler tags. I've seen a few others (with the logo) that take on a different pattern, but it's relatively the same.

 

I'm going to try a variation of it, but I'm wondering...

 

Anyone have a Tumblr? Or how about that Imgur site? Which do you think would be best to try spreading some images? Lately I've come across the GIFs I've posted on some fan forums and Know Your Meme (a collection if anything).

[Mister Jack]

Tumblr is good if you want to set one up specifically for archiving gifs you make. It'll probably cause them to spread, too.

Edited June 3, 2012 by Mister Jack

[CorgiShinobi]

I think I'll start one up tomorrow, and hopefully I can begin making the images I've had in mind.

 

Any who, revised Asami glove, though the lightning is probably always going to look... "bright."

 

 

[deanb]

With regards to lightening bending: Nice theory, but Zuko can't generate lightening, only deflect it. And that was while in his old firebending style too, not the dragon style. I think it's a simple case of "Oooh this part of TLA is neat, let's put a bit more of it in LoK and ignore the canon for it".

 

On the other bending:

 

We are saying that Katara didn't teach anyone of blood bending, but Katara was Korras master-waterbender and Korra figured out pretty quickly it was blood bending. Not something you'd expect Korra to know off the bat if only a couple of folks know of it and only one can teach it. So Katara has most likely at least shown the effects of it to Korra for her to spot what was happening so quickly(if memory serves Aang n Sokka didn't work out what was happening to them so it's reasonable Korra wouldn't figure it out if she wasn't aware of blood bending).

 

However If you just know of the name "blood bending" you can most likely figure out the technique yourself. It just required full moon and/(or) strong water bender, as opposed to metal bending n lightening bending which require specific skills, such as the calmness of mind or ability to sense the impurities.

 

 

As for gif sharing, can always toss a few up in an imgur album n throw that up on http://www.reddit.com/r/thelastairbender

Tumblr is pretty neat too, make sure on your tagging though.

 

[CorgiShinobi]

That's the thing, Dean. Zuko's original source of his firebending was his rage and frustration. In Book Two's "Bitter Work," that's when Iroh teaches Zuko his own technique, lightning redirection (first shown by Iroh countering Azula's lightning to protect Zuko). However, Zuko wanted to learn lightning generation. After all, his prodigy sister can generate lightning and she nearly kicked his butt. Iroh told Zuko of his psychological limitations and how it would not, at the time, be possible. Lightning redirection is possible for any firebender because it's taking already generated lightning, passing it through the body's "sea of chi," and then out of the body. Still, this alone is a dangerous technique because if you can not find yourself expelling the lightning, you're going to kill yourself.

 

We're passing around the phrase "theory," but honestly it's a case of "didn't happen." The only time it would have been possible for Zuko to learn lightning generation was when he finally reunited with Iroh at the White Lotus encampment. At that point though, we had bigger things to worry about, not to mention I'm sure the writers wanted Zuko to only wield lightning redirection. After all, Zuko was able to counter both Ozai and Azula's lightning attacks. EDIT: In a way, it was like a "Jedi-Sith" scenario where the bad guys would generate the "cold-blooded fire" and Zuko, the redeemed, would counter it with the technique his righteous uncle taught him.

 

 

Speaking of, lightning generation isn't as straight forward. In TLA, it appeared that Ozai had greatly mastered the technique because he could generate lightning very quickly compared to Azula. It's possible that the firebenders in LoK can only generate a small amount of lightning because their own purpose in using lightning is for industrial purposes. I mean, when...

 

 

Mako used lightning on that truck's cabin, you'd think the whole thing would have blown off. Instead, it was like setting off fireworks.

 

 

And about that other bending...

 

I think you've got it a little backwards, Dean. I would think that if Katara gave a detailed description of bloodbending and her experience with it, it would be more than enough for Korra to recognize she is the victim of said bloodbending.

 

Whereas just hearing about bloodbending doesn't allow you a great start. However, I'm not fully dismissing this either because we're experiencing some sort of advanced bloodbending because Tarrlok was bloodbending Korra without a full moon being present. Heck, even just throwing her across the room was more than Katara could do when she resorted to bloodbending.

 

Edited June 3, 2012 by Atomsk88

[Mercurial]

I wish Korra had killed Tarrlok.

[Mister Jack]

It's possible that bloodbending just made it into the history books. Katara wasn't the only person who knew about it, and once Hama was imprisoned I doubt she would have kept her mouth shut and let the secret die with her.

[Waldorf and Statler]

In the comic they've been showing how Toph's metal bending school started. It tries to show why only a few metalbenders can use it, it's very simplistic but this show isn't the most complex thing ever either.