The Legend of Korra - Book One: Air

There is also no "rule" saying that people can't bloodbend without a full moon. We just hadn't seen it before. Why did Azula always bend blue fire instead of red? Why can't all Earthbenders also metalbend?

Most Waterbender probably can't bloodbend without a full moon because they would have absolutely no reason to try. Yakone and Sons practiced; they got started at a very young age. I bet if Katara really wanted to, she could bloodbend without a full moon.

 

Yes, I know. I think you overlooked a couple of the words I wrote there. I said the full moon doesn't give them any new abilities beyond what they always have from the moon the rest of the time. As you say, the full moon simply makes their existing powers stronger. Therefore it follows that it's theoretically possible that a particularly strong waterbender could be as powerful normally as other benders are during a full moon.

Apparently there is now. You can argue with the explanation they gave, but they did give an explanation: they didn't need the full moon because they were exceptionally powerful, and that makes sense because all the full moon does is amplify waterbending. The only question is why they were so exceptionally powerful.

I have acknowledged in previous posts that I am aware of that. But a single fact in isolation is not proof of a blanket theory. If there's only evidence of one person having such a connection, it's only evidence about that one person, not all people. So by itself it's not probative of anything. You have to consider all the evidence. Even if Combustion Man had tapped into his anja chakra somehow, that does not change the fact that Aang was able to become accomplished in three bending arts without even knowing what chakras were, and that changes in the status of Aang's chakras had no effect whatsoever on his bending ability, only on his ability to enter the Avatar State. The evidence we have is that knowledge of chakras is an advanced and possibly unusual discipline, and one that's normally more connected to spiritual enlightenment than elemental manipulation, except maybe in one unique instance.

 

I enjoyed the finale. I haven't been that glued to a show in a long time. The Legend of Korra is great, but aspects of it could have been better. For starters, I wish it were as epic as The Last Airbender. The subject matter was there, but it felt rushed, especially at the end. I feel like a full story has been told, but I wish they did more with it. For example, I would have liked to have learned more about Amon's missing years as well. And more fallout for Korra losing her bending would have been nice. I too thought that maybe the next season would deal with Korra delving into her spirit to get back her bending, but such was not the case. Real power shows up when you don't need it, because it's the "needing" that keeps you clouded and weak. That would have been a good thing to explore further.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to Book 2. I'm still hoping that maybe we'll see a paradigm shift of some sort in the world of Avatar. I can't imagine where else they could go from here. The world is changing, why not the nature of bending and the spiritual stuff along with it?

 

Yeah... there had been an expectation that the shorter season length for Korra Book 1 would allow a stronger, tighter narrative without the need for filler, but it turned out to feel rushed instead. It would've benefitted from maybe 4 more episodes to flesh out the world and the story threads more.

 

Also, as I was watching, I thought... You know, this season has had very little to do with air or Korra learning to bend it. Then boom! She suddenly has the ability. Even then it felt rather sudden and thrown in, but if Amon did something to make it show up, I can accept that.

 

Maybe it's fitting that we didn't see much emphasis on Korra's attempts to learn airbending. After all, air is unseen and often taken for granted, but it's always there (unless you're in space).

 

Which is one of the problems I have with the current series. The bending training takes a backseat. ATLA spent several episodes each season exploring the philosophies and ideas behind each bending form. The depth there really just isn't in TLOK.

 

^Well, I'd say we got a whole series' worth of exploration of airbending in A:TLA. It's not a bad thing that the new series has a different emphasis, with study and training being a smaller part of the focus.

 

Especially with all the pilots parachuting out of the planes.

 

Yeah, those parts did have kind of a GI Joe vibe...

Sometimes I wonder -- just how feasible is it really for pilots of critically damaged planes to parachute out? I don't think it would really be possible at the low altitudes seen here, since it takes some time for a parachute to deploy fully. The pilots might be better off trying to glide to a survivable crash landing.

 

But I guess the reasoning why they allowed to show Noatok's and Tarrlok's death is that it was a "romantic" death compared to a "violent" death that would befall people being killed in a war.

 

Or perhaps because it was caused by a "bad guy" character instead of by the heroes.

 

I'd agree if the show hadn't made such a point about Korra's difficulty with airbending before suddenly resolving it.

I think the overall narrative of this season needed a bit more work. The finale along just blew through a bunch of story points that could often have been an episode on their own.

 

But Equalist pilots would also be "bad guys".

 

I think the first few episodes (especially episode 2) seeded the basics adequately. She was learning the forms and techniques, studying regularly, but the airbending just wasn't happening. The one thing she lacked was the spiritual connection to the element. And we saw her finally beginning to experience the spiritual in "Out of the Past." So it didn't come completely out of the blue. We'd seen her moving gradually closer to the brink, at least in a few episodes, and all she needed was a catalyst to activate the crucial connection. And waiting until the finale to resolve that tension is a pretty standard story structure.

 

Great finale... BUT... A few nits:

- It felt dramatically weak to have bending returned so easily for her in the last 3 minutes. It would have been an interesting quest for her to rediscover the Water, Earth, and Fire bending in the next season. Yes, I know it is a kids show... but it did not feel dramatically satisfying.

- My recording cut out just as Korra was returning the Earth/Metal bending to Lin - Did that succeed? (I have to catch a re-run)... If so, another disappointing part, where a lasting consequence is removed.

- This ties in to a overall issue I have with the show. They've made the removal of bending essentially equal to death. Benders without bending are pathetic losers, unable to fend for themselves. It is not stated outright, but the implications are everywhere. And I find that very troubling. Think of how great of a kids show it could be if it showed a character lose their special ability, but STILL fight on - not feeling handicapped by their loss. Showing that they are not defined as characters by their bending. Oh well.

Otherwise a very good hour...

 

I love the fact that Avatar Korra is very different from Avatar Aang.

Aang was much more spiritual and was easily able to channel the full power of the Avatar State even when he has not mastered all four elements. At this point in the story, Aang was already capable of tossing tidal waves around. Due to her lack of spirituality, Korra's Avatar State is still a lot less impressive than Aang's Avatar State even though she has mastered all four elements.

 

Source

 

It wasn't what I was expecting, and it was a bit rushed like a lot of the season, but I think it worked. As Aang said, she just needed to get to her lowest point, to lose all her certainties, before she could be open to the spiritual. It's like the Buddhist concept of needing to let go of all attachments, to release one's ties to the material world. Korra's always been a material sort, very much in tune with her physical power, and it wasn't until she felt she'd lost everything that defined her that her mind and spirit were really free of attachment and able to open to her spiritual connection. And once she did that, once she truly tapped into the soul she shares with every prior Avatar, then the full power of the Avatar came to her at last. And it makes sense that that would've washed away whatever Amon did to her bending, because what Amon did was purely physical. He couldn't overcome the transcendent nature of the Avatar. The Avatar's existence as the point of balance among the elements is a constant of the world. Amon could only suppress Korra's access to her Avatar nature, not destroy it.

It did succeed. And yes, it would've been nice to explore the consequences more fully, but again, given what we now know, it makes sense. Amon's ability wasn't given to him by the spirits, and it wasn't true energybending (as hinted by the lack of any light effects when he did it). It was just a physiological change caused by advanced bloodbending. So it's plausible that true energybending could overcome it.

 

People who lose their hearing or vision or otherwise become physically disabled don't just "get over it" in a short period of time, nor are they very happy about it. None of the characters who lost their bending had very much time to reflect on it and "bounce back".