The Legend of Korra - Book Two: Spirits

This was my single favorite moment in the entire episode. It's pretty fucked up.

It's pretty heavily implied in the episode where Momo is introduced (Ep 3, I think?), but it's more or less dropped after that point. Although, Momo is often the only one present with Aang during some of his defining moments, like in the penultimate episode on the Lion Turtle.

 

^Pretty sure she said he's "gone". OK, it's not explicit, but what else could it mean?

[EDIT] Nevermind, I misread and missed the word "when".

That reminds me, anyone else think it's a little odd that Aang died in what I guess were his middle 60's? Nobody's alluded to anything nasty happening to him, so one can only assume it was natural causes, but aren't these monk types supposed to be unusually long lived? I also vaguely recall something about Kyoshi live to be over a century old, but I'm not sure if that was just a date related continuity error. Maybe the century spent in the ice has something to do with it?

On the other hand, if all the Avatars averaged a century old a piece, then there could only have been around 100 avatars since Wan and I always got the impression it was significantly more than that.

 

Avatar Kyoshi lived to be 230. I don't know what that's attributed to though.

And someone on another board apparently tried to count all the avatar statues and said that there were 186 avatars. No official number has been confirmed though. If that's accurate then that would average out to one avatar every 54 years or so, meaning that many were killed or died young.

 

Well, they're both comic-relief characters, but I think they're very different. Sokka was more intelligent, more disciplined, more self-reliant, and also a lot less easygoing and quicker to anger or frustration. Really there's a great deal of Sokka in his nephew Tenzin (although Bumi got his sense of humor). Bolin is funny, but more naive and less able to take care of himself, prone to get into trouble or be taken advantage of when Mako isn't there to guide him. The only things he really has in common with Sokka are his sense of humor and his vanity.

 

Yeah, besides being the comic relief, Sokka and Bolin have very little in common. If Sokka has been reincarnated as anyone in the cast then it'd have to be Varrick...but he's probably too old.

That's actually probably not too far off how old Rokku was and Wan himself appeared to have died on a battlefield, so it's possible. Especially if the early years were particularly turbulent, I could see Avatars not making much past 30.

 

So, after airing Episodes Eleven and Twelve earlier tonight, Nickelodeon has now put the final two episodes of Book Two up on their website.

Episode Thirteen: "Darkness Falls"
Episode Fourteen: "Light in the Dark"

 

Spoiler: Season 2 finale

welp. the finale was a major letdown. I don't now who came up with kaiju dark avatar and Korra but that was just a lazy move. also, I still think the explanation for how Korra got to that form was just meh. getting rid of Amon was a big mistake. I really think this new villain each season thing is dumb. Unalaq had zero character development. I just don't get it. I really hope season 3 wasn't rushed and has some interesting story and character points. this second season, minus the few shining episodes, is a missed opportunity.

 

They were right. She is the worst Avatar ever. Goodbye all the previous guys. This is a slap in the face to Last Airbender.

 

***SPOILERS FOR THE LAST FOUR EPISODES***





Overall, Book 2 was subpar with a lot of filler and meandering but what an ending. It was epic and definitely the most gripping piece of television I've seen this fall or in a long time for that matter.

- The humor was great. Bolin was in top form. Kudos to the writers for some good laugh-out-loud moments from him. Oh, and it's nice to see his mover career taking off.

- Despite Varrick being a "bad guy", they still managed to keep him light and funny. That's another testament to the writing.

- We were right about the dark avatar. I thought his eyes would turn black though, but crimson makes sense since that's Vaatu's glowing color.

- Tenzin didn't bother to save all those other lost souls. Maybe that's something that can be dealt with at a future time now that the portal to the spirit world is open.

- I did question Wan's decision to close the portals and separate the two worlds back when I saw "Beginnings", but didn't think much of it after that. Interesting that it was brought up again and I look forward to the repercussions of Korra's decision.

- These episodes also dealt with some stuff I brought up a few weeks ago…

They didn't quite go the full route of having Korra rekindle her avatar-ness through the strength of her own spiritual development, but they did at least address the issue of realizing that inner strength. For a while though, I actually did think that she'd become the avatar again through her own doing.

- We have a new age upon us. I wonder what that will entail. I guess "Darkness" is out as a possible Book 3 title.

- We also have something going on with Jinora. Can't wait to see what that's all about and what it means for everyone.

- Korra losing Raava reminded me of the time the Dax Symbiont was taken from Jadzia.

- Korra said that her connection to her past lives was severed. I wonder if that's permanent. They are her past lives afterall. It should just be a matter of getting back in touch with them through meditation or something. It doesn't strike me as something that should be dependent on Raava, but it does look like some sort of "reset" was done and a new avatar cycle was set up. Guess we'll have to see what they do with that.

 

Eh, Aang lost the avatar state and all he needed was poking his scar to get it back so I doubt this loss is permanent. They probably regret giving Korra all bending back immediately in the season 1 finale, I believe they wouldn't have done that if they had known they'd be doing more episodes so they had her lose something else this time and have her struggle with that next season before it's restored.

 

I really enjoyed these last few episodes, though I wish some things could have been fleshed out a little more (what's up with Jinora, anyway?)

One thing that I find interesting is now, in theory, both Raava and Vaatu exist within Korra. The Dark Spirit, while temporarily incapacitated, cannot be destroyed, and since he isn't trapped inside that tree anymore, I can only presume that he will be reborn inside Korra.

 

Wait, are they not airing the last two episodes on the network?!?!?!

 

It looks like they're still planning to air on TV next Friday.

 

Getting four episodes was a real treat. Having to wait a full week between each of these episodes would have been torture. I wonder what made them release the last two online.

Well, she was up against a force that hasn't been around since the first avatar.

Possibly. Did they know they were getting more seasons when they wrote Book 2?

 

I don't know, but I hope they continue this approach with Books 3 and 4. Maybe their numbers weren't very good for broadcast, or maybe most of their audience was watching the show online anyway. I bet Korra has much more of an adult audience than any other Nick show, so having us sit in front of the TV and watch commercials for Nerf toys and Princess dolls is a waste of time.


Oh, I also want to say that I've been loving the references this season has made to A:TLA. Thought it was great seeing Genera Xiao in the Fog. Last time we saw him the Moon Spirit pulled him underwater.

 

^ Seeing him was a nice touch. And having them use an air bison most of the time made me feel as if I was watching The Last Airbender again.

Spoiler: What Korra did.

I thought that the explanation for how Korra did what she did was one of the best parts of the entire show. It went to the heart of what these eastern philosophies are all about... Letting go of your mental blocks and limiting beliefs so that your full potential can flow though.

 

Pretty effective. There was some real character progress for Tenzin and Korra in particular; they're both a lot more mature at the end of it. I'm not so happy about how Bolin-Eska turned out, since that was an emotionally abusive relationship played for laughs, and it was a mistake to do that in the first place as well as a mistake to have it resolve so amicably. Bolin never really outgrew his own immaturity here. His battle with the abductors in the arena didn't really do much beyond reinforce his Nuqtuq fantasies, and it was only by luck -- and the cowardice of one of the kidnappers -- that Bolin found out Mako was right about Varrick.

(By the way, I like how Bolin never pronounced it as "Nuqtuq, Hero of the South." It was always "Nuqtuq: Hero! OftheSouth!" Even when he was talking in more casual tones to Mako in episode 11, he still delivered it as "Hero. OftheSouth.")

Otherwise, my main disappointment is that Asami was left out of the climax. It's not really Team Avatar without her. She didn't even get a subplot.

I don't see the objection to the "kaiju"-style battle between Vaatunalaq (oh good grief I just coined a shipper label) and Spirit-Korra. It has precedent in the giant koi spirit attack at the end of A:TLA Book One. The one thing that does bug me, though, is why Unalaq targeted Republic City, a place he's shown no interest in before. Maybe it's because he's already defeated the South, and Republic City has become the cultural and political center of the world (which I suppose we now know for certain is named "Earth," judging from the dialogue in the mover).

When Jinora said her work wasn't done, I was wondering if she was going to replace Raava as the new light spirit, like Yue and the Moon Spirit, and merge with Korra herself. But I guess that would've been too close to dying and they weren't willing to take it that far with a child character. I guess that what she did was to draw the scattered energy of Raava back in, serving as a focus for it, so that it wouldn't need 10,000 years to reconstitute into Raava.

Aang never lost the Avatar state. He just lost the ability to activate it, because one of his chakras was blocked by his injury. The blow to that chakra served as a sort of really forceful acupressure, unlocking it and allowing him full access to that energy inside him.

I think the loss will definitely be permanent, because that fits the thematic intent of this finale. The thrust of it was about Korra and Tenzin learning to stop trying to define themselves by their pasts and embrace who they are now. It's about finding a new way forward that isn't constrained by what came before. Even tearing down the Aang statue was symbolic of that. If they just turned around and said "Okay, Korra's back in touch with her hundreds of past lives again," that would be undermining the message of this finale. So it's not going to happen.

What I find intriguing, by the way, is that the show's idea of going forward entails restoring the ancient connection to the spirit world, rather than abandoning the spiritual past in favor of technological modernity. From now on, high technology and mystical spirits will be equally parts of everyday life, and that's going to be an interesting and nicely non-Western approach.

Fear of piracy, perhaps? That's often the motivation for such things. Or maybe it's because the show is getting better ratings online than on TV, at least proportionally. I think we're already starting to see the merger of television and the Internet, and it won't be long before more people are watching TV online than via broadcast/cable.

By the way, I was interested in the commercials Nick.com showed during the episode. Nice to see that Nerf is marketing action toys to girls now. I guess it's inspired by The Hunger Games and Brave, and maybe to an extent by Korra, but hopefully it's the first step in breaking toy companies out of the atrocious gender stereotyping they still perpetuate.