OnlyInThisLight wrote:

Agree, I kind of wanted Korra to stay with airbending for awhile, but then again it felt perfectly in character for she was for that to not be an option.  As in, bending was such a big part of Korra's life and who she was, I don't think she could have risen above having it lost forever, especially since I think the connection to the elements is an even deeper one for the Avatar.  Plus, I just found the moment between her and Aang too moving.  To be on the verge of suicide, at your very lowest, and then there is someone there.   And it's so beautiful, because Aang is a part of her, so in a way, it was herself standing there to lend a hand. 

And it wasn't Mako thank God.  Man, I think I really could have gotten behind this pairing, since both of them are so epic, but I just don't see the chemistry.  I see them telling each other they love each other and getting upset at the losses of one another, but no reason why they do so.  It never developed, it was just there.  Time was spent having Mako confused over his feelings and Korra upset and backing off instead of having them spend more time together and interacting in ways that weren't copy and pasted from every hot/cold romance cliche in the book.  And this is important because they aren't implying this is two characters who have feelings for each other, the show is all, THEY CAN'T IMAGINE LIVING WITHOUT THE OTHER OMG. 


Omg don even curr cause I'm still crying over how, despite my few nitpicks (that mostly have to do with the overall story than anything else) this finale was so powerful and heartbreaking and uplifting and amazing and unexpected. 


And I'm shipping Bolin/Naga because it was developed better.

Oh yes, I am so happy that Aang was the one who helped Korra through that and not Mako. I love your idea that Aang helping Korra out is sort of like her giving herself a hand. I agree with you about how they should have just spend time having Mako and Korra develop feelings for one another and scrapped the whole love triangle. I still think that even without the love triangle, having a couple more episodes in the first season to flesh out the characters would have been nice. As much as I love my AU involving Korra's Polyamorous Love Square, I actually am sad that I didn't really like Mako or Makorra. Even though I wasn't a hardcore shipping of any of the canon pairings in A:TLA (Tyzula=OTP), I still ending up liking them and appreciating how they were developed in a subtle way over the course of the story, involving genuine affection between the people involved. I wish I could appreciate Makorra, but I just sucks so bad that I can't right now.

That being said, it is possible to write a good story in only twelve episodes that have the same run-time as LOK. For example, Puella Magi Madoka Magica is an amazing, dark deconstruction of the magical girl genre. It does have implied love between some of the magical girls, but it isn't forced and it's all done in a very subtle way. Plus, The Plot is way more important.

(Yes, this is an poorly disguised attempt to get you to go over to crunchyroll and watch it and then discuss it with me on my Madoka thread. But OnlyInThisLight, if you ever did watch it, I'd love to hear what you thought about it. You are good at analyzing stuff. The same goes for anyone else who might want to watch it.)


More hopes for season two of Korra: I want Bumi to troll the ever-living-Hell out of Tenzin and for Kya to show up and join in. I really liked the sibling dynamics in A:TLA and sadly Bolin and Mako haven't fullfilled that for me very much. Although I did like how they teamed up in episode 7 to take out that metalbender cop. I want more of that too.

And now I'm wondering if I like sibling dynamics in A:TLA because my relationship with my younger brother and only sibling usually ranges from neutral to non-existent. (Crap, I just made myself sad.)

EDIT: Bolin and Naga will be BFFs forever!

Last edited by CausalityStar (06-23-2012 06:08:30 PM)

@KillerxXxQueen

I also would have liked to know more about how Amon became Amon too. But other than that, I wasn't that unhappy with Tarrlok's flashback. It is understandably biased since it's only told from his point of view and Tarrlok didn't even realize that Amon was actually Noatok until episode eight when he took his bending away.

Now I'm wondering if the creators actually do have daddy issues because there are a lot of bad fathers in this series and the one before it. I guess they could've put more emphasis on Hiroshi Sato supplying the Equalists with weapons, but overall I was satisfied with Asami's confrontation with him.


I get the feeling that Korra will start giving people their bending back now. I was wondering if you think there will be some moral dilemmas, with say restoring Lightning Bolt Zolt's bending? There is an excellent prompt on the Korra fic meme about that: http://ficbending.livejournal.com/1766. … 8#t1460198

(And to warn everyone again. This is a gen prompt, but if you go exploring this meme, there is a lot of prompts and they range from gen to smut and some might be disturbing to some people. So, viewer discretion advised and all that stuff.)

And Naga/Pabu is super cute.

I really wished they had left the murder suicide out.  It's so incredibly dark -Naotok crying and happy to hear his old name (maybe he knew what Tarrlok was going to do, maybe he wanted it that way, or maybe he really did want to start a new life with Tarrlok) knowing Tarrlok is doing it because he doesn't believe that his brother can truly escape the darkness inside of him that he witnessed when Noatokk was younger or that regardless they are both fugitives who deserve to die for their crimes.  It's very ambiguous and a sad ending to a story that started sad.  It makes it hard for me to feel anything other than depressed when I think of the finale, despite its happy ending for most everyone else.

I think that they could have shown Tarrlok putting on the glove while staring at his brother's back and left it at that. 

Seriously it's kinda been haunting me and I'm having a hard time squeeing and enjoying the fandom side of LOK (which I have warmed up to) because it seems inappropriate to do so.   Two men who were abused as children grow up still ensnared in the emotional ramifications of that abuse, do horrible things and then when there is even the slightest chance of them finding happiness (or for Noatok, redemption) one kills the other and himself. 

I understand why Tarrlok did it and I think his disbelief in his brother's ability to ever truly be saved is understandable.  But it is such a tragic and fatalistic ending to their stores.  Even if the show did somehow take it back and show that one of the brother's survive, it would feel cheap due to how strong the emotions in that scene were.


*Also, did anyone notice that no one seems to care about comforting Asami?  I know she's keeping quiet about her hurt due to the lives lost in the battle and Korra's loss of bending having important ramifications for the entire world, but geez.  Her own father tried to kill her.  She still loved him, but he tried to kill her.  Twice, I think.  Just.  Not injure, or banish, or disown.... kill.  The most we get is Bolin pelting his asshole face with some rocks and telling him what a horrible father he is, which I found oddly touching coming from Bolin who probably barely remembers his own dad and is instead comparing Hiroshi to Mako or disgusted that someone would waste and try to destroy what family connections that they have left.

Last edited by OnlyInThisLight (06-24-2012 02:31:19 PM)

I really wish that this series would have had one or two more episodes to really build up the tension of Korra's de-bending. The only, but rather major complaint I have about the finale is that it crams way too much stuff into far too short time. The United Forces apparently get decimated so badly that General Iroh is the only one left in fighting shape, even though the waterbenders shouldn't have had that hard time getting out of those sinking ships and taking fight to the city for example, but we never get to see even a glimpse of that. And we really missed out on seeing Korra at her most vulnerable. They could have built up Amon a bit more, too. The bloodbending plot was an excellent way to tie all the loose ends together, but it does still leave questions like what's going to happen to the Equalist movement now? Their legitimate grievances are still unanswered, charismatic leader or no.

That being said, I do understand why they went for the happy ending, in the end. For one thing, a second season was only a hope when the first was written, but also because it comes off as a genuine surprise after all the very dark stuff that we go through in the episodes. And it worked out perfectly with its emotional impact.

Now, for the speculation:

It's pretty much given that Book 2 is going to be Spirit or Energy, and deal with Korra's newfound energybending abilities. And the conflict is likely to be spiritual in nature to reflect that. We had Amon tease us about the possibility that someone could challenge the Avatar as the mediator between the mortal and spirit worlds, but although he wasn't truthful, the second season might make true about the possibility. There's a pretty obvious plot-thread hanging between heavy industrialization and environmental destruction; we might see Hei Bai-style phenomenon in a massive scale, and with some luck, get a proper environmentalist story which gives proper respect both to technology and progress and the natural world. At least I feel that that kind of story would fit perfectly in LoK's world.

Lightice wrote:

I really wish that this series would have had one or two more episodes to really build up the tension of Korra's de-bending. The only, but rather major complaint I have about the finale is that it crams way too much stuff into far too short time.

Agreed, but aaaahhh...if only that were the only major issue.

I'm truly sorry for entering this discussion with a rant, but that finale sucked more than a newbie gay porn star.

To put it in far more analytic terms, there were very few aspects of the writing that worked. First of all, the pacing was off. Previously, the whole season was carefully constructed, with each episode exploring a new dynamic and upping the stakes. Some of the concepts were amazing. It presented an interesting and complicated question: is the existence of bending, which is innate rather than earned, truly fair? How does technological innovation match up against primal elemental energy?

There was so much potential, but it was clear the writers wanted to wrap up a nice neat little package. So all the extensive foreplay was wasted on a self-conscious nervously hurried climax. BUT. That alone wouldn't make me want to attempt seppuku with my pen. It's as if every existent problem with the writing was grotesquely magnified. Instead of character development and growth, FLASHING ACTION SCENES!!! The majority of the characters' interactions, unfortunately, revolve around the writers' groping for fanshipping. In the process, interesting and crucial interactions like that of Asami and her father get sidelined.

I get that it's a different series. You can't sell redundancy to an increasingly mature audience. But even despite the lackluster inter- and intrapersonal development, the finale culminated in breaking the logical system the first carefully established. In doing so, it failed to address even the most basic of character dilemmas. Korra's main weaknesses are her bullheaded pride and the impulsive force of her emotions. In stark opposition to Aang, she listens to her gut way too much, sacrificing patience and forethought. Therefore, her most challenging element to master is air.

How is this problem resolved? BY HER DOING THE EXACT SAME THING. How does bursting into a rally and forcing confrontation show any growth? Why would seeing Mako in danger yet again induce a different reaction than before? How does a huge sudden outburst address ANY of the needed qualities for air mastery?

That alone wouldn't be so offensive. Hell, it set up something pretty clever; a much less powerful Korra having to rely on her newest weakest element to win. But oh no. In a move that would make Sailor Moon cringe at the sheer corniness, her MAGICAL TEARS summon the Avatar state. And then Jesus!Aang SOMEHOW both returns her full power AND gives her energybending. I dunno, as an extra crackerjack prize.

Energybending. The power the first series took the WHOLE FUCKING SERIES to work up too. Do the writers remember that they established bending the spirit is incredibly dangerous? That, if there is a speck of doubt or hesitation in the bender's soul, they'll be overwhelmed and destroyed? So Korra, who didn't learn a single lesson, develops this in five seconds out of nowhere. And then she goes around restoring bending SOMEHOW - just as bloodbending done SOMEHOW during the day can SOMEHOW take it away - in the process completely eliminating all the stakes the series had built up.

Okay. Finally. I didn't want to go here, but...isn't it kind of insultingly Twilight-ish to have the heroine's big climactic moment revolve around getting her man? The man she actively worked to steal from a friend who sacrificed home and family for her cause? Without a single regard to her other teammates in general?

Let's see...self-absorbed ultra-powerful character who others dote on unrealistically, who develops unheard of powers through no development of her own. This episode committed the most heinous crime: turning Korra into an unrepentant Mary Sue. Which is a damn shame because I think there is so so so much potential. Shows often take awhile to find their footing. Hence, I'm enthusiastically vouching for a second season. I just was really really disappointed in this and hope that the next installment will improve.

Last edited by Katzenklavier (06-24-2012 11:37:19 PM)

Well, it wasn't her tears that summoned Aang.  The tear was a visual device to show that Korra was contemplating throwing herself off of the cliff.  What summoned Aang was Korra calling for help at her lowest point.  And that's what most suicide attempts are -cries for help. For Korra its a big deal because one of things she struggles with is admitting weakness, or more specifically vulnerability and dealing with failure.  While I agree that the way she learned airbending was bogus, I do still like that she maintained her headstrong, lets end this shit-ness in dealing with Amon.  It would be kinda lame to just have her develop... into Aang.  She goes into battle charging, but now she knows why -she knows the risks and stakes and its not just her being fearless and brash.  It's her doing what she knows and feels she must do.  And she tempers this desire to confront Amon with more experience and forethought -choosing to sneak into the rally and reveal him for a fraud after talking to Tarrlok- as opposed to calling him out over the radio for a pissing match.

Now, suddenly seeing every other Avatar and mastering energybending was a little much -even Aang, who was a spiritual prodigy, needed time and special circumstances to do anything like that.  But I assumed that she didn't learn energybending, what she was doing was summoning the Avatar State in order to do it.  After all, Aang struggled with summoning the Avatar state due to his pacifism and fear of what it could do, the knowledge that he would not be himself also making him fear the loss of control.   Korra is lot more gung ho and not as afraid of it, so I can see it not being a difficult thing for her to summon once she had established a spiritual connection.  It's also only dangerous to energybend if you are attempting to bend that person's energy against their will, which pits your will against theirs. 

Plus, energybending wasn't built up very much at all in A:TLA.  Aang has an ethical crisis for two episodes and then a LionTurtle just gives him the ability. What.

I agree on most other stuff (except Korra being a Mary-sue.  Her flaws are too well established and repeated to her by numerous characters, and she exists within a canon that has schmillions of awesome, super powerful female and male characters, and she's the Avatar, so her being awesome is kinda expected*) that the sudden airbending was bogus, the pacing absolutely awful and so much important stuff being sidelined (doesn't Iroh care about his slaughtered troops?).  I mean, you spend ten episodes setting up Amon as this intimidating villain rising to power, and then find out the twist ending in one weird shot and he is defeated and defaced soon after, all of that build up kinda doing nothing. 

And at least the flashy action scenes upped the stakes a bit by introducing more violence?  Holy shit Sato you murderous fucking fuckity fuck.  FUCK. 

*Plus, if any one is the Stu, as much as I like him, it's Mako.  None of his flaws are truly condemned in the show, except by Asami but lets face it, are any characters actually listening to her?  It seems like she talks to herself a lot.

Last edited by OnlyInThisLight (06-25-2012 12:13:29 AM)

Re: Tarlok's murder-suicide, the consensus on 4chan is that Noatak's remark that "It'll be just like old times" was his way of acknowledging that they'd both become their father, that they both had tried and failed to take over Republic City and been defeated by the Avatar, and that if they walked away from the boat, they would begin the cycle again. Noatak knew that Tarrlok was going to kill them both and allowed him to do it so that the cycle could end.

4chan has a lot of drek, but occasionally, they come up with something genius.

@OnlyInThisLight

You make a lot of good points and yes, Mako is such a Gary-Stu. It is disappointing because I had high hopes for him turning out to be a decent character. And yes, poor Asami is always talking to herself.

I think what you said about energy-bending made sense. Aang had to energy-bend Ozai against his will whereas when Korra was energy-bending Lin, Lin was totally fine with it, which probably made it less dangerous.

I heard rumors that season two will actually have the full writing staff, or at least more people besides Bryke. I'm really hoping they fix some of the issues that were present in the first season in regards to pacing and the shitty romance. (I also have the secret hope that Mako will fall for someone besides Korra and end up treating her the same way he did to Asami and then Korra will go avatar state on his ass.)

Different topic: Are you guys familiar with the church of Tahno? http://churchoftahno.tumblr.com/

Their tumblr has some interesting things, including "Holy Texts" so it's definitely worth a look around. And is it just me, but has anyone else noticed that Tahno fans are some of the funnest people in the fandom? It's like they're always having a virtual party.

I finally got around to watching the finale . . . I feel mixed but mostly good about it. I think the main things that bothered me were Tarlokk and the surprise airbending. I wish they would've better explained how Tarlokk went from being a gentle, anti-airbending child to a power-hungry asshole adult. Again, they were probably short on time.

The surprise airbending was just kind of dumb. Aang said something about your lowest point making you more spiritual, maybe that's how she did it? Either way, pretty silly. Amon waterbending a giant column in front of everyone to save himself was also kind of silly but I guess if I was panicked and drowning I would probably make some stupid decisions too.

Tarlokk's murder-suicide was pretty fucking crazy! I really hope they're both gone for real or that scene would really lose its impact.

I called it about Korra learning how to reverse bending removal although they had me second guessing for a bit there. Aang showing up and fixing everything was a little deus ex machina-y but then again, I can't see the Avatar force thing allowing an Avatar to really lose most of her bending permanently since that kind of defeats the Avatar's goal of bringing balance to the world.

Also Aang seems like a much more proactive Avatar-ghost than Roku. Roku let poor Aang hang out in that ice ball for 100 years and didn't do shit! I guess they saw how badly that turned out and didn't want it to happen again?

Korra being able to fix everything is pretty cheesy but seeing Lin get her bending back made me happy nonetheless. Especially after the Airbender family got caught anyway!

Makorra . . . Yeah I dunno. I liked Mako at first but he just didn't get enough development for me to care much about him. Maybe next season? At least he finally picked a girl instead of leading them both on.

Anyway, this season wasn't perfect but I enjoyed the show and I'm looking forward to next season. The nerd rage from some people is amazing, I'm glad I don't feel the way they do. I hope they focus more on character development now that they've got their big main story out of the way.

I have some more questions that sort of tie into this idea that bending "isn't the answer." We are shown Mako using lightning in an assembly line with other firebenders when he's short on cash. With the "Tour Republic City" thingymahoosit on the nick.com site, this--or something just like it--is actually revealed to be a part of Future Industries' assembly line (you kinda have to look for it). It's one of the few times that bending is shown to be used for something other than terrifying civilians or kicking the crap out of someone (there's pretty much that and then the waterbenders' healing). How much of Republic City is reliant on bending in its industry? Agriculture? Other things? Could there be unseen adverse effects from having all of the benders expunged that Amon and the Equalists didn't consider?

Yeah it seems to me that there are quite a lot of jobs that rely on bending. I think that the lightning bending to generate power is pretty cool since it seems like a renewable, nonpolluting source of energy. Also, in A:TLA they showed the Gaang using waterbending and earthbending to clean that river in the Fire Nation, so I wouldn't be surprised if that is how Republic City gets purified water.

I think that Amon wanting to destroy airbending is a way of showing how extreme he was and that there were serious power imbalance problems in the city.

@Syora I agree that pacing was a huge problem for the first season and it probably didn't help that they didn't have a full writing staff. Here is a diagram that shows a lot of the problems with LOK: http://avatarluffy.tumblr.com/post/2586 … ntation-of

I think the lack of a full writing staff means that their was a lack of peer review going on, which meant issues with pacing and the stupid love triangle. I don't think that Amon's storyline would necessarily need three seasons to work, but maybe twenty episodes would have been better instead of twelve.

I wish we knew more about what happened to Asami's dad, but sadly her feeling and problems got shafted in making the forced, obligatory Makorra happen. The depressing thing is that I actually liked the romance in A:TLA but with the exception of Mako and Asami getting together in episode four, all of the romance in this series makes me cringe because it was so badly written. And I gradually started to dislike Masami too because of Mako's behavior. Also, I didn't like that Asami, who turned out to be one of my favorite characters and who actually experienced more character development than Korra, spend the first three episodes she was in basically doing nothing but being Mako's arm candy.

OnlyInThisLight wrote:

*Plus, if any one is the Stu, as much as I like him, it's Mako.  None of his flaws are truly condemned in the show, except by Asami but lets face it, are any characters actually listening to her?  It seems like she talks to herself a lot.

I've been calling her "Doormat" since episode 7. She herself skirted the issue and let Mako bully her into dropping it altogether. Pemma's labor didn't require either of their presences they could have had it out right there. She let Mako put her in his back pocket like some kind of back up plan with great hair.  Mako is ok guy but he's got this raging self-entitlement-on that was never called out or reprimanded. Woobie backstory aside, he didn't go through anything. By the end of this season he's stolen Korra from Bolin and treated Asami like a speed bump on his way to Korra and his karmic return was to get cheated out of the Bending Championship and to losing the arena.
I didn't wan't his life ruined but would have been nice to see the writers acknowledge how much of an asshat he is. Once I realized Amon's blocking was reversible, I wanted him to take Mako's bending.

@OnlyInThisLight

Yeah, I didn't like that Korra assumed that Asami was prissy at first either. Even if it was only because Korra was jealous of her, it still can send the wrong message.


I love your ideas for the second season of LOK. Especially the part where Tahno hits on Lin. Oh, I'd love to see him hit on Tenzin too and then for Pema to get annoyed, only for Tahno to come onto her too. I also like that joining Team Avatar part and the part where he and Asami have awesome hair.

I like the idea of Asami and Bolin bromance. I have nothing against shipping these two together, but usually the way that ship is handled is a "pair the spares" situation and if they get together, it should because they like each other not because they're settling for each other because Mako and Korra are unavailable. But I would prefer friendship in the show because LOK doesn't need more romance drama.

I need to see Asami dealing with her father too. I like the idea of her being generous with her wealth too, because it seems like something that she would do. (And she did get her dad to sponsor the Fire Ferrets, which was very generous even though it turned out that her dad had an evil ulterior motive.)

I love the idea of more mentor-ships with Lin and Bolin as well as Korra and Tenzin. I think it would be cool if Lin also taught Korra and Bolin how to metalbend. I like the idea of Korra's parents being around more too, just because I want to know more what it's like for the parents if your daughter is the Avatar.

I think that they really need to show that the Equalists had valid concerns in season two of LOK. Otherwise season one might as well have ended as, "And then Korra's bending was restored and then she and her friends (except Asami) were able to live happily ever after with their bending and bending privilege without addressing some serious social inequalities forever."

I like your ideas about Mako. I think that the idea of Mako killing his parents accidentally or him feeling guilt over his parents death could be used as an excellent way to make him more sympathetic. If he didn't kill his parents, maybe he feels guilty about slacking off on learning firebending and feels that if he had been better at it, he would have been able to protect his parents. That could also explain how he got good at firebending too. He could have slacked off during firebending lessons and then as a result became obsessed in achieving perfection in firebending so that he could always protect the people he cared about. I think that any guilt about his parents giving Mako a white knight complex would make a lot of sense, especially because he already has the white knight complex. So yes please, I'd love for the show to address Mako's character flaws and some angsty back-story is always good. Because the main problem with Mako isn't that he has flaws, it's that he has them and everyone is oblivious to them except Asami and no one listens to her.

I'd love for Kya and Bumi to be an important part of the plot and to troll the hell out of Tenzin. And it would be cool to see Zuko's daughter.

I'd like for Bolin to get more of a role than comic-relief too. I'd also like to see more of his sibling bond with Mako and Mako dealing with Bolin becoming an adult like you said. Katara and Sokka's sibling relationship was really important in A:TLA, so I'm disappointed that Mako and Bolin's relationship barely gets any screen-time.


I would like the gay sex too! Or at least, some gay characters. Everything is so heteronormative it hurts. (Seriously, the Avatar has lived a thousand lifetimes and in every single one, I'm supposed to believe that she or he is always heterosexual? C'mon.)

At the same time though, I would be a little worried if my favorite ship, Korrasami became canon just because of the mess that they made out of Makorra and Masami. Right now, I don't trust the writers with my OTP.