Legend of Korra is Avatar: The Last Airbender's equivalent of the Star Wars Prequel Trilogy

Yeah. I know I haven't blogged for ages, but this is pretty much what came to mind. Took my own time to say it, and all. The Legend of Korra is as bad as the Star Wars Prequel Trilogy.

I know about the hatred and complaining and the divisions between those who saw the Prequel Trilogy as just as good as the Original Trilogy and the fans (mostly the original, die-hard fans) who saw the Prequel Trilogy as a gross degradation of the OT, and Han shot first, and so on, and so on. That's not to mention the rather disturbing aspects of the mythic Star Wars franchise that the Prequel Triology confirmed (and I'm taking this from David Brin here) -

1. Elitism and feudalism taken to its extreme. The denizens of the galaxy are forced to choose between one elite and another with little say in their lives.

2. The presence of "Holy Royalty" like Anakin Skywalker (whose virgin birth makes absolutely no sense at all) and who have midichlorians, while others don't. The force in the Original Trilogy was even described as being like Yoga, as something anybody could learn to use.

3. A rather worse portrayal of women. Princess Leia ruled the roost in Episode IV but was conspicuously absent for the climactic battle in which Luke blew up the Death Star. Her role in V and VI is significantly diminished and she's no longer as tough or as capable as she used to be, and she has been fetishized like all hell in VI. Padme Amidala in the prequels is a nightmare for feminists, with one analysis comparing her unfavourably to Bella Swan - Bella Swan!!! If Padme is worse than Bella, well...that's the end of it...

So how does Korra compare, at the end of two seasons?

1. Destruction of an existing mythology - the whole bit about Lion Turtles giving people their bending powers was utterly, absolutely pointless and useless, and the part about Raava giving Wan his powers made the line "The glow is the past Avatars channeling their energy through you" from the original show meaningless too.

2. "Holy Royalty" and "bending magic" - the bending arts are no longer martial arts that must be studied and learned, and for which a spiritual connection can be developed over the ages. They're now magic granted by the Lion Turtles, which makes the entire point of the bending arts thoroughly, absolutely useless. People need to be magically granted their bending powers, rather than learning them through physical and spiritual development (The Lion Turtle who taught Aang energybending is an exception, because there's nothing that says that Ozai can't slowly redevelop his spiritual connection if he tried, unless he was in some way permanently damaged). The Lion Turtle story also kills the story of Oma and Shu from "The Cave of Two Lovers". These retcons solve nothing.

3. Why does Korra suddenly decide that bringing the human and spirit worlds in contact is a good thing? The spirits that caused the humans so much trouble in Wan's time were normal, light spirits, not the corrupted dark spirits of Vaatu (although those were even worse). Korra has no idea whether the spirits are as good as she thinks they are - and even with a much stronger spirit of light with her, what guarantee does she have that the spirits won't start causing trouble for humans again? No explanation.

4. The villains have gone down the drain. Amon landed up being creepy, awesome and sad at the same time, but so much potential to explore his motivations, his actions, or the actions of his chi-blocker followers was completely missed out. And he had a perfectly good reason to be fighting. Unalaq is far, far worse. There's nothing about him that's human, or funny, or even remotely redeeming. He's boring, flat, predictable and downright stupid. Unlike Ozai, who was given a chance to redeem himself at the end of the story and who seems to have had an abusive parent in Fire Lord Azulon, Unalaq has no such excuse. He's a villain who exists just because the story needs a villain, and doesn't serve as anything other than a stupid, one-dimensional plot device, no better than Newt Gunray.

5. Plot, pacing and secondary characters have all gone down the drain. Bolin is a crude  caricature, Asami suffers terribly in the second season, Mako I won't even bother to complain about because his behavior towards the women in his life is pathetic, and Lin Beifong is wrecked in the second season. President Raiko, likewise, exists solely as a plot device meant to prevent Korra from attacking the Northern Water Tribe. He's perfectly right - where's the evidence that Unalaq has planned to turn into an evil Dark Avatar with an army of evil spirits? Making Korra correct just because she's the Avatar and she's the living incarnate of the spirt of light is utterly lazy, stupid, miserable writing. Aang wasn't "right" because he was the Avatar, and the way Chin the Conqueror was seen as a hero and Kyoshi a villain for indirectly killing him showed that an Avatar need no be seen as a hero, or even as a good human being. Legend of Korra changes that with rotten protagonist-centered morality.

I could go on and on, but I think I've brought out my main gripes. Right now, Seasons 3 and 4 are likely to be an exercise in slaughter like none other before.

The wrecking continues - The Guide

Vaatu would be pleased! The writers have done a magnificent job of destroying the beautiful universe they created and they've dumbed down characters aplenty. They've pretty much written their own show into a corner. Without further ado -

1. Unalaq is now in cahoots with Vaatu. First Unalaq came along and everything about his appearance screamed "villain", and now Vaatu turns up and everything about his appearance screams "evil" and Unalaq, who's supposed to be "spiritual" trusts him? For power? Jeez. Unalaq is stupid. Amon and Ozai were vastly better villains than this idiot.

2. The Bolin - Mako - Asami - Varrick nonsense trundles on, and Lin Beifong has been demoted to an extra. Go figure. No redemption here. I actually enjoyed watching the rest, but not this!

3. The whole "destiny" business with Jinora just seemed messy, but her spirit connection is the one thing that I don't find troublesome. Tenzin and his siblings seem to be the thing to look forward to - well, at least not Tenzin, he has some poorly written lines that ruin the fun. Bumi is, as always, a laugh riot.

Right now I'm watching it to see how far low this show is going to go. I won't be surprised if Unalaq and Vaatu merge and start shooting purple death rays or something.

Wrecking Avatar's mythology - Beginnings Part 1 and 2

Another angry post - Season 2 has been nothing short of a disappointment for me. Even Beginnings, showing how the first Avatar came into existence, qualifies.

1. The origins of the humans and their elemental powers (Lion Turtles granting it to them) contradicts whatever is seen in the original series, or known about them otherwise. In fact, it practically spits on an established piece of Avatar mythology. The Airbenders learnt from Sky Bison, the Waterbenders watched the push and pull of the Moon on the Ocean, the Firebenders learnt from Dragons, the Earthbenders learnt from Badgermoles. They didn't get their powers from Lion Turtles.

2. The entire Rava versus Vatu battle is again a mess - while Light and Dark are always there in Chinese mythology, this conflict seems heavily biased towards a Zoroastrian version of things - that Rava is light and Vatu is dark, that one is good and the other unambiguously bad. Although they make a statement to the effect that one will have to emerge from the other, it is pretty ridiculous that humans have to live in peace when Rava is around and suffer from chaos when Vatu is around. The truth is that disorder and order need not be evil and good respectively. This key piece of mythology is messed up.

3. What is with the lion turtle cities!?! Where did these behemoths decide to go?

4. At least we got to see what was behind Wan's statue - it was Rava behind him and merging with him. It also explains why the Dark Spirits share Rava's markings - Rava and Vatu are different colors but have identical markings, so the Dark Spirits (corrupted by Vatu) share Rava's markings.

5. Has Unalaq been cheated by Vatu? Sure seems so.

The show's mythology is suffering from an overdose of the good versus bad syndrome, and the screwover of the previous mythology as established on the show only makes things worse.

So much for posting here. This show has gone to the dogs.

Episode 6 - The Sting - A trainwreck full of idiots

This is going downhill fast. Rather than bothering to review the damned episode, I'm going to list everything that went WRONG with what would otherwise have been a fantastic episode.

1. The entire Hollywoodization of Bolin. It was absolutely ridiculous and did diddly-squat for his character. It makes him look more and more and more like an idiot. While the movies (or 'movers' as they're called in -universe) were funny and the makeup on the Unalaq actor made him look like the Fire Lord Ozai actor from "The Ember Island Players" but that's just about the only good thing I have to say about the entire setup. Everything else about it is just DUMB, and it ruins Bolin's character horribly.

2. Mako himself has gone from being competent to being even worse of a dumbass than before, barging in on an interrogation. He might as well have shown Chief Beifong the remote control outside. Lin Beifong is made unreasonable to make Mako look reasonable - which is doing her character no justice at all. That the writers for this episode are not as good as Konietzko and DiMartino shows and shows BADLY.

3. Korra waking up on an island in the fire nation and greeted by three fire nation individuals - fire sages, perhaps, judging from their costumes - and finding out that she can airbend but has amnesia is a real cop-out. I suspect that the writers realized that they had dug themselves into a corner with Korra's character and needed to 'reset' her, and did so using the hackneyed, cliched, banal, trite plot device called amnesia. Pathetic.

4. What was Mako doing, heading over to the gangsters? And why did the Triple Threat Triads agree to help a beat cop who had made himself a reputation busting triads? It's understandable that someone paid the gangsters to keep them busy, but the entire scheme makes both parties - Mako/Asami and the gangsters - look like idiots.

5. Varrick is delightfully, thoroughly amoral, and he's probably one of the straightest portrayals of a late 19th/early 20th century eccentric millionare/robber baron I have seen. He's the only smart character in the middle of a horribly dumb cast, and judging from the reactions to his movie, he's likely to get his way and have that war he wants - and make a fortune out of it.

6. Unalaq was plainly holding the idiot ball in The Civil Wars Part II when he told Korra that he didn't need her anyway. It was moronic and made no sense - and now, judging from the way he, Eska and Desna are acting, the Dark Spirit problem is real and the only person who could have done anything about it has been eaten by a monster Dark Spirit herself. The writers did a fantastic job creating this mess out of nowhere.

7. How long has Korra vanished? Has anyone factored in travel time for Eska and Desna to go all the way from the South Pole towards Republic City (which is pretty far up north)? Wouldn't anyone with any sense notice that Korra was missing for days, and wonder what was going on? Wouldn't Raiko have noticed?

8. Last but hardly the least - the relationship bullshit has taken over the entire show. Asami and Mako kiss each other and start to make up or so it looks like, complete with cheesy dialogue (wasn't Mako the guy who cheated on her blatantly last season? So yeah...) and then Bolin kissing Ginger on the lips without asking, even when she very clearly didn't like him (I don't blame Ginger, either. If I were a girl and someone leered like that at me, I would be pretty darn disgusted). The Gin-lin relationship is like Eska-lin but without being blatantly violent and abusive. Bolin's behavior towards Ginger is just plain WRONG and to play it for laughs, like they played Eska's brutal behavior towards Bolin, shows that these writers have no sense of reality when it comes to relationships.

I'm curious to see the next, two-part epiosde because Avatar Wan is likely to be handled a lot better than the seriously derailed, dumb and lousy characters we have seen so far.

Identity of statue confirmed - Avatar Wan

Via  the excellent ATLA Annotated -

Image 1 - Poster and four Spirit colors

Image 2 - Avatars Wan and Korra and Spirit Totem

From the two images, it's evident that the strangely androgynous statue is indeed Avatar Wan as so many people thought (and not a Dark Spirit like I speculated). Something of Wan's chinbeard can be seen in the image in close-up, although I admit that's one weird-looking Avatar statue, armless and with flattened hair.

What I find especially interesting is his note that the four spirits seen are parts of the Avatar spirit. Are the Dark Spirits after Korra because she is the one who is spiritually unbalanced? Are they manifestations of her power and connections to the spirit world?

Anyway, given that she's been eaten, we'll find out soon...

Legend of Korra Book 2 Episode 5 The Peacekeepers Review

Since I have vastly more important and intellectual things to return to, I think I'll stay brief with this particular review.

1. The entire Lemur training business. Tenzin realizes that teaching Meelo to discipline Lemurs and establish his authority over them has a dark side to it. Even though the entire bit is played for laughs, including the line "I think I've created a monster", there's something strangely poignant to this part. Something seems to be coming up in the writing.

2. Korra is acting more and more like Asuka Langley Soryu in her impulsiveness and nastiness. Understood - she believes her family is in grave danger (She doesn't know that they're not - Unalaq plainly states that his brother is not a threat and is to be ignored and Senna was cleared of all charges at the trial) and she has gone from her attempts at neutrality to full-on supporting the Southern Water Tribe. The difficulty of having an Avatar born as a Chieftain's daughter, I know. But her immaturity is starting to grate on me. It grated on other reviewers long before it grated on me, and now her lack of character development and restraint is starting to show. Mako's line "What is it with you and sides?" is spot-on.

Now that I look at the entire Lemur training and the behavior of those conditioned to respect the Avatar unconditionally (pun intended) - General Iroh, in particular, who respects the Avatar and doesn't even think through the consequences of sending the United Republic fleet into a direct battle with the Northern Water tribe - it really seems like the "I created a monster" line fits the Avatar herself, subtly. While Meelo trains Lemurs, Korra is attempting - rather lousily - to train people to obey her, and using her position and her temper to push people into obeying her. She isn't thinking about whether or not she really wants people to be the way they are, or to have interests or missions of their own.

3. President Raiko, thankfully, is handled in a far, far more positive way than I suspected he would be. He would indeed be right to keep the peace in Republic City and he has perfectly good reasons to stay out of the entire battle. So far, he has shown no overt signs of being evil and seems to be doing his job as well as he can. He's not the pleasant sort of person - judging from the way he pushed Lin Beifong to show results - but he is certainly not a "bad guy". He's a man doing his job.

4. Mako is a far better character as a detective than as Korra's boyfriend. That breakup was coming - and I hope it lasts as long as possible because this sort of "relationship" business is a major annoyance. His detective work really looks to be the way forward. Looking forward to see what comes of this. It seems like there's more to the entire situation than meets the eye - which is a very good thing, far better than the disappointing brother vs brother showdown that the past two episodes indicated. (As an aside, they went back to showing mature stuff - another terrorist attack similar to the one Amon used in Episode 6 of Book One. Not what one would expect on a 'kids show'!)

5. Unalaq has been redeemed - he no longer seems to be as straight a villain as he was made out to be. Deska at least is levelheaded - Esna is totally bonkers and shows it.

6. I'm convinced by the ending that the Dark Spirits are after the Avatar. Why else would that one go all the way to Republic City, lurk in her path, and then swallow her? Or was it following the twins over? Its appearance was certainly not expected. Something isn't right up north.

7. Varrick is as hilarious as ever and he's turning out to be a far better character than I thought. The fact that he's so totally amoral makes him even better. He's a wannabe war profiteer and movie-maker, one who plans on using propaganda to fan the flames and cause as much of a mess as possible for profit...but for someone whose actions would otherwise fall into cliched villainy, he is incredibly funny. The thought of movies as propaganda (with Bolin starring in them, no less) is actually pretty frightening once you think about the implications.

8. Bolin is having tiny bits of brilliance in what would otherwise be a really stupid character. They badly need to give him greater depth instead of using him as a full-on comic relief. They did that with Sokka, hopefully they'll do something similar with Bolin.

9. That Dark Spirit swallowed her and didn't calm down - maybe the Dark Spirits want to bring Korra over to the other side? Maybe she'll go into the Avatar state and talk to her past lives while she's inside that thing? Anyway, the next episode's title, "The Sting", suggests a Sting operation, so that leaves me thinking it's going to be a Mako-centric episode that'll have him investigating the truth behind the bombing.

Legend of Korra Book 2 new episode titles and speculation [SPOILERS]

To add to the post below speculating on today's episode, the names of Episodes 9 to 12 are, in order, these-

• Episode #9: The Guide
• Episode #10: A New Spiritual Age
• Episode #11: Night of a Thousand Stars
• Episode #12: Harmonic Convergence  

The Guide, I suppose, refers to one of three characters - Jinora, Wan Shi Tong, or that Phoenix-like creature Korra is seen riding in one of the trailers. Good bets would be on Jinora since she looks like she's entering the Spirit World with Korra, but I wouldn't discount the other two just yet. 

A New Spiritual Age somehow reminds me of Light Yagami's "God of a New World" ramblings - anyway, the New Spiritual Age is not likely to turn out too well, given that it's Unalaq's idea and Unalaq isn't an especially good guy. 


Night of a Thousand Stars reminds me of Isaac Asimov's Nightfall - in which an occulation causes a planet in a system of multiple suns to finally see the fall of the night. The title somehow suggests that either the sun and moon have been removed from the equation, or "star-spirits" are at work. Beats me what they're aiming for here. 


Harmonic Convergence sounds like whatever Unalaq was planning - unlocking the north and south Spirit Portals, but what might turn up from this harmonic convergence? This gives me a bad feeling. When the A.T. Fields of the Mass Production Evangelions resonated with that of Lilith in End of Evangelion, everything went further down the road to hell. If there's a "harmonic convergence" of that sort, it's not going to be the good kind. 


The two-part final's titles have been kept a secret for now, but it leaves me wondering just what they have in mind here.

Legend of Korra Book 2 Epusode 5 : The Peacekeepers - Predictions and Analysis of Outcomes

What we do know is that Meelo gets some focus and is seen with his father this time, getting the sort of individual focus that his elder siblings got in earlier episodes. Good to see that happening. Now, my predictions for tonight's show - positive and negative possibilities -

1. The episode's title itself - it's likely to be a dual reference to the things that kept Aang's household and children (and now grandchildren) at peace as well as to the United Republic forces and the President of the United Republic, all of whom are responsible for keeping peace between nations. It could also extent to the Avatar, whose job is to keep peace. I admit that the choice of episode title brings to mind The Hunger Games and the nasty Peacekeepers of Panem, who were the bad guys. Anyway....

2. President Raiko of the United Republic - It's been revealed that he either outright clashes with Korra or refuses to heed her call for help. There's a difference between the two. But seriously, is there any authority figure who doesn't clash with Korra who isn't evil? Why was it that antagonists like Tarrlok and Unalaq were so supportive of the Avatar at first, while she landed up clashing with good guys - Tenzin and Lin Beifong in the very first episode, and now Tenzin and Tonraq? It's a silly pattern.

Positive - The most positive way for the known outcome to go is to have the President suggest diplomatic rather than military action against the Northern Water Tribe knowing and telling Korra that the lives are at stake, and that he doesn't want to risk starting a war that kills United Republic soldiers for the sake of a family succession problem. A peaceful option makes more sense.

Neutral -President Raiko decides to avoid going into war with the Northern Water Tribe because he doesn't want to antagonize the waterbenders in his fleet, or all the Water Tribe people in the United Republic. He's more interested in keeping power and peace within the United Republic than having to deal with what's going on outside its borders, especially since this reflects on his status. While this makes him self-interested and somewhat boring, it makes complete sense, even if it's not in a positive manner as the first option.

Negative - The worst option is that President Raiko is siding with Unalaq over things unknown and would much rather have the political support of the powerful chieftain of the Northern Water Tribe than do his job. This is the most negative of the three options involved. It's not likely that we're going to find out that the President is cozying up to Unalaq this quickly, but if it comes in a later episode, it's going to be a downer. It would really waste President Raiko as a character.

Worse yet, the negative option would divide characters in the Avatar-verse into "those against Korra" and "those supporting Korra" and this sort of black-and-white divide really doesn't help. Unalaq has suffered going into the evil side of this divide in the previous episode, and to quickly set a character on the wrong side of this divide would be wrong. I would much rather see Raiko be right and Korra do something hotheaded and foolish (and unjustified) than have the bad guys justify Korra's lack of restraint.

3. Korra herself - There are three possible ways for her to go, just as with the President.
Positive - She accepts what the President says gracefully and understands what he means, but acts out of necessity to save her people.

Neutral - She understands what the President says, but does not take it too well and acts in a more forceful manner, taking things into her own hands. Alternatively, she acts forceful with a negative President.

Negative - She shows no restraint at all with the President even if the President behaves in a positive manner and forcefully takes things into her own hands - like threatening to feed Hotak to Naga, but worse.

4. Team Avatar - No idea how much further they can go, or what will happen with them and Varrick. I would love to see more Varrick shenanigans but what I don't want to see is....

5. Team Avatar getting into a tussle with Eska and Desna. Eska is behaving like a full-blown maniac and any encounter with her and Bolin is likely to turn into something murderous. The abusive relationship is not funny and hopefully Eska has either gone the wrong way or given up her mad chase. The most positive way to portray her would be to show her with Desna and being calmed down by her father. We don't know anything about her yet, so she seems like a generic psycho.

6. Unalaq -
Positive -  Finding out that he actually has motivations beyond his greed for power, and that he really wants to do good in an extreme manner.
Neutral - Finding out that he has had trouble with his brother before and that Tonraq is somehow not entirely blameless for this incident, or discovering that his mind was poisoned by someone else.
Negative - Confirmation that he is every bit as bad as he looks, or is getting even worse.

7. This is not so much a prediction as much as it is a wish - I'm hoping to see Zuko either onscreen or getting a mention. Zuko has been traveling the world for the sake of peace and it would be great to see signs of him getting ready to support the next Avatar.

Grey DeLisle's Dark Spirit - and Eska looks like one

Eska's nightmare face - the one she makes after she comes waterbending her way after Bolin in Varrick's yacht - makes her look like a Dark Spirit. The streaks of makeup look like Dark Spirit facial markings, and the way her hair blows out makes her face look more circular than before. (Heck, even without the Dark Spirit resemblance, anyone seeing emotionless Eska turn into a berserker would freak out). It's a good thing Varrick has practice running from such lunatics, but it makes me wonder how Episode 5 would start off, if not as the punchline of a bad joke. There would be no fun at all if the maniacal Eska caught up with Bolin and froze him in a block of ice. Or are they going to capture Eska so she can't go back and give the location to her father's warships? At least Varrick is still in the bear suit and Tonraq has gone away, so Unalaq doesn't know where those two are.

As for the Dark Spirit, there is confirmation that Azula's voice actor, Grey DeLisle, will voice one of them. Whether it means just providing the sound effects for the screeches and hoots and other noises they'd make or actually speaking like a human, I suspect the latter. Dee Bradley Baker and other voice actors make those noises way better.

That being said, I suspect that the so-called mysterious Avatar's statue is actually that of Grey DeLisle's Dark Spirit.

1. As I pointed out before on this blog, the statue is made of wood and it's missing its arms. If that person had no arms in the first place, that's a spirit characteristic for sure. The Yuki-Onna in the old horror movie Kwaidan had feet but no arms (of course, they just tucked the actress' arms in that kimono). Ghosts and Spirits in a lot of cultures have human form but with some sort of creepy alteration - perhaps this is the same?

2. The figure has a long skirt, which suggests that it is female rather than male - although plenty of men in the Avatar-verse wear long skirts as part of their costume, the high waistline suggests that it is female. The chest may or may not have a bust and the shoulders are somewhat narrow. While it is impossible to definitively say that this is female (it is better classified as androgynous at the point), the somewhat flat hair and absence of a beard make me think that this is not Avatar Wan or an Avatar at all.

3. This thing is being calmed down by swirling spiritual energy, and it has dark spirit markings higher up. These are not signs of any Avatar we've seen, and these are distinctly ominous. I'd say that whoever she is, she's a Dark Spirit, and Grey DeLisle is voicing her.

The Civil Wars Part 2 - Review (Unalaq is going downhill)

Now that Part 2 of the Civil Wars is out, I'm going to put down what I like and what I don't like. SPOILERS, of course.

Deska and Esna are two characters I'm not exactly fond of, and I'm especially unhappy with how Bolin got tangled up with Esna. It's as though they exist to make him a butt-monkey. Anyway, we get to see Esna's sheer craziness by the end. She wants Bolin as her lover, alive or dead. If Esna was a guy and Bolin was a girl, this relationship would be sickening to its core. Male-on-female abuse is prevalent in modern society and it is most certainly NOT a laughing matter. Female-on-male abuse, while much rarer, shouldn't be played for laughs just because of the gender reversal. Abuse of any sort in any gender combination (M-F, M-M, F-M, F-F) is despicable, and I hope that Esna gets it from Bolin later.

Unalaq is more like Fire Lord Ozai than anyone else, a younger brother seeking to usurp chieftainship from his elder brother. Now that judge Hotak revealed that Unalaq paid the barbarians to attack the Northern Water Tribe and then hide in the Spirit Forest so that Tonraq could get banished, this character goes straight into Ozai territory. The only thing redeeming about him is that he seems to have a genuine spiritual side and something like a genuine desire to redeem the south spiritually - but even this seems dubious now. The writers had better play up his good qualities and come up with an explanation for Unalaq's behavior beyond mere jealousy (The judge may have misunderstood what was going on). Unalaq's warning that Dark Spirits will destroy the South if Korra decides to start a Civil War suggests that Unalaq really has the Spirits on his side this time, and it makes me wonder if there really is something going on here. I'd much rather see an angry Spirit pull of a Xanatos Gambit using Unalaq (and the much-missed Amon) than have it turn out to be brother versus brother again.

Ikki ran away and cuddled a bunch of baby Sky Bisons - at least there was nothing ominous going on there! The family aesop is getting hammered a bit too hard here.

Varrick hiding in the Platypus Bear along with Zhu Li was hilarious. It also shows that Eska, Desna and all the Northern Tribe soldiers seriously lack an imagination. Going about from room to room, who wouldn't notice the huge stuffed Platypus Bear with enough room to hide two people in it? The guy has a yacht powerful enough to outrun a loony waterbending teenager, and he has a biplane with folding wings (superb detail on that!). That's neat - but he forgot to put a catapult to launch the darn thing!

Overall, this episode was a downer, because it tarnished a pretty interesting villain. The beauty of Season 1's Amon was that he was a villain who had a point, a villain whose agenda you could actually understand and support. He was actually sincere in his belief that people had to be treated fairly - even if it meant taking their bending away in the most ghastly manner possible. And he had a certain coolness to him that made you look forward to his next appearance. Unalaq started out looking like a more complex character, but now looks like he's degrading into a simple villain. This is not good.

Soundbending - the subdiscipline of Airbending?

I'm calling it - Soundbending is going to be the new sub-speciality of Airbending. When Avatar's creators promised to "blow us away" they meant to blow us away with noise.

Think about it - Lightning-bending, a sub-discipline of Firebending, has enough in common with Waterbending that a technique extrapolated from Waterbending can redirect Lightning. And Water and Fire are supposed to be opposites! Air and Earth are supposed to be opposites - one is free-form and swirling, the other being solidly rooted. When is Air most 'solid'? In a shockwave. In sound.

Sound-bending. Shockwave-bending.

It's going to be interesting. I'm putting dibs on this for now. Let me see if this prediction comes true.

Supposing that Amon was "Chosen by the Spirits" after all?

Here's a thought about Amon, the incomparably awesome villain introduced in Legend of Korra's Season One. Creepy, powerful, and oozing cool, Amon was a villain unlike any other, and his tragic backstory helped a lot. Amon/Noatak's Unique Selling Proposition was that he had been chosen by the Spirits to replace the Avatar after the Avatar failed to restore balance in the world. Now we see Book Two : Spirits, complete with a rampaging storm in the South Pole that Korra has to fix, and a portal up in the North she has to open, a storyline involving Spirits of all kinds and the First Avatar, Wan.

Now, supposing that Amon was right about being "Chosen by the Spirits" after all?

Amon, or should I say, Noatak, is flat-out the most powerful bloodbender in the world, able to power through even his own brother Tarrlok's bloodbending. Tarrlok confirms that bloodbending was involved in Noatak's de-bending. But how did he know how to pull this particular trick off? Where did he learn to knock out a bender's connection to the elements? Where had he been during all this time? Some of it, is of course, a deliberate mystery, but supposing that there's room for a ret-con, as there has been for Tonraq's story?

It's likely that sometime in Book Two, we'll learn that Noatak didn't perish in that snowstorm after he left Yakone and Tarrlok because he entered a Spirit Oasis like the one that Tonraq vandalized and Korra visited. He might have been visited by a Spirit and taught this particular, lethal blood-bending technique, and then set loose to find and get rid of the Avatar (helped by his own convictions). My guess is that there's a Spirit out there none too happy about the Avatar, and Noatak was willing to do that Spirit's dirty work gratis. Perhaps the Spirit trouble around the Southern Water Tribe is the orchestration of some kind of Spirit "Chessmaster" working behind the scenes, and using Unalaq as his next willing tool.

Is there a spirit orchestrating all of this? I don't know. But I'd hold on to the notion that we've not seen the last of Amon/Noatak's influence on this series just yet.

Legend of Korra Book 2 Speculation

Kicking off my first post here with a bang. The Legend of Korra is the biggest Western Animation series in some time, and it lives up to the hype as a series with extraordinary writing, high production values, spectacular animation and even more spectacular world-building. I'm no Avatard, but I recognize epic world building where it goes. Anyway, here is my own "Rampant Speculation" about the Legend of Korra in the style of the Halo and Marathon Story Pages.

Special thanks go to Avatar Annotated for giving me some ideas here.

1. I second Avatar Annotated's assessment of the Southern Lights in that episode. There is clearly more to the lights than meets the eye. Especially since there had been an episode in the North Pole in the original series and nothing of the sort had been seen even in mid-winter, and the North Pole Spirit Oasis is a known area with the Moon and Ocean spirits going about in a circle. That forest is probably not what it is made out to be. Could it be the Avatar world's equivalent to the Earth's north and south magnetic poles, rather than the physical north and south poles? After all, the Aurora Borealis and its rarer counterpart, the Aurora Australis, are caused by the interaction of charged particles drawn in by Earth's magnetic field and slammed into the upper atmosphere. Having a spiritual equivalent for magnetism in the Avatar-verse would make sense.

2. That statue glows with the same golden light as the spirits, not with the blue-white light associated with the Avatars. Is that the statue of the first Avatar, Avatar Wan? Is that the statue of the Fire Nation Avatar that succeeds him? (More on that later) Or is that an Avatar at all? The golden glow and the wooden statue suggest something like an oddball. Since one of the themes that this show talks about is the balance of Light and Dark in every person, could this person be an Avatar who suffered from an imbalance of Light and Dark and failed in his purpose?

3. As noted, the markings on the Avatar statue resemble the markings on the Dark Spirits. And there's the perfectly good question of why the Dark Spirits would attack someone trying to help them out. Either the Dark Spirits are being extremely silly or they're not on the Avatar's side at all (as ATLA Annotated suggests). The latter interpretation seems to be better. Korra seem to be a pretty frequent target of all the Dark Spirit attacks, and even when they're stealing supplies or sabotaging snowmobiles they seem to be making the time to single her out for attacks. The very first of the monstrosities grabs her by the wrists and holds her, and the one Korra tries to calm with waterbending (unsuccessfully) seems willing to eat her. They certainly don't want that portal to be opened.

4. That Avatar - now, I'd understand having water swirl around a Dark Spirit to calm it down, but why the hell is it swirling around an Avatar??? And why does the Avatar's statue have those Dark Spirit markings? And why does it glow with the very same golden light that the Dark Spirits glow with when they vanish? Seems like someone wanted to calm down that particular Avatar and put him/her into balance, not the other way around! That being said, the Dark Spirits seem to be connected to this particular Avatar - which suggests that this Avatar isn't exactly good in the normal sense. An Avatar equivalent of Fire Lord Ozai, throwing the world out of balance? Hmmm..... or is that even an Avatar in the first place? Jinora asks "What Avatar is that?" but that doesn't mean that the statue in the Avatar room really is an Avatar...does it? Avatar or not, something very creepy and very wrong went on with this person.

5. Those Dark Spirits have a visible Owl/Serpent theme going on. As noted for Wan Shi Tong, the spirit librarian who takes an Owl form (regular) and a Serpent form (when enraged), the Owl is the western symbol of knowledge, and the Serpent is the eastern one. The Dark Spirits mostly have serpent-like heads and owl-like facial markings - all symbolic of knowledge. So these spirits possibly represent knowledge that has been corrupted, or perverted? Knowledge out of balance?

That raises the possibility that there were originally meant to be two Avatars in a sense. The Avatar functions as more than the incarnated Spirit of the Earth (He was supposed to be so in the original series bible, but this information was deleted and never made it into the final print : perhaps the writers had second thoughts about this long ago?) - the Avatar is also the bridge between the physical and spirit worlds, natural and supernatural. Avatar Wan seems to have brawled with spirits before using his bending abilities. He says "I'll show how how I became the Avatar" - which ties in with the Lion Turtle's explanation at the end of TLA that humans once used to bend the energy within themselves rather than bend the elements. Not only is energybending the exclusive domain of the Avatar, it also seems connected with the Spirits - and it seems likely that Wan became the Earth Spirit, just as Yue became the Moon, in order to handle the imbalance between the natural and spirit worlds. There might have been a 'reciprocal' Avatar, a powerful spirit taking on human form, as to form a second bridge between the human and spirit worlds. Ironically, this would make the Avatar an 'ascended' human, as opposed to the meaning of the word, 'descent', implying a descended Spirit or God.

So what is the Avatar, actually? An ascended human or a descended god? The latter explanation never officially became Word of God - so the first possibility is indeed open.

6. It is known that the first Avatar after Wan was a Firebender. When Korra finally goes into the Avatar state to open the Spirit Portal, the pulse that opens the Portal is one of fire (plainly). That would mean that firebending (the opposite element to water) was needed to open the Portal, which would be exceedingly odd - unless that Spirit Portal was sealed up by a Firebender in the first place and needed firebending of a specific sort to open it. It gives rise to the impression that the statue that lights up belonged to a Firebender - but then again, it might not even be an Avatar.

It's worth noting that the statue is missing its lower arms, making it look incomplete. It's also made of wood - it's probably carved out of a single tree. Its proportions seem androgynous - it's hard to tell for certain if that's a man or a woman. Why is it incomplete? Or did someone get rid of its arms?

7. Old Wan Shi Tong looks to be coming back in Owl form. His name translates into "The one who knows ten thousand things" but it might also mean "The one who knows Wan" - assuming that Wan, the first Avatar, has his name translated into Ten Thousand. Wan Shi Tong probably knows a whole lot more than we think - although that's no surprise for an all-knowing spirit librarian.