Wednesday, 25 September 2013

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.


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