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.

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.

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.

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.