Topic: The Legend of Korra [Season 4 airs in Jan/Feb for Australia]

[Oblivion]

Believe it or not, but over half the fandom for the show loves this shipping stuff. According to my buddies on AvatarSpirit, this was the best episode. -_-


I liked it quite a bit for what is was though. The small amount of action that it had was great and Bolin was hilarious as always. The next episode promises to be much better, with Amon presumably interrupting the finals. Apparently there may be a bit more shipping though.


You gotta deal with it if you don't like it. *shrug*

[SixthAngel]

I liked the episode quite a bit.  Fighting Amon isn't the whole show and I enjoy how they get into the relationships and the like.

Probending is okay but I still prefer the more kung fu bending battles instead of the boxing inspired matches.
Can't wait for the next show.

[broodwars]

I don't like shipping in general and I'm really growing tired of Pro-Bending-centric episodes (hopefully the next episode is the end of that, given that it's the Finals), but at least they're getting it out of the way early on in the show.  By comparison, if this were an anime the writers would be milking the love square for a good 26-52 episodes before ending on an inconclusive note.

[Oblivion]

According to some sources the Pro Bending Arc is almost over. But I don't know how you can get tired of something that has only been used for three episodes.

[broodwars]

According to some sources the Pro Bending Arc is almost over. But I don't know how you can get tired of something that has only been used for three episodes. : :

I can when that's 3 episodes out of 5 and soon to be 4 episodes out of 6, which it is.  I want to see more of New Republic City, what happens in it, and the development of other plot threads.  The sport is cute, but I don't watch an Avatar series for sports competitions.  There are whole anime series no one watches dedicated to that.

[Oblivion]

My god, that episode was amazing.

[broodwars]

My god, that episode was amazing.

Eh, it was good and it finished extremely well, but I have some major problems with it.

1.  The whole "reigning champions are only that way because they CHEAT" concept is a huge cliche in sports stories, and frankly it's beneath these writers to use it.

2.  OK, I can accept that Amon would somehow sneak himself and a few troops into the stadium, but I find it really hard to believe how easy it was considering how thorough Captain Bei Fong was in inspecting and guarding the stadium.

3.  On the same note, I can accept that Amon and his troops would find a way to sneak into the stadium, but if you look at one of the last shots of the episode they also completely trashed Captain Bei Fong's Metal Benders and their blimps stationed outside.  Just how incompetent IS this police force?

On a side note, I strongly suspect that this was all a trap orchestrated by Tarrlock to discredit and take down Captain Bei Fong.  He's probably in league with Amon...somehow...to take over the city, and I suspect he'll be betrayed by Amon somewhere down the line.

[SixthAngel]

My god, that episode was amazing.

2.  OK, I can accept that Amon would somehow sneak himself and a few troops into the stadium, but I find it really hard to believe how easy it was considering how thorough Captain Bei Fong was in inspecting and guarding the stadium.

3.  On the same note, I can accept that Amon and his troops would find a way to sneak into the stadium, but if you look at one of the last shots of the episode they also completely trashed Captain Bei Fong's Metal Benders and their blimps stationed outside.  Just how incompetent IS this police force?

On a side note, I strongly suspect that this was all a trap orchestrated by Tarrlock to discredit and take down Captain Bei Fong.  He's probably in league with Amon...somehow...to take over the city, and I suspect he'll be betrayed by Amon somewhere down the line.

2.  That is because Amon's troops were the crowd.  An incredible number of the audience themselves were his followers and many had these electric gloves that had never found wide use before.  They didn't strip search the entire stadium when they walked in, such a thing would have been as unfeasible as it is in our sporting events, and even if they did they wouldn't really know what these gloves are unless someone showed them.  They obviously expected something like a bomb and not an actual army buying tickets and then attacking them from inside and out.
3.  The police force isn't incompetent, Amon has an army.  He just declared war against Republic City.  You can't have a revolution without enough people to fight the regular police.  Seeing the wreckage and the blimp Amon took over should show you how big and serious Amon's revolution is.

I doubt Tarrlock is a traitor.  He was completely against holding the games until Chief Beifong put herself on the line.  He simply saw what he would gain if Chief Beifong failed to protect the stadium and that he would lose nothing if she succeeded.

Now Tarrlock's anti-Amon task force is going to be who everyone depends on to stop the antibending revolution and he will gain even more influence.  He didn't have to be traitor to do it, all he had to do was let someone else take a risk he was unwilling to.

Loved the episode.  Tenzin's conversation with Korra about his relationship with Lin especially stands out as well as Korra and Chief Beifong water bending/metalbending to get Amon in the blimp.

[broodwars]

I doubt Tarrlock is a traitor.  He was completely against holding the games until Chief Beifong put herself on the line.  He simply saw what he would gain if Chief Beifong failed to protect the stadium and that he would lose nothing if she succeeded.

Now Tarrlock's anti-Amon task force is going to be who everyone depends on to stop the antibending revolution and he will gain even more influence.  He didn't have to be traitor to do it, all he had to do was let someone else take a risk he was unwilling to.

So much for Spoiler Tags.  -_-'

That's why I think Tarrlock is playing Amon, using him to weaken the other political and law-keeping officials in the city while he is poised to take control.  The last stage of that plan would be to double-cross Amon at Amon's point of greatest power, and thus gain the greatest benefit.  Amon probably foresees this and would use Tarrlock as a public symbol of corruption at the highest level, taking him down as well.

There's just something too calculating about just how easily Tarrlock changes his mind on canceling the tournament, as well as his emphasis on Chief Bei Fong "taking full responsibility" for anything that would happen.  Plus, the scene immediately after this is Amon's henchmen telling him that they'd received word that the tournament would go on.  There's also the matter of just how easily Amon sneaks in and out of Avatar Island in the previous episode where he fought Korra.  I sense a mole, and I believe his name is Tarrlock.  I could be wrong, of course.  But the pieces just slide together too neatly.  We shall see.

[Oblivion]

Broodwars, The Wolf Bats would have still beaten the Fire Ferrets without cheating. They were establishing what fucktards they were, nothing more. If they were known to be cheaters, I'm certain the FIrrets would have noticed it before their match against them.

[Stogi]

My God....that was an amazing episode. It had the same feel as a quality movie has. The music, direction, and animation were all top notch.

[broodwars]

Well, another week, another "good" episode of Korra that falls short of greatness due to some sloppy writing.  In this case, it was the reveal of a new villain.  I think this is where you can see the show straining a bit from having 7-8 fewer episodes a season than its predecessor, because we barely saw this character before now.  They've had...what...1 1/2 minutes of screen time so far, and now I'm supposed to be emotionally invested in them turning against benders?  It all just fell flat.

I did enjoy seeing more of Chief Bei Fong and Tenzen kicking ass, though, and the continuation of the first series' "cabbage" joke was just priceless.   

[Oblivion]

Asami has had more than just 1 and a half minutes of screen time.

[broodwars]

Asami has had more than just 1 and a half minutes of screen time.

Yes, but this character hasn't.

[Oblivion]

What? You mean her dad? I don't know what you mean by "this character".

[broodwars]

What? You mean her dad?

Yep.  I've been trying to be vague for the sake of people who may not have seen the episode yet.  We've probably seen him a grand total of at most 1 1/2 minutes of screen time so far.  The events of this episode would probably have meant a great deal more if the writers had spent more time building up his story and less on pro-bending matches and shipping.  Plus, the way the conspiracy was revealed was just too easy, almost Scooby Doo-ish by comparison.  Consider by contrast the Earth Kingdom conspiracy of A:TLA's 2nd season, where it was built up over the course of several episodes.

[Oblivion]

I don't think we were supposed to care about him. We were supposed to care for Asami's decision to attack her dad to be with the Avatar and Mako. We're supposed to be sad that Asami did what she had to do to her dad, even though he was like that because of her mother's death.


That being said, I still don't think Asami is innocent.

[Lithium]

yeah i agree with broodwars in that it's a tad too condensed for it's own good but it didn't really ruin the episode for me.

[TrueNerd]

What? You mean her dad?

Yep.  I've been trying to be vague for the sake of people who may not have seen the episode yet.  We've probably seen him a grand total of at most 1 1/2 minutes of screen time so far.  The events of this episode would probably have meant a great deal more if the writers had spent more time building up his story and less on pro-bending matches and shipping.  Plus, the way the conspiracy was revealed was just too easy, almost Scooby Doo-ish by comparison.  Consider by contrast the Earth Kingdom conspiracy of A:TLA's 2nd season, where it was built up over the course of several episodes.

Yeah, there's been a few things that feel rushed and/or handled entirely through exposition. The love square episode for one. Also Asami letting us know in this episode that she's had self defense lessons her whole life a few minutes before she has to defend herself. It's okay because the show is doing all of the important things so well, but this show isn't breathing like the original series did. Sometimes that breathing happened in "filler" episodes which KORRA has avoided thus far.

But this whole series was worth it for the reveal that the cabbage merchant from the original series found success and started what is now a huge corporation. Brilliant.

[Oblivion]

Well, that's the trouble with this show being shorter than the original show. Hell, we should be gald with 26 episodes, considering the show was originally 12.


Honestly, it doesn't bother me that much. Exposition is needed and I don't mind it as much as the exposition in the M Night movie.

[TrueNerd]

Again, the show is doing a lot of things right. The fighting in the secret factory was awesome. I'm going to remember that long before I remember the exposition that preceded it. M Night's movie got NOTHING right and was the most painful adaptation I've ever seen.

[Oblivion]

Actually, I felt that the music and the costume design from the M Night movie was pretty okay. But yeah, everything else was ****.

[Oblivion]

So... dat episode. I'm pretty speechless.

[SixthAngel]

So... dat episode. I'm pretty speechless.

Yeah, holy **** Tarrlock.

[Oblivion]

He just ascended to a new level of badass.


And did you see how pissed Tarrlock got when Korra compared him to Amon? I'm slightly changing my orginal theory from Amon being Yakone's son to both Tarrlock AND Amon being Yakone's children. They made it pretty obvious in the flashback that Yakone is a bloodbender, and that Aang somehow was able to resist it. It explains why Tarrlock got so pissed when he was compared to Amon - they are brothers.


I have no idea what they're gonna do for the final four episodes of the season.