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farlaJust caught up on Korra.
Kind of meh, unfortunately. The animation continues to be gorgeous and I love the characters, but I'm not really pleased with the plot.
I really liked the bender/antibender thing. You see Korra show up in the city, and look, there's benders using their power to menace others. She gets in trouble and look, she's using her bending to try to get out of it. But at the same time benders are incredibly useful - their powers help society as a whole as well.
But the whole pro-bending matches...so what? We've spent episodes on them and I just can't care. It doesn't matter if Korra wins or loses, and it's happening instead of her exploring the city and everyone else in it. So much is going on in the first episode - there's homeless people in the park at odds with the police, but who don't mind a firebender camping out next to their bush. I'd like to see her running around dealing with the triads, who seem to be the dark mirror of bender cooperation, and trying to balance stopping the bad guys against causing even more harm to those she's supposed to be helping. Or dealing with opponents who she completely outclasses, and getting an idea of why they hate her so much. And dealing with ordinary people who don't hate her, and why, and how they feel about benders being able to run rampant everywhere - there must be so many people on the fence, not yet recruited into the equalists but not cheerleading bending. And just look at the all-bender council discussing how to put down the people with "equal" in their name! When you're in a republic and looking at a popular revolution, maybe you should reconsider some things.
Unfortunately, the way the conflict is actually playing out is getting more and more ridiculous. If they can get technology to make benders obsolete, the conflict is as well. And it switches the focus to the poor oppressed benders being attacked by the scary mean prejudiced people who are so much more powerful than they are.
It's like, the first episode has Korra threatening a guy for saying benders are thugs. The show treated this as bad on her part. But then the third episode has her attacking the same guy because some unrelated members of his group attacked a bunch of criminals and happened to get her friend by accident, and the show doesn't seem to see anything wrong with it, and since then it's presented the nonbenders as frightening and oppressing the benders. It's like the only problem with how she acted in the first episode was wasting time trying to talk to him in the first place.
There's something very interesting about how Amon has spiritbending when it's apparently it can only be used on people you should have used it on, and Aang would have lost his powers if he'd done it for the wrong reasons, and Amon so far has only targeted people who've shown themselves to be obviously bad or abusive of their power, but that could be a coincidence, since picking the biggest bullies is the best option either way. Is he bluffing about being able to remove Korra's powers and just choosing not to yet? (...It's the only option that doesn't make him look stupid.) But all the focus is on how scared Korra is of losing her powers, not whether or not Amon has spiritbending because he's right or if he's somehow tricking whatever forces govern this into letting him do what he wants or if he's using a version that has no connection to whatever force judges things.
Of course, there's lots of episodes to go, and maybe this kind of thing will be dealt with, but... The way they're putting both a plot about nonbenders rebelling over bender superiority with a plot about technology making benders no longer a superior group is really worrying. Either one of them would work but I can't see any way to have both at once.
Kind of meh, unfortunately. The animation continues to be gorgeous and I love the characters, but I'm not really pleased with the plot.
I really liked the bender/antibender thing. You see Korra show up in the city, and look, there's benders using their power to menace others. She gets in trouble and look, she's using her bending to try to get out of it. But at the same time benders are incredibly useful - their powers help society as a whole as well.
But the whole pro-bending matches...so what? We've spent episodes on them and I just can't care. It doesn't matter if Korra wins or loses, and it's happening instead of her exploring the city and everyone else in it. So much is going on in the first episode - there's homeless people in the park at odds with the police, but who don't mind a firebender camping out next to their bush. I'd like to see her running around dealing with the triads, who seem to be the dark mirror of bender cooperation, and trying to balance stopping the bad guys against causing even more harm to those she's supposed to be helping. Or dealing with opponents who she completely outclasses, and getting an idea of why they hate her so much. And dealing with ordinary people who don't hate her, and why, and how they feel about benders being able to run rampant everywhere - there must be so many people on the fence, not yet recruited into the equalists but not cheerleading bending. And just look at the all-bender council discussing how to put down the people with "equal" in their name! When you're in a republic and looking at a popular revolution, maybe you should reconsider some things.
Unfortunately, the way the conflict is actually playing out is getting more and more ridiculous. If they can get technology to make benders obsolete, the conflict is as well. And it switches the focus to the poor oppressed benders being attacked by the scary mean prejudiced people who are so much more powerful than they are.
It's like, the first episode has Korra threatening a guy for saying benders are thugs. The show treated this as bad on her part. But then the third episode has her attacking the same guy because some unrelated members of his group attacked a bunch of criminals and happened to get her friend by accident, and the show doesn't seem to see anything wrong with it, and since then it's presented the nonbenders as frightening and oppressing the benders. It's like the only problem with how she acted in the first episode was wasting time trying to talk to him in the first place.
There's something very interesting about how Amon has spiritbending when it's apparently it can only be used on people you should have used it on, and Aang would have lost his powers if he'd done it for the wrong reasons, and Amon so far has only targeted people who've shown themselves to be obviously bad or abusive of their power, but that could be a coincidence, since picking the biggest bullies is the best option either way. Is he bluffing about being able to remove Korra's powers and just choosing not to yet? (...It's the only option that doesn't make him look stupid.) But all the focus is on how scared Korra is of losing her powers, not whether or not Amon has spiritbending because he's right or if he's somehow tricking whatever forces govern this into letting him do what he wants or if he's using a version that has no connection to whatever force judges things.
Of course, there's lots of episodes to go, and maybe this kind of thing will be dealt with, but... The way they're putting both a plot about nonbenders rebelling over bender superiority with a plot about technology making benders no longer a superior group is really worrying. Either one of them would work but I can't see any way to have both at once.
no subject
Date: 2012-05-16 09:30 am (UTC)Hmm, I got the impression her actions were supposed to be ambiguous, though not to the extent you would have liked to see. Secret training under a book store? Looking down from the darkness into a well lit room? Korra getting scared of the Amon poster, not noticing that the targets are chi-blocking rookies wearing normal clothes? The severity of the ambush (I don't remember any non-life-and-death fights where people got frozen from head to toe and their yelling silenced, though it might be incidental)? How the victory was framed for the media, with four chi-blockers kneeling surrounded by benders, just like an episode prior four benders were kneeling surrounded by chi-blockers?
I dunno, I may be stretching some of it, but I do think the over all atmosphere was supposed to convey some grey morality. Granted, if that were true, I'd have expected Korra to realize it by now but... then the teenage love triangle episode happened? Really, who the hell even knows where the writers' priorities lie any more.
no subject
Date: 2012-05-16 03:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-05-16 07:18 pm (UTC)It just seemed a bit unnecessary to devote a whole ep to their shenanigans when this season is already only 12 episodes long. I mean, the characters were funny and endearing, but I wouldn't say it was Avatar at its best.