Korra

[farla]

Just 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.

Comments

[charizamdc.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'm concerned about how much is being spent on the bending arena... It's a cool-ish concept, I guess, and a nice bit of background to the revolution, but it's taken up a lot of time. I also think it's weak in that the rules aren't very clear, which is odd because one of the programme's strengths is the way it builds understanding of the magic system through a consistent set of moves. It's not just a couple of guys limit breaking then it turns out one had a higher power level.

Anyway, the arena got blown up, so maybe that's their way of saying we're done with it? Avatar's always had quite a slow pace, so I'm willing to accept it as a way of forming the group if we move on to more interesting things. I think the main failing so far is he failure to establish what most people think about Amon and the revlution. It shouldn't be unamibguous because how would Korra be able to tell exactly how much support he has? But we've got more or less nothing on this at all.

I don't share the thematic concern. Amon is obviously meant to have somewhat of a point, but I doubt he's sincere in his rhetoric. The Equalists seem to operate like a series of Bolshevik cells. It's not a populist revolution, at least not yet. He's certainly trying to win the public over, but he uses small teams of highly trained fighters. The public in general isn't trained in chi blocking and have no access to their hi tech weaponry. The sense of helplessness he's trying to play off doesn't go away because a few guys in a dark room have some shiny toys, it only goes away if they use them to take away the biological advantage of the people keeping them down. What if it's not a plot about non benders rebelling over bender superiority mixed with a plot about tech making bending obsolete, but a plot about a manipulative revolutionary using the public's (justified) anger at the conduct of some benders to create a new elite based on technology? (also, can their culture even generate electricity outside of firebending?)

Also, I think the tech less removes the superiority of benders and more allows the chi blockers to be a credible threat.

I think there are a few other options that let Amon not steal her bending and not be an idiot, too. Maybe he just doesn't know what will happen if he tries it? He might never intend to try. I can't imagine destroying the avatar spirit wouldn't mess things up in a major way. On that subject, are you sure the spirit bending requires your cause to be just? I know the turtle cast Aang's thingy as a pure heart overcoming corruption etc but I the impression I got was that it was about will, having an unbendable spirit. It's been a while since I watched the finale, though.

[farla.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I was surprised to see it feature so much when my initial impression of the game was that it was just an announcer saying things at random. I think I've finally picked up the gist of it, but it's hard to be invested in what's happening when you can barely tell what that is.

He's certainly trying to win the public over, but he uses small teams of highly trained fighters. The public in general isn't trained in chi blocking and have no access to their hi tech weaponry.

True, but that seemed to be more a matter of the fact only highly trained fighters stand a chance against benders. It's like how rebellions will have a core of trained fighters who melt back into the general supportive population - and we see a lot more people around Amon than just his core fighters. And from the looks of it, chi blocking is illegal to learn, since they have to train in secret. (I mean, if there hadn't been big Amon posters on the walls...they'd still have gone in and frozen people solid on the basis they were practicing chi blocking, wouldn't they? I can't imagine people would be so dumb as to put up illegal posters in their perfectly legal hideout. So it's less an issue of Amon being an elitist and more like, say, ninja vs samurai. It's the existing elite who ban these things from the public in general.)

As to the tech - I'm not sure what the production requirements for those are, but the gauntlets at least don't look too hard. Amon managed to field enough people to take out every guard at the same time with what seems like brand new technology. And even if they can't be manufactured widely, it's still more democratic and equal to have something anyone can use (and that can be taken away from them if they abuse it) than inborn and unremovable abilities like bending.

What if it's not a plot about non benders rebelling over bender superiority mixed with a plot about tech making bending obsolete, but a plot about a manipulative revolutionary using the public's (justified) anger at the conduct of some benders to create a new elite based on technology?

But we'd need to start from the standpoint their anger's justified for that. If Korra was looking around going holy shit we are reaping what we've sown, I need to repair bender/nonbender relations STAT, omg you guys HOW CAN YOU NOT HAVE A SINGLE BENDER ON YOUR COUNCIL THEY'RE ONLY MOST OF THE POPULATION, then it'd work. But the show doesn't seem to be presenting it as justified...the first episode had an antibender guy, and bender criminals, and Korra causing more damage taking those guys out followed by resisting arrest and causing more trouble using her bending. But ever since then, it's just been that the antibenders are jerkfaces and benders being afraid of getting crippled - and without even a moment's consideration that what they consider crippled and powerless is how nonbenders live. I've been hoping that's all setting stuff up for a reversal, but it's weird to see it presented for so many episodes with apparent narrative support.

I mean, absolutely no one in fandom thinks Amon's sincere. He oozes lying weasel. And the antibender flyer guy is treated with little more respect than the cabbage guy. And that really makes it hard to believe the antibender sentiment is anything legitimate instead of something drummed up for Amon's own purposes. If we'd seen it exist beforehand and that Amon was just capitalizing on it, it'd have worked better, but so far, antibender sentiment is presented at starting from Amon (and, because he's oozing lying weasel, all his speeches about what's bad about bending are assumed to be made up so people will support him when they're the only place we're hearing about it.)

Hm, you might be right that spiritbending's just a will contest. I'm not sure I even understood it at the time, but I'm pretty sure there was the idea that you can't misuse it.

[purplekitte.livejournal.com]

Hmm, I don't know. I think all my friends and I have been interpreting everything through the lens of giving the show the benefit of the doubt that the good points the Equalists have were meant to be there. In between squeeing about how awesome Korra and Lin or how adorable Tenzin and Bolin are. Maybe we'll be proved wrong, it's hard to have faith in any show. Still, I've been sympathetic since it was explained Republic City was founded because people had to deal with all the Fire Nation colonies that had been there for a hundred years, which was something I had wondered about how they would handle after the war.

The love triangle/pro-bending portions were the least interesting part so far to me too, but I saw it more as "we're going to rush through all these matches real fast to get back to the plot, have some character building and cool action sequences along the way." The next few episodes should get to the meat of the plot, I think.

[(Anonymous)]

I agree, the treatment of the Park-Protestor guy was pretty uneven and sometimes created the impression that we were supposed to think the Equalists didn't have legitimate grievances against benders. However, I'm pretty sure that the reactionary way the benders in power have been handling the issue wasn't something we were meant to support. When Tarrlok used his "they will come for you and your families" rhetoric to get the council on his side, the benders' fear wasn't presented as particularly rational. Instead it read more as upholding the status quo out of fear of change and what it would bring. And all the actions Korra took that episode, especially her involvement with that morally ambiguous task-force and all its parallels with Amon's extremism, were based entirely on her being controlled by fear to take unethical or unreasonably-dangerous measures.

I mean, we don't have proof that the Equalist movement started with Amon, but I think all the flashbacks Korra's been having may shed some light on its beginnings... hopefully peaceful beginnings, which proved ineffectual, and led to Amon's highjacking of the movement. His policies are extreme, but he is definitely getting stuff done, so I could see how disaffected non-benders would rationalize the need for his tactics out of desperation. That's all speculation though.

Still, while we've been invited to sympathize with the fear the benders feel, I don't think we were meant to think it justifies ignoring the Equalists' concerns and painting all of their ranks as reprehensible antagonists to the "poor, victimized" bending class. I'm pretty confident the intent of these episodes was to show the reasons why those in power oppose the empowerment of underprivileged people, and set the stage for exploring why those reasons are wrong. Admittedly, I may be blindly assuming the writers care enough about social justice to address all these issues, but I remain hopeful.

Also the fight scenes just keep getting more and more unspeakably badass.

[ember-reignited.livejournal.com]

benders being afraid of getting crippled - and without even a moment's consideration that what they consider crippled and powerless is how nonbenders live

And this is why Amon really isn't that scary to me; what he's doing just doesn't tap into any real fears or anxieties I have. Even when I put effort into thinking of something I or anyone I know has that could be roughly equivalent to super powers and what it would be like to lose it, I come up with nothing. And you can't exactly sympathize with his victims since all of them so far have been terrible people who really didn't deserve to have that kind of advantage in the first place. I mean, the episode with his formal introduction only avoided the focus on rescuing Bolin being skeevy protagonist-centered morality because the other people there genuinely weren't worth rescuing, and what was happening to him wasn't so horrible as to make you say, "No one deserves that."

I'm obviously not rooting for him, because yeah, slimy weasel, but... I'm kind of having trouble actively rooting against him. If anything, I guess I'm rooting for him to make at least enough waves to get a lot of people seriously talking about what he represents and whether he might have some points.

[(Anonymous)]

If you're having trouble following the pro-bending, there's a list of the rules and guidelines right here: http://avatarthelastairbenderonline.com/bumi-kya-revealed-pro-bending/

I don't find it particularly interesting, since I'm not much of a sports fan, and there is very little room for strategizing in a rigidly-defined game like that. Just hit people until they fall down, I guess. And don't aim for their heads. That said, the rules are very well-defined, although the show doesn't do a stellar job of getting them across most of the time.

[farla.livejournal.com]

I think the best analogy to bending is like...being able to draw, say. I can't draw, but people who can really like drawing, so it'd be crippling to them in a way it wouldn't be to me. Or being injured in a way that makes it impossible to play a professional sport without impacting daily life. I can sympathize with Korra's fearing it because bending is her whole life. But it's a very personal sort of threat and it's awkward when it's connected to societal-level stuff. No one seems to really care about the broader implications of it - Amon's going on about a revolution while all the benders are just worried about if it'll happen to them.

[farla.livejournal.com]

I think I finally worked it out by the last episode, but it really should have been clearer before now.

[farla.livejournal.com]

Well, there's still lots of episodes. I guess I'm uneasy because the good points just don't seem to have the narrative sanction behind them. But it could just be setting us up for a reversal.

[farla.livejournal.com]

However, I'm pretty sure that the reactionary way the benders in power have been handling the issue wasn't something we were meant to support. When Tarrlok used his "they will come for you and your families" rhetoric to get the council on his side, the benders' fear wasn't presented as particularly rational.

See, that's actually kind of what's bugging me. I definitely got the sense we aren't supposed to support how the council is acting, but it seemed like standard council problems, where a guy is more interested in political power than dealing with the real threat, rather than someone scaremongering and drumming up the divide.

I mean, the way the council is presented is Tarrlok vs Tenzin, which in show terms looks like it amounts to the person who wants to deal with the problem in a self-aggrandizing way and the person who wants the less flashy better solution. The nonbender position just doesn't exist. They're not even treating it as a nonbender thing but like the problem is solely Amon.

And all the actions Korra took that episode, especially her involvement with that morally ambiguous task-force and all its parallels with Amon's extremism, were based entirely on her being controlled by fear to take unethical or unreasonably-dangerous measures.

That was where I was expecting the episode to go, but the task force never became ambiguous, did it? I was expecting something when she was attacking those chi blockers, but no, the trainees get iced immediately and then the focus of the action is on the dangerous ones almost getting the drop on her. Then I was expecting another scene of them attacking people that did go wrong, but no, just a string of Korra being a hero. Then it ended with Korra getting beaten by the scary chi blockers and presenting her as the underdog. The episode's moral ended up being that she was blustering and trying to hide her fear, leading to her being foolhardy, but not that what she was doing had any unethical aspects. The main problem was just that the guy was using her to promote himself.

[(Anonymous)]

Yeah, you're right, Tarrlok's weaseling and political maneuvering has been given more focus than strictly necessary, but I don't think it takes too much away from why the rest of the council is going along with him. Then again, maybe if the other three reps ever SAID anything or took a STANCE, this wouldn't have to be such guesswork. I guess I saw it more as Tarrlok exploiting the other benders' fear for his own reasons, but if they weren't so eager to believe that they were justified in cracking down on the Equalists, his power grab wouldn't have worked at all. Someone using a class struggle to further their own political motives doesn't mean their supporters are absolved from blame, but I guess only time will tell whether the narrative treats it as such.

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.

[(Anonymous)]

To be fair I'm pretty sure the love triangle episode was just the creators trolling the fanbase because they know how seriously fans take shipping, and they weren't wrong, look at all the hate poor Asami gets for "stealing Mako from Korra."

[(Anonymous)]

*OP

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.

[learntwocook.livejournal.com]

Um, wow. You should look at the de-bending section here: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Headscratchers/TheLegendOfKorra

It's a long, long thread of people making increasingly ridiculous analogies to describe it, finally culminating in "[Energybending is] essentially rape." Yes, seriously, that's an actual quote.

why you do this people

[farla.livejournal.com]

Yeah they've been a pile of failure for some time now. Energybending is rape will go well with their bit about how Lolita was such a seductive little twelve year old.

[undersaffiresky.livejournal.com]

I've also found the pacing to be hit or miss. Some episodes have been better than others. (I liked the last episode, for instance. And the first three in terms of it.) I still find the show to be enjoyable even so.

I wonder how much of the issues they've been having is due to the fact Korra was originally only scheduled to be around 12 episodes? That would lead to a lot of condensing as they'd have less time to work with.

[venom-wolf.livejournal.com]

Instead of pro-bending, I would have liked to have seen more of Korra's airbending training and more exploration of Republic City. It would have been nice to see how the different benders adapted to an urban environment (other than the police force and gangs).