We’ll, it seemed to me that the wait worked was normally, you can cross between the two worlds at the portals at opposite poles. Close the poles and you close the doors. But during the convergence with the portals and each pole open, the two planes overlap and you can transition between the spirit and physical worlds anywhere you want. What’s not clear is if convergence happens even if the portals are closed on our side.
As for Unalaq, I guess I could buy him being naive enough to think merging the two worlds together again would be a good thing, in a Kumbaya-communing-with-the-spirits kind of way, not realizing that humanity spent that period cowering in fear on the backs of turtles…
But what he knows doesn’t have to be true. Vaatu lies well. A young Unalaq crossing over and exploring the spirit world who finds a powerful spirit locked up might be able to be told a story much as Wan was. Meanwhile a Civil War is just the sort of energy that gives Vaatu a competitive edge.
I must say that this episode, Beginnings, is the most perfect blending of old-world asiatic drawings, folklore, and cartoons that I’ve ever seen. It was truly, truly beautiful, visually stunning, and a fantastic story told in the old storytelling ways. I can’t tell you how much I loved it.
It’s been a few good episodes. Not a bad new Iroh voice.
Am I the only one who thinks that they are going out of their way to limit how much voice time the Korra voice actor does? She changes into a little girl in the Spirit World? Okay sure, plays up her possible innocence and vulnerability … but really? And it works. The only voice actor in these eps that bothers me now is Bumi.
So our previous questions a few posts ago have been answered. Unalaq knows about Vaatu’s nature and is working for him. And yeah, he’s the cackling villain type.
I can see the “fake” ending of the series finale - Vaatu is vanquished, but bonds with Unalaq as a desperation move, just like Rava with Wan, and Unalaq becomes the UnAvatar. Then Korra/whoever beats him again and we get the real ending. :rolleyes: Well, they could make it work okay, it just seems a bit predictable if this is the arc.
So anyway, this week, why the hell did Korra open the other spirit portal? If she didn’t, Jinora would be destroyed, and if she did, everything will get destroyed, so what did she have to gain? I thought maybe she had some sneaky plan, some head-fake, but she had nothing, and got her ass kicked immediately. And now she gets to have a “wait, you did what?! You idiot!” conversation with Tenzin.
It was weird that there’s a dichotomy between travelling “bodily” to the SW, vs “spiritually”. “I walked here, so I can still bend! Bwa ha ha!” said Unaloq. The hell? Obviously Korra will inject herself, bodily, into one of the portals so she can use her bending next, right? That predictable?
It was nice to see Iroh again. It makes me wonder if Zuko (reportedly still alive, last I heard) will make an appearance this season and bicker with him.
First, yeah, the classic “we’ve got your friend” thing was lame. Especially when she didn’t get the friend after anyway. That’s lame writing all around.
Also, I was really expecting her to point out that, as the Avatar, she’s powerful in both worlds. If she can go Avatar state and open the portal, she can use it to kick ass. This was a bit of a come-down after the recent uptick in quality.
The new voice actor for Iroh was kinda distracting. When Mako died, the new voice was so close to the old one that I don’t think I would’ve noticed the change if they hadn’t put the “in memorium” title card up.
Uncle Iroh’s voice didn’t sound that different to me in this episode vs the post-Mako Iroh in Avatar. So I checked, and sure enough, it’s the same guy who voiced Iroh in Book 3 of ATLAB, Greg Baldwin.
ETA: it’s a little weird that we have two different characters in this series named Iroh.
I thought when I was posting that “I bet someone is going to come in pointing out that it’s the same guy as in the second half of Avatar, I should really go to IMDB and make sure my ears weren’t fooling me”, but then I thought “no, I’m lazy, and I’m really sure that’s a different voice”.
Ah well, thanks for the info. Guess that’ll teach me to trust my ears.
The last four episodes all went up at once on the network website. Not sure if they’ve all aired though? I’ll avoid specific spoilers just in case.
But anyway’s, have been kinda meh on this show, but I thought the last four episodes were pretty good. Though the very end tried to cram in a bunch of random extra mythology and powers, which made it seem a little arbitrary (which a problem with the Avatar finale as well, with its “Giant-Sea-Turtle ex Machina”).
I really don’t know how I feel about the finale, on the one hand they went for WAY too many cheesy cliches and feel good nonsense that wasn’t even explained very well at all.
On the other hand there were some real losses and shake ups in the status quo that don’t get put back, but whether this leads anywhere interesting we will have to wait and see. I do know some fans are going to be angry at this.
Yeah all the episodes are out on the net so if you haven’t seen them my entire post is a spoiler.
Korra who? More like The Legend of Jinora.
The next Avatar will only have Korra to talk to. That poor bastard. “Did you try punching it really hard? Or how about crying? Those always worked for me!”
I like the status quo changes. The spirit world is a lot of fun, so more spirity goodness in s3 would be appreciated. I fear what further power creep the villain will undergo. What’s next, an alien fused with a black hole? This is why the embodiment of darkness and chaos is usually the last boss.
When Vaatu was set free his laugh was hilariously bad. He sounded like a robot or a doll that had its string pulled.
I can’t remember the last kiss in a kid’s cartoon that had a nice juicy string of saliva like that. Or any cartoon, actually. Maybe Aeon Flux.
The /co/ shitstorm was wildly entertaining.
One of the more meta views I’ve seen is the suggestion that Tenzin learning to find his own identity instead of trying to live up to the spiritual expectations of being Aang’s son reflects the writers struggling to step beyond the shadow of TLA.
The sticking points seem to be:
How Unalaq was a destroy-the-world mustache twirler.
Whether the Godzilla / Evangelion fights and all the deus ex machinas and boob dubstep lasers were awesome or stupid.
Trying to figure out how Jinora floating down in a ball of light makes any sense. For a second I thought she was going to become the new spirit of light, kinda like Yue became the moon spirit.
If Korra is the worst avatar ever.
Whether the past avatars are really gone forever or they can be retrieved in the future by exploring the spirit realm.
If leaving the spirit portals open is smart or comically irresponsible, especially given most of the spirits seem to be psychopaths. In the back story they pushed humanity to cowering on the backs of the lion turtles. Lots of jokes about how at the start of season 3 no one will have a face. The portals were opened by Vaatu, so maybe the worlds aren’t meant to be connected.
Everyone seems to to agree that Varrick and Bumi are awesome, and the mushroom scene was a kneeslapper. Lots of support for Mako and Korra breaking up too. Although I figure they’ll end up back together eventually. But at least saving the world didn’t magically save their relationship.
I think the main problem was just that it wasn’t really motivated by anything. We didn’t see anything that would make Korra think it was a good idea to leave the portals open. Both humans and spirits seemed pretty OK with the status-quo, and the flashbacks made the alternative seem a lot worse for humans.
But she just sort of randomly decides to leave them open.
The last ten minutes suffered from a lot of stuff like that. Things that weren’t really set up or explained in the show, but just kinda got thrown in there.
I just finished the four eps, and goddamn, I have never seen so many ass pulls in my life. Even setting aside the preposterous tinkerbell-Jinora thing. I may have more comments later, but need to throw things now.
I was going to wait until they actually aired to watch them but dang, with thread in progress I went on line. I was wondering which hint they’d follow through on, Unalaq’skids turning against him as they realized what he had become, Jinoroa’s clear extra-special spiritual connection, or … and they just did them all.
Still I liked it. The voice actor for Bumi is a bit less annoying. Korra is fine so long as she does not have too many lines.
The connection to the past avatars is gone but they are not. Connections can be remade in future seasons if a plot line benefits.
I also like the instinctual decision to leave it open. That’s her coming into her own, trusting her gut like Wan truted his. Wan made mistakes, interfering with the battle between Reva and Vatu just the most obvious. Maybe it took being freed from the voices of past lives for a new set of avatoar eyes to realize that it trying to keep the worlds apart was a mistake as well. Wan lived with the spirits; if not for Vatu running amok he could have guided the worlds into a harmony. With Unalaq subdued (but Vatu not gone, darkness is never gone) and Jinora’s native ability to connect, perhaps true harmony and balance between spirits and humanity is possible.
And more spirit world is good. I can see a series of plot lines that have her reconnect with previous avatars via the tree of memory and with Jinora’s spiritual expertise and in the process multiple avatar prequels all Korra-lite. That could be good as well.
Nonsense! Bumi was cuddling with that bunny monster!
Well, the light spirit cannot exist without the dark spirit, right? So Korra should go around the Earth Kingdom looking for a child with a dark spirit to murder. Kinda like general Zhao meets King Herod.
In case anyone missed it this week, the trailer for The Legend of Korra: Book 3 Change has been released. Article about why the early release plus trailer here (link) and just the video here (link).
I still liked Book 2’s trailer better but this was very good.
Spoilers from trailer [spoiler]
Lots of fighting and bending!
Dragons!
Earth Queen (I think)!
and most importantly
At what second of that video do we see Zuko? I watched it twice and didn’t catch it.
I notice everyone in that video still has their face. And there was not one thing that looked like a spirit, so Book 2 is apparently down the memory hole.
