“The Music Hour. Brought to you by Cabbage Corp. Republic City’s trusted name in technology.”
Interrupted by Amon whose fighters use a lot of technology. Does this feed the Amon = cabbage kid theory? Yes, but I feel this is just a red herring. Most likely Amon is connected to earlier disturbances that are hinted at in the flashbacks.
But still funny! 
That makes sense.
Has the issue of inter-bending marriage come up in the previous series?
OK, this was a better episode than last week. Not great, but better. I still loathe the sports stuff, but there were more interesting things going on that wasn’t sports or teen angst at least.
I totally missed the Cabbage Guy reference. Awesome. However, “Amon = cabbage kid?” IMO, the writers have been dropping a lot of clues that Amon isTarlock. And I hope he isn’t, because that seems so obvious that I’ll be really disappointed in the writers.It’s interesting that the refs were bribed to make sure the Wolfbats won. So who bribed them? The Equalists did. Amon was going to take the champ’s bending away, but he said to Korra just last week that he was saving her for last. So they made sure that the winning team wasn’t Korra’s, because that wasn’t part of the plan.
I’m surprised that Korra can’t counter the Equalist’s lightning yet, being a fire bending master and all. Apparently she can’t do lightning at all, or at least we having seen that. I’d think a bender who can manipulate lightning would have a leg up on all the guys with cattle prods.
So I’ve also been wondering: what’s happened to the Avatar State? Can Korra do it? Is she like Aang and can’t control it except as defense mechanism and she hasn’t been stressed enough to do so? Or can she just not do it at all (yet?) ? I’d think if she could do the AS, she’d have a good shot at pretty much knocking the dirigible in this ep right out of the sky. (Although I can see the AS being a bit problematic for Pro Bending matches. ;)) My son’s guess is that this turns on the plot point of Korra not being in touch at all with the spiritual side of the her training, which I think is a fine point, and maybe that’s how she eventually defeats Amon.
I wonder how much they are intentionally making Amon a bit sympathetic,Or I am am just twisted. But he really isn’t a pure evil bastard the way the Firelord was. It is pretty clear that Bender have established themselves a a privileged elite, and I am always behind a good “oppressed rise up and fight story.” He avoids killing , and seems to target for maximum strategic impact with least collateral damage. Taking away bending is obviously a dicky move, but viewed as necessary to remove the means as suppression from his POV, and he is fairly grey-area with some sympathetic features, rather than true-evil so far.
I agree, I think they are intentionally making it ambiguous whether Amon is eeeevil or not, and whether bending really is problematic or oppressive in a ‘modern’ society. OTOH, Amon’s group has to act in a way that can be viewed by Joe Average Nonbender as ‘just’ for propaganda reasons, or his movement won’t get the popular support he needs. So whatever he does must be tailored to that framework.
The report to Amon about the council vote and his reaction which was at least consistent with his not having been there pretty much flies in the face of the guess above.
Agreed with squeegee’s son that Korra’s getting in touch with her spiritual nature will be a key aspect of her developing what she needs to fight Amon effectively. I am also betting that part of that is learning to wait for the right moment, something Aang was keyed in on and why he recognized that Toph should be his Earthbending teacher. I suspect that Beifong eventually mentors Korra in her mother’s tradition.
Somehow I doubt that Amon’s actual motivation is as so far described, more than a tool for him to manipulate the non-bending populus. But it is indeed a bender flaw that they cannot recognize the imbalance of the current set-up. Republic City does not seem to be a place in which those graced with bending serve the greater good so much as one in which benders are the elite. The potential for this show to explore some moral ambiguity, to deal with populist demagoguery as a propaganda tool used by the sincere and the fascist to-be alike, and to deal with issues of older social structures clashing with the mores of a more modern world, are great. Still it may be too much to expect for the writers to go there very much.
Well, let me throw this out: Korra, when she’s a eventually a fully realized avatar, sees the truth of this: the world is out of balance because of bending. And she agrees in some sense with Amon’s stated (note: “stated”) goal at the end in some uber moment, and takes everyone’s bending away, permanently, because that’s the best thing for the world. So now everyone is equal, and there’s no need for the avatar. The End.
(Ha! We don’t have bending, and 20+th century history is plenty f’d up. But a world of benders might naively view ours as a nirvana of sorts, free from those goddamn benders.)
Ah, the Karen Traviss school of equality. Fuck that.
Heh, I’ve never read any of her books and still got that reference.
I’ve always been a little confused over whether benders are actually better than “normals”, at least in a fight. Sokka always held his own with little more than 133t boomerang skills, and people like Mai and Ty Lee were barely less dangerous than Azula, and quite capable of killing or incapacitating their targets in even less time. Bvending is pretty potent, but if it’s a matter of “You can train in Bending for the next ten years and be really good, or you can learn any of these martial artsd and be pretty much the same” then the upset seems a mite stupid.
Well, sure. But if we’re going to game shit out, that includes gaming out endings that suck, right? Also Diana Moon Glampers totally approves this ending, so there’s that.
So no comments on the latest ep? I can’t say it was epic, but it got the series arc chugging along a bit. Cabbage Guy gets screwed (but he’s the token butt monkey anyway), Sato is an Amon’s supplier of mecha suits, his daughter turns against him. Lotsa movement. But I can’t say it’s all that compelling yet. Aside from Korra, I can’t say I really care about these characters all that much. I hope they help that process along better.
Our heroes are playing right into Amon’s plans, the crackdown by the police is only going to increase most likely which the non-bender population will surely love. Beifong has vowed to resign and fight the Equalists outside the law, which again the non-benders will surely love and has no potential to get out of hand.
Does it strike anyone how so far no main character has been “wiped” by Amon?!
So far he wiped some firebender criminals, and the Wolfbat team waterbender, hell Amon has been very restrained. I’m wondering it is all an act, if they could bribe the officials why not the Wolfbats too? The whole sequence in The Revelation was pretty fishy too.
She has not appeared in the show yet but you can find a pic of Kya online, she is Aang’s daughter and is a water bender. So even with Aang and Kitara their children include water and air benders.
Not in the previous series, but like grude said, Aang and Katara’s kids are a water-bender, an air-bender, and a non-bender.
In the comics that are coming out now (The Promise Pt 1 is all that’s out now) they introduce inter-racial? nation? marriages.
IIRC, bending is shaped by the culture - maybe if a kid grows up in a mix of cultures they’re able to bend whichever element they like best?
Honestly, if it’s not all a con job one way or another I will be physically ill. I mean, this story is grotesquely cliche, to the point of being absurd, so much so that it either has to be a big fake-out or the worst sequel idea in history. I mean, Amon literally had the Avatar at his miercy, only to say, “Mwahahaha! I am so evil and you are so helpless! Now I shall walk away doing nothing whatsoever!”
Not to mention that screwing over the Avatar in that manner probably would not have been a big “martydom” moment. A useless Avatar would be something of an object of ridicule, and Korra isn’t capable of playing it up properly anyway. Aside from which, it basically says that Amon believes he can’t do anything about Korra, since a dea Avatar would be much worse for him in that way.
Yes that bugged me so much I wonder if one of these are true.
1.Amon cannot wipe the Avatar(subtype of can’t wipe anyone). But the fear and power over her it gives him is useful.
2.Amon can wipe the Avatar, BUT it would ruin his ability or cut him off somehow(isn’t the Avatar the link between the two worlds?).
Back when this show was first proposed someone posited that perhaps Aang’s distaste for violence had lead to him using spirit bending on more bender criminals, and now it has backfired and created a dystopian hell. :dubious: Sounded interesting, and would fit with the current Avatar having to fix the mistake of their predecessor(Roku allowing the rise of the Firenation).
Just watched today’s after having missed a few.
The comic bits seem to be missing the mark some. It also seems to be a bit dark for much of their likely audience. That said I think they are going in some interesting directions.
Thoughts?
You mean the part where Korra did a manga-styler freakout when Tenzin’s kid mentioned Korra liked Mako? And then the return bout where the kid screeched like a cat? Yeah, that was a bit off-key. I liked that in (very) small amounts in A:TLAB, but it just didn’t work here.
Sigh. This series continues to just not work so far. They telegraphed quite heavily that Tarlock isn’t Quite What He Seems, and wow, big surprise, he isn’t. We don’t know what he is yet, but yawn, no big surprise that he’s eeevil. I mean, seriously, there aren’t any other characters in the show who weren’t already intimates of the Avatar that weren’t already evil and had names except Tarlock and Sato. Lynn Beifong has a name, but she’s been shown to be not-evil. I’ll assume Mako, Mako-bro (he has a name, but he’s not interesting enough that I remember it) and Mako-girlfriend (ditto) are on the Avatar’s team. Who else is a character who isn’t related to Tenzin who could even be eevil? Nobody, so of course Tarlock is evil – there’s nobody else available!
I do have to wonder what newcomers to the series make of tonights episode: Tarlock! Is! A Blood Bender!! Nooos! There’s been no explanation what that even means, and even worse is Korra’s response: but the Moon Isn’t Full!! Really, they couldn’t lay a little groundwork here so that a new viewer understood even a little what that was about? Jeez, it’d be child’s play - Katara visits or something and mentions blood bending in passing and mumbo jumbo about the full moon. They could delete about 8 minutes of teen angst or bender sports in the last five episodes, and it wouldn’t be missed.
Sigh. I hope it gets better. I do like that the last two eps are pushing the series arc, finally. But the characters are just lame. I hold out hope that Korra finally makes contact with her past lives - specifically Aang! - maybe that will get things on track. But I’m not encouraged at this point.
Tarlock being a bad guy is no surprise (although figuring out what that back story is going to be is potentially some fun) but those are not the directions I am finding interesting.
I am more interested in the circumstance that Korra finds herself in as she recognized the truth of the non-bender woman’s statement: “You are our Avatar too.” How does she side in a more complex reality where the circumstance is not good vs evil but both sides having real points and both sides having those who do evil acts? I am more interested in how the show is exploring how political movements build power by demonizing “the other” and eliminating any middle ground. That’s tough stuff to pull off in a show that includes a pretty young demographic. As viewers we realized early that even if Amon is an exploitive demagogue the issues he raises have some justification, that Republic City looks like a bender elite, many perhaps very well intended, lording over a lower class of non-benders. I like that they are going there with that.
My complaint more than anything else is a more basic one: the emotional range voiced from the characters seems a bit flat; the dynamics between the characters just not either feeling real or interesting. The comedic asides just pasted in, not placed in a way that they relief dramatic tension or really work. Pulling off that tough stuff won’t happen unless those basic building blocks are there.
Korra’s conflicts could be interesting, her bravado vs her insecurity, her learning to deal with her limitations and the limitations that her role requires, so on. But as executed there is some spark missing.
I am hoping it begins to click together more.
But that’s what’s disappointing. Tarlock should have been a red herring or perhaps we’d get our fears dispelled, only to have them dashed later. Or something. The way they did it was terrible writing, a prime example of the Law of Conservation of Characters causing things to be terribly predictable.
I too find this interesting. There’s definitely some ambiguity there, as there is with Amon’s actions and stated (note: “stated”) purpose. I’m skeptical they can pull this off, or even that they’re setting it up that way. But I’ll hold out some hope.
Yes, all of those. Especially the first. Mako-girlfriend is the worst example – delivery is entirely flat, doesn’t seem to fit the emotional mood of the dialog. But also Mako and Bolin (hey, I remembered his name!). OTOH, Korra, Tenzin, and Tenzin’s kids’ performances are fine IMO, and Gramma Katara was voiced perfect. But, yeah, overall the basics are uneven at best.