Basically by just not letting him be a true believer. Honestly if he was a bender but hated himself because of his evil dad I think that would've been cool.
Because they b***hed out and made him a bender. If he was just a normal guy that learned some kind of chi blocking technique that took away bending that would have sufficed.
It even had precedence since chi blocking and pressure point disabling was already established as an anti-bender technique since ATLA, and they could have kept traveling down that path with more and more non-benders taking it up. But nah, dude's a water bender that figured out how to give people blood clots and he doesn't even give a shit about his whole shlock to begin with.
I think him being a bender could still work with the right motivation
The real problem is they set up this whole conflict in the world itself - not everyone is a bender, and there's a growing discontent between the haves and the have-nots
That whole thing is just immediately swept under the rug. 'Yeah maybe benders are shitty towards non benders, but your leader is evil so that immediately invalidates your discontent lel'
They lacked the confidence to address the core ideological conflict of the season, so they decided instead to give Korra an out. They do this basically every season.
>Amon's actually a bender! >Unalaq's actually the antichrist! >Zaheer just wants to kill the avatar! >Kuvira's got nukes and concentration camps!
So instead of having to defeat her opponents on an ideological level, Korra can just bravely defend the status quo without assuming any particular stance of her own. It wouldn't be an issue if they weren't pretending things were gray and complex up until they flip the black-and-white switch so that poor dumb Korra doesn't have to hurt her brain trying to think about the morality of her actions anymore.
It's not nonsensical, but it makes it too easy. Korra had all the tools available to say Amon was just a demagogue who was using benders as a political scapegoat in order to elevate himself to power without actually offering anything to the people except some vague promise of equality while he was simultaneously giving Sato de facto control of heavy industry. But that would require Korra to have grown over the course of the season and be able to comport herself as an avatar and make a compelling argument. Unfortunately the writers had wasted too much time having her make an ass of herself chasing Mako's wiener, so instead she just air punches Amon out of a window and he conveniently reveals himself in front of everyone and then Tarrlok has the courtesy of writing himself and Amon out of the story.
Even Amon's lying can be made interesting and consistent with everything that happened in the previous episodes. Amon's characterisation in the show still makes sense. Where the show sucks is that Amon's backstory is relegated to a 10 minute exposition dump and is portrayed mostly as entirely invalidating Amon's points.
Amon's points are already invalid. Outside the council, the most powerful people in republic city, all the industrialists, are non-benders. Amon creates the Republic City backlash and curfews against non-benders. There's an easy path for Korra to actually beat Amon in a political battle or a battle of wills, either to get Amon to stand down or to destroy the organisation and actually have Korra play a part in the real change Republic City needed (getting rid of the Council and installing an actual representative government).
Frick, I'd have the Lieutennant actually reveal he knows Amon is a bender, and doesn't care. The Lieutennant, like Amon, is driven by hatred and vengeance. Korra can't beat the Equalists by going "you're a poopyhead bender", she has to both destroy the Equalists militarily and deconstruct their entire point, and the show did actually lay the groundwork for that. That's the point of the hobo city living in harmony or Korra realising that Tarrlok is a sack of shit too. But it chickens out at the last minute and overly simplifies things, either because it needed to be understood by children or because they wasted time on bringing in a completely random character to have a fightscene for most of the last episode (General Iroh II).
>they wasted time on bringing in a completely random character to have a fightscene for most of the last episode (General Iroh II).
But you don't get it, he looks like and has the same voice as another character I know. How else am I supposed to söy out if they take that away?
It's been a whilte, but Amon isn't a hypocrite though? He spent most of his life getting abused and exploited by his blood-bending father and saw how bending can and is used to subjugate people who are weaker. He was extreme in his ideology, but he actually believed what he was doing was right. Him being a waterbender doesn't change that.
That more aptly describes Tarrlok's experience with bending than his brother's. Amon reveled in his power as a kid, he rebuked his father not for being an abuser, but for being weak and was strongly implied to covet the Avatar's power to remove bending.
I'll have to rewatch it later but I could've sworn Tarrlok all but confirmed that he was anti-bending or some shit.
No, yeah, Amon absolutely believes in the shit he says.
Up to maybe him complimenting Mako's bending.
I think the one thing I'll hold against him is him killing his second in command for finding him out. There should've been at least people higher up that knew he was a bender, but it was probably written like that to make sure the audience didn't see him as too sympathetic.
Tarrlok did confirm something of the sort. But that was just his own postulation of his brother's mindset which he can't be sure of/the writer just spelling it out for the audience. When you actually examine what we're shown about Amon's past it leaves a lot of questions.
While true, and if not hypocrites, psychotically incompetent, it undermines what is otherwise an interesting premise for the setting to address... but it's also a stupid premise, because being able to do kung fu really good doesn't make someone a powerful politician in China and never has. Is the implication that benders are forcing non-benders out of power through physical violence? Do benders force people to vote for other benders? Is bending power a useful thing for a politician to have? Does bending make someone better at business or are they just destroying their competitors with rocks, water, and fire?
So the inequality issue is fricking baffling after a moment of consideration, but also as the show clearly demonstrates, a bit of part-time training and equipment is all it takes to turn non-benders into a considerable threat to any bender, which was already established through Sokka anyways. So, anyone with an above room temp. IQ starts to wonder how are non-benders oppressed, why are they oppressed, and if it's so easy for them to fight back, how did this ever become an issue?
And then on top of it all, their mysterious leader who hates benders and has very convincing facepaint scars, has mysterious superpowers anyways that inexplicably allow him to take bending away from people and that's just not a thing that's ever really explored to any satisfaction except by handwavily saying "uhhh bloodbending or whatever"
Sokka isn't remotely a considerable threat to a bender. He gets better, but he's never on the level of Katara or Toph or Zuko.
What it seems to be is that monopolisation of violence means power, and being innately more capable of violence has in the past created the systems of power in this world, and now that system self-perpetuates.
Especially in a place as nepotistic as Republic City. Daughter of the friend of the Avatar, Police Chief. Son of the Avatar, council member. Different son of the Avatar, General. Different grandson of a friend of the Avatar, even more important general.
Katara, Toph, and Zuko are all master benders who can single-handedly fight small armies. Sokka is shown to, at minimum, be able to fight and win against benders who aren't main character masters.
It's a consequence of conventional arms being done away with because they don't fit the 1920s aesthetic while also not being able to replace them with guns because this is a kids show. Unironically the shock gloves they introduce would be worse at fending off a bender than something simple like a spear or a bow just because it's a lot shorter range.
I don't know if it speaks to the skill of benders being lowered that a bunch of civilians doing what amounts to self-defense training on the side are able to become a meaningful threat to the average bender in Republic City. They could have been a lot more inventive and creative with their methods for taking down benders, showing that it takes a hitsquad of equalists with net guns and other non-lethal weapons to take down an average skill bender... but there's a lot of shit they should have done to fix their ideas and instead quadrupled down on their dumbest ones, like bending being retconned into a mutant power that some people just have, absent all spirituality. Then they later established that mutant power is just something Lion Turtles could turn on or off with energy bending which is carried genetically, I guess.
In fact, Zaheer was right according to the series, all the imbalance shit started because Wan separated Vaatu and Raava, by killing the avatar, Raava would be reborn from Vaatu's body and they would be united forever since they would both be trapped in the tree.
but I doubt the writers thought anything more of "bad anarchism"
>All the imbalance shit started because Wan separated Vaatu and Raava
Not untrue, but it also eventually led to the spirit hoard, who were driving man from their own land, being pushed back into the spirit world. Moreover the ATLA verse had generally maintained an era of peace with the Avatar's guidance as far as we're shown. The only exception to this rule was the 100 year war, the time where the Avatar was totally absent. Zaheer even cites the 100 year war as a point against authority failing to realize it was only thanks to the benevolent authority of the Avatar was the world allowed to be saved
I think somewhere along the line people confused sympathy and empathy. I get writing characters to be human and understandable and shit but that doesn't mean you have to sympathize with the guy blowing up orphanages.
More or less. They're very pointedly attaching the villains to big questions (the relationship between benders and non-benders, the relationship between spirits and humanity, the cost of freedom, the cost of order) and then not really directly tackling those questions. S4 was the closest with Korra actually talking it out with Kuvira in the end, but even then they still felt the need to have the nukes and the concentration camps just to make sure you didn't sympathize with Kuvira TOO much.
In fact, Zaheer was right according to the series, all the imbalance shit started because Wan separated Vaatu and Raava, by killing the avatar, Raava would be reborn from Vaatu's body and they would be united forever since they would both be trapped in the tree.
but I doubt the writers thought anything more of "bad anarchism"
Man, that series had so damn much potential. Before that awful season finale, I could see it helping finally create a niche for non-comedy animation in America. It had a relatively mature plot building up from an already-successful previous children's show, which perfectly mirrored how the kdis who grew up with that one were now ready for a more serious -- in a sense, the universe, grew together with its audience.
Then they went and botched it all. And the following seasons followed the same path of good premise with terrible resolution.
Korea has more in common with wuxia (which bits clearly based on) than cape sjit though moron. Cape shit inbgeneral doesn't have an overarching story. It's villain of the week for the most part with the odd recurring villain. Avatar and Korra have an overarching story with a beginning and end
By chickening out on making a proper tragedy, instead of a comedy. No joking, Korra jumping to her death at the end instead of magical aang fixing her would have made the show several steps up better. But regardless, to discuss Amon directly: They fricked him up the instant they made him the big bad instead of a genuine threat. This picture sums it up nicely. Had the show focused on having a rock-paper-scissors style conflict where Amon has to worry about the criminal underworld so you could focus on how he spreads his message to the common man you could have had a really good interplay of political intrigue. Instead, we get man acts bad because he's bad man from trauma inflicted by bad mans bad dad. So you can just punch him to win, not actually defeat his argument which was STILL VALID AND PROVABLY DANGEROUS by the end of the season.
I think it's a lot of people's fanfics. the details of everyone's idea of fixing Season 1 of Korra are generally different but the core ideas are pretty much the same at this point I know cause it's also mine
What’s yours? My idea is that the Equalists were allies in the beginning, and Korra and the crew fight a crime syndicate while getting help from The Equalists and Amon who says he wants to help protect people but secretly wants to usurp their position so he can gain influence for the movement.
He brought up an idea that, in theory, could've been interesting. Are people who don't win the genetic lottery being held back. No one really gave a frick during ATLA because it was war time. Everyone was trying not to die. But now that it's peacetime people can start noticing things not linked to immediate survival. Like
>Hey,I just noticed I can't even get past Ba Sing Se's front gate without being a bender! >The power company exclusively hires Firebenders who can produce lightning
It's not to say that there couldn't be nuance there. After all the richest guy in town is a non bender but it could've been an interesting conflict. Especially since Amon's chief ability is taking away bending. If bending isn't critical to living in this society then why are you afraid to lose it? Yes the conflict is fake but I think an interesting plot point was that initially it was just a small but loud group making trouble. But as law enforcement began escalating force, people who are on the fence began joining Amon. Because they'd unintentionally validated his narrative.
Worst than any of this is Korra herself. All that godlike power but she doesn't know shit. I don't mean that as an insult. The White Lotus fricked her over. The avatar is supposed to travel the world. Not just to learn the elements but to learn the various cultures of the people there protecting. But the White Lotus locked her in a box and trained her via flown in teachers and textbooks. So when she left she found herself needing to save Republic City without knowing a thing about it.
Man this show could be so interesting with a complicated premise in peacetime where the answers aren't black and white and wrong please everyone...oh. Love triangles and a shitty twist. Okay that's cool too.
brings up, I think an underrated part of Korra's backstory is just how much the White Lotus fricked her over by raising her isolated from society in a compound and only seemed to have taught her bending and their outdated way of life. So either
>Lean way more into that. The focus of Korra in Republic City isn't her living with Tenzin and immediately revealing herself as the avatar to the world at large, but her trying to experience the real world by living low in Republic City for a lot longer. If she becomes a Pro-Bender, it's by joining an amateur team and under a false name. >Korra even befriends some Equalist sympathisers and realises both the enormous flaws of Republic City and, after even helping the Equalists akin to your idea, the Equalist. >By the time the revolution starts kicking into overdrive, a Korra that still doesn't know airbending but is way more independent and knows a lot more about the situation personally rises up as a counter revolutionary figure, trying to defeat Amon while refusing to let things return to the Status quo.
Or the bolder, Metal Gear version. >The Equalist Revolution is a Lie. >The whole thing is a test set up by a splinter group of the White Lotus who really, really disagreed with Korra's education and upbringing, believing it would create an out of touch, failure of an Avatar like Kuruk. >So, one of their own takes on the persona of "Amon" and they set up the Equalist revolution. >Amon being Korra's perfect antithesis isn't just chance, it's them knowing all about Korra and working out exactly what would be her perfect adversary. >Korra defines herself as a great bender? Amon wants to destroy bending >Korra sucks spiritually? Amon claims to be the new Spiritual messiah
If I ever wrote it, I'm torn if This Amon would only be a few years older than Korra and would use his alter-ego to get close to Korra and try to push her to being the Avatar they want her to be.
I dig this, especially the idea of her not immediately revealing herself, though I do think Tenzin should still be in the picture. Like Korra could be on her own but she still goes to lessons on Air Temple Island.
Even Amon's lying can be made interesting and consistent with everything that happened in the previous episodes. Amon's characterisation in the show still makes sense. Where the show sucks is that Amon's backstory is relegated to a 10 minute exposition dump and is portrayed mostly as entirely invalidating Amon's points.
Amon's points are already invalid. Outside the council, the most powerful people in republic city, all the industrialists, are non-benders. Amon creates the Republic City backlash and curfews against non-benders. There's an easy path for Korra to actually beat Amon in a political battle or a battle of wills, either to get Amon to stand down or to destroy the organisation and actually have Korra play a part in the real change Republic City needed (getting rid of the Council and installing an actual representative government).
Frick, I'd have the Lieutennant actually reveal he knows Amon is a bender, and doesn't care. The Lieutennant, like Amon, is driven by hatred and vengeance. Korra can't beat the Equalists by going "you're a poopyhead bender", she has to both destroy the Equalists militarily and deconstruct their entire point, and the show did actually lay the groundwork for that. That's the point of the hobo city living in harmony or Korra realising that Tarrlok is a sack of shit too. But it chickens out at the last minute and overly simplifies things, either because it needed to be understood by children or because they wasted time on bringing in a completely random character to have a fightscene for most of the last episode (General Iroh II).
It's not nonsensical, but it makes it too easy. Korra had all the tools available to say Amon was just a demagogue who was using benders as a political scapegoat in order to elevate himself to power without actually offering anything to the people except some vague promise of equality while he was simultaneously giving Sato de facto control of heavy industry. But that would require Korra to have grown over the course of the season and be able to comport herself as an avatar and make a compelling argument. Unfortunately the writers had wasted too much time having her make an ass of herself chasing Mako's wiener, so instead she just air punches Amon out of a window and he conveniently reveals himself in front of everyone and then Tarrlok has the courtesy of writing himself and Amon out of the story.
It's a kid show, it was never going to have this much depth. This is also probably why they wanted to do the whole "game of thrones" approach to the live action show.
No sure, you're right. But I think there's a middle ground between "Amon's makeup falls off" and "Seventeen hour political debate in the house of Elemental commons".
I didn't say it was because it was a cartoon though you fricking disingenuous moron, I said it's because it's a kid show, which it is.
No sure, you're right. But I think there's a middle ground between "Amon's makeup falls off" and "Seventeen hour political debate in the house of Elemental commons".
I mean, they had the murder-suicide.
A middle ground would be nice but the foundation wasn't there. A Korra that's 50 minutes and on network that would let them go into darker elements without upsetting parents would have been a better fit
>I said it's because it's a kid show, which it is.
You assume that because it's a cartoon. There's a murder-suicide and a woman who asphyxiates to death on-screen.
>There's a murder-suicide and a woman who asphyxiates to death on-screen.
Actually baffling that they could SHOW this happen but they couldn't actually SAY "she died".
Reducing animation to being "a kids show" is a side issue worth discussing, but I remember the creators saying they wanted the series to be for the original audience who had grown up by the time of LoK release.
I didn't say it was because it was a cartoon though you fricking disingenuous moron, I said it's because it's a kid show, which it is.
[...]
A middle ground would be nice but the foundation wasn't there. A Korra that's 50 minutes and on network that would let them go into darker elements without upsetting parents would have been a better fit
It could still be kid friendly and have 20 minute episodes. The best way I can think to do it is literally remove the comic book style villainy. Make Amon not a caricature, but instead a rebel that truly believes and is leading people honestly against the weapon of bending. Make Tarrlok a proper politician currying favor with high society and political savvy working with people like Sato to empower the people against the curse of bending. And make Korra the demi-god she is as a sports star that shows the value in bending as a gift instead of weapon/curse. Let kids think about things.
Who is the best super hero? Ironman, Superman, or Daredevil?
You're still putting words in my mouth, I never said it was kids because it was animated, I said it was for kids because it fricking was. It was on a kids network and aimed primarily at a younger audience even though it was made with the original fans in mind.
Obviously they can't make it TOO complex, but it is skewed towards an older demographic than AtLA and as I said originally >It wouldn't be an issue if they weren't pretending things were gray and complex up until they flip the black-and-white switch so that poor dumb Korra doesn't have to hurt her brain trying to think about the morality of her actions anymore.
Every season is playing at complexity for a while before they inevitably cop out and reluctantly let Korra punch her problems away. The result is the worst of all worlds. Korra looks like an inept jackass who doesn't learn after spending most of the season doping around complicated issues and the villains end up looking like shit. And it's not like you need to spend the whole season playing politics to handle the conflict properly. You basically just need a couple good speeches/exchanges delivered at key moments. It's not THAT difficult. LoK just makes it look difficult.
The discourse around Korra was interesting to me because a LOT of people accused Korra of being a Mary Sue during its heyday. Including me actually. But I don't think that's entirely true anymore. Yes Korra does get several forced happy endings but that's rarely a result of Korra being impossibly competent and more everyone else taking stupid pills halfway through the season. S2 was when hatred of Korra was at its peak but really the entire world of Avatar went psychotic in this season. Suddenly spirits are either evil or good? There's a spirit Satan now? I thought the premise of the season was a political conflict of the Southern Water Tribe refusing to kneel to the North because they're half a world away and their cultures have diverged over time? How'd we get here?!? But because Korra is the main character, she takes 100% of the blame. Yes she was an irrational b***h in this season but the fact that people start turning their backs on her and she starts doubting herself makes that a character flaw, which every character should have at least one. It's just that because everyone, including the world itself, has become an irreverent psycho or pointless, any goodwill to Korra's stressful low point was already gone by the time the climax that made no sense hit. There are Gundam mechs in Avatar now. Korra's characterization is the least of the series problems.
Also the show had Korra fire lasers from her breasts. I should be happy about that but I'm not.
I mean they can kinda get away with this one because asian mysticism has always had good and evil spirits, there was never any neutrality aspect to them.
I think the main problem is the way they make the dark spirits have a particular look. Makes them feel generic, which was definitely not the way to go with them.
3 months ago
Anonymous
Yeah.
I mean... the facestealer is an unambiguously malevolent spirit - and yet, everything about his form and function is distinct and memorable.
On the other hand, the corrupted spirits in Korra, all spirits actually, are just painfully generic. I don't think I can clearly remember what a single one looks like - except for the Lemur furry, and that is only due to the body horror scene.
The thing about spirits in AtLA, they had gravity and mystique. Just from looking at one, you knew its existence was metaphysically significant - that it was not just some glowing guy or a silly-looking animal, that it was a representation of a force, phenomena, or abstract concept that is only tangentially understood. Even the human spirits projected a certain weight about them - imbued with profound wisdom as they were, literal ascended beings.
3 months ago
Anonymous
>I mean... the facestealer is an unambiguously malevolent spirit
Is it? It helps Aang with the Northern Water Tribe problem and helps him realise the important of the two fish swimming around, basically for free.
And when Kuruk/Yangchen fricked up in their duties as Avatar, it punished them.
It's certainly not a very nice spirit, but it works by certain rules and sticks to them, and it has its own pretty fricked code of justice. It's more feylike dickish neutral than pure evil.
3 months ago
Anonymous
That's back when spirits were fae like entities from a separate world, and not just weird pokemon from parallel wacky land.
3 months ago
Anonymous
You and I are probably not going to come to an agreement on this if you think fey don't qualify as evil. The dude wants to steal faces. Even without going into the root of his motivation being revolting against his mother, a benevolent spirit. Had Aang not been warned about him, and just happened across Koh, Koh would have gleefully stolen his face. No warning period, no introduction, just JUMPSCARE!!!! You react you lose. Sure he doesn't, in the limited time we see him, torture Aang to evoke an expression and because he got the warning there's a pattern to the way he operates, he is in that respect predictable. But I don't know if that breeches into of "rules". Even if he warn did that doesn't make what he does fair, right, good, or ambivalent. Jigsaw isn't neutral because "Technically I didn't kill you, the trap did. Technically there was a way out, you just needed to regain consciousness while submerged in a bathtub and open your eyes underwater before reflexively surfacing for air which would pull the plug, which would flush the key you needed down the drain beyond your reach forever, before you have any cognition of your surroundings, or are even made aware you're in a death trap designed by a low-IQ Riddler on budget".
Even getting away from all that: I seriously doubt Koh was motivated to help Aang. Though yes, I must admit, he did tell the truth. But I doubt it was just because he enjoys conversation, or helping. I think Koh's motive was to keep Aang in his domain, engaged with him, so he would have more opportunities to provoke a reaction and steal his face. So he started getting whimsical and metaphorical to try to confuse him, instead of the initial plan to scare or shock him.
3 months ago
Anonymous
NTA, but I would say Koh isn't and evil spirit because of what amounts to semantics? Koh is a spirit who chooses to do evil acts. Where as the evil spirits are more accurately described as corrupted spirits.
S2 really burnt through a lot of the show's good will and the rest of the series was hampered by that. Korra really does have a legitimate character arc in S3-S4 but it's too little too late.
they could have easily had korra callout amon on his bullshit during the final fight and the season end with ACTUAL changes being made. and if they didn't have enough time to properly set it up than they should have cut a lot of the romance bullshit and saved it for later(never)
They should have had season two be about Korra trying to regain her bending and the water tribe conflict instead of being about magic kites and a fricking dark Avatar
He brought up an idea that, in theory, could've been interesting. Are people who don't win the genetic lottery being held back. No one really gave a frick during ATLA because it was war time. Everyone was trying not to die. But now that it's peacetime people can start noticing things not linked to immediate survival. Like
>Hey,I just noticed I can't even get past Ba Sing Se's front gate without being a bender! >The power company exclusively hires Firebenders who can produce lightning
It's not to say that there couldn't be nuance there. After all the richest guy in town is a non bender but it could've been an interesting conflict. Especially since Amon's chief ability is taking away bending. If bending isn't critical to living in this society then why are you afraid to lose it? Yes the conflict is fake but I think an interesting plot point was that initially it was just a small but loud group making trouble. But as law enforcement began escalating force, people who are on the fence began joining Amon. Because they'd unintentionally validated his narrative.
Worst than any of this is Korra herself. All that godlike power but she doesn't know shit. I don't mean that as an insult. The White Lotus fricked her over. The avatar is supposed to travel the world. Not just to learn the elements but to learn the various cultures of the people there protecting. But the White Lotus locked her in a box and trained her via flown in teachers and textbooks. So when she left she found herself needing to save Republic City without knowing a thing about it.
Man this show could be so interesting with a complicated premise in peacetime where the answers aren't black and white and wrong please everyone...oh. Love triangles and a shitty twist. Okay that's cool too.
Forgive me if I’m wrong since it’s been a while since I watched the show, but did they outlaw Chi Blocking? That could have been an interesting plot point about how the most effective fighting technique a nonbender could learn to counter a bender was outlawed.
I don't think it was outlawed, just relatively unknown. We only see Equalists do it. The council outlawing chi blocking would've turned Amon into an instant hero since attacking non benders only means of countering bending would've instantly put them in an antagonistic role. Especially since there's nothing to say benders can't do it, just that there's no reason for them to learn it. Benders do everything non benders do and then some. Being a non bender may as well be a disability in their world.
It being unknown feels weird, you would think that the Kyoshi warriors would make use of it since Ty Lee said she was going to teach them at the end of ATLA. And unless they became irrelevant or dissolved people would still be aware of it. I mean it was only like 70 years I’m sure someone would have written about it or something.
The real question is why do only the Equalists know it? Lightning bending dripped down from the royal family to common Firebenders, chi blocking should be a common form to non benders.
Lightning bending being common can easily be explained as Zuko allowing royal secrets to be passed down to the common people.
What can't be explained is how Lightning bending went from one of the highest forms of firebending requiring perfect tranquility to a basic school a schmuck like Mako could do to work at a power plant.
3 months ago
Anonymous
Yeah that's another thing. Lightning bending is described as requiring the user to feel nothing while using it. "The cold blooded fire" as Iroh describes it. Iroh could do it as a result of years of spiritual and physical training. Ozai and Azula could do it on account of them being psychopaths in addition to them being fire bending prodigies. But Zuko couldn't on account that he has to many emotions to just turn them off. So why the frick can Mako do it?
3 months ago
Anonymous
it's just one of the many inconsistencies in Korra. Like making bending LMAO TURTLE POWER instead of a genetic and spiritual aspect like it was in the first show.
3 months ago
Anonymous
Other problem with lightningbending becoming commonplace is why would you even teach it to the average joe. Lightningbending is shown to be a killing tool, incredibly lethal to the point a single head on strike is a death sentence. Iroh only entertained teaching Zuko it as a means for taking down his sister, and Iroh himself only ever used it once outside of demonstration and that was just to bust down a wall. Unlike other bending styles there is no practical use for teaching it to people, if someone needs a self defense tool regular bending works just fine. And the generators are stupid because you could make far more power having firebenders heat up a steam engine, or waterbenders move a turbine, or get earth benders to directly move the magnets themselves. There is no point for having lightningbending becoming commonplace.
[...]
Lightning generation was never a royal family technique kept away from the common man. It was just an insanely difficult and lethal technique only a select few Firebenders could harness. I don't know where this misconception keeps coming from
This is true, Iroh in describing the technique to Zuko never alludes to it being a royal bloodline secret. Think the misconception though came from the fact you only ever see the royals using it. Which ignores the fact that in general in avatar outside of the family you don't actually see that many firebenders who can be considered masters, and the ones you do are people who wouldn't want to lightningbend even if they could like Jeong Jeong.
3 months ago
Anonymous
The thing I hate about Saito's lightning bending plant is that, until spirit vine power, it was the only power source they bothered to show. Seemingly implying they do not understand how electricity works well enough to produce the power for their technology without firebenders that can lightning bend. Which implies Saito's mech army has a logistical need for these benders. Seems like something that would have been discussed between the two leaders of the coup onscreen.
considering how Aang's ability to energy bend came from the lion turtles and the fact that we had no reason to believe bloodbending could be used to steal someone's bending Amon's story could have easily been real
The dominant theory from the jump was that Amon was a nonbender somehow granted spirit bending. His fake origin story is 100% meant to make the audience, that saw TLA, think this too. Unironically the lie/the obvious was more interesting. We get TWO episodes dedicated to explaining the backstory to how Amon's bloodbending is possible, tie it back to Aang and the Gaang having to pretty much do the same thing. Whereas actually having a spirit hate benders, and granting the bending discipline that we only know one application of to him works. It works if he doesn't really know the thing he does is a kind of bending. The fact he can't bend any element "proves" to him or his followers this is something apart.
WHEN AANG GOT ZAPPED BY AZULA'S LIGHTNING IN THE FINALE OF SEASON 2 HE DIED FOR A BRIEF MOMENT, CREATING A NEW REINCARNATION OF THE AVATAR WHICH IS AMON! THAT'S WHY HE CAN ENERGY BEND AND TAKE PEOPLE'S BENDING AWAY!
Sarah, Buffy ended over 20 years ago, go back to losing out on roles in lego games.
Lightning bending being common can easily be explained as Zuko allowing royal secrets to be passed down to the common people.
What can't be explained is how Lightning bending went from one of the highest forms of firebending requiring perfect tranquility to a basic school a schmuck like Mako could do to work at a power plant.
Lightning generation was never a royal family technique kept away from the common man. It was just an insanely difficult and lethal technique only a select few Firebenders could harness. I don't know where this misconception keeps coming from
A lot of the details of the world building are really inconsistent. Like you would expect a good number of people to learn chi blocking but for some reason it’s just only used by the Equalists. I mean like you said it would be an extremely useful skill for both benders and nonbenders.
3 months ago
Anonymous
>you would expect a good number of people to learn chi blocking
Chi blocking as a concept has that weird issue of being useless until its OP. Until someone has nearly mastered it, they will essentially just lose in every attempt at using it in a real conflict. It requires too much talent for too little reward. Thematically it makes sense, but narratively its bad. The separatists using shock gloves as their main method of defense makes way more sense cause you can train an old woman how to slap people fairly easily, and they had numbers on their side.
3 months ago
Anonymous
>Until someone has nearly mastered it, they will essentially just lose in every attempt at using it in a real conflict.
Even if the user isn't Ty Lee-tier, the fact that there are points on the body that will disable someone when struck would be of great interest to anyone who gets in fights on a regular basis - including and especially the fricking police, who do it for a living and often come up against benders.
3 months ago
Anonymous
>especially the fricking police, who do it for a living and often come up against benders.
Oh I completely agree on this point! So why don't the metal benders? Why don't the gangsters? Why don't the White Lotus? Dai Lee? But I will also agree that using better weapons than shock gloves (shock lance? Shock baton?) would just be better to train your average person in.as suggested by
It's a consequence of conventional arms being done away with because they don't fit the 1920s aesthetic while also not being able to replace them with guns because this is a kids show. Unironically the shock gloves they introduce would be worse at fending off a bender than something simple like a spear or a bow just because it's a lot shorter range.
And in real life we have ways to disable people that the average person can use to disable people way stronger than themselves (choke holds, arm bars, etc) but they have the issue where halfway knowing how to do it usually gets you into more trouble than not knowing.
Korra did busted a Chi blocking school but the practice itself might not be illegal to teach.
https://i.imgur.com/NHwCPbN.png
How did they frick up such a great villain so badly?
The only "point" that Amon had was grievances. His plan must be something other than touching everyone's forehead.
He brought up an idea that, in theory, could've been interesting. Are people who don't win the genetic lottery being held back. No one really gave a frick during ATLA because it was war time. Everyone was trying not to die. But now that it's peacetime people can start noticing things not linked to immediate survival. Like
>Hey,I just noticed I can't even get past Ba Sing Se's front gate without being a bender! >The power company exclusively hires Firebenders who can produce lightning
It's not to say that there couldn't be nuance there. After all the richest guy in town is a non bender but it could've been an interesting conflict. Especially since Amon's chief ability is taking away bending. If bending isn't critical to living in this society then why are you afraid to lose it? Yes the conflict is fake but I think an interesting plot point was that initially it was just a small but loud group making trouble. But as law enforcement began escalating force, people who are on the fence began joining Amon. Because they'd unintentionally validated his narrative.
Worst than any of this is Korra herself. All that godlike power but she doesn't know shit. I don't mean that as an insult. The White Lotus fricked her over. The avatar is supposed to travel the world. Not just to learn the elements but to learn the various cultures of the people there protecting. But the White Lotus locked her in a box and trained her via flown in teachers and textbooks. So when she left she found herself needing to save Republic City without knowing a thing about it.
Man this show could be so interesting with a complicated premise in peacetime where the answers aren't black and white and wrong please everyone...oh. Love triangles and a shitty twist. Okay that's cool too.
so basically korra's main problem is pic related of wanting to have complex villains but not being competent enough to actually refute their claims
I have mixed feelings (mostly negative) about these comics. The idea that magic powers is random isn't really more empowering than genetics. It is mostly a jab at Harry Potter (good but there are plenty of muggle-borns) and a defense of TLJ against TRoSW. The second comic is about Sympathetic Villains but the "sympathy" is usually just from grievances rather than any solutions.
My solution is to make Amon just another figure head in the Equalist movement rather than its founder. This is make more like how it was introduced in the first part of the show, a bigoted group that existed when Aang was still around but not yet a terrorist operation thus people still go around advertising on the streets. Amon would grow more popular than the old guard of the movement and turn the people against the founders. He would instead give other people Energybending which is dangerous. Team Avatar would stop the Founders' plans only to realize that there could be countless Energybenders living the shadows.
>"Frick bending, we need to remove all bending from the world" >"What about bender children born from nonbender parents?" >"oh yeah I totally forgot that was a thing lol, no one mention it"
>What about bender children born from nonbender parents?"
I don't think that that is a thing. At least, one of the parents needs to be a bender.
It's kinda a huge deal to both of them, and a point of pain with the girls and their parents.
Katara's mom wasn't a bender, she lied when asked who it was to sacrifice herself to protect Katara. And Hakota isn't a bender, he is specifically brought up as a role model for Sokka being a great warrior without bending.
Toph's parents can't earthbend, they had to hire a tutor for her and her father is furious to find out she's GOOD AT IT, he tries to ground her from earthbending.
3 months ago
Anonymous
>Toph's parents can't earthbend, they had to hire a tutor for her
Most people homeschool their children but point taken.
Another thing. How the Hell does "Dark Spirituality" even work? I haven't read any Eastern story about "evil spirituality". It is usually just gaining power and dark magic. Where is this Jedi/Sith stuff coming from?
Thing is no one likes self inserting as a nobody, they want to self inset as the Super Special Long Lost Royal Theophilla.
Not really related but there was a book series I really liked 10 years ago called Codex Alera and the main character was a guy in a world where everyone could use magical elemental powers EXCEPT HIM and this led to him compensating by studying and using his cunning to outsmart his opponents which was tons of fricking fun. All of this until the fourth book where he does get powers and the fifth book where it turns out he was actually the long lost son of a prince which made the finale boring as shit. I go online and people actually preferred that he was a prince and was an uber powerful crafting user. The average tard can't self insert into a loser anon.
I didn't dislike the last Codex Alera book because Tavi started doing the magic. My problem was the scale and reaction was impossible to understand. "Capture this city and defend it"? Doable. "Survive being trapped in this cave while the enemy army hunts for you" Achievable. But "Fight a hoard of monsters so thick that from orbit you cannot see the end of them"? Half the book needs to jump to the villain's perspective talking, despite being a hivemind, to a traitor human every step of the way just to even understand what's supposed to be happening, and what's at stake.
I feel like the Lightbringer series did magic warfare on a larger scale way better, and I don't particularly care for those books.
>set up Amon as a cool non-bender antagonist who learned energy bending >ACTUALLY he was a waterbender who uses FRICKING BLOODBENDING
even as a child i thought that was stupid. i could accept metal bending being common, i tolerate lightning bending being consider menial work, hell i could accept korra knowing three bending styles as a toddler but having an ability that was explicitly stated to require the full moon get turned into off brand force powers was another level of stupid
considering how Aang's ability to energy bend came from the lion turtles and the fact that we had no reason to believe bloodbending could be used to steal someone's bending Amon's story could have easily been real
>"Frick bending, we need to remove all bending from the world" >"What about bender children born from nonbender parents?" >"oh yeah I totally forgot that was a thing lol, no one mention it"
>set up a decent premise of benders would probably exploit the shit out of non-benders >Korra: uh, actually no there is no power imbalance because we're gonna elect a non-bender as president. It's just this one guy making it up! >but we see benders exploiting non-benders all the time in the sho- >Korra: Look! He's a waterbender, thus a hypocrite! I win the argument and now don't have to actually do my job!
I'll give them some slack and say that they didn't know if they'd get a second season of this show, but still.
They're scare to commit. Then they 180°'d too hard and committed to everything in S2 and forgot to tell a good story that made sense. Basically, much like George Lucas, Bryke needed a good team to take their stupid ideas and turn them into something interesting.
Ultimately they were too afraid to actually address any of the reasons Amon was a shithead.
I don't know WHY they did that. They had already established he was forking over the city's industrial base to a magnate and building a cult of personality around himself while scapegoating benders for issues that run much deeper. He was clearly in for the power and was not going to address any of the fricked up power structure things going on Republic City, he'd just put himself and his goons/financial supporters in the top, just like IRL dictators often did.
You had perfectly serviceable reasons for Korra to criticize him and I have no fricking idea as to why they did what they did.
WHEN AANG GOT ZAPPED BY AZULA'S LIGHTNING IN THE FINALE OF SEASON 2 HE DIED FOR A BRIEF MOMENT, CREATING A NEW REINCARNATION OF THE AVATAR WHICH IS AMON! THAT'S WHY HE CAN ENERGY BEND AND TAKE PEOPLE'S BENDING AWAY!
They unironically should have just scrapped season 2 and made the equalist conflict and its aftermath last 2 seasons. The equalists and all their complaints just disappear after the first season and the second season was a total disaster
>the mysterious nonbender overzealously attacking benders because of what happened to him in the past that has been gaining support from the nonbending populace is actually one of the most powerful benders on the planet and his reason for doing this is some desire to take over the city that his father ran away from
Makeup.
Same way they fricked up the avatar herself, they wrote "cool scenes" first and then wrote backwards from there
Basically by just not letting him be a true believer. Honestly if he was a bender but hated himself because of his evil dad I think that would've been cool.
It was a great concept they didn't know how to follow or make it work
Who is that?
The log poster from /b/
Incredibles 2 villain.
Sneedsaver
Because they b***hed out and made him a bender. If he was just a normal guy that learned some kind of chi blocking technique that took away bending that would have sufficed.
It even had precedence since chi blocking and pressure point disabling was already established as an anti-bender technique since ATLA, and they could have kept traveling down that path with more and more non-benders taking it up. But nah, dude's a water bender that figured out how to give people blood clots and he doesn't even give a shit about his whole shlock to begin with.
I think him being a bender could still work with the right motivation
The real problem is they set up this whole conflict in the world itself - not everyone is a bender, and there's a growing discontent between the haves and the have-nots
That whole thing is just immediately swept under the rug. 'Yeah maybe benders are shitty towards non benders, but your leader is evil so that immediately invalidates your discontent lel'
They lacked the confidence to address the core ideological conflict of the season, so they decided instead to give Korra an out. They do this basically every season.
>Amon's actually a bender!
>Unalaq's actually the antichrist!
>Zaheer just wants to kill the avatar!
>Kuvira's got nukes and concentration camps!
So instead of having to defeat her opponents on an ideological level, Korra can just bravely defend the status quo without assuming any particular stance of her own. It wouldn't be an issue if they weren't pretending things were gray and complex up until they flip the black-and-white switch so that poor dumb Korra doesn't have to hurt her brain trying to think about the morality of her actions anymore.
Amon being a bender made sense. Most revolutionary leaders are hypocrites after all. Che, Marx, Stalin, Hitler, ect.
Destroying the systems which privileged them is the exact opposite of hypocrisy.
>Hitler
wat
He was gay and took hormones.
The OG troon.
he was a chubby israelite with one testicle
It's not nonsensical, but it makes it too easy. Korra had all the tools available to say Amon was just a demagogue who was using benders as a political scapegoat in order to elevate himself to power without actually offering anything to the people except some vague promise of equality while he was simultaneously giving Sato de facto control of heavy industry. But that would require Korra to have grown over the course of the season and be able to comport herself as an avatar and make a compelling argument. Unfortunately the writers had wasted too much time having her make an ass of herself chasing Mako's wiener, so instead she just air punches Amon out of a window and he conveniently reveals himself in front of everyone and then Tarrlok has the courtesy of writing himself and Amon out of the story.
>making an ass of herself chasing g Mako's wiener
Especially annoying considering she just became a lesbian in the end despite all of that shit.
Yeah, basically, this.
Even Amon's lying can be made interesting and consistent with everything that happened in the previous episodes. Amon's characterisation in the show still makes sense. Where the show sucks is that Amon's backstory is relegated to a 10 minute exposition dump and is portrayed mostly as entirely invalidating Amon's points.
Amon's points are already invalid. Outside the council, the most powerful people in republic city, all the industrialists, are non-benders. Amon creates the Republic City backlash and curfews against non-benders. There's an easy path for Korra to actually beat Amon in a political battle or a battle of wills, either to get Amon to stand down or to destroy the organisation and actually have Korra play a part in the real change Republic City needed (getting rid of the Council and installing an actual representative government).
Frick, I'd have the Lieutennant actually reveal he knows Amon is a bender, and doesn't care. The Lieutennant, like Amon, is driven by hatred and vengeance. Korra can't beat the Equalists by going "you're a poopyhead bender", she has to both destroy the Equalists militarily and deconstruct their entire point, and the show did actually lay the groundwork for that. That's the point of the hobo city living in harmony or Korra realising that Tarrlok is a sack of shit too. But it chickens out at the last minute and overly simplifies things, either because it needed to be understood by children or because they wasted time on bringing in a completely random character to have a fightscene for most of the last episode (General Iroh II).
>they wasted time on bringing in a completely random character to have a fightscene for most of the last episode (General Iroh II).
But you don't get it, he looks like and has the same voice as another character I know. How else am I supposed to söy out if they take that away?
This is why most of the villains suck, they're written by libs like you
If I called mostly commie leaders hypocrites, odds are I'm not a liberal.
>If I use the most lib "criticism", odds are I'm not a lib
Found the american
It's been a whilte, but Amon isn't a hypocrite though? He spent most of his life getting abused and exploited by his blood-bending father and saw how bending can and is used to subjugate people who are weaker. He was extreme in his ideology, but he actually believed what he was doing was right. Him being a waterbender doesn't change that.
That more aptly describes Tarrlok's experience with bending than his brother's. Amon reveled in his power as a kid, he rebuked his father not for being an abuser, but for being weak and was strongly implied to covet the Avatar's power to remove bending.
I'll have to rewatch it later but I could've sworn Tarrlok all but confirmed that he was anti-bending or some shit.
I think the one thing I'll hold against him is him killing his second in command for finding him out. There should've been at least people higher up that knew he was a bender, but it was probably written like that to make sure the audience didn't see him as too sympathetic.
Tarrlok did confirm something of the sort. But that was just his own postulation of his brother's mindset which he can't be sure of/the writer just spelling it out for the audience. When you actually examine what we're shown about Amon's past it leaves a lot of questions.
No, yeah, Amon absolutely believes in the shit he says.
Up to maybe him complimenting Mako's bending.
While true, and if not hypocrites, psychotically incompetent, it undermines what is otherwise an interesting premise for the setting to address... but it's also a stupid premise, because being able to do kung fu really good doesn't make someone a powerful politician in China and never has. Is the implication that benders are forcing non-benders out of power through physical violence? Do benders force people to vote for other benders? Is bending power a useful thing for a politician to have? Does bending make someone better at business or are they just destroying their competitors with rocks, water, and fire?
So the inequality issue is fricking baffling after a moment of consideration, but also as the show clearly demonstrates, a bit of part-time training and equipment is all it takes to turn non-benders into a considerable threat to any bender, which was already established through Sokka anyways. So, anyone with an above room temp. IQ starts to wonder how are non-benders oppressed, why are they oppressed, and if it's so easy for them to fight back, how did this ever become an issue?
And then on top of it all, their mysterious leader who hates benders and has very convincing facepaint scars, has mysterious superpowers anyways that inexplicably allow him to take bending away from people and that's just not a thing that's ever really explored to any satisfaction except by handwavily saying "uhhh bloodbending or whatever"
Sokka isn't remotely a considerable threat to a bender. He gets better, but he's never on the level of Katara or Toph or Zuko.
What it seems to be is that monopolisation of violence means power, and being innately more capable of violence has in the past created the systems of power in this world, and now that system self-perpetuates.
Especially in a place as nepotistic as Republic City. Daughter of the friend of the Avatar, Police Chief. Son of the Avatar, council member. Different son of the Avatar, General. Different grandson of a friend of the Avatar, even more important general.
Katara, Toph, and Zuko are all master benders who can single-handedly fight small armies. Sokka is shown to, at minimum, be able to fight and win against benders who aren't main character masters.
It's a consequence of conventional arms being done away with because they don't fit the 1920s aesthetic while also not being able to replace them with guns because this is a kids show. Unironically the shock gloves they introduce would be worse at fending off a bender than something simple like a spear or a bow just because it's a lot shorter range.
I don't know if it speaks to the skill of benders being lowered that a bunch of civilians doing what amounts to self-defense training on the side are able to become a meaningful threat to the average bender in Republic City. They could have been a lot more inventive and creative with their methods for taking down benders, showing that it takes a hitsquad of equalists with net guns and other non-lethal weapons to take down an average skill bender... but there's a lot of shit they should have done to fix their ideas and instead quadrupled down on their dumbest ones, like bending being retconned into a mutant power that some people just have, absent all spirituality. Then they later established that mutant power is just something Lion Turtles could turn on or off with energy bending which is carried genetically, I guess.
Zaheer's ideology was always moronic, killing the avatar was just the logical conclusion of his AnPrim bullshit
In fact, Zaheer was right according to the series, all the imbalance shit started because Wan separated Vaatu and Raava, by killing the avatar, Raava would be reborn from Vaatu's body and they would be united forever since they would both be trapped in the tree.
but I doubt the writers thought anything more of "bad anarchism"
>All the imbalance shit started because Wan separated Vaatu and Raava
Not untrue, but it also eventually led to the spirit hoard, who were driving man from their own land, being pushed back into the spirit world. Moreover the ATLA verse had generally maintained an era of peace with the Avatar's guidance as far as we're shown. The only exception to this rule was the 100 year war, the time where the Avatar was totally absent. Zaheer even cites the 100 year war as a point against authority failing to realize it was only thanks to the benevolent authority of the Avatar was the world allowed to be saved
so basically korra's main problem is pic related of wanting to have complex villains but not being competent enough to actually refute their claims
I think somewhere along the line people confused sympathy and empathy. I get writing characters to be human and understandable and shit but that doesn't mean you have to sympathize with the guy blowing up orphanages.
More or less. They're very pointedly attaching the villains to big questions (the relationship between benders and non-benders, the relationship between spirits and humanity, the cost of freedom, the cost of order) and then not really directly tackling those questions. S4 was the closest with Korra actually talking it out with Kuvira in the end, but even then they still felt the need to have the nukes and the concentration camps just to make sure you didn't sympathize with Kuvira TOO much.
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How hard would it be to convince Korra to let me touch her abs?
honestly, probably not all that hard? Just a small amount of flattery and she'd let ya
Zaheer's ideology was always consistent, he just got owned by the power of collectivism (in the form of a tornado).
I remember when tlok first aired and people theorized Amon was Aang, still think they should've went that route.
>How did they frick up such a great villain so badly?
I ask that about the MCU mandarin every day
Never bothered to watch shit korra btw
Man, that series had so damn much potential. Before that awful season finale, I could see it helping finally create a niche for non-comedy animation in America. It had a relatively mature plot building up from an already-successful previous children's show, which perfectly mirrored how the kdis who grew up with that one were now ready for a more serious -- in a sense, the universe, grew together with its audience.
Then they went and botched it all. And the following seasons followed the same path of good premise with terrible resolution.
First of all you don't ever take off the freaking mask
That only works for capeshit. Not for stories with an overarching plot
>korra
>not capeshit
why are avatar gays like this
Korea has more in common with wuxia (which bits clearly based on) than cape sjit though moron. Cape shit inbgeneral doesn't have an overarching story. It's villain of the week for the most part with the odd recurring villain. Avatar and Korra have an overarching story with a beginning and end
What does capeshit even mean anymore
Capeshit is just what gays call anything they don't like these days
the avatar being is literally a superhero
Slade's voice was half the work
By chickening out on making a proper tragedy, instead of a comedy. No joking, Korra jumping to her death at the end instead of magical aang fixing her would have made the show several steps up better. But regardless, to discuss Amon directly: They fricked him up the instant they made him the big bad instead of a genuine threat. This picture sums it up nicely. Had the show focused on having a rock-paper-scissors style conflict where Amon has to worry about the criminal underworld so you could focus on how he spreads his message to the common man you could have had a really good interplay of political intrigue. Instead, we get man acts bad because he's bad man from trauma inflicted by bad mans bad dad. So you can just punch him to win, not actually defeat his argument which was STILL VALID AND PROVABLY DANGEROUS by the end of the season.
Is it weird that what you described sort of fits into fanfic/rewrite of the show that I came up with?
I think it's a lot of people's fanfics. the details of everyone's idea of fixing Season 1 of Korra are generally different but the core ideas are pretty much the same at this point
I know cause it's also mine
What’s yours? My idea is that the Equalists were allies in the beginning, and Korra and the crew fight a crime syndicate while getting help from The Equalists and Amon who says he wants to help protect people but secretly wants to usurp their position so he can gain influence for the movement.
Like
brings up, I think an underrated part of Korra's backstory is just how much the White Lotus fricked her over by raising her isolated from society in a compound and only seemed to have taught her bending and their outdated way of life. So either
>Lean way more into that. The focus of Korra in Republic City isn't her living with Tenzin and immediately revealing herself as the avatar to the world at large, but her trying to experience the real world by living low in Republic City for a lot longer. If she becomes a Pro-Bender, it's by joining an amateur team and under a false name.
>Korra even befriends some Equalist sympathisers and realises both the enormous flaws of Republic City and, after even helping the Equalists akin to your idea, the Equalist.
>By the time the revolution starts kicking into overdrive, a Korra that still doesn't know airbending but is way more independent and knows a lot more about the situation personally rises up as a counter revolutionary figure, trying to defeat Amon while refusing to let things return to the Status quo.
Or the bolder, Metal Gear version.
>The Equalist Revolution is a Lie.
>The whole thing is a test set up by a splinter group of the White Lotus who really, really disagreed with Korra's education and upbringing, believing it would create an out of touch, failure of an Avatar like Kuruk.
>So, one of their own takes on the persona of "Amon" and they set up the Equalist revolution.
>Amon being Korra's perfect antithesis isn't just chance, it's them knowing all about Korra and working out exactly what would be her perfect adversary.
>Korra defines herself as a great bender? Amon wants to destroy bending
>Korra sucks spiritually? Amon claims to be the new Spiritual messiah
If I ever wrote it, I'm torn if This Amon would only be a few years older than Korra and would use his alter-ego to get close to Korra and try to push her to being the Avatar they want her to be.
I dig this, especially the idea of her not immediately revealing herself, though I do think Tenzin should still be in the picture. Like Korra could be on her own but she still goes to lessons on Air Temple Island.
Still a god tier song
It's a kid show, it was never going to have this much depth. This is also probably why they wanted to do the whole "game of thrones" approach to the live action show.
No sure, you're right. But I think there's a middle ground between "Amon's makeup falls off" and "Seventeen hour political debate in the house of Elemental commons".
I mean, they had the murder-suicide.
>It's a cartoon, so it MUST be shallow because... uhm... shut up!
I didn't say it was because it was a cartoon though you fricking disingenuous moron, I said it's because it's a kid show, which it is.
A middle ground would be nice but the foundation wasn't there. A Korra that's 50 minutes and on network that would let them go into darker elements without upsetting parents would have been a better fit
>I said it's because it's a kid show, which it is.
You assume that because it's a cartoon. There's a murder-suicide and a woman who asphyxiates to death on-screen.
>There's a murder-suicide and a woman who asphyxiates to death on-screen.
Actually baffling that they could SHOW this happen but they couldn't actually SAY "she died".
Reducing animation to being "a kids show" is a side issue worth discussing, but I remember the creators saying they wanted the series to be for the original audience who had grown up by the time of LoK release.
It could still be kid friendly and have 20 minute episodes. The best way I can think to do it is literally remove the comic book style villainy. Make Amon not a caricature, but instead a rebel that truly believes and is leading people honestly against the weapon of bending. Make Tarrlok a proper politician currying favor with high society and political savvy working with people like Sato to empower the people against the curse of bending. And make Korra the demi-god she is as a sports star that shows the value in bending as a gift instead of weapon/curse. Let kids think about things.
Who is the best super hero? Ironman, Superman, or Daredevil?
You're still putting words in my mouth, I never said it was kids because it was animated, I said it was for kids because it fricking was. It was on a kids network and aimed primarily at a younger audience even though it was made with the original fans in mind.
>aimed primarily at a younger audience
It literally wasn't
Obviously they can't make it TOO complex, but it is skewed towards an older demographic than AtLA and as I said originally
>It wouldn't be an issue if they weren't pretending things were gray and complex up until they flip the black-and-white switch so that poor dumb Korra doesn't have to hurt her brain trying to think about the morality of her actions anymore.
Every season is playing at complexity for a while before they inevitably cop out and reluctantly let Korra punch her problems away. The result is the worst of all worlds. Korra looks like an inept jackass who doesn't learn after spending most of the season doping around complicated issues and the villains end up looking like shit. And it's not like you need to spend the whole season playing politics to handle the conflict properly. You basically just need a couple good speeches/exchanges delivered at key moments. It's not THAT difficult. LoK just makes it look difficult.
The discourse around Korra was interesting to me because a LOT of people accused Korra of being a Mary Sue during its heyday. Including me actually. But I don't think that's entirely true anymore. Yes Korra does get several forced happy endings but that's rarely a result of Korra being impossibly competent and more everyone else taking stupid pills halfway through the season. S2 was when hatred of Korra was at its peak but really the entire world of Avatar went psychotic in this season. Suddenly spirits are either evil or good? There's a spirit Satan now? I thought the premise of the season was a political conflict of the Southern Water Tribe refusing to kneel to the North because they're half a world away and their cultures have diverged over time? How'd we get here?!? But because Korra is the main character, she takes 100% of the blame. Yes she was an irrational b***h in this season but the fact that people start turning their backs on her and she starts doubting herself makes that a character flaw, which every character should have at least one. It's just that because everyone, including the world itself, has become an irreverent psycho or pointless, any goodwill to Korra's stressful low point was already gone by the time the climax that made no sense hit. There are Gundam mechs in Avatar now. Korra's characterization is the least of the series problems.
Also the show had Korra fire lasers from her breasts. I should be happy about that but I'm not.
>there are good and evil spirits
I mean they can kinda get away with this one because asian mysticism has always had good and evil spirits, there was never any neutrality aspect to them.
I think the main problem is the way they make the dark spirits have a particular look. Makes them feel generic, which was definitely not the way to go with them.
Yeah.
I mean... the facestealer is an unambiguously malevolent spirit - and yet, everything about his form and function is distinct and memorable.
On the other hand, the corrupted spirits in Korra, all spirits actually, are just painfully generic. I don't think I can clearly remember what a single one looks like - except for the Lemur furry, and that is only due to the body horror scene.
The thing about spirits in AtLA, they had gravity and mystique. Just from looking at one, you knew its existence was metaphysically significant - that it was not just some glowing guy or a silly-looking animal, that it was a representation of a force, phenomena, or abstract concept that is only tangentially understood. Even the human spirits projected a certain weight about them - imbued with profound wisdom as they were, literal ascended beings.
>I mean... the facestealer is an unambiguously malevolent spirit
Is it? It helps Aang with the Northern Water Tribe problem and helps him realise the important of the two fish swimming around, basically for free.
And when Kuruk/Yangchen fricked up in their duties as Avatar, it punished them.
It's certainly not a very nice spirit, but it works by certain rules and sticks to them, and it has its own pretty fricked code of justice. It's more feylike dickish neutral than pure evil.
That's back when spirits were fae like entities from a separate world, and not just weird pokemon from parallel wacky land.
You and I are probably not going to come to an agreement on this if you think fey don't qualify as evil. The dude wants to steal faces. Even without going into the root of his motivation being revolting against his mother, a benevolent spirit. Had Aang not been warned about him, and just happened across Koh, Koh would have gleefully stolen his face. No warning period, no introduction, just JUMPSCARE!!!! You react you lose. Sure he doesn't, in the limited time we see him, torture Aang to evoke an expression and because he got the warning there's a pattern to the way he operates, he is in that respect predictable. But I don't know if that breeches into of "rules". Even if he warn did that doesn't make what he does fair, right, good, or ambivalent. Jigsaw isn't neutral because "Technically I didn't kill you, the trap did. Technically there was a way out, you just needed to regain consciousness while submerged in a bathtub and open your eyes underwater before reflexively surfacing for air which would pull the plug, which would flush the key you needed down the drain beyond your reach forever, before you have any cognition of your surroundings, or are even made aware you're in a death trap designed by a low-IQ Riddler on budget".
Even getting away from all that: I seriously doubt Koh was motivated to help Aang. Though yes, I must admit, he did tell the truth. But I doubt it was just because he enjoys conversation, or helping. I think Koh's motive was to keep Aang in his domain, engaged with him, so he would have more opportunities to provoke a reaction and steal his face. So he started getting whimsical and metaphorical to try to confuse him, instead of the initial plan to scare or shock him.
NTA, but I would say Koh isn't and evil spirit because of what amounts to semantics? Koh is a spirit who chooses to do evil acts. Where as the evil spirits are more accurately described as corrupted spirits.
S2 really burnt through a lot of the show's good will and the rest of the series was hampered by that. Korra really does have a legitimate character arc in S3-S4 but it's too little too late.
they could have easily had korra callout amon on his bullshit during the final fight and the season end with ACTUAL changes being made. and if they didn't have enough time to properly set it up than they should have cut a lot of the romance bullshit and saved it for later(never)
Look I hate Korra as much as the next Cinemaphilemrade but having the protagonist jump off a cliff and die is not cartoon appropriate.
They should have had season two be about Korra trying to regain her bending and the water tribe conflict instead of being about magic kites and a fricking dark Avatar
the problem is they didn't know they had a season two until very last minute. its why the ending of season 1 feels so weak. its a last second rewrite
He brought up an idea that, in theory, could've been interesting. Are people who don't win the genetic lottery being held back. No one really gave a frick during ATLA because it was war time. Everyone was trying not to die. But now that it's peacetime people can start noticing things not linked to immediate survival. Like
>Hey,I just noticed I can't even get past Ba Sing Se's front gate without being a bender!
>The power company exclusively hires Firebenders who can produce lightning
It's not to say that there couldn't be nuance there. After all the richest guy in town is a non bender but it could've been an interesting conflict. Especially since Amon's chief ability is taking away bending. If bending isn't critical to living in this society then why are you afraid to lose it? Yes the conflict is fake but I think an interesting plot point was that initially it was just a small but loud group making trouble. But as law enforcement began escalating force, people who are on the fence began joining Amon. Because they'd unintentionally validated his narrative.
Worst than any of this is Korra herself. All that godlike power but she doesn't know shit. I don't mean that as an insult. The White Lotus fricked her over. The avatar is supposed to travel the world. Not just to learn the elements but to learn the various cultures of the people there protecting. But the White Lotus locked her in a box and trained her via flown in teachers and textbooks. So when she left she found herself needing to save Republic City without knowing a thing about it.
Man this show could be so interesting with a complicated premise in peacetime where the answers aren't black and white and wrong please everyone...oh. Love triangles and a shitty twist. Okay that's cool too.
Forgive me if I’m wrong since it’s been a while since I watched the show, but did they outlaw Chi Blocking? That could have been an interesting plot point about how the most effective fighting technique a nonbender could learn to counter a bender was outlawed.
I don't think it was outlawed, just relatively unknown. We only see Equalists do it. The council outlawing chi blocking would've turned Amon into an instant hero since attacking non benders only means of countering bending would've instantly put them in an antagonistic role. Especially since there's nothing to say benders can't do it, just that there's no reason for them to learn it. Benders do everything non benders do and then some. Being a non bender may as well be a disability in their world.
It being unknown feels weird, you would think that the Kyoshi warriors would make use of it since Ty Lee said she was going to teach them at the end of ATLA. And unless they became irrelevant or dissolved people would still be aware of it. I mean it was only like 70 years I’m sure someone would have written about it or something.
The real question is why do only the Equalists know it? Lightning bending dripped down from the royal family to common Firebenders, chi blocking should be a common form to non benders.
Republic City passed an Assault Blocking ban.
Lightning bending being common can easily be explained as Zuko allowing royal secrets to be passed down to the common people.
What can't be explained is how Lightning bending went from one of the highest forms of firebending requiring perfect tranquility to a basic school a schmuck like Mako could do to work at a power plant.
Yeah that's another thing. Lightning bending is described as requiring the user to feel nothing while using it. "The cold blooded fire" as Iroh describes it. Iroh could do it as a result of years of spiritual and physical training. Ozai and Azula could do it on account of them being psychopaths in addition to them being fire bending prodigies. But Zuko couldn't on account that he has to many emotions to just turn them off. So why the frick can Mako do it?
it's just one of the many inconsistencies in Korra. Like making bending LMAO TURTLE POWER instead of a genetic and spiritual aspect like it was in the first show.
Other problem with lightningbending becoming commonplace is why would you even teach it to the average joe. Lightningbending is shown to be a killing tool, incredibly lethal to the point a single head on strike is a death sentence. Iroh only entertained teaching Zuko it as a means for taking down his sister, and Iroh himself only ever used it once outside of demonstration and that was just to bust down a wall. Unlike other bending styles there is no practical use for teaching it to people, if someone needs a self defense tool regular bending works just fine. And the generators are stupid because you could make far more power having firebenders heat up a steam engine, or waterbenders move a turbine, or get earth benders to directly move the magnets themselves. There is no point for having lightningbending becoming commonplace.
This is true, Iroh in describing the technique to Zuko never alludes to it being a royal bloodline secret. Think the misconception though came from the fact you only ever see the royals using it. Which ignores the fact that in general in avatar outside of the family you don't actually see that many firebenders who can be considered masters, and the ones you do are people who wouldn't want to lightningbend even if they could like Jeong Jeong.
The thing I hate about Saito's lightning bending plant is that, until spirit vine power, it was the only power source they bothered to show. Seemingly implying they do not understand how electricity works well enough to produce the power for their technology without firebenders that can lightning bend. Which implies Saito's mech army has a logistical need for these benders. Seems like something that would have been discussed between the two leaders of the coup onscreen.
The dominant theory from the jump was that Amon was a nonbender somehow granted spirit bending. His fake origin story is 100% meant to make the audience, that saw TLA, think this too. Unironically the lie/the obvious was more interesting. We get TWO episodes dedicated to explaining the backstory to how Amon's bloodbending is possible, tie it back to Aang and the Gaang having to pretty much do the same thing. Whereas actually having a spirit hate benders, and granting the bending discipline that we only know one application of to him works. It works if he doesn't really know the thing he does is a kind of bending. The fact he can't bend any element "proves" to him or his followers this is something apart.
Sarah, Buffy ended over 20 years ago, go back to losing out on roles in lego games.
Lightning generation was never a royal family technique kept away from the common man. It was just an insanely difficult and lethal technique only a select few Firebenders could harness. I don't know where this misconception keeps coming from
A lot of the details of the world building are really inconsistent. Like you would expect a good number of people to learn chi blocking but for some reason it’s just only used by the Equalists. I mean like you said it would be an extremely useful skill for both benders and nonbenders.
>you would expect a good number of people to learn chi blocking
Chi blocking as a concept has that weird issue of being useless until its OP. Until someone has nearly mastered it, they will essentially just lose in every attempt at using it in a real conflict. It requires too much talent for too little reward. Thematically it makes sense, but narratively its bad. The separatists using shock gloves as their main method of defense makes way more sense cause you can train an old woman how to slap people fairly easily, and they had numbers on their side.
>Until someone has nearly mastered it, they will essentially just lose in every attempt at using it in a real conflict.
Even if the user isn't Ty Lee-tier, the fact that there are points on the body that will disable someone when struck would be of great interest to anyone who gets in fights on a regular basis - including and especially the fricking police, who do it for a living and often come up against benders.
>especially the fricking police, who do it for a living and often come up against benders.
Oh I completely agree on this point! So why don't the metal benders? Why don't the gangsters? Why don't the White Lotus? Dai Lee? But I will also agree that using better weapons than shock gloves (shock lance? Shock baton?) would just be better to train your average person in.as suggested by
And in real life we have ways to disable people that the average person can use to disable people way stronger than themselves (choke holds, arm bars, etc) but they have the issue where halfway knowing how to do it usually gets you into more trouble than not knowing.
Korra did busted a Chi blocking school but the practice itself might not be illegal to teach.
The only "point" that Amon had was grievances. His plan must be something other than touching everyone's forehead.
I have mixed feelings (mostly negative) about these comics. The idea that magic powers is random isn't really more empowering than genetics. It is mostly a jab at Harry Potter (good but there are plenty of muggle-borns) and a defense of TLJ against TRoSW. The second comic is about Sympathetic Villains but the "sympathy" is usually just from grievances rather than any solutions.
My solution is to make Amon just another figure head in the Equalist movement rather than its founder. This is make more like how it was introduced in the first part of the show, a bigoted group that existed when Aang was still around but not yet a terrorist operation thus people still go around advertising on the streets. Amon would grow more popular than the old guard of the movement and turn the people against the founders. He would instead give other people Energybending which is dangerous. Team Avatar would stop the Founders' plans only to realize that there could be countless Energybenders living the shadows.
>What about bender children born from nonbender parents?"
I don't think that that is a thing. At least, one of the parents needs to be a bender.
>I don't think that that is a thing. At least, one of the parents needs to be a bender.
Have you, by chance, heard of Katara or Toph?
I just assumed that not everyone who is a bender is kung fu fighting.
It's kinda a huge deal to both of them, and a point of pain with the girls and their parents.
Katara's mom wasn't a bender, she lied when asked who it was to sacrifice herself to protect Katara. And Hakota isn't a bender, he is specifically brought up as a role model for Sokka being a great warrior without bending.
Toph's parents can't earthbend, they had to hire a tutor for her and her father is furious to find out she's GOOD AT IT, he tries to ground her from earthbending.
>Toph's parents can't earthbend, they had to hire a tutor for her
Most people homeschool their children but point taken.
Another thing. How the Hell does "Dark Spirituality" even work? I haven't read any Eastern story about "evil spirituality". It is usually just gaining power and dark magic. Where is this Jedi/Sith stuff coming from?
Thing is no one likes self inserting as a nobody, they want to self inset as the Super Special Long Lost Royal Theophilla.
Not really related but there was a book series I really liked 10 years ago called Codex Alera and the main character was a guy in a world where everyone could use magical elemental powers EXCEPT HIM and this led to him compensating by studying and using his cunning to outsmart his opponents which was tons of fricking fun. All of this until the fourth book where he does get powers and the fifth book where it turns out he was actually the long lost son of a prince which made the finale boring as shit. I go online and people actually preferred that he was a prince and was an uber powerful crafting user. The average tard can't self insert into a loser anon.
Dresden is way more of an insert for Butcher and after 17 books has basically become unkillable so even the author of that series would agree methinks
I didn't dislike the last Codex Alera book because Tavi started doing the magic. My problem was the scale and reaction was impossible to understand. "Capture this city and defend it"? Doable. "Survive being trapped in this cave while the enemy army hunts for you" Achievable. But "Fight a hoard of monsters so thick that from orbit you cannot see the end of them"? Half the book needs to jump to the villain's perspective talking, despite being a hivemind, to a traitor human every step of the way just to even understand what's supposed to be happening, and what's at stake.
I feel like the Lightbringer series did magic warfare on a larger scale way better, and I don't particularly care for those books.
>pic
No, but it's the most realistic message to teach. Some people are actually just naturally born with some talents others could never hope to have.
>set up Amon as a cool non-bender antagonist who learned energy bending
>ACTUALLY he was a waterbender who uses FRICKING BLOODBENDING
even as a child i thought that was stupid. i could accept metal bending being common, i tolerate lightning bending being consider menial work, hell i could accept korra knowing three bending styles as a toddler but having an ability that was explicitly stated to require the full moon get turned into off brand force powers was another level of stupid
People should have figured he was a bender the moment it was established he could take away other bending.
considering how Aang's ability to energy bend came from the lion turtles and the fact that we had no reason to believe bloodbending could be used to steal someone's bending Amon's story could have easily been real
They had to give him an identity, when he should have just been Amon, who was underneath the mask shouldn't have been important.
>"Frick bending, we need to remove all bending from the world"
>"What about bender children born from nonbender parents?"
>"oh yeah I totally forgot that was a thing lol, no one mention it"
>set up a decent premise of benders would probably exploit the shit out of non-benders
>Korra: uh, actually no there is no power imbalance because we're gonna elect a non-bender as president. It's just this one guy making it up!
>but we see benders exploiting non-benders all the time in the sho-
>Korra: Look! He's a waterbender, thus a hypocrite! I win the argument and now don't have to actually do my job!
I'll give them some slack and say that they didn't know if they'd get a second season of this show, but still.
It should've been Koh.
They're scare to commit. Then they 180°'d too hard and committed to everything in S2 and forgot to tell a good story that made sense. Basically, much like George Lucas, Bryke needed a good team to take their stupid ideas and turn them into something interesting.
Ultimately they were too afraid to actually address any of the reasons Amon was a shithead.
I don't know WHY they did that. They had already established he was forking over the city's industrial base to a magnate and building a cult of personality around himself while scapegoating benders for issues that run much deeper. He was clearly in for the power and was not going to address any of the fricked up power structure things going on Republic City, he'd just put himself and his goons/financial supporters in the top, just like IRL dictators often did.
You had perfectly serviceable reasons for Korra to criticize him and I have no fricking idea as to why they did what they did.
writing
By having a new villain every season and quickly removing them for each season finale even if it doesn't work or make sense.
WHEN AANG GOT ZAPPED BY AZULA'S LIGHTNING IN THE FINALE OF SEASON 2 HE DIED FOR A BRIEF MOMENT, CREATING A NEW REINCARNATION OF THE AVATAR WHICH IS AMON! THAT'S WHY HE CAN ENERGY BEND AND TAKE PEOPLE'S BENDING AWAY!
They unironically should have just scrapped season 2 and made the equalist conflict and its aftermath last 2 seasons. The equalists and all their complaints just disappear after the first season and the second season was a total disaster
Made him too correct and the writers didn't have the balls to resolve that properly.
>the mysterious nonbender overzealously attacking benders because of what happened to him in the past that has been gaining support from the nonbending populace is actually one of the most powerful benders on the planet and his reason for doing this is some desire to take over the city that his father ran away from
Should've been the overarching antagonist that is interwoven with the stories being told.
Liberalism.
Can't have the communist-coded villain have a point. They have to "go too far" and "betray the movement", every time.