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Legend of Korra continued - season finale SPOILERS


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It would make sense to have resistance against the element you can bend as you may be limiting the impact with your bending (although zuko is evidence that isn't a guarantee). Against other elements not so much

I think the best explanation for what we see on screen is that bending anything envelopes the relevant substance with a "bending field" that strongly insulates it from the environment; while it's being bent, ice doesn't freeze people and water doesn't soak into things, fire doesn't burn anything, air has more substance, rock is padded. Only after the bender releases control does the element regain the ability to affect what it's touching normally. So it's easier to shove someone with a blast of fire than it is to set them on fire, because the latter requires precise control of how you stop bending the fire. It would be particularly difficult with fire because the bending usually creates the fire rather than just manipulating it, so the fire would naturally disappear as you release control of it.

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I think the best explanation for what we see on screen is that bending anything envelopes the relevant substance with a "bending field" that strongly insulates it from the environment; while it's being bent, ice doesn't freeze people and water doesn't soak into things, fire doesn't burn anything, air has more substance, rock is padded. Only after the bender releases control does the element regain the ability to affect what it's touching normally. So it's easier to shove someone with a blast of fire than it is to set them on fire, because the latter requires precise control of how you stop bending the fire. It would be particularly difficult with fire because the bending usually creates the fire rather than just manipulating it, so the fire would naturally disappear as you release control of it.

But we've seen fire stay on tons of time. In fact, Jongjong makes a huge point about how that is the reason why firebending is so hard (as does Iroh). Which is why a resistance to the elements among the benders makes more sense.

ETA: Also, water definitely soaks people, and didn't Iroh complain about his tailbone hurting after being subjected to Toph's Earthbending?

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I just realized this won't be the first big battle at the Northern Air Temple. Didn't that scientist guy and his kid live there? I remember that there was a large reservoir of natural gas below the temple, from that episode. and also passageways going deep into the mountain that led to the insides of the temple. Wonder if these things will come into play. Bumi and Kya are somewhere below the temple. Maybe Uncle Sokka told them stories of the tunnels, and they figure out how to get in?


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But we've seen fire stay on tons of time. In fact, Jongjong makes a huge point about how that is the reason why firebending is so hard (as does Iroh). Which is why a resistance to the elements among the benders makes more sense.

We've seen fire stay on far, far less than we should. Why aren't there a great many more people with burn scars like Zuko's amongst the enemies of the Fire Nation? I'm probably exaggerating the difficulty of choosing to start a fire with firebending, but it's clearly very easy for a trained firebender to avoid setting fire to things or even causing significant heat damage, with fireblasts that have more kinetic effect than anything else (eg pushing tanks down the street with a vast pillar of fire that doesn't melt the tanks or damage the surrounding buildings - around 1:20).

ETA: Also, water definitely soaks people, and didn't Iroh complain about his tailbone hurting after being subjected to Toph's Earthbending?

Water is still there when the bender lets go of it, if they don't make a deliberate effort to suck it all away, so it's easy to soak people with waterbending on purpose or through indifference. And being pummelled with rocks surrounded by a bending field still hurts, just less than you'd expect (ie people attacked by earthbenders don't have every bone in their bodies shattered the way someone hit by a catapulted boulder would in the real world).

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We've seen fire stay on far, far less than we should. Why aren't there a great many more people with burn scars like Zuko's amongst the enemies of the Fire Nation? I'm probably exaggerating the difficulty of choosing to start a fire with firebending, but it's clearly very easy for a trained firebender to avoid setting fire to things or even causing significant heat damage, with fireblasts that have more kinetic effect than anything else (eg pushing tanks down the street with a vast pillar of fire that doesn't melt the tanks or damage the surrounding buildings - around 1:20).

Water is still there when the bender lets go of it, if they don't make a deliberate effort to suck it all away, so it's easy to soak people with waterbending on purpose or through indifference. And being pummelled with rocks surrounded by a bending field still hurts, just less than you'd expect (ie people attacked by earthbenders don't have every bone in their bodies shattered the way someone hit by a catapulted boulder would in the real world).

I take it as a kid show so getting hit by rocks and fire and ice spikes would kill but they don't because of the constraints of the network.

Here's something that bothers me why not in a 1v1 fight between an earthbender and a non earthbender, does the earthbend not just great a box and trap them in, or a 3 sides pyramid, the opponent would ne trapped, then if you want to be morbid, u could just squish them to death in the box, or just a prison.

this was all i was thinking about in the fight between mako and bolin and season 2 bad guy (whatver his name was) just trap him in a earth box, then he can't do anything :)

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I take it as a kid show so getting hit by rocks and fire and ice spikes would kill but they don't because of the constraints of the network.

That's certainly a big part of the real-world explanation, but it's more interesting to come up with an in-story explanation 8)

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We've seen fire stay on far, far less than we should. Why aren't there a great many more people with burn scars like Zuko's amongst the enemies of the Fire Nation? I'm probably exaggerating the difficulty of choosing to start a fire with firebending, but it's clearly very easy for a trained firebender to avoid setting fire to things or even causing significant heat damage, with fireblasts that have more kinetic effect than anything else (eg pushing tanks down the street with a vast pillar of fire that doesn't melt the tanks or damage the surrounding buildings - around 1:20).

Water is still there when the bender lets go of it, if they don't make a deliberate effort to suck it all away, so it's easy to soak people with waterbending on purpose or through indifference. And being pummelled with rocks surrounded by a bending field still hurts, just less than you'd expect (ie people attacked by earthbenders don't have every bone in their bodies shattered the way someone hit by a catapulted boulder would in the real world).

Actually, we've seen several cases of Firebending scars. The girl whose horse Zuko steals, Katara, Zuko himself... note how Zuko's burn scars are commonly taken for proof he was attacked by Fire nation soldiers when he was going through the Earth Kingdom.

But you're right that Firebenders do seem to be using Fire as a kinetic force at times. At the dome of the Pro-bending arena, all of Korra's blasts only push the Equalists around. I'd suspect this is an act of great control, though. Jonjong, Korra, Iroh, Zuko, Azula, Mako... these are the guys we see doing this most, and they're all very skilled. Zhao, on the other hand, is shown to have no control, and does cause an excessive amount of burning (including destroying his entire fleet of ships).

Same with Earth bending. We've seen Earthbenders are able to defy gravity (levitating heavy rocks, and stopping falling rocks). I suspect the master Earthbenders don't want to kill, and so have the rocks fall more softly than they may. Similar cases can be made for Water and Airbenders too. I think that may be it: benders who have good control can regulate the effect their element has on the environment, whereas the terrible one's cause widespread, but unplanned, destruction. Not too far from your idea of a "bending field".

I take it as a kid show so getting hit by rocks and fire and ice spikes would kill but they don't because of the constraints of the network.

Here's something that bothers me why not in a 1v1 fight between an earthbender and a non earthbender, does the earthbend not just great a box and trap them in, or a 3 sides pyramid, the opponent would ne trapped, then if you want to be morbid, u could just squish them to death in the box, or just a prison.

this was all i was thinking about in the fight between mako and bolin and season 2 bad guy (whatver his name was) just trap him in a earth box, then he can't do anything :)

Dunno about that. A Firebender can simply make the walls explode outward (we saw Azula do the opposite, where she destroys a protective wall Aang creates). A Waterbender might be able to do something too. An Airbender could create a vortex that might erode the walls.

That said, it isn't a bad tactic. Just not a permanent solution.

So - we all agreed Zaheer possesses Korra's body in the finale?

Would make sense why he knows airbending - he actually knows all the bending styles because this was his plan.

I'm not sure Zaheer himself plans to do the possession. Aid it, certainly, but not transfer himself in, I think.

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I have the damndest luck. I ordered the entire Season on Google Play, and it serves up episodes at 12 AM Pacific Time. So I went in today, and to my joy, there was an episode 12! I clicked it, and I noticed it was labeled "Venom of the Red Lotus". So I skipped forward a few seconds to the "flashback" to see if the episode was merely mislabeled. I saw



Korra was tied to something, posed like the Vitruvian Man, and some kind of gas seemed to be all around her. And Shiro Shinobi, the flashback guy, said the word "poison"



I shut it off right away, so I know nothing more. Now to wait till who knows when to get the actual 12th episode!



ETA: Oh, and the still image in the icon for this episode:



Is Jinora looking furious and in a fighting stance!



Now the wait is worse.


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Got it! And just finished seeing the episodes.



Non-spoiler review: We predicted a lot of the ending here. Who would fight whom, and how they could win, and what the Red Lotus wanted. But I can't remember an Avatar episode that had me so at the edge of my seat. I was really never sure what would happen next, and in that the creators did their job. Had the rest of the season been weak, these episodes would not have had the impact they did (though they were still brilliant in many ways). And this is not to say there weren't some unexpected twists. And some very emotional moments, some that, I think, match anything we've seen in both series.



In the end, it seems clear the next season will be connected to this one. Threads are definitely left hanging. And while this finale was definitely less supernatural and epic than the previous one, I liked it quite a bit more for how personal it was. And the series' has reached a point where depicting death, clearly implied or even directly on screen, seems to no longer be an issue. I'm interested to see where they go from here. In some ways, the feeling you get here is the same as what we had at the end of Book 2 of ATLA, but magnified.



Spoilers of DOOOM follow:




1) Korra fighting, hands and feet locked together, was amazing. Korra breaking free of her restraints and bitch-slapping the Red Lotus was brilliant. Korra fighting Zaheer was awesome. They really went out of their way to point out how physically imposing an Avatar Korra is. Aang never looked so scary and competent in a fight. They played to Korra's strength this season, as opposed to her weaknesses in the last one.



2) With respect to what we expected:


-Bolin Lavabending: Check.


-Mako using lightning to kill (kill!!!) Ming-Hua: Check.


-Jinora gets into the action: Check.


-Metalbend around P'Li to kill her: Check.


-Zaheer will fly: Check.


-Jinora gets her tattoos: Check.


-Red Lotus wants to end the Avatar Cycle: Check.



3) What didn't happen:


-Tenzin didn't die. They gave that away when the flashback said Aang's kids were all "injured".


-Tonraq didn't die: this really is inexplicable. They should have had him die to lend more strength to Korra's depression.


- No demonic possession: at least, not that we could see. There's still a chance, as I'll explain below.



4) Suyin was not a traitor. Or so it seems. Till she healed Korra, I could figure out some convoluted ways she could be passed off as a sleeper agent. But at that point it became really hard to think anything but that she was very much on the side of Team Avatar. But then I went back to see how she looked during the whole thing. And there was the moment before she started healing when it looked mighty suspicious:


https://s3.amazonaws.com/pushbullet-uploads/ujw7I0itCHQ-fTttWrj5NIifge2cvQ4ZwgsTHHMdksFI/Screen%20Shot%202014-08-22%20at%203.38.53%20AM.png



It would be a huge stretch, but what if she played the Red Lotus to get what she wanted? She hated the Earth Queen, so she got rid of her. Maybe she didn't bargain for her daughter being involved, so she intervened here. And now the Avatar owes her her life. Would be interesting if true, but probably waaay to convoluted.



5) Some very emotional moments:


-Suyin and Lin make up- for real, it seems.


-P'Li got her human moment. Kind of made it sad she died.


-The Northern Air Temple is fully destroyed.


-Korra attempting to fight the Avatar State was very well done, and the Red Lotus turning into Korra's previous enemies was a brilliant move. Her fear was palpable, and these were probably the tensest moments in the Avatarverse.


-The final Korra v. Zaheer fight had moments that were very reminiscent of Aang v. Ozai, except with the roles reversed. I thought it was a great move.


-When Jinora's veil was lifted and she smiled, she looked so heart-stoppingly like Aang. Minus the hair, it becomes so very clear this is Aang's grandkid. And Tenzin in the background was saying something about her being the Master who leads them in their quest to do the Avatar's work. Very well done in every way.


-Korra wheelchair bound, unsmiling, barely reacting: it was incredibly sad. Its like the fire is drained out of her.


-Asami offering her support was great, and was it just me or did they give the barest nod to a Korra-Asami relationship? Doubt they'll actually do it, but they seemed to leave it at a point where it would very much be possible.



6) Nitpicks:


-So Korra is physically and emotionally beat. I get why that's so, but I do wish they'd cut off that Grandma Yin and the animals scene to show us a bit more of how Korra feels, and the extent of damage. Keeping it mysterious does serve the interests of the next season, though.


-Its a pity how Mako and Bolin got so much better in the finale. Even leaving aside Bolin's lavabending, Mako was a much greater threat to Ming-Hua. This is something that has been an issue since ATLA, really, but I do wish they'd be cleverer about it.


-Shouldn't what Zaheer does be called levitating? Tons of other benders can "fly".



7) Thoughts on Book 4:


-Secret Red Lotus agenta are clearly going to be a thing. Maybe Suyin is one. Maybe others are. Will be interesting to see.


-Restoring the Earth Kingdom will be a major focus, unless by the beginning of the next season, other nations fall to chaos too.


-Korra will be physically handicapped, unless in the Avatar state, but will be slowly recovering.


-Korra will be reluctant to enter the Avatar State, because the risk is too great. She's uniquely vulnerable. The Avatar State doesn't offer her the advantage of past memories. So entering it merely presents an insane risk. I'm pretty sure there'll be Red Lotus agents dedicated to ending her in that state.


-Korra will be much more grim and contemplative. I think she really got a good look at her vulnerabilities, and I think she will rightly see her task to maintain the Avatar cycle means taking fewer needless risks.


-Bolin is now an insanely powerful bender. Wonder what they'll do with that.


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Also saw the episode specific director's discussions for a few of these:



SPOILERS!




1) Ghazan and Ming-Hua are definitely dead. No secret escape or anything. So Mako and Suyin have joined Zaheer in being characters who have definitely killed. Korra too, I guess.


2) They said straight out the poison is still affecting Korra. I'm guessing Suyin couldn't (or wouldn't) get all of it out.


3) They apparently have real martial artists doing most of the bending moves on camera for the animators to study. Zaheer's style was a miz of normal Airbending and Parkour. They show some instances of where they had a guy do Zaheer's moves. Amazing.


4) Bolin Lavabended by accident. There was no intent behind it.


5) Jinora looking exactly like Aang was intentional. They debated about the strip of hair women have, but decided to have her go all Aang.


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Some spoiler questions that I had, since it'll be a while before I can see it.





1) Who fights who in this episode?


2) Any spirits involved?


3) Does Korra fight in the avatar state?


4) Does Zuko fight, with his dragon?


5) Does Zaheer get killed?


6) What does Tenzin do after this fight with Zaheer and subsequently the other Red Lotus members?


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Spoiler
pretty underwhelming end to a terrific adventure.
And is she now paralysed or something?
Really hoped for something bigger, and a goddamn reveal or plot twist. Especially after we saw the circus photo.
No, no. They didn't really deliver here.
Kudos to the one that suggested killing octolady by electrocution.
And it would have been great if Zaheer and the others would actually be presented a bit more good cause like. I mean they weren't evil and all, just now in the last minutes they were suddenly insane.
Ghazan and Bolin would have been cool doing stuff together.
P'li's death was horrible. Such a dick move from Su.
The Jinora ending was good though, even if I hoped for an avatar ending with a bit more..avatar.
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EDIT: When can we discuss without spoilertags? Because I want to respond to a lot of people and it's just so clumsy to quote with those damn Spoilertags.

Just saw the two episodes. My first reaction to both:

to episode 12:

HOLY FUCKING SHIT ZAHEER CAN

FLY

to episode 13:

Geez, that was kind of underwhelming. It was a good finale, but it could have been great with a few changes. It reminded me a bit of ATLA: Aang vs. Ozai. That was a pretty mediocre conclusion to a great series. That episode was saved by Zuko & Katara vs. Azula, but this LOK episode didn't have that.

I was kind of disappointed in the Red Lotus ploy. It seems I got carried away by all the Guru Laghima stuff, but in the end they went for the killing-the-avatar-in-the-avatar-state which wasn't as extravagant as I had hoped

I agree with Fionwe1987 that

Not killing Tonraq was a cop out. In this epic brawl, none of the avatar team get's killed, while three members of Team Red are offed. It just feels wrong and Tonraq isn't an important character anyway. Korra's depression would have made much more sense with her father dead. Plus, having Tonraq survives negates one of Zaheer's coolest oneliners "say hello to the Earth Queen for me".

I also didn't like some of the humor. Like, when Bolin put a sok in Zaheer's mouth, I was immediately reminded that this is a kid show. It was just so juvenile and it did a disservice to Zaheer as a character. He was such a great adversary and I still feel that he had a legitimate point behind all the crazy shit he did. Having Bolin put a sock in his mouth was bad move.

"Its a pity how Mako and Bolin got so much better in the finale. Even leaving aside Bolin's lavabending, Mako was a much greater threat to Ming-Hua. This is something that has been an issue since ATLA, really, but I do wish they'd be cleverer about it."

Yeah, I agree at least have someone else help Mako to take Ming Hua out. I was okay with Bolin's suddenly being a badass, because he had been build-up all season to do something epic. Mako's lightning bending felt pretty cheap. I think it would have been better to have Zuko come with them and fight Ming-Hua with Mako. He could have lightning bended and I would have accepted it.

Spoiler
pretty underwhelming end to a terrific adventure.
And is she now paralysed or something?
Really hoped for something bigger, and a goddamn reveal or plot twist. Especially after we saw the circus photo.
No, no. They didn't really deliver here.
Kudos to the one that suggested killing octolady by electrocution.
And it would have been great if Zaheer and the others would actually be presented a bit more good cause like. I mean they weren't evil and all, just now in the last minutes they were suddenly insane.
Ghazan and Bolin would have been cool doing stuff together.
P'li's death was horrible. Such a dick move from Su.
The Jinora ending was good though, even if I hoped for an avatar ending with a bit more..avatar.

I agree with many of the things you mentioned. When the spoilertags are no longer needed, I'll try to answer thoroughly.

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I think we could wait a couple of hours, then everyone should have had it air in his region, then we can make it without spoiler things.

Or if we agree, we can leave them right away ;)

Perhaps make it in the title of the thread

Spoiler


I actually felt it was kinda a rip off of the original ATLA finale.
Exactly the same strategy. Flying, avatar state and being super vulnerable in it, throwing the rock pillars (in exactly the same way) and then taking down the enemy the exact same way, by catching his leg and smashing him to the ground, then make an earth cage around him, the funny guy comes and makes a funny statement.
Bolin was kinda bad and good in the episode. Good as he was the only responsible and good fighter from TA, but also the most blind one, making fun all the time "bird noises" scene, I'm talking 'bout you. But then he is the one that is actually able to save the guys, as Mako is pretty helpless these episodes.

But the biggest let down: It didn't really do anything. It did not progress the Lotus story in any direction. Sure, the team leaders are gone and the master is defeated, for now, but story wise there didn't really come anything.



I guess so far the best cliffhanger finale was from ATLA Book Earth. That was a really fantastic finale.
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I don't get where the hell the writers are going with Suyin. There should be some consistency in a character. She doesn't address knowing the Red Lotus, and they don't address knowing her, even when she's a direct threat to them (that's a really good moment to remind her of all the great times they had when young, but nothing). Maybe the whole picture thing was an inside joke and nobody in the world was supposed to see it? Or, they had a certain plot arc planned, then changed their minds, but somebody forgot to tell the person drawing the Suyin photos? I don't know.


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I disagree that the episode was dissatisfactory or underwhelming. Could it have been improved upon a little? Sure. Did it pay homage to ATLA in some ways? Sure. But I think its important to think of this finale in the context of next season being a continuation.




For one, Zaheer is not dead. He is alone and captured, but he can fly. How long will that last? And he has a whole network of secret agents.



In many ways, this is a set up season. And for that, this was an incredible finale. It was packed with action and emotion, and ended up with real consequences. The Avatar has essentially retired and handed over her job to the Air Nation! And this at a really critical time. This happened in a suitably epic way.



As for Mako, I'm seriously not pissed that he did the lightning thing. I just wish he'd at least tried it earlier or something. And what I was specifically objecting to was how well he was holding up to Ming-Hua before she jumped.






Some spoiler questions that I had, since it'll be a while before I can see it.





1) Who fights who in this episode?


2) Any spirits involved?


3) Does Korra fight in the avatar state?


4) Does Zuko fight, with his dragon?


5) Does Zaheer get killed?


6) What does Tenzin do after this fight with Zaheer and subsequently the other Red Lotus members?





1) -Bound Korra vs. P'Li and Zaheer.


-Korra and Tonraq vs. Zaheer


-Lin and Su vs. P'Li


-Ghazan vs. Bolin, on several occasions


-Mako vs. Ming-Hua, on several occasions


-Korra vs. the Red Lotus, leading to Korra vs. Zaheer



2) Well, we had Vaatu make a reappearance in Korra's hallucination. Jinora does project her spirit to eavesdrop, though. And that's it.



3) Totally.



4) Nope.



5) Nope.



6) Lead Bolin, Asami and Mako out of the Temple via a passageway. Talk about Zaheer and Laghima. He was too beat up to fight.


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I don't get where the hell the writers are going with Suyin. There should be some consistency in a character. She doesn't address knowing the Red Lotus, and they don't address knowing her, even when she's a direct threat to them (that's a really good moment to remind her of all the great times they had when young, but nothing). Maybe the whole picture thing was an inside joke and nobody in the world was supposed to see it? Or, they had a certain plot arc planned, then changed their minds, but somebody forgot to tell the person drawing the Suyin photos? I don't know.




I don't know, maybe they're setting her revelation for season 4. Or maybe people are reading too much into a single picture and overestimating the level of details in cartoon designs (yes, come on, animated characters do look alike).


But for what it's worth, it looks like she did hesitate before killing P'li. As if she finally decided that saving her sister was more important than the Red Lotus. But again, maybe I'm reading too much into that scene.



Anyway, the finale just blew me away. Not as much as season 2 with the Avatar Wan (which, believe it or not, is still my favourite part of the entire franchise), but it was really something. And this got to be the most impressive animated scene ever (or close):


http://www.gfycat.com/LightNeatAsiaticwildass



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I don't get where the hell the writers are going with Suyin. There should be some consistency in a character. She doesn't address knowing the Red Lotus, and they don't address knowing her, even when she's a direct threat to them (that's a really good moment to remind her of all the great times they had when young, but nothing). Maybe the whole picture thing was an inside joke and nobody in the world was supposed to see it? Or, they had a certain plot arc planned, then changed their minds, but somebody forgot to tell the person drawing the Suyin photos? I don't know.

I suspect its one of 2 things:

1) It was a reverse twist. The observant readers were made to expect a betrayal, and got her being an integral part of the team instead.

2) She's a sleeper agent, and Zaheer shut up because she was even higher up than him. She's playing the long game, and healed the Avatar but left her crippled. Cares more about the chaos and the end of monarchy than the end of the Avatar

ETA: Yeah, I have to agree that the animation for the final scene was beyond brilliant. Definitely the best I've ever seen on TV animation, and probably eats a lot of movies for lunch too. What a dynamic scene.

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