Legend of Korra: “beginnings” to “a new spiritual age” thoughts
I havent talked about Korra for a while and a lot has been going on. I loved the beginnings episodes they provided a much needed scope for the story arch of this series. a trip back to the more familiar setting of feudal avatar was much appreciated, and other walking dead fans Im sure were delighted to recognise the voice of glen. Spirits are much more familiar in temperament than all the dark spirits weve seen which was also nice. we see the pride, stubbornness and suspicion of humans, but also the generosity and wisdom which have become typical characteristics of spirits. the Wan story was great, but there were a few small details that bugged me. firstly was the way that humans were given bending. in the original trilogy Iroh said that the fire nation learnt bending from dragons, air from sky bison, earth from badgermoles and water from the moon. however in this story arc all bending was disposed to the people by lionturtles that they lived on. I sort of prefered the earlier story of how bending was learnt, although I understand the two are not mutually exclusive. My main problem is that the Lionturtles doesnt seem a sufficiently spiritual or philosophical way of learning bending. at all. It seems to me that they keep being used as a deus ex machina of sorts; that is, when there isnt enough time to show characters learning something properly, a lion turtle will teach it to them magically and instantaneously. this happened when aang learnt how to remove ozai’s fire bending and more recently now.
I guess the explanation suggested is that the lion turtles gave people bending, which was crude and unpracticed and they taught themselves by observation. this is seen with wan doing the dragon dance with a dragon, and villagers commmenting that he used his bending like an extension of his body made possible by a heightened spiritual understanding.
plot developments in the material world were limited. Asami and Mako kissed, Varrick is evil and Mako was framed for destroying Sato industries. in comparison nothing huge, or entirely unexpected. Im a little pised of at bolin for wasting precious screen time with his moving pictures, but Im going to assume in faith it will be important to the plot down the track. lets be honest Bolin hasnt done shit all this series. he has literarily earth bent once to help eska of her carriage, but is apparently still a main character where jinora isn’t.
which brings us to ‘a new spiritual age’. Jinora and Korra enter the spirit world and become separated. In the most unexpected plot turn in the whole series, we run into Iroh (the original and the best Iroh). turns out once he was done fulfilling what he was meant to do on earth he decided to abandon his body and join the spirits whose company, apparently, he has always preferred. It is retrospectively obvious that his reappearance was foreshadowed by Wan’s teapot. Im not sure how I feel about Irohs returning. on the one hand, any throwback to the last airbender is welcomed wholeheartedly by me but part of me worries if this iroh is consistent with his original portrayal. it was made apparent that humans, as I had assumed, do not go to the spirit world after death. So what happened with Iroh reuniting with his son Lu Ten? I would have thought that would prioritise over him spending an eternity with some nondescript spirits. but overall im incredibly happy to see iroh again and his general demeanour is unchanged. but the question remains; where is Zuko? we know he is alive, why have we not met him yet?
thetelevisionjunkie 