Rewatching Avatar and it's honestly sad how fun the first half of Book 1 of Legend of Korra is. It's not perfect and you can see the cracks starting to show but man, it's like they had just enough magic to make those episodes work and then it just went to complete shit and never recovered. I can see why the viewership for the series cratered so hard after Book 1. Fuck man, so much potential wasted...Also Mako and Asami in Book 1 were literally the only couple in the entire series that I actually came close to giving half a shit about.
>>150551796The whole 'Equalists are wrong because Amon is a bender! Let us never speak of the Equalists again' thing was so fucking weak.Ty Lee's chi-blocking being perfected by a non-Bender would've been much better than what we got.
>>150551808Yeah that was the moment I realized that the writers do not have the maturity to write the serious plot lines they used.
>>150551808There’s something to the idea that Korra had to discredit Amon rather than outright defeat him, but the execution just wasn’t there
>>150551808Amon being a bender was fucking stupid to begin with. They missed a golden chance to have a reversal of Aang's fight scenes where instead of a wily airbender trying not to get murdered by fire, you have an insanely overpowered Avatar doing her best to crush this tricky non-bending acrobat mastermind.
>>150551796I hold to the opinion that the Equalists should've won in Book 1, conquering Republic City and with Korra having all of her bending taken away. It was the logical conclusion considering that they spent most episodes hammering the point home that Korra is way too reckless and stupid and completely unprepared to actually tackle the problem the way it needs to be solved. I also think that Amon should've been the overarching villain of the series. Not like any of the other ones they had came even close to his potential.
>>150551796I’d say the cracks begin to show as early as episode two, with Korra’s attitude towards airbending. I was actually on Korra’s side in episode one, they did a good job of making her misguided while still having a point about needing to learn airbending. By episode two however she’s completely blown off Airbending and Tenzin’s instruction after desperately advocating for that very thing in the previous episode to the point where I wonder how she was able to master the other 3 elements when she’s this undisciplined.
>>150551796>mako gets a beautiful, rich, cool girlfriend who spoils him, genuinely loves him and literally made the first move>decides to dump her for a hotheaded tomboy with a crappy attitudeThis shit feels like a leftover from an early draft of Korra where Asami was an Equalist spy because that's the only way it makes sense.
>>150551857It says something that their solution was just pointing out he was a water bender, rather than actually beat him or prove him wrong.Like yeah, he's a water bender, that doesn't mean the city isn't still a basically a breeding ground for resentment from the citizens who get pushed around by the benders and have no representation in the government. And the dude could have still totally believed that benders were evil and oppressive, INCLUDING HIM.>>150551906The best I ever got was that she was just such a natural prodigy at all the other elements and the White Lotus were so afraid of cracking their precious jewel that she never learned proper humility, which mixed with the average shithead teenager belief that they know better than everyone and her ego being inflated by being reminded daily she's the Avatar, and you've got a recipe for disaster
>>150551906Even in episode one them showing Korra managing to bend three elements already when the sages came to find her was stupid. I don't mind her being a prodigy that has mastered three elements by the time she's 16 but not when she's a FREAKING TODDLER. That scene was unnecessarily stupid.
>>150551924It doesn't fix the problem of how he manages to remove people's bending by bloodbending though. I don't think a single person has ever managed to explain that plot development not even Bryke could make that garbage make sense in the commentary.
>>150551954Ironically, if they stuck with it being an advanced form of chi-blocking, it would have worked a lot better. They already showed Aang getting his mojo fixed by having a pointy rock shoved into his back, they could have just said Amon reverse-engineered it to intentionally screw up his victims.
>>150551924Thing about Amon is the only way to for Korra to “beat him” was for her to become an advocate to the people herself, an example people would choose to follow instead of Amon. Such a transformation however would take a lot of deep self-reflection and growth which the writers aren’t willing to do. Take for example Aang in the original series, how many episodes of ATLA were just Aang personally dedicating himself to troubles of the common man? Can you name even one episode of Korra where she acts the same? You cannot
>>150552025Honestly, you're right. The only thing Korra seems to inspire in anyone beyond migraines is lust going by all her flings with her friends, which sure as hell isn't admiration.
>>150552093Legit, there’s only one example I can think of where Korra actually sits down and helps someone on an individual level and that’s the guy on top of the bridge in Book 3. But it’s too little too late.
I DRIVE I SELL WEAPONS TO BOTH SIDES OF MILITARY CONFLICTSI PILOT METAL GEARSAND I DON'T USE BENDING AT ALL BUT AM STILL GOOD AT FIGHTINGYET STILL, I AM.... A GLORIFIED PET
>>150551923>feels like a leftover from an early draft of Korra where Asami was an Equalist spyI hadn't even thought of that but yeah the love triangle plot makes more sense if you assume that originally Asami was just using Mako all along
>>150551808>Ty Lee's chi-blocking being perfected by a non-Bender would've been much better than what we got.The entirety of chi and its existence has a lot of potential that they never thought about again because of how westernized the setting became, or some other reasons. There's plenty of potential for a sci-fi wuxia if they wanted that
I've been here since slightly before any reveal and news of Korra dropped over a decade agoI've yet to see any of LoK. With the increase of Avatar media in the last few years, I guess I should finally force myself to
>>150551796>Mako and Asami in Book 1 were literally the only couple in the entire series that I actually came close to giving half a shit about.I think it's mostly due to the voice actors being the only ones to have any chemistry between them (if that's even a thing in voice acting). It's hard to explain but Asami's voice actress has a more playful tone whenever she's doing flirty scenes with Mako and Mako's voice actor has more of an earnest delivery whenever he's doing scenes with Asami. That's the only thing I can think of because the actual romance between them is written horribly but I can still sorta almost buy that Asami and Mako are genuinely attracted to each other which I can't with any other pairing in Korra.
>>150551954>>150552017Back them I thought the reveal was going to be that Amon had telekinesis or some kind of non-bending power.
>>150553023If you're already reluctant, it won't really do much good for you. Just lower your expectations by a ton compared to TLAB before going in.>>150553165That would have been a cool twist
I like Korra because Brown girl x Asian girl is hot.
>>150551808Maybe if we had actually seen any meaningful oppression of non-benders that wasn't in response to the armed movement built on Tall Poppy Syndrome. But yes, envious shitters baying for Total Bender Death should have been a persistent factor, even if they're just recurring comic relief reduced to impotent seething.
>>150551796I'm really not looking forward to Seven Havens being so catastrophically bad that people start unironically claiming that Legend of Korra was actually decent like has happened with basically any dogshit piece of media over the past two decades that got retroactively memed into being good.>>150553165That would have been a horrible reveal, you would break the existing lore harder than the show already did.
>>150553395They sorta implied it by showing how almost all important jobs in Republic City are held by benders how Korra and some others act almost dismissively towards the idea that non-benders aren't completely incapable. Hiroshi Sato was basically the only example of a successful one and he's clearly meant to be an outlier and it's hinted that he went through some major shit to get to where he was. There's also the whole idea brought up by Amon that benders are the cause of pretty much every significant world conflict and non-benders are just caught up in their shit. So not perfect but you can kinda see where the idea that bending is a problem came from.
>>150551923Didn't they say exactly that about Asami or am I misremembering?
>>150553482Also comes from the obvious fact that bending is treated less like a spiritual art and more like a gun in Republic City. And while you can outlaw a gun and yank it from a person's hands, how the fuck are you going to do that with someone's bending? The only real protection non-benders have from getting their shit rolled is other benders, and Korra's first day shows the obvious downsides in that the local police can't be everywhere and that not every bender will be as competent as said police. Meaning that if the police aren't there, the non-benders have no choice but to either give in or hope that the superhumans hurling around elemental blasts against each other doesn't get them caught in the crossfire. Which to bring back to the gun analogy, you can theoretically disarm people via taking away their guns, but that's not happening with benders. And it's almost certain that the only 'equalizer' the non-benders might have, weaponry, is banned for public safety.
>>150551808>>150551903I honestly really like most of season 1, but the latter half is dragged down by both the love triangle and the feeling that the inequality of the Equalist movement just isn't addressed beyond Amon being a liar.When Tenzin's family escaped I had assumed that the season would end there and that the second would actually be about wrapping up the conflict.
>>150553603Say what about Asami?
