Korra Season 2 Part 4

[Steve]

I generally hate the ship, not the shipper. Like, there are some WEIRD ships out there (Supergirl and her mentor, Supergirl and her foster-sister (srsly, weird foster sibling incest is the Flash's thing), Zuko and Katara, the madness that is people unironically writing serious stories about Bolin and Unalaq's crazy kids, etc.), but the way I approach these is to say "I don't think this ship works and here's why" and leave it at that. Say it once, then just ignore the weird content and go back to the ships I enjoy. Turning it into a "war" just upsets everybody and sucks the fun out of it all.

Yeah, I'm not really the shipper type period. I don't really go for emotional investment in a relationship in the way shippers do. At most, I tend to be "Yeah, those characters work together, it's nice to see them together".

aww. Good for you man.

I'm emotionally sensitive and with my imagination it's not hard for me to feel empathy in situations like these. So yeah, I stopped considering the fun of torpedoing ships.

*hides torpedo calculating computer*

....mostly.

Actually, that combination makes it easy for me to emotionally invest in settings in a way that can make enjoying them complicated. For instance, playing SWTOR, I hate playing the Empire classes. I did them last, in fact (and ironically played them in the reverse order that Chuck is covering them, back in 2012/2013 and years before he actually reviewed them). Because much of my empathy went to the people that the Sith Empire hurts. The slaves you see on Dromund Kass, the scientist from the Imp Agent story who had his wife taken by the late night "knock on the door", the Jedi Padawan that a Sith quest-giver on Alderaan is torturing. Hell, I mostly leveled my Imps with PVP, not the various planetary story missions (just the class missions), because I hated having to help the Sith Empire that strongly.

[Worffan101]

I always played Darth Imperius as a vengeful but good-hearted manipulative schemer who was plotting to take over the Sith Empire, then carve it up from the inside as payback for being enslaved.

That made it a bit more tolerable.

Anyway, as for shipping, I feel that it's a perfectly valid way to get emotional satisfaction out of a work of art, and I further believe that romantic relationships are a natural part of storytelling for non-asexual characters (which...should constitute the majority of characters). Ideally, good romantic partners should complement each other and cover each other's bases, making each other better for being partners; frex, a moderately popular ship in the Supergirl fandom is Supergirl's foster sister and Supergirl's aunt the alien warlord (it's complicated, the two characters met as adults and one's a Human while the other's a Kryptonian who's been in stasis for decades), because the foster sister is seen as lacking self-confidence but having strong senses of loyalty and right and wrong, whereas the alien warlord aunt is seen as being supportive but duty-bound and bad at decision-making in morally ambiguous situations--so basically, the human helps the alien stay on an even keel and the alien reminds the human how much she's loved when her depression and/or alcoholism become a problem.

That's just one example, of course, but it's something I see in a lot of shipping and that I see as a natural result of emotionally compelling storytelling; people like the characters and want them to be happy, and so they write fanfic where characters who are seen as good matches get together.

I dunno, I don't have anything against shippers or non-shippers, I just see it as part of fandom.

[Admiral X]

I was and kind of still am a Trip/T'Pol 'shipper, though part of that was because I came into the show kind of late, when they were actually being pushed as a 'ship by the show. I have to say, though, that I got very frustrated by the "will they/won't they" crap, and have never understood the appeal of that type of thing. I still liked the potential of them as a couple, though, and carried that over into my own rebooted version of the show. Honestly part of the appeal for me is the idea of a kind of reversal of the normal gender dynamic - he's physically weaker and by default more emotional than her. And with the two of them starting out essentially bigoted against each other's culture, but growing to respect one another as individuals, and exploring each other's culture and finding things to be admired there, not only does it make for compelling character arcs for both of them, but it fits right into Star Trek as a theme.

I never really understood Archer/T'Pol as a 'ship, though, beyond the whole captain/first officer idea that might make it similar to what JAG had with its two main characters. But it got really silly at times, where if T'Pol showed even the slightest of concern for Archer (like if he got hurt or something) it was taken as some sign that she loved him. I suppose T/T'P could have been seen in the same light in the first couple of seasons, which is why I think my timing of starting to watch the show is part of why things clicked for me. But the main reason I never took to A/T'P was that I never felt like he ever really respected her, and with the way the writers treated him while having his actual actions fail to live up to the hype (so to speak), I never took to Archer as a character.

[AllanO]

On the question of why open the spirit portals. I can't say it was handled at all well, but I thought there were reasons that if you squinted a bit (or if they had added a few lines of dialog) would have started to justify it. First open or closed some spirits could enter and exit the physical world. For example in the case of Wan Shi Tong (the owl, he who knows then thousand things) he could move an entire library and its contents from the physical world to the spirit world despite it the portals being closed. So keeping the portals closed was not going to prevent a lot of spirits from hanging about. Second I got the impression although its never really discussed that the dark spirits were popping up independent of Unalaq's doing, it was just something he took advantage of and was a reason/pretext for his actions. Humans just seemed woefully inept at dealing with them, but it seems essentially they do that either way the portals were. Third sort of the same thing, humans seemed woefully unprepared for the harmonic convergence (someone should have left a note, like "BTW on this date be careful the dark spirit does not escape and start wrecking stuff.") Fourth the stated reason the portals were blocked in the first place was to allow humans to find balance. Not sure that really worked out given things like the 100 years war wiping out the air benders (and all the other mayhem that seems to have happened in the world). So after 10 000 years maybe a new tactic was called for, opening the portals could allow even force humans to be more aware of spiritual stuff, so not really explicitly motivated by the show but I thought it was kind of there even if it needed a lot of work to make it convincing.

On the spirits being kind of Manichean/Christanized (good v. evil, God v. devil etc.). On one level I thought the spirits (Raava and Vaatu) as depicted were not such simple opposites, like one can not exist without the other, even in the heart of darkness there was a spec of light and so one, seems like it was evoking yin-yang stuff, defying a simple good versus evil opposition etc. The thing was that would imply that in characterization it was less good and evil and more two different sides of what would make up the dynamics of a whole personality (like the two Kirks in Enemy Within), so they fell down there as they were more like two distinct personalities where one was evil and the other good. I would say fell down even with respect to their own depiction of the spirits outside of whatever Mythology they were or were not evoking.

In terms of characters, it seems like who we like and who we don't like is very subjective. I don't really dislike many, but say Varick I don't think I was as impressed by as a lot of people. I thought he was kind of fun but for example not really tonally unified (not the right kind of silly to then become the heavy etc.) and so not that engaging a character. It is interesting seeing how others reacted though.

[aceina]

on the sokka suki thing some ofg you discussed i found that to be very very shallow as they meet and then just fall in love and thats it


we never get any reason why they like each other they just do

granted zuko x mai is IMO the worst canon ship that stuck as there relationship is mai: i like that you can order people to get me a parfait

thats it that was all we ever got really yet she betrays her entire nation to save him

[RobbyB1982]

To anyone saying "you can't take a 6.5 hour tv season and cut it down to a 2 hour movie and have it work"... well, no. No you can't. That's why any half intelligent director wouldn't even TRY.

Take the first season, decide which episodes and scenes are the most important, and then do a rough cut using those as-is, and then see where you land.

The first two and last three episodes of the season are the most important. Introduction of all the characters, and the big finale. That's 100 minutes of footage right there. Can cut 5 minutes from each episode to trim it down to about 80. A lot of the Waterbending Master sexism plot could just be trimmed. Maybe cut the Yue subplot about having a fiance. Cut out some of the stuff with Aang goofing around at the start. You could get those five key episodes down to the runtime of four pretty easily.

I'd personally put some priority on Southern Air Temple, because that's Aang truly dealing with his loss. Plus its a nice visual you dont really have time or opportunity for elsewhere. 15 minutes.

Kyoshi Warriors, King of Omashu are fun, but they'd be visiting the earth kingdom in the second movie anyway, and Suki can be rolled into that AFTER Yue, so that's an easy cut. Roll those into the second movie.

Winter Solstice 1 and 2 is basically a big journey to go see some magic psychic vision stuff, that can be tied into the southern air temple. ANd like the earth kingdom stuff, we'll see fire kingdom in the third movie, so a lot of that can wait.

Waterbending Scroll, Blue Spirit, Fortuneteller are all about fire nation capturing Aang, and can be rolled together in one clump, the most important takeaway being Zuko is willing to help Aang rather than let someone else turn him in. 20 minutes.

Jet, Great Divide, Storm, Bato, all skippable, though the flashbacks for Aang and Zuko are important. 10 minutes.

The deserter is important in that it has Aang try to learn firebending and Katara learns she can heal... but maybe just save the firebending stuff for movie three, and figure out how to work in Katara healing some other way.

So at that point, you're getting the content of about 8 episodes in a roughly two hour run time. From there you cut and trim a bit to get it down to about an hour-forty. And you have your rough cut of the film. Before you've done ANY scripting or filming. From THAT you figure out where you need some extra scenes to make it flow together, where to move action set pieces for flow purposes (so you have, say, three big fights instead of 8 little ones) and you're golden.

You don't actually try to montage everything in the series with super heavy narration and over expositing... you trim the fat. Its not as full an experience as the show, but since people already HAVE the show, a lot of that you can just do with quick throwaways.

[RobbyB1982]

I've always wondered if the Zutara thing was fueled in part by people trying to defy the clearly-ordained Katara/Aang relationship.

Although the way the "Avatar Extras" airings of the series trolled the shippers was hilarious. (Namely, the series finale's last exposition/commentary bubble was "Kataang Wins!")

It's because Katara and Zuko had an interesting energy. The "hate each other at first but then grow to like each other" is fertile ground for character growth and change, and banter... plus Aang and Katara was just super duper boring. It didn't help that early on in season 1 there were vague teases like "Katara will marry a powerful bender" (from a sham fortuneteller, but the writers put that in) or when Zuko was using Katara's necklace to hunt them down and was being teased about hunting for his girlfriend.

Then later they started bonding over having lost their mothers, and the first nation having actually screwed both of them up, and there was STUFF there that could be used

Plus, in the group Katara was kind of the mother figure. The relationship she had with Aang was overall parental, not... romantic. Especially given how weirded out she was when he kissed her, and so on.

Innocuous stuff, but between all the writers and all the episodes, it kind of added up, enough to make you think they might just go for subversion and that maybe Aang wouldn't just end up with the girl he wanted. It didn't HAVE to be Katara and Zuko... but it would have been the more interesting mature path if, at least, she didn't end up with Aang.

You also add in the deus ex machina that was the lionturtle providing Aang with a way to cheat his victory instead of actually having to the hard/right thing, and well... (Aang finding an alternate path was fine... but the way it was delivered and they got there was not.)

Also, as a sidenote, Suki or Toph should have died in the war during that Blimp attack. The fact that the entire team got through that with zero casualties kind of downscaled the stakes of the whole thing. I get it, kids show on Nickelodeon, they had to cheat as is to kill off Jet, and Toph was my favorite character, but an anime would have done it.

[Steve]

I actually disagree. You don't need death to keep stakes up, and I'm glad none of that trio died because it would have detracted from the ending in my view.

Honestly, I've come to view that writers kill characters a little too often in some shows, especially these days. In some cases I think it's because they're trying to go for shock death drama, or because they don't know what to do with a character (Laurel Lance on "Arrow", for instance, reportedly killed off because the writers weren't sure how to fit her with their team anymore... then her alternate universe supervillain counterpart replaced her apparently).

As for the Zuko/Katara thing, that's an angle I can understand. Another was a friend/acquaintance who disliked "Kataang" being "forced", but at the same time, she didn't like the idea of Katara with Zuko because she thought his relationship with Mai was more interesting.

[TrueMetis]

Fourth the stated reason the portals were blocked in the first place was to allow humans to find balance. Not sure that really worked out given things like the 100 years war wiping out the air benders (and all the other mayhem that seems to have happened in the world)

This actual brings up something interesting, what evidence do we actually have that any sort of balance was upset because of the Air Nomad genocide? Like literally what would be different if the air nomads where alive? Nothing, except maybe the Fire Nation would have used the comet on the Earth Kingdom for their first strike instead. From a practical perspective nothing would change, the FN would go on it's merry conquering way, except the Air Nomads would be sitting their all pacifistic, above worldly concerns and just watching it instead.

Spiritually, we're given not a signal sign that there's anything wrong. We see one pissed off and smashy spirit in Hei Bei, who was pissed off and smashy because his forest burned down, and would have been pissed off and smashy no matter the reason it was burned down. Indeed we're only ever told it was the FN, we see no proof. It could have been natural, it could have been one of the villagers by accident, which would explain why he was smashing up their village. Though given the location of the village and shrine it wouldn't matter since it was probably their responsibility to care for both the Shrine and the forest. The other we see was La, but he only acted because his wife was directly killed, couldn't give two shits when the NWT was attacked, and needed the avatar's help to do anything anyway.

My headcanon explanation for this is that things are really fucked up, but Tui, La, Agni, Guanyin, and Tengri (My headcaonon names for the spirits of Fire, Earth, and Air respectively) are now having to spend all their power and time preventing spiritual chaos from ravaging the world. That's why the great spirits haven't gotten involved, why it's a job for the avatar (because otherwise why would he care? He's supposed to maintain balance between man and spirit, and the spirits don't seem to give two shits about the war), and why La lashed out, without Tui they would have been fucked and chaos would reign.

[AllanO]

This actual brings up something interesting, what evidence do we actually have that any sort of balance was upset because of the Air Nomad genocide? Like literally what would be different if the air nomads where alive? Nothing, except maybe the Fire Nation would have used the comet on the Earth Kingdom for their first strike instead. From a practical perspective nothing would change, the FN would go on it's merry conquering way, except the Air Nomads would be sitting their all pacifistic, above worldly concerns and just watching it instead.

Spiritually, we're given not a signal sign that there's anything wrong. We see one pissed off and smashy spirit in Hei Bei, who was pissed off and smashy because his forest burned down, and would have been pissed off and smashy no matter the reason it was burned down. Indeed we're only ever told it was the FN, we see no proof. It could have been natural, it could have been one of the villagers by accident, which would explain why he was smashing up their village. Though given the location of the village and shrine it wouldn't matter since it was probably their responsibility to care for both the Shrine and the forest. The other we see was La, but he only acted because his wife was directly killed, couldn't give two shits when the NWT was attacked, and needed the avatar's help to do anything anyway.

Umm I think it is pretty clearly established that the characters, show runners etc. are taking balance to include the balance (harmony) between people, the nations etc. Evidence of that would be the opening narration of every episode, Aang being lectured by his last lives about the need to take out Ozai, that the first avatar dies in a war with a sense of failure (as if war = imbalance somehow) and so on. So your starting by saying lets just ignore all that imbalance?

Next I think you've missed important characterization of the Air Nomads. Aang was friends with Fire Nation people and with Earth Kingdom people. The implication to me was the Air Nomads temples may have been remote but the Air Nomads as the name implied wandered the world and so interacted with the other nations. The Air Nomads may have been the least insular of the nations and so it seems reasonable to speculate that had they existed they would have continued to build bridges between cultures which would have worked against war and towards peace. Also they were the most spiritual so they probably would have helped people commune with the spirits etc.

It is perhaps a little heavy handed to be just told that the Fire Nation burned down the forest rather than showing it, but that does not negate it as evidence that the Fire Nation was being unbalanced. If you want to just ignore that fine, but that is different from it not being evidence.

Other imbalances Zhao killing the Moon, I think you think that is just Zhao, but to me it is pretty clearly supposed to be emblematic of the attitude that Sozin and the war etc. imbue in the elite of the fire nation. An unbalanced attitude that leads to unbalanced acts and an unbalanced world and there is plenty more.

Likewise burning all the books in the library about the Fire Nation was unbalancing to that owl spirit (which might have lead him to side with Unulaq for example) and again I take it as emblematic of the Fire Nation (even if in theory it might have just been Zhao again).

In the Painted Lady there was the lake that was a polluted mess thanks to the Fire Nation (harassing a spirit), again I took it that it was emblematic of the Fire Nations imbalance, I assume that was typical of the lengths to which the war efforts had pushed the Fire Nation to destroy the environment in the name of keeping up the war machine etc.

Your ignoring that Sozin kicked off killing dragons that lead to the near extinction of dragons. Sounds pretty unbalancing to me and again emblematic of how reckless and unbalancing the Fire Nation became during the 100 years war. Also since you want to talk Air Nomads seems like they might have set up a refuge for the dragons if they had been around which would have been balancing.

Also, its unclear in the show, but it seems like maybe the Fire Nation might have hunted the Sky Bison to the brink of extinction also, so copy paste what I just said about dragons (Appa was the only one around after Aang woke up, people found it unusual as if they had never seen one, I think the website for Korra said luckily they found some more which led to those seen in Korra).

So while they did not spend 61 episodes exhaustively cataloging how the Fire Nation disrupted the balance between the nations, between people and nature, between people and spirits and so on. I think they gave us some characterization of an attitude and backed it up with some depictions of that attitude and behaviour resulting from it in order to allow us to conclude that yes the 100 years war disrupted a lot of things and was perhaps not completely untypical of the succession of the world for 10 000 since the spirit portals were closed, judging by how the first Avatar ended up dying. Again if you don't like those parts of the show feel free to ignore them, but that is different from them not giving us evidence...