The Legend of Korra Series Thread (Spoilers Allowed)

[Megabob452]

One of my issues with Korra's decision to leave the Spirit portals open is the fact that she seems to forget that the spirits, are complete jerks. Sure there are spirits who genuinely want to help humans because its the right thing to do but they are the exceptions not the norm. Most spirits are complete psychos with Holier Than Tho attitudes who take what isn't rightfully there's because it crossed their field of vision and some times act like Eco-terrorism. And we're supposed to see them as the good guys.

I still subscribe to the headcanon that spirits are actively working toward the extinction of humanity, taking the long term approach to doing so, as retribution for Wan somehow forcing them out of the physical world. They never intervene to stop potentially world-ending wars, are deliberately obtuse whenever humans ask for information, flat out refuse when the Avatar is pleading for their help, and swoop in around the brand new spirit portal right when humanity is most vulnerable to invasion.

Partially this is the result of the writers having no idea what to do with spirits or the portals after book 2 was done. Book 3 spends one episode setting up the new status quo, and then immediately abandons it in favor of tracking down new airbenders. At the time I thought the season would end with our heroes returning to Republic City to discover it overrun by spirits, which would lead into the next season being about finding balance between humans and spirits. But nope, scratch that, instead the dilemmas set up at the start of Book 3 are resolved off-screen between seasons, and the next plot is about a metalbending warmonger. The writers can't have spirits interfering here, the abilities they demonstrated in Book 2 would have spirits defeating Kuvira in five minutes. Hence the bs excuse of being "no better than Kuvira" being used to keep them out of the plot, but it comes across as spirits being assholes.

Combine the bs excuse with spirits appearing at the end after all the fighting is over, it looks like they were really just sitting back and watching the puny humans wipe each other out, making it easier for their eventual reconquest of the physical world.

[Fuzzy Necromancer]

The spirits in this series do have a really bad case of the Can't Argue With Elves trope.

[Steve]

I hope they'll deal with that instead of treating the Spirits as special. Part One did seem to take a more negative view of them, with the Rock Spirit's xenophobia and the dragon-snake thing's impatience and unfriendliness toward Korra.

[SuccubusYuri]

Well now that we're here, I feel like I can safely say;

I feel Avatar Wan was a mistake. He is only as connected to the grand story as he needs to be, no more so than any other arbitrary connection could be to get the themes across.

I still feel very Tao Te Ching about the avatar's origins. It was much more exciting when it was ill-defined. Maybe the avatar phemenon was "man made", and they propped the avatar up and it has simply become ceremony over the centuries. Maybe the first Avatar conquered the world by force as a sort of dictator, and it wasn't until a reformer Avatar emerged that the modern system came to be. There's just so many options that it's like a sequel that has been in development for too long; you can no longer match the hype.

Not to mention all the narrative problems it introduces. All those themes from the first series, about the Avatar needing to be a human god so that it could understand humans, about balancing the world and spirits, all of that vanishes as we find out we're really just killing time until the next Harmonic Convergence. It kind of guts the whole message from "The Promise", that the avatar serves the world they live in NOW, not the world of 100 or 1,000 years ago. And while I think it was unintentional, structurally Wan simply became Rava, because Rava was not strong enough to do her job alone anymore. It's not really this "fusion", it's just a new butt in the same seat. And the spirits themselves....they are so divorced from their portrayal in Water than Twi, La, and Koh might as well exist in a different, other spirit-world.

[Fixer]

I feel I must bring out the Jello Apocalypse chart:
http://i.imgur.com/CT7q9vE.jpg

Looking back at this two-parter, I definitely gave it a lot more credit than it was due back when it first came out.

The art style is great and Wan was a much more enjoyable character than Korra in his short run. Especially after that reset that made her a sociopath early season 2. However looking back, it does have the problem of ignoring the spirits malicious and violent acts, presents Wan as doing the right thing when he attacks his fellow man for capturing a deer to feed themselves.

Then the canon and lore butchery of how the elemental powers work. It's an unneeded ret-con and sticks out like a sore thumb if you ever give the original series a re-watch.

[Sir Will]

We're now into the territory of stories I haven't seen before. I stopped halfway through season 2. This episode... Wan seems just as bad as idiot S2 Korra, not to mention the whole 'humans must be vegan to care about nature' stuff shows like to pull. I am not liking where this origin story is going.

[King of the owls]

I always felt mixed about this two parter. There's good ideas in it for certain but at the same time, I really feel that explaining the origins of the avatar was a bit of a mistake. The origin itself isn't that bad and Wan's a decent character.(Though I feel like he would of been better as a random avatar rather than the first.) but the origin itself feel underwhelming? Sometimes it's better not to explain certain aspects of the world's lore. A better idea might of been Korra discovering a past avatar did something to the spirit world by mistake( or maybe on purpose?) and well the corruption it caused is now causing spirits to enter into the human world and attack anything that moves. Plus it would be a good way to really show that Korra really needs to change her behavior or she'll endure the same fate this avatar did and everyone she loves would suffer.

[Winter]

For the most part I actually really like Beginnings, its well paced, well acted and manages to tell a complete story that is every bit as epic and as engaging as the rest of the series. I'm also admittedly part o the minority in that I actually like the origin of the Avatar as I find it interesting and and it doesn't really fly in the face of what we've learned in the show proper. Even the web comic that took place after Azula shot Aang didn't really go into what the Avatar was, all we got is that the Avatar is and always will be a bit of a screw up and that s/he needs to live with humans in order to understand what it is to be human.

It never went into how the Avatar came to be or what it is other then the one that keeps balance in the world. As for Wan being just as much of a screw up as Korra, the main difference between Wan and Korra is that Korra, for the first five episodes of Spirits, was impossible to like as she seemed to be making stupid choices for the sake of the plot or to make Mako look better by default. In contrast Wan's screw ups felt more natural for a young hero and owned up to them once he made them. In contrast Korra dumb.0 took a Never My Fault approach which was in complete contrast to her character as shown throughout the rest of the series.

However, I do admit that while I like the origin of the Avatar I will be honest in that I kinda didn't want to see it or at least didn't want to see it in only two episodes. I think this would have been better suited as a 12 part miniseries, that focuses on Wan and Raava becoming the Avatar, instead of being made part of Korra's series. On that subject I would like to see a Avatar series about a past Avatar's instead of just moving forward, make a series about Kyoshi, seeing that she seemed to live in a time that would not let her catch a break. Or how about the seconded Avatar who seem now has to follow in the footsteps of Wan and Raava who is able to finish the fight that he never finished.

Still regardless about how everyone feels about this episode I think we can all agree that it is all up hill from here. Korra will be back to her usual self, Mako stops being the creators pet, we get three really good villains to make up for Unalaq, the plots get are easier to fallow and Asami starts getting more attention in the series while Mako is pretty much demoted to extra and all the Karma he managed to avoid in the first two seasons finally catches up to him.

[Ghilz]

I do like Beginnings. I love the change in art style for the background to give it a more ancient feel. And Wan's quite likeable. I do agree it suffers from being only two part, and also has a bad case of the "Deus Ex Machina Avatar State" like the final episode of ATLA (As well as Season 1's spontanous airbending). Wan just falls next to a pillar, touches it and bam, Instant Avatar. Takes him less than a full minute to capture Vaatu.

and lore butchery of how the elemental powers work. It's an unneeded ret-con and sticks out like a sore thumb if you ever give the original series a re-watch.

I don't really see butchery. I mean, we were told originally they learned bending from the dragons/badgermole/bison/moon and tides. And all we see here is the turtles giving the potential for bending. We even see Wan practicing with a dragon. To me it doesn't feel like butchery, more like the present people not knowing the full stale of their past, which to be fair isn't unrealistic.

[Winter]

Actually Deus Ex Machinas are used in pretty much every finally of Avatar, Koizilla in Water, The Phinox Down Water in Earth, The Lion Turtle in Fire, Aang in Air. Just about everything that happens in the finally of Spirits, Bolin suddenly becoming a Lavabender for no reason and Korra energy bending the giant laser in Balance. I think the only series that uses more Deus Ex Machinas then Avatar is Star Trek and that's mostly because it been around longer.