Legend of Korra Book 3 Talkback - "Changes" (Spoilers)

[bilateralrope]

You want to imprison the Airbender? He's already nicely imprisoned thanks to the Earthbenders. Encase him in rock so he can't move, and feed him with a spoon.

Then hope he can't blow a large gust of wind out of his mouth.

Or get the other Red Lotus members to kill off another world leader from his cell. Worse still, he could do what Iroh did and abandon his physical body to take up permanent residence in the spirit world.

[JME2]

I agree with Steve's comments earlier about Zaheer being the most rounded villain so far.

I love Amon. He's my favorite villain of the entire franchise and nothing will change that.

But I'll admit the Equalists' failings in their execution and characterization.

[Steve]

God dammit. That finale has gripped my mind and I can't shake loose enough to write.

[hongi]

The explanation I liked was that what they didn't expect was Korra's resistance to going in the Avatar State. That made them hesitate in striking the fatal blow, wanting to make sure she was staying in the State, and that cost them the vital second to finish the job.

Their plan was already desperate; they had to have Korra actively in the Avatar State as it was. This was the best solution they had. And, well, it actually almost worked. Korra lived because Su Bei-Fong got the metallic poison out of her before it killed her. If she or another metalbender skilled enough to filter the metal out hadn't been around, Korra would have died regardless. So... it really was a good plan. Even if Korra resisted in the State and couldn't be directly killed, the metallic poison would do the job.

I'm positive the original plan was to use Combustion Lady to one-shot Korra in her weakened state. When she died, they had to make do with the water and earth benders.

[Steve]

A good point.

[Steve]

So, everyone enjoying the sheer quantity of heart-wrenching fanart emerging from this finale?

[LadyTevar]

I've finally had the chance to power thru all the episodes in a night. I'm glad I did, as the wait in between would have had me on the edge of my seat.

Now, I have to wonder where Chapter 4 will take Korra and Co. She was looking very much like she did at the end of Chapter 1, when she was debating jumping.

[Ahriman238]

I'll be honest, remembering how they handled Toph and her disabilities, a part of me is really hoping to see an ass-kicking wheelchair-bound Avatar.

So the poison they used is apparently metallic, liquid at room temperature and absorbed through the skin. Kind of leaves only one suspect, huh? It's either a fantastic poison with no real-world equivalent, or it's mercury. Or a mercury compound. And apparently the RL has a bunch of metalbenders in their secret club.

IIRC, in the original series Aang made a small tornado exactly once (King of Omashu) and it kind of makes sense if an airbender's offensive options kind of consist of sending a gust of wind strong enough to knock a person over to tornado. What airbenders are, though, is crazy mobile. They can "run faster than the wind" make amazing leaps, needn't fear a fall of any height as long as they can catch themselves with airbending, the air scooter, Tenzin's wheel variant, and they can fly with glider staves or, in Zaheer's case, unaided. I also recall a fan-theory that used to go around that the reason for the pacifist nature of the Air Nomads is that an airbender without restraint could be a special kind of monster, as shown by Zaheer, and by Ginora and a bunch of airbending students creating a tornado.

[hongi]

Why didn't Zaheer give the airbenders over? Why did he trick them? Was it all just a ruse so he could attract Team Avatar and kill them/capture them, thinking they were his only powerful enemies?

Interesting to note that the original plan was to capture and probably kill Korra as a child, when she was far more vulnerable.

Korra is at once our strongest Avatar and also our most vulnerable one. I wonder how Aang would have dealt with it. I'm not sure he could have.

[Steve]

Actually, he said their original plan 13 years before; kidnap Korra and then raise her as a Red Lotus so they could use her to open the Spirit Portals and release Vaatu. With that already done, it's Plan B: kill her in the Avatar State to end the Avatar.

[LadyTevar]

I do think that if Zaheer was not an Air Acolyte, then he was at least a very well-read scholar of their culture, history, and fighting style. We also see that the majority of his 'downtime' was spent meditating, focusing himself. That may be a sign that whomever he was, he'd been taught monasticism. He was White Lotus first, as the Red came from the White, so the scholarship was quite possibly learned from texts they had hidden away from the Fire Nation, and perhaps had hidden from all nations since the first White Lotus counsel.

If we go by the Theory of Genetics (forgotten AirNomad lineage = New Airbenders), Zaheer got the power naturally. His long confinement mixed with his scholarship meant he had many years to master his connection to the SpiritWorld. Think of a hermit, gaining Wisdom via aesthesics. When he "woke" with Airbending, his mastery of himself meant Zaheer did not have the problems Aang suffered from still being a very emotional pre-teen. If I am correct, and he already was using a non-Bending variation on AirBender fighting (or Chi-Blocker), those few weeks between the Grand Harmonic and Zaheer's escape may have been all the training he needed. The White Lotus guards could not see what he was doing inside his cell, and air is everywhere.

But, that is my theory, and only my theory. Zaheer was so good at AirBending because unlike Aang he'd spent his life studying books.

[Steve]

My argument as well, but not everyone accepts it. I know this from my arguments with my younger brother.

[Mr Bean]

I always thought Zaheer was a chi-blocker to justify his pre-bending spot on Team Outlaw when Korra was a kid. Turns out he's just a natural leader and well read.

[Lord Insanity]

Wow, they managed to sneak in a reference to Master of the Flying Guillotine. That is crazy.

The fight between Korra in the Avatar state and Zaheer was interesting. I does raise and interesting question though. Was she nerfed by the mercury poisoning or by the fact that the previous Avatars and their experience are no longer present? Possibly a combination of the two. I am curious to see if we will get an explanation on that in the next season.

On a silly note I can't help but wonder if Bolin lava bending in a probending match would be cheating.

[Ahriman238]

I think, like Mako throwing around lightning bolts, lava is a bit too lethal for the ring.

So here's a question going back to the last season. What do you guys think happened with Vaatu when Korra did the waterbending spirit thing? I kind of doubt Unalaq's technique is so broken it managed to forever cleanse the literal incarnation of all darkness and hatred when Rava was never able to do the same, which suggests one of two possibilities. 1.) Vaatu was destroyed like in previous harmonic convergenances and will in time be reborn from humanity's darkness within Rava, and thus inside the Avatar (though nothing says he has to stay there, but it is an inconvenient place for him to become manifest) or 2.) Unalaq died and like with Rava, Vaatu followed and somewhere in the Earth Kingdom a new Dark Avatar was born. That having tons more story potential, even if it seems unlikely they'd have a two-year-old villain headlining for the last season of Korra.

[EgalitarianJay]

I downloaded and watched every episode of The Legend of Korra over the course of this week. It along with Avatar: The Last Airbender are some of the best cartoons I've ever seen. Just as good as some of the best anime. I felt sorry for Korra in the last episode sitting in that wheelchair after recovering from the poison. She's really been through a lot.

[bilateralrope]

Where did the idea that killing the Avatar in the Avatar state would end the cycle come from ?

There is lots of belief in that idea. But no proof.

[Crazedwraith]

Where did the idea that killing the Avatar in the Avatar state would end the cycle come from ?

There is lots of belief in that idea. But no proof.

Roku explicitly states this as rule in book 2 of Avatar: The Last Airbender. How he knows on the other hand....

[Mr Bean]

Where did the idea that killing the Avatar in the Avatar state would end the cycle come from ?

There is lots of belief in that idea. But no proof.

Roku explicitly states this as rule in book 2 of Avatar: The Last Airbender. How he knows on the other hand....

Aang told people after he found out about the Avatar state. I'm not sure how many people he told beyond his immediate friends but Katara knows which means the White Lotus knows which means the Red Lotus knows because they were White Lotus.

[Ahriman238]

As I recall, a healthy part of the fandom thought after the first series that the White Lotus was essentially a secret global conspiracy of masters created specifically to save the world if the Avatar failed.... or to save it from the Avatar, should it ever prove necessary, should an Avatar go insane or turn out evil. It's, well, it's something I would give serious thought to if I lived in a world where a single person wielded such power and didn't seem to fall under the authority of any government. If so, such an organization would have a really good reason to hang onto all the lore they could of the Avatar, lest they accidentally end the cycle entirely.