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

[Steve]

So, did anyone catch the three episodes from last night? And all the fun bits?

[avatarxprime]

Well at this point I've seen the first 6 episodes of the season and it looks pretty good. It was nice seeing Ghazan's lavabending in action and it was funny that basically what Bolin said would happen upon going to Ba Sing Se actually happened. I really like how Ming-Hua is all Spider-Man like with her water arms, it's a neat high mobility style. Also, I'm pretty sure she killed her guards.

[Steve]

Bah. I've only seen the first three.

[avatarxprime]

I posted a quick summary in the Book 3 trailer thread if you're interested and don't feel like actually watching the Spanish leaks.

Anyway, I was thinking about Ghazan's power and was wondering if you could do the same while metalbending. Imagine molten jets of metal being bent around like a waterbender would. He'd be able to take down pretty much anything and everything we've seen in the Avatarverse with something like that.

[mr friendly guy]

Well good news. On the weeks they do screen LoK they plan to air two episodes at a time.

[Haruko]

What? More than one episode to watch already? And here I was to talk about that ending for episode one. Gotta get caught up.

[Mr Bean]

Saw the first three episodes. This is an odd season for me as the flatter segments felt even worse than before while the old good segments were just as good. The Boomie intro with airbending was bad the jokes fell flat and the fact Boomie bending was just minor was kinda... anticlimatic in the extreme.

I hate the kid already, I liked him at first, but the more time we spend with him the more I sense I'm going to hate him. Had the stuck with the Mako angle with him trying stuff and Mako shutting him down I'd be fine. When Mako is out of the way he starts getting his way but instead the street smart from the slums kid is outwitted by the ten year old.

I did like Tenzen being the worst airbending recruiter ever and it's nice to see the Da Lei back again, and every time we get shots of the villain group I get more and more impressed by them. Zaheer and his company are more and more impressive even if I question why Zaheer is such a great airbender despite literally being less than a month old. Still his crew is impressive, very impressive.

Also Zuko and the twins? Loved every minute of that.

[mr friendly guy]

Metal city looks nice.

Varick is back and working on high speed rail.

And it looks like next episode Korra starts learning metal bending.

[Ahriman238]

Last season they posted the episodes on Nick.com, but not now. Where are all of you seeing them?

[avatarxprime]

Varrick is Iron Man, just saying.

It kinda sucked to see Kya go down like she did, but considering Zaheer was a threat before he even had bending I guess it makes sense.

Seconding that Metal City was awesome.

[Koolaidkirby]

Zaheer seems to know an awful lot about Air Nomad culture. I wonder if he might've been a former Air Acolyte

[Lord Revan]

Zaheer seems to know an awful lot about Air Nomad culture. I wonder if he might've been a former Air Acolyte

I've yet to see the latest episode but yeah that could be possible or maybe he wanted to join but didn't for some reason.

[Steve]

Book 3 is surprisingly strong so far. The mystery of what Zaheer and his band are after concerning Korra, the issue of the Earth Kingdom and the Earth Queen being a self-absorbed tyrant, and now Lin's family.... actually, looking at things there is some interesting thread of family right now, with Mako and Bolin finding their father's family and now seeing Toph's.

And of course the theme of Change. Sulin's comment about the need for change in the Earth Kingdom, clearly Zaheer and his group are looking to change something, and of course the lingering issue of the Spirit World being reconnected to the physical.

[Ahriman238]

So far I'm really liking the new villains, who are distinctive and threatening in much the way of the AtLAs. Except for the Earth Queen. Korra's not taking the opportunity to depose her when she was right there is so going to bite them in the rear. even if doing so would probably have triggered a fresh round of political crises, now the Earth Queen is still going to kidnap Airbenders, and have her army hunting the Avatar and companions to boot.

Plus, they haven't made any secret that any Airbender they find and is willing they'll take to the Northern Air Temple, so an attack there is not unreasonable.

Ok, so I'll accept that Zaheer was incredibly dangerous as a non-bender, and that he's read up on ancient Airbender philosophy (I'm sure they're setting something up with the repeated references to his favorite guru.) but a couple of weeks after getting airbending he makes Aang and Tenzin both look like chumps in his fight scenes, and has even mastered the spinning doors of doom? I find that a bit hard to credit.

For that matter, is it my imagination or is airbending being treated as extremely powerful this season (with high mobility and wide-area attacks) while firebending seems largely useless? Neither Mako not Zuko seemed to contribute meaningfully in the only couple of fights they've been in (and that hurts, with Zuko) while something like a dozen White Lotus redshirt firebenders go down easy and even Zuko's dragon gets bitchslapped by Pei Li. Korra's using a lot more airbending in her fights too, but that could be a deliberate choice to practice and/or she's been working on it more so she can help any Airbenders they meet.


I really feel for Tenzin, while perfectly understanding why no one is jumping at what he's selling until the alternative is literally a secret prison and conscription into a brutal army. For so long he and his children have been the only ones, the last hope of an entire culture and last season we saw how that pressure has defined him all his life. Now he's assuming any Airbenders would naturally follow in thousands of years of tradition, would embrace the culture and can't see that he's trying to sell people on a whole different way of life. A monastic life-style at that. Obviously it'd be better to say "come with us for a few months of training." and then try to gently sell the wisdom of ancient Airbenders, but Tenzin can't see that because he's so excited at the possibilities before him.


Normally the awkward relationship stuff in Korra has been cringeworthy, but so far I'm really digging Jinora/Kai, Bolin/Opal and laughing at Asami and Korra's messing with Mako.

[avatarxprime]

As to the doors, you don't need to be an airbender to master them, Korra managed them long before she could bend, it was about the footwork and other techniques, which she even incorporated in her probending. It's conceivable that Zaheer learned these as a way to fight against benders given the evasive nature of airbending.

However, I'm thinking that Zaheer has a more so direct connection to the Gaang of old then just having been a fan of airbenders and their philosophy. Consider how quickly Kya recognized him when he said how he's from a small village in the North. It's likely that they've interacted previously in a similar manner. Heck, it is fully possible he was a former Acolyte and maybe even trained by Aang. Remember how Jinora stated her spirit projecting was a variation of a high level airbending technique taking advantage of her own spiritual power, well guess who appears to know something similar.

[Mr Bean]

Something tells me we are going to find out Zaheer might have gone full bore studying of air bending techniques when he was young and when Harmonic convergence happened he knew within hours he was an airbender. Given his isolated cell and nothing better to do he might have been practicing for weeks before making his escape. Either that or he's an airbending savant but something tells me he started life as a chi-blocker.

Kind of odd how he leads a group of some of the worst/best benders out there when he himself could do nothing.

[bilateralrope]

Was I the only one who noticed that the Dai Lai were trying to train the airbenders in ways similar to earth bending ?
Standing still and use bending to deal with the rocks instead of dodging them.

I wonder how Korra would have reacted if the Earth Queen had been open about drafting air benders and asked Tenzin to teach them.

As to the doors, you don't need to be an airbender to master them, Korra managed them long before she could bend, it was about the footwork and other techniques, which she even incorporated in her probending. It's conceivable that Zaheer learned these as a way to fight against benders given the evasive nature of airbending.

I wonder if Zaheer has any training as a chi-blocker. It's the obvious thing that would make a non-bender a threat to benders and evasion is the only counter a chi-blocker would have to a benders attacks.

I wonder if chi-blocking has roots in airbending.

[Ahriman238]

Something tells me we are going to find out Zaheer might have gone full bore studying of air bending techniques when he was young and when Harmonic convergence happened he knew within hours he was an airbender. Given his isolated cell and nothing better to do he might have been practicing for weeks before making his escape. Either that or he's an airbending savant but something tells me he started life as a chi-blocker.

Kind of odd how he leads a group of some of the worst/best benders out there when he himself could do nothing.

Maybe. On the other hand, you don't have to be a bender of a chi-blocker to be dangerous, see Sokka, Mai, or Piando. It's entirely possible that everyone craps themselves when they hear Zaheer is an Airbender now because he was already incredibly smart and ruthless, and that was all he needed to be dangerous. It's also possible that he, personally, was never a threat (I'm leaning against it) but was feared because he manged to gather and lead a diverse team of powerful benders and they still haven o idea what their ultimate goal was.


And another things that's been bugging me. We've seen a lot about how to safely imprison benders, but how long could you realistically keep fire and waterbenders contained? At the Boiling Rock, remember, they let the firebenders in the general population and only dropped them in the freezer if they got rowdy. Pei Li has been in a freezer for thirteen years how is she not dead? What about waterbenders, given the bare minimum of water needed to survive, and in this case suspended over lava?

For that matter, notice how extreme cold stopping firebenders only worked in those two episodes? Pei Li gets out of prison and she's fine despite still being in the Arctic. Zuko had no problem bending at either pole, or underwater. If there's a colder temperature than 'arctic storm' or 'under the ice' that stops firebending, that really shouldn't be survivable over any real length of time.

[Steve]

They also kept that plate over her forehead so she couldn't use her explosion powers. That seems to have been the major security measure, as well as maintaining her distance from the others.

I think the reason airbenders are coming off as so powerful is that nobody is used to fighting them. The Firebenders, Waterbenders, and Eathbenders are all more likely opponents, so they train to combat each other. But until now there have only been seven Airbenders in the last 170 years, and the Avatar accounts for two of them. Airbenders are a completely different threat.

[JME2]

Yeah, that makes sense.

It's like everybody having to readjust to fighting people with Jedi abilities during the post-ROTJ stories.

I really want to know what the hell Zaheer's plan was for kidnapping the young Korra.

[Darksider]

Probably even more of an adjustment than that. The Jedi were gone for what, 25 years? The average mercenary who knew how to fight Jedi would still be alive during the post-ROTJ era. Airbenders were gone for more than a century

[JME2]

Okay, that's a more valid example.

I am loving Zaheer as a villain. You can't beat Amon, but I love how they're pulling off an 'evil' Airbender.

And Steve's right about Book Three being stronger. With all these plotlines and traveling, it reminds me of ATLA's Book Two.

[JME2]

One of my friends pointed out something interesting about Opal and Suyin.

Suyin's refusing to allow her daughter to go with Korra. She keeps saying Opal has everything she needs and is taken care of in Metal City.

In short, it's Toph and her relationship with her parents all over again.

Of course, Suyin's more subtle and less forceful. But the inter-generational parallels are there.

[avatarxprime]

And another things that's been bugging me. We've seen a lot about how to safely imprison benders, but how long could you realistically keep fire and waterbenders contained? At the Boiling Rock, remember, they let the firebenders in the general population and only dropped them in the freezer if they got rowdy. Pei Li has been in a freezer for thirteen years how is she not dead? What about waterbenders, given the bare minimum of water needed to survive, and in this case suspended over lava?

For that matter, notice how extreme cold stopping firebenders only worked in those two episodes? Pei Li gets out of prison and she's fine despite still being in the Arctic. Zuko had no problem bending at either pole, or underwater. If there's a colder temperature than 'arctic storm' or 'under the ice' that stops firebending, that really shouldn't be survivable over any real length of time.

Well the Fire Nation has extensive practice at holding Waterbenders and Firebenders for long periods of time. We've seen with Hama that you can keep a Waterbender imprisoned for years. As to the temperature issues with firebending, we've seen that elite benders can circumvent that, Zuko's breath of fire is what allowed him to survive in the poles, underwater, and in the cooler. P'Li clearly is a skilled enough bender that she would know this technique and could keep herself alive and fine in the extreme cold.

[FaxModem1]

Now, here's an honest question, considering that culturally, the four kingdoms and Republic City are at a cultural level of about say 1930 or so, why is there no death penalty for their dangerous prisoners? It just seems like an utter absurd commitment of resources to cage four people like that for decades, where with one slip up, they're free to wreak havoc again.

I'm not arguing for the death penalty here, but this does seem like a case where killing them off would be the more pragmatic solution. It made sense for the Fire Nation not to do so with the Avatar, because the new one would just roll around in a few years, but what's so special about this gang?