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

[Mr Bean]

Well that was an episode ten, even if I questioned why the big fish shark would be happy to leave them alone between repair segments. That part was so inconsistent
OAN the rest of the episode was a treat mostly because the comedy was mostly nicely timed and Zaheer still shows why he's besting Amon in the villain department since he thinks he's doing what he does for the right reasons.

Also I enjoy the fact that Zaheer did not go in there planning to deal with the Earth Queen but wanting to bargain and we still have that concept that they are going to do something with the avatar. End her cycle? Remove her bending? Sacrifice her to dark gods? We know her getting taken by them is bad but we don't know WHY. And I enjoy that.

[K. A. Pital]

Stop spoiling guys, I haven't watched the season yet. [that's because when you say my name I come, but I also see the contents of the post, heh]

I was a huge fan of Amon though. He was as awesome as it gets. The Republic's government was a council where essentially aristocratic priviledges allowed some guys to be feudals, that wasn't true republicanism, also benders as higher race/celebs/police/warmakers, and very few among the proletarians.

The Aang story made the villains hateable, whereas this story makes them likeable. Except for the spirits water guy, he was crazy luddite, so don't like him.

[FaxModem1]

Now, I'm quite impressed, it's not often you see a woman choked to death on a children's cartoon. How did they get that past the censors?

[bilateralrope]

Now, I'm quite impressed, it's not often you see a woman choked to death on a children's cartoon. How did they get that past the censors?

Legend of Korra was pulled from broadcast channels and moved to online only because Nickelodeon couldn't fit it in with the rest of their programs. So I'm guessing they convinced the censors that choking the earth queen would not be a problem among the people who do watch Korra, because they are older than Nickelodeon's target audience.

[mr friendly guy]

Sucking the air out of your lungs is pretty nasty stuff. However it seems that it takes Zaheer a while to do the required bending moves to make it work. So its more useful as an execution tool or torture method than an actual combat one. Unless he eventually figures out how to do it real quick.

[Steve]

Stop spoiling guys, I haven't watched the season yet. [that's because when you say my name I come, but I also see the contents of the post, heh]

I was a huge fan of Amon though. He was as awesome as it gets. The Republic's government was a council where essentially aristocratic priviledges allowed some guys to be feudals, that wasn't true republicanism, also benders as higher race/celebs/police/warmakers, and very few among the proletarians.

The Aang story made the villains hateable, whereas this story makes them likeable. Except for the spirits water guy, he was crazy luddite, so don't like him.

That's why the thread is marked "spoilers". I didn't know you searched for your own name like that on occasion.

And if you want to see it, it's all on nick.com now.

[JME2]

I'm not really shocked that they got away with the Earth Queen's death.

Remember, the censors didn't stop them from having Tarrlok blow himself and Noatak to kingdom come two years ago.

Why, then, should they bat an eye at death by Airbending asphyxiation?

[FaxModem1]

That was a distant shot, with the camera being quite a few hundred feet away when they blew up. This was watching the Queen asphyxiate on screen, gasping in pain, and slowly choking to death until she collapses to the ground. To me, that's apples and oranges.

[xerex]

So Warlord Era Earth Kingdom ? The Queen is dead but no one has replaced her.

[Steve]

So, Ba Sing Se burns, Mako and Bolin manage to rescue their entire family in a stolen airship, and the Red Lotus have taken the Northern Air Temple; Zaheer is demanding Korra surrender or he'll slaughter the Air Nation. Although they put up an impressive fight and Kai, Bumi, and Kya got away.

Korra tries to see if Zaheer is in the Spirit World and meets an old friend instead, one in search of a new teapot. This prompts her to talk to Zuko and get advice on what to do, although we won't see her enacting it until next week presumably.

Next week will be made of pure awesome by the looks of things. I honestly wish they'd just put up the finale today like they did last year, when the last four episodes aired together.

Also, it was hilarious to see Grandma's reaction to Asami and Korra, mistaking Asami for the Avatar and then saying of Korra that her arms were very muscular.

And Bolin reacting to Zuko.

[Mr Bean]

"As long as I live it's never over" with slow cutaway identical to the earth queen.... okay did they just Game of Thrones this?
Also nice to see Tenzin put over well. He was clearly winning verses Zaheer until Sparky Sparky Boom Girl interfered.

[FaxModem1]

So, we've gone from the Chinese communist revolution and overthrow of their ruler to the Chinese invasion of Tibet within the span of a week? Avatar political spans happen fast.

[xerex]

"As long as I live it's never over" with slow cutaway identical to the earth queen.... okay did they just Game of Thrones this?
Also nice to see Tenzin put over well. He was clearly winning verses Zaheer until Sparky Sparky Boom Girl interfered.

"As long as I have breath it's never over." yeah I thought Zaheer was going to his special move on Tenzin then.

[mr friendly guy]

So, we've gone from the Chinese communist revolution and overthrow of their ruler to the Chinese invasion of Tibet within the span of a week? Avatar political spans happen fast.

I think you are reading too much into this. Zaheer is an anarchist and there was no new order like what the Communists brought when they are successful in overthrows. Plus the air nation had been invaded before by the Fire nation but no one thought of the parallels then.

[mr friendly guy]

Also like to add, the Communists didn't overthrow the imperial dynasty in China. It was done by the Guomindang, who were in turn defeated by the Communists more than 30 years later.

[Steve]

I don't think you can put that spin on it, it's just a classical case of "take hostages to force the heroine to sacrifice herself".

[mr friendly guy]

To be honest, the closest historical allegory I got from the "Benderverse" is that the Fire Nation's invasion is somewhat analogous to Imperial Japan, in the sense they industrialised first and used their technological advantage against their neighbours, and used the age old justification of bringing their advantages to the people they tried to conquer. Plus they had Japanese style architecture with their pagodas.

Some of the Kingdoms looks very similar in broad cultural strokes to real world kingdoms, eg the Earth Kingdom has broad similarities to imperial China, but in terms of actions done by the nations, only the Fire Nation invasion has something similar. Zaheer has his own agenda, and I can't think of a historical parallel where an anarchist has actually overthrown (directly) a government. Overthrows are usually done by people with an ideology which isn't anarchy.

[FaxModem1]

One thing I rather enjoyed about that episode was seeing Bumi use actual combat because his airbending was lacking, and yet it was still not enough against Zaheer's crew. It's nice to see that he isn't dropping all that he has learned over the years.

[JME2]

Yeah, Bumi's combat pragmatism makes sense.

And it also makes sense that Zaheer's no match for Tenzin because he's only got a month of Airbending experience under his belt.

[Mr Bean]

Yeah, Bumi's combat pragmatism makes sense.

And it also makes sense that Zaheer's no match for Tenzin because he's only got a month of Airbending experience under his belt.

Let me go into this, I thought we were going to get a swerve with Zaheer being no match and Tenzin going one man army VS Zaheer plus some backup with one on one Tenzin being able to match anyone. Except 3 on 1 Tenzin starts to lose but his siblings come in and take on / distract the other members of the Red Lotus so he can go one on Zaheer and beat him... except Zaheer's a trained chi-blocker and he catches Tenzin off guard with that.

It makes sense after all since Chi-blocking was a thing before the Equalists that pre-airbending what Zaheer brought to the group was the ability to train against someone who had mastered Chi-blocking. If it's something we've seen from Chi-Blocker fights... that looks like a lot of airbending moves except for the actual strikes themselves. And it would have made a great fight rather than the first part of what we got.

After all they have a great setup with Boom Girl on the airship doing CAS while the other three spread out and round up people. How about instead of Tenzin instantly giving up and everyone gathering together why not keep the fight fluid with Tenzin sending his siblings off to round up the air benders. Meanwhile Tenzin get's jumped two on one and he's struggling and here comes Boomie he's already gotten Tenzin family out plus some airbenders and he takes on lava guy now it's two on one with Tenzin starting to take Zaheer to town. We get the same ending with the other two falling while Tenzin get's disabled and keeps trying to fight.

What we got was good in parts but that instant surrender bit was just... odd

[Guardsman Bass]

Do you think they'll kill off Tenzin? Normally I'd say no, but the show has brought up the whole "Jinora is an Airbending Master now and would have her tattoos if Tenzin hadn't dragged his feet" factor several times. It could be foreshadowing.

[Steve]

They might, if they think it will work in the context of the story.

[Themightytom]

So, we've gone from the Chinese communist revolution and overthrow of their ruler to the Chinese invasion of Tibet within the span of a week? Avatar political spans happen fast.

I kind of get the impression that the writers draw parallels with the goals of Anonymous and other anarchy movements. Amon always seemed like a nod to them with his mask and the equalist movement, but Zaheer wanting to tear down governments... I might be reading too deeply though.

[Ahriman238]

As far as I'm concerned, Tenzin won that one. Sure he goes down, and maybe died. But it took four people Zuko said could each solo any bender to do it, and most importantly, he definitely achieved his objective of stalling the Red Lotus long enough for the other Airbenders to escape.

[generator_g1]

Well, that was one way to take down Combustion Lady.... @_@

Also, it turned out Bolin's talents lie along another direction.