Ahriman238 wrote:Part I'm not getting is why run that first time, at Republic City? Sure it's a scary apparition of her during a pretty dark time, but it's also an apparition of her the last time she was able to use the Avatar State. I kind of spent the episode expecting that she'd learn to embrace the vision rather than run or fight and bingo! Spiritual connection to repressed self restored.
Instead when it overcomes her, she sort of blacks out.
I love this episode because it works on several levels. Just the title alone (not a pun) is layered in meaning. But this in particular can be explained in several ways:
1. It not only represents a dark time for her, it also represents the ONE time in her life she went into the Avatar State
uncontrolled and against her will. Aang did so several times in
Water and
Earth, and it gave him nightmares both because of the violence he became capable of, and the fact that he
was not in control. Korra took six months just to regain control of her own body, she still doesn't have full control over her bending, and she she keeps having traumatic flashbacks to that time so she doesn't feel like she is in control of her very life anymore. Spiritual connections can't be forced on someone in those circumstances.
2. She thinks she is going crazy. I mean, wouldn't you? She keeps getting told by Katara that its all in her head, and now she sees this visage; is that in her head too? If not...
3. The visage looks angry at her. That's probably a reflection of her current self image-- that she is angry with herself for her failures, and has lost sight of her frankly amazing accomplishments. A lot of people I see who bash her character keep saying that she is a failure of an avatar for these failures and criticize she show for it, but I think they are missing the point. The show isn't over yet, and at this point in Aang's journey he had made lots of similar mistakes, including a near death experience that likewise left him unable to use the Avatar State. The city is where her friends are, but every one of them seems to be doing her job for her
better than she can. Or at least that's the message she keeps hearing. Bolin and the New Air Nation is helping to fix the Earth Kingdom, Mako was patrolling the streets and busting the Triads before being assigned bodyguard duty, and Asami found a workaround for the city's infrastructure problem caused by the spirit wilds-- notable for being a problem Korra never found a solution to, and because Asami is her sole confidant. So the phantom is her realizing that the city will only make her feel more inadequate, especially after her failure to stop two simple thieves; a trivial task for season 1 Korra who still couldn't airbend.
4. Korra was fighting against the Avatar State at the time, and its possible that resisting made her realize just how dangerous it was to abuse that power like she did in the beginning of season 2. Now she sees herself as others see the avatar in that state, and it terrifies her just as much as anyone else.
5. It may even be that she inadvertently harmed Raava by resisting or otherwise drove the spirit out of her body, and she feels a certain level of guilt as well. I mean, she said that she was meditating practically every day, and Tenzin noted in
Change that she would have to be at the end of her rope to meditate at all.
6. She is currently flying by instinct, as Toph implied, and she keeps thinking that this is something that she needs to overcome
alone. Okay, that was intentional.
7. This visage represents her old identity, which she is now fighting against. The Earth Kingdom clothes, the haircut, the fact that she is now ~20 or 21 and finally going on the traditional Avatar journey that her uncle stressed was so important. He wasn't wrong, even if he was evil. It used to be that she identified as the avatar to the exclusion of finding an identity as
Korra. I think the title of this book is about that, about her finally balancing her identity as a unique individual against the responsibilities of the avatar without being only one or the other. Consider the photograph of Aang looking incredibly silly for the camera. IIRC that was the first time we've seen adult Aang act humorously, and it was important to show that he never lost what made Aang, Aang. He was a complete person in his own right. So when the Visage dragged her into the hallucinatory quicksilver, it was symbolic of her old identity overwhelming her rather than unifying her with her with the Avatar Spirit.
And that's just the first seven things that come to mind. I could probably think of more.
And it just had to be that swamp. You'd think Toph would hate it there, between the isolation and her inability to fell things normally through the mud and muck.
Ah, but its also the same swamp that Aang first saw Toph in a vision. "Looking for someone you were? Found someone, you have." --Yoda