Legend of Korra: finale spoilers

[Quirk]

Torquemadras: You are being That Guy. It's you.

Please stop being That Guy.

[Oblivion]

To clarify, you are not being the one That Guy who happens to disagree with the crowd. If you disagree, fine and fair. Give your reasons, and don't be an ass about it. But you're not doing that. You are being the That Guy who charges in, lays down his opinions, and insults anyone who disagrees, and calls upon the tired old cliche of "it's just a (insert entertainment medium here)" as an excuse for anyone who happens to dislike something about it.

Not.

Cool.

Therefore:

[Torquemadras Trump]

I don't like your tone bro. You can disagree with us, sure. But you literally just walked in here and called us all squabbling nitpickers who are just "butthurt" and you're acting like your opinion is awesome. Not cool. You aren't making an "honest attempt at discussion." You're being an ass.

Okay, I apologize. I do agree partially, I just think that many complaints are blown out of proportion. Sorry.

To be honest, I just think that the article's style of talking about the show is incredibly counterproductive to analyzing the whole thing, and I wouldn't want to see that tone here. I overreacted there, so no offense meant.

What?

It's not non-benders vs. benders, it's Amon's Equalists vs. Team Avatar. In my opinion, this whole train of thought is never followed through: we never see any real oppression, we have a few people saying that Amon is exaggerating to convince people for his cause.

Well, you seem to have missed the point of the article to some extent. The point wasn't "These things aren't here and they should be here." The point was "these things were built up in the first four episodes and then totally thrown out." Yeah, the show doesn't have to be about benders versus non benders, or have Amon actually be a revolutionary with strong ideals, or teach Korra about spirituality and how to access her airbending side. The point is that all those things were introduced in the first four episodes and thrown out, and with a show as strapped for time as this one was, the fact that basically none of that was relevant means that a third of the season was at least somewhat "meaningless" from a dramatic sense.

As mentioned above, I don't think benders vs. non-benders was seriously introduced. I gathered that Amon was intended as a manipulating crowd-puller from the very beginning. Maybe that was just people reading too much into the whole oppression thing.
As for Amon: he was shown to be a complete hypocrite. He may have truly believed that removing bending was the greatest power, and that bending was the root of all evil, but he still wanted to see himself at the top. It was Yakone all over again. It might have been to late to reveal the whole revolution as a sham, yes, but I think that's what the whole scar make-up and our wise crazy hobo's story was meant to show.
As for spirituality, I don't think it was the resolution that was introduced, it was the issue that Korra can't airbend. They didn't have to be linked. I WISHED they were, yes, but that's not what the show chose to do. Once again: I agree here.

Also, complaining about people who discuss why they didn't like something and saying "It's just a show, relax" is stupid.

I didn't say that, I said it's a magical kung-fu show. I don't think there's anything stupid about it. What I meant was that LoK delivered on its basic premise and (for me) greatest pull, the magical kung-fu action. Even the Pro Bending! ESPECIALLY the Pro Bending! You could literally taste the creator's enthusiasm for martial arts throughout the whole thing! We got a firebender dismantling planes while being in free-fall half the time, we got spider woman flying around while electric moustache guy gets beat up, we got an elegant, almost gentle move that shot a giant mech straight into the sky. I'm not saying it's "just a show" and that, thus, all complaints are invalid. What I mean to say is that I think all this disappointment is unnecessary, because some of it seems to be purely from wrongly conceived expectations. Yes, I think it becomes nitpicking on a high level. The good parts are, for me, just far too strong.

People aren't complaining because the series is terrible, but because it could be a lot better. Cool action sequences shouldn't be the only thing the show does well.

And it's not the only thing it does well, don't you agree?


/// Nobody picked up on the "episode 5 was great" bit! Man.
/// But if you don't want me to argue, I'll stop and that'll be it.

[Oblivion]

That post is much better, much appreciated. =)

[Dmatix]

So yeah, I'm a week late.

These are my feels:

This is worse than the ME3 ending. This is worse than realizing that I don't give a shit about Homestuck anymore. Those just made me angry. This made me disappointed.

Quirk re-write impending.

Also that article is perfect (except for the bit about not having mixed families), etc etc.

I was wondering why I haven't seen your reaction to this yet. I imagined you wouldn't like it much. Frankly, neither did I. About the examples you gave:

Mass Effect was worse for me (I haven't played the extended cut yet, though I doubt it makes that much of a difference) because I felt my agency was taken away. At least here, I had no control to begin with.

Homestuck is a lot more similar for me. I too lost quite a bit of interest and even more patience with it lately, though I think the reasons are opposite: LoK felt like a great story cut short and broken, while Homestuck feels like a great story stretched way too long until it becomes not much more than a gooey mass of in-jokes, far too bloated for its own good.

Sad, how the mighty can fall. Well, at least Mistborn won't fail you.

[Oblivion]

In my opinion, this whole train of thought is never followed through: we never see any real oppression, we have a few people saying that Amon is exaggerating to convince people for his cause.

How about when Tarrlok throws a curfew on non-benders, then proceeds to arrest entire crowds for violating it, out of nothing more than "you're not a bender so you have to obey this arbitrary law, because I feel like punishing an entire segment of the population for one man/organization's crimes"?

What I mean to say is that I think all this disappointment is unnecessary, because some of it seems to be purely from wrongly conceived expectations. Yes, I think it becomes nitpicking on a high level. The good parts are, for me, just far too strong.

Here we'll just have to disagree. I enjoyed the show, but I'm not afraid to say that it laid out what appeared very strongly to be a large amount of plot hooks that it never followed up on, that I believe would have improved the story greatly had they been pursued. And I'm no less afraid to plainly say I'm disappointed they didn't, especially with how strong the early parts of the show were. If you don't think so, then we're at an impasse and unlikely to convince one another, so we should probably just agree to disagree and go our separate ways.

[Quirk]

I was wondering why I haven't seen your reaction to this yet.

My computer schedule is wonked until august due to work.

Well, at least Mistborn won't fail you.

FUCK NO IT WON'T. THAT BOOK IS THE SHIT.

[linkzeldi]

Now that I've spent a week processing the ending. Yeah I pretty much agree with the thread, its not that the last five minutes were the only bad part, but that everything else building up to that last five minutes was in the wrong place.

I know Avatar is an action show, but it put in a little too much action when the show was in desperate need for a good case study of the central conflict, and a better more clever and substantial resolution to everything that had been built up besides "Bam, Avatar State, Big Kiss, Done".

Also that essay is utter perfection. And Mass Effect 3's Ending is still a punch in the gut regardless of the two minutes of slideshows that they tacked on for the DLC.

[Dmatix]

My computer schedule is wonked until august due to work.



FUCK NO IT WON'T. THAT BOOK IS THE SHIT.

FUCK YEAH IT IS!

Mistborn is actually quite similar to LoK in a few ways: You got your strong, actiony female lead with awesome powers, your quirky yet competent crew of followers, the magic that can only be done by few, and only fewer can wield all of its aspects, fighting against a charismatic, extremely powerful foe. The thing about Mistborn is, it does what LoK failed at- its ending is bloody amazing.

(when you're done with Mistborn, give The Way of Kings a look. For a single book in what is going to be a long series, it is very self contained and is completely, unbelievably great).

[kd7sov]

It's not non-benders vs. benders, it's Amon's Equalists vs. Team Avatar. In my opinion, this whole train of thought is never followed through: we never see any real oppression, we have a few people saying that Amon is exaggerating to convince people for his cause.

Except that from the rank-and-file Equalists' perspective, it is non-benders vs. benders. And from what we saw of Amon's recruitment efforts, he was drawing on things people were actually feeling and experiencing. Which means that, whatever was happening personally, Amon's movement was a symptom, and to a problem that remains entirely unresolved.

[Torquemadras Trump]

Glad you answered seriously, Oblivion.

How about when Tarrlok throws a curfew on non-benders, then proceeds to arrest entire crowds for violating it, out of nothing more than "you're not a bender so you have to obey this arbitrary law, because I feel like punishing an entire segment of the population for one man/organization's crimes"?

But it's not benders oppressing non-benders here, it's Tarrlok going to extremes. If anything, it mirrors Amon's approach: both go to extreme lengths to do what they think is necessary, but in the end they're just terrorizing and enslaving people, just like Yakone did. That they happen to target exactly opposite groups is just another of all those parallels being drawn. In the end, benders and non-benders are in exactly the same position, with the difference that Amon is openly a terrorist, and Tarrlok is fighting from the inside.

So I think the main theme was more about these two brothers heading down the same path of destruction. Tarrlok realizes this (and Amon maybe does as well now, hence the tear in his last scene). The bender vs. non-bender aspect did seem a little strong, yeah; maybe the creators should've stressed more how it's mostly a lie?

But, hey, it could still be groundwork for the second season! If it'll be "Spirit", maybe we'll finally get that bender vs. non-bender conflict for real. It's just too fascinating!

Here we'll just have to disagree. I enjoyed the show, but I'm not afraid to say that it laid out what appeared very strongly to be a large amount of plot hooks that it never followed up on, that I believe would have improved the story greatly had they been pursued. And I'm no less afraid to plainly say I'm disappointed they didn't, especially with how strong the early parts of the show were. If you don't think so, then we're at an impasse and unlikely to convince one another, so we should probably just agree to disagree and go our separate ways.

Don't get me wrong, I didn't want to "convince" anyone. I mean, how am I supposed to know whose opinion makes more sense to me if I haven't heard the opposite side? That article linked earlier wasn't helping. It was my impression that some of the complaints were misled, and the article made a lot of assumptions. That's why I just threw out my impression that it's not all that justified. Too rashly, it seems!

Now, I'm curious if we'll find out more about the author's intentions once the commentary episodes go up. Yes, I know, "death of the author" and all, but it might help put into perspective what was really there, what was a genuine mistake on the creator's part, and what led to too high expectations.


EDIT:

Except that from the rank-and-file Equalists' perspective, it is non-benders vs. benders. And from what we saw of Amon's recruitment efforts, he was drawing on things people were actually feeling and experiencing. Which means that, whatever was happening personally, Amon's movement was a symptom, and to a problem that remains entirely unresolved.

I would agree that this is a missed opportunity; while I had the impression that the revolution WAS a lie, it would've been great to see what Average Joe thinks of that. Moustache Electro Guy was a serious believer, after all - now why?
I can see that they're left out to focus on Amon's mad crusade, but it's still great material. Maybe next time. I do not think the first season is diminished because it's barely mentioned, but I do think it would be great if the conflict gets "properly" examined...

[Dmatix]

Except that from the rank-and-file Equalists' perspective, it is non-benders vs. benders. And from what we saw of Amon's recruitment efforts, he was drawing on things people were actually feeling and experiencing. Which means that, whatever was happening personally, Amon's movement was a symptom, and to a problem that remains entirely unresolved.

And this is made clear with the Lieutenant's reaction to Amon- the guy really, truly believed there was a grave injustice in need of fixing, and fought with his life to try and change it. When he discovered his leader, possibly friend, was a fraud, he naturally felt betrayed. And what did he get? A brutal, unsatisfying end. The Lieutenant is the avatar (heh) of the problems with LoK- he's a great character with potential for development and depth, but he's used as a simple henchman instead.

If he doesn't come back in season two, heads will roll.

[Torquemadras Trump]

"Finally, the city is free of Amon's terror! But everything is in disarray. We need new council members!"
"Don't worry, we already got one new guy."
"Already? Who is this noble man?"

show spoiler

hide spoiler

[Oblivion]

That would be awesome.

But it's not benders oppressing non-benders here, it's Tarrlok going to extremes. If anything, it mirrors Amon's approach: both go to extreme lengths to do what they think is necessary, but in the end they're just terrorizing and enslaving people, just like Yakone did. That they happen to target exactly opposite groups is just another of all those parallels being drawn. In the end, benders and non-benders are in exactly the same position, with the difference that Amon is openly a terrorist, and Tarrlok is fighting from the inside.

And that's part of what disappointed me. I wanted Amon to be sincere. I wanted him to truly be some guy who was so ticked off at having his family murdered and himself mutilated that he went on a crusade against all benders. I wanted his rage and thirst for vengeance to have been so profound it attracted the attention of something in the spirit world and granted him a power normally unavailable to everyone except his most polar opposite -the Avatar itself. I wanted him to be the spiritualist opposite to Korra's physical focus as much as he was her opposite in bender vs. non-bender.

I wanted him to practice what he preached. I would have loved seeing a few ex-benders having been persuaded by his talk and added to his ranks, despite what he did to them, because he truly believed what he was doing was right and managed to convince them. I wanted to see the inequalities being stressed, and people starting to understand how badly disjointed the bender/nonbender dichotomy was.

They didn't do that, even though they had the perfect setup for it and until the last two episodes they could have ditched the whole Tarrlok/Noatak part of the plot and gone with it and not needed to change much of anything else. Heck Tarrlok's whole plotline worked without it - he had the connections to the city, the plot, and the Avatar he needed through Yakone, we didn't need Noatak being Amon to round it out, that bit just seemed tacked on.

The bender vs. non-bender aspect did seem a little strong, yeah; maybe the creators should've stressed more how it's mostly a lie?

THAT is where Korra dropped the ball. They had all this set up by halfway through the season for a massive bender vs. non-bender political showdown. They had all the pieces in place. They had the perfect examples of extremists on both sides - Amon for the non-benders and Tarrlok for the status quo - and Korra perfectly positioned so that she was in opposition to both and could have gone for the middle road. Then they took a hard left and drove the plot off in a completely different direction, leaving all these hooks they'd set up hanging.

If they'd meant to do this whole thing from the start, which I'm guessing they did, then yes they failed to set up any hints to it whatsoever, or at least that I caught, until the last second - the first hint, in show and outside fan-theory, that Amon was anything other than what he claimed was Tarrlok's exposition-dump backstory. And not coincidentally, that is where the Korra-Mako-Amon half of the finale started going downhill for me. (As I said in my big discourse post, the Bolin-Asami-Iroh half was sheer head-to-wall awesome from start to finish. Absolutely zero complaints there.)

[kaoticAntagonist]

I just realized Amons plan at the end had a fatal flaw.

He didn't know how to take away airbending.

If he had tried to take away Tenzin and his kids bending that would have been hella embarrassing.

[BewareOfNerd]

I think taking away bending is basically the same for each element.

[kaoticAntagonist]

I think taking away bending is basically the same for each element.

no cause then korra would have had airbending blocked too. Or at least logically she would have.

[Dmatix]

no cause then korra would have had airbending blocked too. Or at least logically she would have.

I think the thing about that was that Amon couldn't take away what wasn't really there yet- she only got her air bending after he took away the rest.

[Triangle Man]

So apparently people here have problems with both this show and Homestuck for similar reasons as I do (pacing).

I'm not surprised by that. So much was set up and so much never panned out. This show gives off the same 'incomplete' vibe that Sym-Bionic Titan did, except in this case it had a clear ending.

Also, I have not played ME3 and know nothing about it's ending. I'm assing that I should assume I can influence any aspect of said ending and should take what I'm ultimately given, however...

[Dmatix]

So apparently people here have problems with both this show and Homestuck for similar reasons as I do (pacing).

I'm not surprised by that. So much was set up and so much never panned out. This show gives off the same 'incomplete' vibe that Sym-Bionic Titan did, except in this case it had a clear ending.

Also, I have not played ME3 and know nothing about it's ending. I'm assing that I should assume I can influence any aspect of said ending and should take what I'm ultimately given, however...

The thing about ME3 was that the developers promised the endings would be completely influenced by player choice, while in fact everything the player did was pretty much utterly meaningless, and the endings (which were barely different enough to warrant the plural) were so pointless and needlessly bleak they made the entire game, which was pretty good up to that point, feel like an utter waste of time.

[Triangle Man]

Someone I talked to about it said that the developers had promised something impossible and it sounds like this actually happened in the end. And your reference to the endings being 'excessively bleak' makes me curious to see what they are like for myself...

...In my own time.

In any case...I don't know what else to say in regards to this show? It feels like all avenues of discussion have been worn out...

[Freack]

Hence .gif dump thread.

That or a very long shipping discussion.

Or the Asami Fan CultClub.

[Triangle Man]

What if we made a Bolin Fan Club instead?

[Elementoid]

If he had tried to take away Tenzin and his kids bending that would have been hella embarrassing.

Vaguely related to this, Amon mentioned that he was going to "rid the world of airbending forever" or something when he had Tenzin's family up on the stage. He would have known from his own experiences with his father that getting your bending removed doesn't preclude you from genetically passing it down. He was going to publicly execute them.

[ArmsAreLoud]

What if we made a Bolin Fan Club instead?

It would have been cool to see Bolin step up and bust them out of prison. Learn metal bending on the spot or something.

But NOPE, waste a perfectly good opportunity for "Bolin being bad ass" because "Bolin being... funny, I guess" is so much apparently. Bleh.