Hey youtubers it’s Charlie and things just got real on Korra this week. There are still
2 episodes left. There hasn’t been any news to indicate whether they’re going to post
those online back to back just like last year with the Book 2 finale but Janet Varney and
the other voice actors did mention some of the things that made this year’s finale
different. So after we get through all the WTF moments and my episode 11 review I’ll
explain.
If you’re finding me for the first time I do Korra videos every week. Be sure to subscribe
to get everything. And for those wondering, when Korra goes off the air I’m going to
do bonus videos for a little while and then start doing Star Wars Rebels. That’s probably
going to be a Friday show, so starting in October when we would normally watch Korra,
we’ll just be watching that show. Nice and simple transition.
Don’t forget still running the korra giveaway. All you have to do to enter is be a subscriber
and leave a comment on this video.
So let’s go, careful for spoilers if you haven’t seen the episode yet. Here are my
top 5 WTF moments from the episode. Starting with Number 5 - Chaos in Ba Sing Se
I didn’t expect Zaheer to actually kill the Earth Queen, but it looks like that’s
what happened. Which is also bad news for the ending of this episode. But the city is
a complete shit storm now and everyone is looting.
This reminds me of big times in history when great empires fell. Like the fall of Rome
when the Vandals sacked the city and made off with some of the Roman Empire’s greatest
treasures. That’s where the term Vandalism comes from. That was during the decline and
fall of the Roman Empire. After the government collapsed Europe entered the Dark Ages. Which
was basically the middle ages.
It was the period between the fall of Rome and the Renaissance. Is this the path that
Korra is on? That’s a good question. There was no Zaheer in real life, no one person
that crushed Rome. It was a long gradual process.
The answer to all of that was the Renaissance. The word renaissance means “Re-birth”.
It was a period after the invention of paper and the metal movable type that creative ideas
were able to spread. It became this big cultural movement all over Europe that led to a new
age of creative thinking, art, culture and society.
So rewind to where we are on Korra. We’re right at the fall of Ba Sing Se, implying
that the world will enter “the void” so to speak. A period of chaos from which Zaheer
is trying to create so that society will re-birth itself and usher in a new renaissance of spiritual
enlightenment.
That’s why I love his character so much, he’s so crazy but his logic is solid. That’s
what would happen. People will find a way to thrive no matter what. The 100 year war
led to the rise of Aang and a new age of peace. That was a minor version of what Zaheer is
trying to do. He’s trying to burn the field so that new crops can grow stronger than before.
We don’t know anything about what’s happening in Book 4 yet, so there’s no telling how
much farther his plan will progress.
There were a few surprises during Mako and Bolin’s escape from the city. Mostly Grandma.
She is glued to her picture of the Earth Queen. I hope they explain whether that’s because
she’s just stuck in her ways. Or if she has some special connection to the Queen.
It’s possible they made her stubborn just so that Bolin could have the moment where
he throws her over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. I’ll talk about that more during
my review.
moving on to Number 4 - Suyin and the Metal Bending Clan
Couple of big red flags here. First, if you’ve seen my previous Korra videos you know I totally
don’t trust Suyin. And there’s the possibility that this clown person in her circus group
was zaheer.
That’s not confirmed or anything but the minute Suyin said, let’s bring an army of
highly trained metalbenders all loyal to me. I felt like Team Korra was headed for disaster.
Suyin feels like someone who would totally drink Zaheer’s kool-aide about ushering
in a new renaissance. Suyin cares not for the laws of Lin’s world.
It’s possible she’s totally genuine. I don’t think she’s going to be evil or
anything. She just seems like a Zaheer apologist. But you can let me know if you agree.
If I were Korra or Lin, I just don’t know that I’d feel comfortable taking a giant
group of fighters into battle if I wasn’t positive they were loyal to me instead of
being loyal to my questionable sister.
I did really like Suyin’s armor though. Before all the metal bending artistry this
season, Lin putting on her armor in the morning was one of my favorite metal bending sequences.
Just her getting her Iron Man swerve on.
Speaking of which, I know a lot of you feel like Bolin will learn to Lavabend instead
of learning to Metalbend. It seems like if you could master one difficult form of subbending,
you could master another. They’re both earth forms.
Usually it’s just a psycho/spiritual thing. I know major forms of bending are tied to
lineage but subbending isn’t some midichlorian bullshit genetics thing.
on to Number 3 - Korra Meets with Iroh again
This was a nice surprise, a bit strange with the timing, but very welcome. Especially that
they paid off the moment with Zuko. I’m surprised that he would be surprised Iroh
was in the spirit realm. You’d think Zuko would have reached a level of spirituality
that would allow him to commune with Iroh but I guess that’s not the case.
Korra was actually trying to use Zaheer’s methods against him. Calling him out in the
spirit realm. In case you missed it, the advice Iroh gave Korra. About finding things you
were not looking for, was the same advice he gave to young Zuko when they were hiding
out in Ba Sing Se. I always love it when Mike and Bryan bring Last Airbender moments into
the new series.
The Iroh moment was a little out of place but think of it like a vastly shorter version
of the Iroh episode in Book 2. Korra needs a lesson from Yoda before she flies to the
Death Star to face Darth Vader and the emperor.
And when she did talk with Zuko, it felt like he was telling her Aang would have died to
protect the airbenders. He backtracked a little saying Aang had a greater responsibility to
the world. But the alternative is that he was implying Aang would have killed team Zaheer
if faced with the choice. Even though killing is one of the greatest taboos of the Air Nation.
Maybe that means Zaheer isn’t a true Airbender?
Okay so shit starting to hit the fan Number 2 - Team Zaheer versus the Air Nation
The animation and fight choreography on the whole Air Temple part of the episode was so
above and beyond anything else I’d seen on the series. I really loved the animation
on Avatar Wan’s episodes last year just because they were so unique, but inside the
normal Korra episodes. This is the new King of fight scenes.
I know I made a star wars reference with Iroh and yoda earlier, and it only makes sense
that my mind would go to Obi-Wan Kenobi fighting Darth Vader in Episode 4 when Zaheer and Tenzin
fought.
They gave him the same type of pan away ending that they gave to the Earth Queen, so if she’s
dead, it seems like they want us to think Tenzin is dead too. I’ll follow up on that
in a sec. But I was also very happy to see that they let Kai take on Ming Hua the combustion
bender. I did not expect the downer ending, so I thought when he took her on he was going
to take down the airship in some super bending move.
Like when Lin took down the airship in book 1 before Amon blocked her bending abilities.
It’s a children’s show, so I understand why they showed us him surviving and the baby
air bison rescue at the end. I think if they had cut that scene out the episode as a whole
would have had more dramatic weight. But I understand the concern. If they had made kids
think that Kai had died Nick probably would have gotten a million angry letters from the
parents of crying children.
I know a lot of the fandom really hates his character, so no judging. Be honest, would
you have been okay with them killing him. If mike and bryan had officially let kai die
in the fall.
I would have been okay with it. But again, killing children isn’t something you see
on Korra. At least I can’t remember them ever killing a child. At least in an explicit
way. Jet from last airbender is one of the few exceptions. But he wasn’t a little kid,
he was older than everyone on Team Avatar.
and more killing my Number 1 WTF moment - Team Zaheer Kills Tenzin
Can we all agree that the show at least wants us to think that they killed him. I’m sure
all will be revealed by episode 12. But until then, given the way things went down with
the Earth Queen, Tenzin has left this mortal coil.
Enter the Void totally feels like a metaphor for dying now. Since that’s the title of
episode 12, but it’s not the finale, I’m really curious if Korra is going to have a
major out of body adventure in book 4.
At this point, the best theory I’ve seen so far is that Zaheer wants Korra to refuse
Raava and Vaatu. That creates some logic issues based on what happened during book 2. But
if Zaheer has already accomplished his goal of revolution, what more could he need Korra
for that he couldn’t do himself?
He needs the portals to be open, which they are. So it has nothing to do with that. He
could be trying to reset things to pre-avatar wan status. Meaning he has to kill korra while
she’s in the avatar state. That would end the cycle of the avatar. If that happened
I suppose Raava’s connection would be severed. I don’t think Raava would cease to exist.
Let me know what you think Zaheer needs Korra for. But just to explain the Raava Vaatu logic
problem:
During the book 2 finale. Raava was wiped out, reset to her zero state. Under normal
conditions, she would have re-emerged from Vaatu in 10,000 years. No matter what story
the show presented in that finale. You can never kill evil or good.
They are fundamental states of existence. The terms good and evil are just our subjective
way of describing to states of existence. So you can call raava and vaatu something
else, but neither one will ever be completely destroyed. They just get suppressed for a
period of 10,000 years.
In the finale last year, Jinora just forcibly sped up Raava’s re-emergence. So you can
influence their cycle. But you can’t stop it.
So I have small issue with the idea that Avatar Wan “separated” raava and vaatu. If that
were true, then there would have been no part of raava inside vaatu for Jinora to extract.
That implies that they were never truly separated. It’s a big problem that I’m trying not
to overthink, but let me know what your opinion is on the issue of raava and vaatu and if
it has anything to do with the book 3 finale.
Overall I gave this episode an A plus for not being afraid to kill a beloved character
and for doing it with the most amazing animation all year. A pluses all around, the Lin Souyin
scenes in the airship kind of dragged a little. Iroh was a little out of place but overall
everything was amazing.
The only thing I really noticed was how much they rushed the Korra portion of the episode.
It felt like this was all about the Air Temple scenes and they just rushed through all the
korra stuff to get to that part.
I really loved the Iroh Zuko Last Airbender callbacks even if it seems like Zuko is still
a bit of space cadet in his old age. The way he was presented in the Korra universe was
as the new Iroh. Like he had achieved a certain level of enlightenment in the years since
the formation of republic city and retiring as the Fire Lord. I think they just wanted
a funny callback, so for all intents and purposes, Zuko is Obi-Wan Kenobi just like Tenzin is.
Zuko calling out his daughter in the episode makes me feel like we will definitely see
her in book 4. They wouldn’t go four seasons teasing a character and not show her. I wonder
why we haven’t seen her yet. It feels like seeing who she is will reveal some long standing
mystery. Who did Zuko marry? The best theories I’ve seen are all Mai. But I’m not current
on the comics, and I know the comics revealed a little about possible Beifong husbands.
Just to explain what Janet Varney and the cast were saying about the book 3 finale.
They said it would not be a big spiritual battle like seasons past. Meaning Korra will
probably not have a giant fight with Team Zaheer. She’s probably going to sacrifice
herself and literally enter the void of death. It seems like everyone important is dying
this season.
There is a Korra book 4 that Janet Varney is the star of, so even if Korra does sacrifice
herself, I don’t think she will stay dead. Or die completely. That brings up more questions
than it answers. But I’m going to wait till after episode 12 to speculate further on Book
4.
In the meantime, congratulations to this week’s giveaway winner. Li Cheng, you win an amazon
gift card, I’ll message you on your channel for details
Right now click here for last week’s korra video and click here to learn all about the
villains in Star Wars Episode 7.
Thanks for watching. see you guys tonight. High Fives!.