Legend of Korra season finale
For those of you who don't know, I am an avid Avatard. I loved The Last Airbender, so when Korra came out, I was thrilled. It didn't disappoint for the entirety of the first season - elenuial and I loved it - and we followed faithfully.
Until we watched the finale tonight. Hoo boy, was that not how I would have ended it.
( Cut for spoilers. )
Until we watched the finale tonight. Hoo boy, was that not how I would have ended it.
( Cut for spoilers. )
Hmm...I mostly disagree. Her relationship isn't INSTAFIXED at all, especially since they all still need to figure out where they stand re: Asami. Being able to say "I love you, too" does not make all problems vanish forever. I expect that figuring this out will persist through Book 2.
Also, note that Korra NEVER really had authority as the Avatar. The council - not even the council, really, just Tarrlok - routinely overruled her, arrested her, turned the public against her, and otherwise ignored whatever status she should have. Even in pro-bending, she was explicitly treated like any other player, and wasn't immune to losing because of petty politics and cheating. If Korra has authority as the Avatar now, it's because she EARNED it, through learning to Airbend and defeating a huge threat to world peace. Those were both season-long processes.
Finally, and most importantly, her Avatar powers restoring her bending is not a cop-out simply because of how it was done. If (as many expected), as soon as Amon took her bending, she went into the Avatar state, undid it, and kicked his butt, THAT would have been a cop-out. As it stood, she had to defeat him with Airbending, which she could only finally use out of selfless concern for Mako - selflessness and compassion being key Airbender tenets. This underscores the reason for the Avatar's existence, as stated by the creators of the show: the Avatar is the incarnate spirit of the planet, born into human form to keep harmony. Not just harmony between humans and other humans, but harmony between humans and spirits, humans and nature, etc. This is why the Avatar is born into a human form - it is their duty to plumb the depths of human experience to develop empathy and understanding that lets them do their job.
As Aang said to Korra, "When we hit our lowest point, we are open to the greatest change." Korra was able to finally tap the Avatar's true power at the moment when she was most directly fulfilling the Avatar's true spiritual purpose - to understand, on behalf of the planet and the spirits, what it means to be HUMAN. This to me felt like a rewarding payoff for Korra's personal journey - in the first episodes, she is overconfident, quick to anger, and treats people who disagree with her like garbage. She was raised in a compound by a secret society telling her how important she was, always excelling at every bending discipline and having little interaction with people who weren't in awe of her. Korra finally discovering what it means to face real hardship and real powerlessness was exactly what she needed.
The one thing about the finale that did irk me was that it was never really explained how Noatak's Bloodbending could take people's bending away. "It is just a thing he can do" has been stretched as far as it will go this season, I think, and I am hoping an explanation of how exactly that works will be in Book 2.
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I still feel as though everything was rushed and forced in the last five minutes, and there was so much that could have been done with, well, everything. It seemed as though they were in such a hurry to resolve everything (even with Mako, they resolved the big hurdle, and everything else can be crafted from that jumping point, but the choice is over) that it left a sour taste in my mouth.
That being said, if I hadn't seen the last five minutes or so (and maybe if they had extended it an episode to explore more of Korra's emotions at being stripped of bending?) I would have really enjoyed it much more! And I loved the rest of the season!
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