Korra 1×08: When Extremes Meet

[jimhines]

Y’all said you’d be interested in seeing me review The Legend of Korra from a newbie’s perspective. Who am I to refuse my readers?

Legend of Korra 1×08: When Extremes Meet
Full episode available at Nick.com

Comments

[beccastareyes]

The flashbacks come off as intentionally teasing and foreshadowing to me (and I've seen AtLA). I've seen a lot of speculation on them over the Internets, but the only really meaty thing is that Aang is shown, other members of Team Avatar (Katara's brother, and Lin's mother) are shown, but Katara is conspicuous by her absence. (That and 'guy that looks a lot like Tarrlok but couldn't be, since he also looks the same age as Aang et al.')

It does make me wonder why Korra didn't just sit down and ask Tenzin what the deal with Tarrlok was, but there was a pretty short time between 'those might not be dreams' and Korra barging in, and Korra was previously established as being both headstrong and really bad about this spiritual stuff. So 'go yell at Tarrlok' might have been more urgent than 'contemplate messages from past life and/or ask about history that might be important'.

And I do think the 70-year difference in time helps push the previous series' politics out of the way. While the series has no shortage of badass older characters, it's easy to imagine Amon as someone who wasn't a contemporary of Aang, Katara, et al. and more to do with whatever the flashbacks are.

[jimhines]

Choosing to go yell at Tarrlok instead of spending more times on visions-she-wasn't-even-sure-were-visions seems entirely in character for Korra :-)

[beccastareyes]

Yeah. I do like it when the writers build in a lot of support for when their characters do something unwise: Korra is defined as being headstrong and politically naive and a novice at spiritual matters and a bit of a bully, though usually unintentionally. So her taking the direct action is the logical choice.

[jimhines]

Yep. The difference between a character doing something foolish because it's in character vs. doing something dumb because the writer didn't know how to get to the next plot point, so decided to go with an idiot plot as a cheat.

[swan_tower]

On that point, I'd say I'm rather disappointed at the complete failure of tactics shown by the characters when they were down in Sato's secret lab. Bolin was able to make an entrance through the floor; why didn't the alpha team try to escape the same way? Korra and Mako had previously used steamworks as a weapon against Amon's crowd; why didn't she go for the pipes and such around the room? Etc. They just went for the power armor, straight-up, with purely conventional tactics. That one did feel to me a bit like the writers making them be stupid so Asami could step in.

Which is a minor quibble; in general, I am digging the HELL out of the show. :-D

[jimhines]

I could chalk that up, at least in part, to Korra's impulsivity. In that kind of on-the-spot situation, I see her as the one most likely to charge straight in. She's learned some things from the bending games, but in a real-life situation, I suspect you'd fall back on the longer-term habits. (Kind of like in karate, where actual sparring/kumite means everyone immediately regresses at least three belt ranks.)

Overall though, while I didn't think about it at the time, I agree that they could have done better with that. And even if Korra isn't the best strategist, she wasn't the only one there.