My Korra needs have officially been met for the week
So, yah, when I logged on this afternoon, I saw things about LoK that were not in the first three episodes, and my brain was all, "FANDOM WHAT ARE YOU DOING YOU CAN'T SERIOUSLY WRITE CHARACTER ANALYSES AND FANFICTION FROM PREVIEWS AND PROMOTIONAL MATERIAL (AND IF YOU CAN, THERE'S SOMETHING WRONG WITH THE SHOW) STOP BEING THIS."
...which was about the time my brain remembered that there actually was a new LoK this morning, and I am a fool. A giant, fandom bigot fool. A giant, fandom bigot fool who had just read spoilers. HAHAHA OH MY GOD ME.
Anyway, yes, I love the '20s news reel version of the "previously on Avatar" thing, I am very much appreciative of the amount of Jeff Bennett in this show, I'm excited about the new characters (Daniel Dae Kim! Dee Bradley Baker in a speaking role! A potentially awesome new female character to piss off the shippers*!), I love that Korra just had her "Prophecy Girl" moment so early in the show, and, while I feel that going back to pro-bending next week after two weeks of things that actually matter is potentially weird and uneven, plot-wise, I love where this is all going. Meanwhile, OMG is this the mirror image of the main conflict in much of X-Men or what?! Also "Harrison Bergeron," to a somewhat lesser extent. IT'S SO JUICY AND I LOVE IT.
Before watching the episode, I read Part 1 of The Promise, so my feels are seriously afire, and I need Part 2 yesterday. "Children's shows/comics" that take serious, frank looks at real-world situations and consequences and the complexities of every single issue and choice are basically the best. I am including much more than just the main plot here, by the way; the "oogie" stuff counts as complex, too. As much as my reaction was exactly the same as Sokka's even before Sokka reacted, I found Sokka's explanation of his reaction to be as oogie as the thing he was reacting too. Complexities! Complexities that show that characters who are 16 years old are STILL MATURING.
Other than the ooginess, the only thing I didn't love absolutely to pieces was Katara brushing off Toph's "here is my experience of this situation as a blind person" demonstration with "Oh, Toph! Don't be such a grump!" Yeah, no. Not so much, Katara. So, on the whole, a pretty awesome comic that does an excellent job of beginning to bridge the gap between the themes of TLA and the themes of LoK.
* I know a lot of this is just me being spiteful, but I basically want this show to shut down ALL of the shippers (but...not in a trollish way, just...as a natural extension of the story). I would be so satisfied if we got to the end of the show with the majority of the characters NOT paired off. Because they are teenagers. And also because some people don't want relationships, or don't want relationships *right now*, or don't want relationships with the people around them just because those people are around them. I need more heterosocial, nonsexual relationships in my fiction**, and I need them now.
** It's possible that a lot of my urgency is due to the fact that I want more Shawn and Topanga besties action in my face, particularly after Shawn was such an amazing friend for her in Part One of "Long Walk to Pittsburgh" but then seemed to forget all about her in Part Two. (There was a similar problem with Eric being extremely supportive of Cory in Part One, but then being all voyeuristic and schadenfreudy in Part Two. Oh, BMW and your many sizable flaws...) Avatar has shown itself to be much more consistent and careful with its character development than BMW ever was, so LoK could absolutely pull off Korra, Bolin, and Mako as platonic bffs and satisfy my soul, if they decided to do that. Consider my old maid fingers crossed.