The Legend of Korra: Book 4

[Kelthaz]

Looking in as a viewer, I see that she's gone too far but at the same time I can still see and understand her fervor and why she feels the way she does. The episode did a pretty good job of presenting her side of things and putting me in her shoes.

Agreed. I've loving the moral complexity of this season. I just hope that they don't have Kuvira pass a moral event horizon and turn into a cliche evil villain obsessed only with power.

Oh I don't know, I'd say she crossed that line when I heard the words "re-education camp." :/

I'm willing to let that slide. Taking a few dissenters who are risking a civil war in the Earth Empire and turning them into peaceful and productive citizens (via Dai Li brainwashing) is just another somewhat justifiable "harsh truth" of her rule. It's not outright evil.

 

[Christopher]

^But that's how outright evil takes hold -- through the accumulation of small evils that people are willing to let slide.

 

[Mr. Adventure]

Finally caught up with the series, pretty good stuff so far, though it seems they're painting Kuvira as nastier in the last episode I do like the approach they've taken with presenting the two sides. One of my favorite characters has been the silly prince guy with Mako.

Nick.com isn't set up so well for binge viewing, the site navigation is a little odd and it always starts up the previous episode when the one being watched ends. I have it playing through my TV and it looks pretty decent. One little thing that's nice is to be able to hear the nice little ending credit theme which I suspect would be interrupted on TV.

 

[Agent Richard07]

^ The end theme is pretty nice isn't it?

4x06: "The Battle of Zaofu"

I was rooting for Kuvira and I knew that she'd win even though Korra is supposed to have the advantage. I figured that Kuvira would do her in with superior earthbending skills but it seems that something happened to Korra to make her freeze, but what? More fears that the avatar is irrelevant? This will no doubt be a part of Book 4 again.

The taking of Zaofu wasn't nice but as they say, evil thrives when good people do nothing and people like Suyin did nothing.

 

[Christopher]

Yeep! What just happened?

Spoiler: The Battle of Zaofu

Kuvira's eyes glowed! She beat Korra's Avatar state with her own Avatar state! What does that mean? Is she the Dark Avatar? Did Vaatu's spirit bind with hers? Or could it be that Raava's spirit somehow split between Korra and Kuvira after Korra's link to it was severed?

Hold on, didn't Unalaq's eyes glow dark purple or something when he was the Dark Avatar? Since Kuvira's glowed white, that would suggest she's drawing on the same source as Korra. Which would be preferable, because I don't want Kuvira to be just another Eeeevil bad guy. I'd rather she was a redeemable well-intentioned extremist.

Even aside from that, it seemed Korra was operating at a disadvantage because they were in a desert. Water is her native element and she didn't have access to it. I wonder if she would've done better with all four elements to draw on. Then again, maybe that's a failure of imagination on Korra's (and writer Tim Hedrick's) part. All those soldiers must have had canteens...

I was hoping that Meelo's eagerness for action would have a payoff -- that he'd see the horrors of war and get a rude awakening about his attitudes. Unfortunately he's still just as obnoxious as ever.

 

[Agent Richard07]

^ About your spoiler...

Other people online seem to think that Kuvira was another avatar or something. I thought it was just Korra seeing things again.

 

[Agent Richard07]

It was Korra's face...

Spoiler: Kuvira

 

[RoJoHen]

Yeah, Kuvira's eyes didn't glow. Korra was seeing things. Kuvira's whole head changed to Korra's head before she cut her hair (she even has Korra's old blue hair ties). Korra was just seeing another vision like she was seeing at the beginning of the season.

 

[Agent Richard07]

Kuvira being another avatar or drawing from Raava would have been cool though. I thought of that too a few weeks ago when Korra lost access.

By the way, Unalaaq's eyes were crimson when he was in the dark avatar state. It's the inverse of light blue which is supposed to be the color of the avatar state which is also shown as white sometimes. Raava and Vaatu are inverted colors of each other.

 

[RoJoHen]

Maybe, but it also wouldn't have made any sense. Vaatu and Raava both exist inside Korra now. Nobody else could get access.

However, that does make me wonder...could different spirits join with humans to give them superpowers?

 

[Agent Richard07]

However, that does make me wonder...could different spirits join with humans to give them superpowers?

Possibly, if they had the energy from the harmonic convergence to permanently fuse them. With some spirits though, you could run into the problem of the human host's body being warped into whatever the spirit looks like. Maybe that didn't happen with Raava because she was more ethereal than the "animal" spirits.

 

[RoJoHen]

Yeah, that's kind of what I was thinking. I believe it was mentioned that if a spirit lingers too long inside a human host that the human would die.

 

[FPAlpha]

Korra has severe mental problems, she may have gotten rid of the physical impairments but the toll on her psyche was and is far greater.

Even without using the Avatar state Korra should have been a match for Kuvira anytime, i.e. pre-Zaheer Korra. That final fight against Zaheer from the season 3 finale (and the preceding torture) took more out of Korra than anything before, even the Vaatu/Raava/Korra fight.

Korra is not herself anymore and there needs something to happen which will restore her. She's holding herself back because she's got all the tools. In the Avatar state she came within an inch of beating Kuvira but only lost because her psyche gave out.

What that means for the future and how this can be resolved is up to anyone's guess. In our reality PTSD is a very serious problem and people have been battling it for years even with professional help so who can and will help Korra will surely be a theme for the last few episodes (Toph certainly pushed her in the right direction but apparently it was not enough).

 

[RoJoHen]

What that means for the future and how this can be resolved is up to anyone's guess. In our reality PTSD is a very serious problem and people have been battling it for years even with professional help so who can and will help Korra will surely be a theme for the last few episodes (Toph certainly pushed her in the right direction but apparently it was not enough).

You know, that gives me an idea. Who can help her, indeed?

In the beginning of the season, we saw Katara (water) push her into walking again.

Then she ran away and we saw Toph (earth) help her some more.

With the season being titled "Balance," I wonder if we'll see her get help from a Firebender (Zuko? His daughter?) and an Airbender (Tenzin or Jinora). The theme could certainly run throughout the rest of the season until Korra truly does find a balance within herself.

 

[Christopher]

Okay, thanks for the clarification. Korra and Kuvira look kind of similar anyway, and I'm not always good with faces.

And the inverse color to blue is actually yellow, as you can see if you stare at something blue for a while and then look at a white wall. The primary colors (peak sensitivities of the three color pigments of the eye) are red, green, and blue, and the complementary color to each one is the combination of the other two (because when your cones for one color get overloaded, you only see the other two). So the complement of red is cyan (green + blue), the complement for green is magenta (red + blue), and the complement for blue is yellow (red + green).

The reason we think of red and blue as opposite is because we associate them with fire and water, hot and cold. Which is ironic, since blue is actually a hotter (higher-frequency/energy) color than red -- a blue star is thousands of degrees hotter than a red star.

 

[RoJoHen]

Did you just explain the way that colors work as a way to say that you didn't notice Korra's pigtails?

 

[Christopher]

Did you just explain the way that colors work as a way to say that you didn't notice Korra's pigtails?

No, just my obsessive need to explain stuff. Which has nothing to do with my ego, since I freely admit that I'm not very perceptive when it comes to faces. It's easy for me to confuse two faces that look similar. Really, all I registered were glowing eyes, dark hair, and green uniform. I totally missed the pigtails.

I also totally didn't recognize Zhu Li in the bedroom until Su called out her name. And I have no idea who that guy with the green streak in his hair was. Was that one of Su's sons? Oh yeah, now that I think about it, one of them was an artist, right?

 

[RoJoHen]

Did you just explain the way that colors work as a way to say that you didn't notice Korra's pigtails?

No, just my obsessive need to explain stuff. Which has nothing to do with my ego, since I freely admit that I'm not very perceptive when it comes to faces. It's easy for me to confuse two faces that look similar. Really, all I registered were glowing eyes, dark hair, and green uniform. I totally missed the pigtails.

Well, in fairness, the scene was pretty quick, and the first thing I noticed were the glowing eyes as well. It was only at the last second that I realized it was Korra's face.

I also totally didn't recognize Zhu Li in the bedroom until Su called out her name.

I didn't either. She wasn't wearing her glasses. I had the same problem with a scene in A:TLA when Azula was in her bedroom. She was in a nightgown and had her hair down and no makeup and looked like a totally different person.

And I have no idea who that guy with the green streak in his hair was. Was that one of Su's sons? Oh yeah, now that I think about it, one of them was an artist, right?

Yeah, I don't remember his name, but he was metalbending sculptures when we met him last season.

 

[Reverend]

Maybe, but it also wouldn't have made any sense. Vaatu and Raava both exist inside Korra now. Nobody else could get access.

However, that does make me wonder...could different spirits join with humans to give them superpowers?

I think it was established that in most cases, spirits jumping inside humans is very bad (to say nothing of potentially lethal) for the humans. We have seen one instance of a spirit (the moon spirit, specifically) giving a portion of it's lifeforce to a human baby.

As for super-powers, keep in mind that those don't come directly from Raava. The power to bend the elements came from the lion-turtles, Raava just facilitates in that respect. Indeed most of what she does is facilitate. She allows the Avatar to "hold" more than one element at a time. She allows the Avatar to connect with past incarnations. She enables the Avatar to be the bridge between the spirit world and the material world.

Could another spirit (besides Vaatu, obviously) do any of this? Possibly, I suppose. However I suspect that there can't be very many able, let alone willing to do so. Remember that Raava and Vaatu aren't just "normal" spirits; they're refereed to (by other spirits at least) as "the Great Spirits" and they appear to personify the forces of harmony and chaos/life and death/light and darkness, respectively. That's some pretty damn potent cosmic mojo right there. Not sure what other spirit could even compare on that scale.

 

[Agent Richard07]

So the complement of red is cyan (green + blue)...

Yeah, when I inverted the colors for Raava and Vaatu in Photoshop, that's what I got but thought of the colors as crimson and light blue.

Here's actual crimson and its inverse...