The Legend of Korra, Book 5: It's canon. Deal with it.

[Zevox]

(Because really, if we're going with this thread title, how can we not have this screenshot in the first post?)

Well, the show may be over with no current reason to believe there will be more (though with a franchise with a fanbase as big and passionate as this one I personally wouldn't write the possibility off completely, either), but discussion goes on, so here's another thread. Discussion of Korra's predecessor show, Avatar: The Last Airbender, is of course welcome as well.

Getting on with discussions from the last thread:

Demagogues rise to power when there is lot of dissatisfaction with current society.
[...]
Note, It's possible to manufacture discontent, but there usually is some chink in society they can play on.

And that's the issue: the show failed to show us any sort of existing dissatisfaction in society for Amon to be playing on. That's what I've been saying this whole time.

That's exactly what I mean. Book Two is bad. But it forms a coherent narrative with the later two, which are good. So you can treat it as a sort of... hiccup along the way. Many shows have this one season everyone would rather forget. Meanwhile, Book One is just... there. Nothing that happens in it is satisfactorily resolved, and little of it matters later on.

I guess I understand, I just don't think that the connection to the later seasons really helps Book Two in my eyes.

I don't think Korra losing her bending was ever on the cards,

I think something could've been done with it. Obviously she'd get it back, probably during or at the end of season 2, but being forced to live as just an airbender for a while could have fueled some growth for her, especially since she seemed to feel at that point that bending all the elements and using that to basically play superhero is entirely what defines the Avatar.

Funny, I would say the same thing in support of my point.

And unfortunately we're not allowed to go into detail about real-world examples, so I suppose the point will have to be dropped by both of us.

[Morty]

I think something could've been done with it. Obviously she'd get it back, probably during or at the end of season 2, but being forced to live as just an airbender for a while could have fueled some growth for her, especially since she seemed to feel at that point that bending all the elements and using that to basically play superhero is entirely what defines the Avatar.

Oh, certainly anything would have been better than the weaksauce way in which it actually happened. What I meant was that I don't think Korra starting the second season without her bending was on the cards. I don't think I'd like to see it happen, either. I'd have been fine if she had either not lost her bending at all or regained it soon afterwards, so long as it happened in a satisfactory way. Like you said, the crux of the issue is that Korra's character arc in that season was pretty blatantly aimed towards a realization that there's more to being the Avatar than just awesome four-element bending. But it never happens. Book One needed more episodes, one way or the other, but if they hadn't had to write it as self-contained the biggest benefit would have been not having to wrap everything up. If Korra hadn't gained full control over the Avatar State and hadn't fixed all of Amon's victims, her motivations in Book Two might have been a lot less forced and arbitrary.

[-D-]

And that's the issue: the show failed to show us any sort of existing dissatisfaction in society for Amon to be playing on. That's what I've been saying this whole time.

I completely agree! I said that Amon's and Zaheer's followers felt really weak in their justification, but that Zaheer had the cult leader charisma to keep it all together. I'm not completely convinced about him tbh, his followers scattered for 30-ish years and then he shows up and they are ready to give up their current life.

Someone also commented that Dissent can be manufactured, and while I said that, I didn't specify how you can. To manufacture dissent, you need to have A LOT of power. We're talking Palpatine levels of influence. If someone wanted to manufacture dissent, it should have been Tarrlok, not Amon. The only way Amon could achieve his goals was to get benders (law and crook alike) to attack non-benders. Sato wouldn't authorize such attacks, given his history.

[Lord Seth]

Book One needed more episodes, one way or the other, but if they hadn't had to write it as self-contained the biggest benefit would have been not having to wrap everything up.

No, Book One did not need more episodes. What it needed was to keep its focus on important things rather than wasting time with side plots and characters that were ultimately irrelevant to the season as a whole. There's so many things (or in the case of "The Spirit of Competition," an entire episode) that could have easily been excised. If they had taken all the time they wasted on Pro-Bending and love triangles and everything else that ended up being pointless and devoted it to actually important things, they had more than enough time to tell the story. The extra episodes they supposedly needed? They had those episodes, they just wasted them.

I'm tired of seeing the claim that the problem with season one was needing more episodes to tell the story. Season one didn't need more episodes. It needed more focus.

[-D-]

I'm tired of seeing the claim that the problem with season one was needing more episodes to tell the story. Season one didn't need more episodes. It needed more focus.

Definitely agree. The more I think about it, Pro-Bending is Quidditch of Avatarverse and I don't mean in a good way. Quidditch is same as pro-Bending - a sidetracking sport that was used and dropped in last few chapters. Thought it did serve as a some kind of tool to show that world is corrupted, because viewers are babies and showing world as gray would never work (*cough*Batman the Animated Series *cough*).

Also the relationships in story don't know if they will go for mature complex love story or the happiness ever after. And they all feel pretty much forced.

[Zevox]

Oh, certainly anything would have been better than the weaksauce way in which it actually happened. What I meant was that I don't think Korra starting the second season without her bending was on the cards.

No it wasn't, but that may well just be because the season was made as a self-contained mini-series, before they knew they were getting more than just that to work with. That's what prompted this line of thought: me wondering how things might have been different had Nickelodeon hired them on for a full series from the start, rather than starting with a mini-series and then suddenly deciding before that even came out to bump it up to the full fifty-two episodes.

I completely agree! I said that Amon's and Zaheer's followers felt really weak in their justification, but that Zaheer had the cult leader charisma to keep it all together. I'm not completely convinced about him tbh, his followers scattered for 30-ish years and then he shows up and they are ready to give up their current life.

Eh, we see very little of the Red Lotus beyond Zaheer's personal group of four, and none of them do anything at all important, so I'm not bothered by that. (Technically, we don't even know if Zaheer was the overall leader of the group - he names someone else as its founder, after all.) Amon is another story entirely, since his entire thing was stirring up anti-bender prejudice among non-benders.

No, Book One did not need more episodes. What it needed was to keep its focus on important things rather than wasting time with side plots and characters that were ultimately irrelevant to the season as a whole. There's so many things (or in the case of "The Spirit of Competition," an entire episode) that could have easily been excised. If they had taken all the time they wasted on Pro-Bending and love triangles and everything else that ended up being pointless and devoted it to actually important things, they had more than enough time to tell the story. The extra episodes they supposedly needed? They had those episodes, they just wasted them.

Yeah, that's true. At the end of the day, the only important things that happened in the entire first half of season 1 were Korra meeting and befriending Mako and Bolin (and Asami, sort of) and getting her first glimpses of what Amon was up to. All the Pro-Bending stuff ultimately amounted to nothing more than a vehicle for her to meet Mako and Bolin, and the love triangle was just painful and had way too much time devoted to it. They definitely screwed up there - though I do suspect that part of that is because they weren't yet used to how they would have to pace the much shorter seasons than Avatar had. As I said in the last thread, it seems to have taken them until the third season to get that right.

[Flickerdart]

Pro-bending served a couple of useful purposes - it helped Korra meet up with plausibly skilled benders without existing organizational affiliation, it helped show how the world has grown less spiritual, and it demonstrated that Amon's fanning of the bender-hating flames was very much a minority thing, with most of the population being very much into bending thanks to the sport.

Now, it didn't need to be focused on this much, sure. But it wasn't totally a waste.

[Lord Seth]

Definitely agree. The more I think about it, Pro-Bending is Quidditch of Avatarverse and I don't mean in a good way. Quidditch is same as pro-Bending - a sidetracking sport that was used and dropped in last few chapters. Thought it did serve as a some kind of tool to show that world is corrupted, because viewers are babies and showing world as gray would never work (*cough*Batman the Animated Series *cough*).

No, Quidditch isn't the same as Pro-Bending because Quidditch was way better integrated into the series. Yeah, it gets dropped towards the end, but it mattered enough to justify its existence prior to that, whereas Pro-Bending basically never really matters to begin with.

Also the relationships in story don't know if they will go for mature complex love story or the happiness ever after. And they all feel pretty much forced.

It's funny you mention Quidditch, because there's a notable parallel between J.K. Rowling and the Legend of Korra writers: They can't write romance to save their life, and yet they insist on making it a big part of the show. It was tolerable in the original series because it was at least a very minor part of it so you didn't really care, but the problems became obvious when it's pushed to the front and center of Legend of Korra.

[Lord Seth]

Yeah, that's true. At the end of the day, the only important things that happened in the entire first half of season 1 were Korra meeting and befriending Mako and Bolin (and Asami, sort of) and getting her first glimpses of what Amon was up to. All the Pro-Bending stuff ultimately amounted to nothing more than a vehicle for her to meet Mako and Bolin, and the love triangle was just painful and had way too much time devoted to it. They definitely screwed up there - though I do suspect that part of that is because they weren't yet used to how they would have to pace the much shorter seasons than Avatar had. As I said in the last thread, it seems to have taken them until the third season to get that right.

Honestly, season 3 still had issues with focus and pacing (I can't speak for season 4 as I haven't seen it, nor do I care to). It wasn't as bad as in seasons 1 and 2, but it was still there.

For example, Zaheer's gang needed way more focus than they had. Zaheer wasn't a particularly great villain to begin with, but at least he had something resembling a functioning personality. I can't remember anything about the actual personalities of his compatriots. Okay, so random waterbender person is armless and uses water for their arms (still not sure how that's supposed to work considering waterbending works by moving your arms). That's all I know about her. A gimmick is not a personality. Earthbender guy is just as much of a blank slate.

The one who gets the most development is the firebender and the extent of her development? She's in a relationship with Zaheer that isn't explored in any way, and he apparently had backstory in saving her from a warlord under circumstances that are never elaborated upon. None of that even really counts as characterization. And she's the one with the most development of the three.

But, hey, apparently we had time for two episodes spent on Lin having issues with her sister (remember how that was totally an important part of her character before? Me neither!) that are brought up only to be summarily resolved. Because it's not like developing the main villains for the season should be important or anything, right?

Mai and Ty Lee got more development in their first episode than Zaheer's compatriots got in the entire season. Heck, the Dazzlings got more development in the first freaking scene of Equestria Girls: Rainbow Rocks than Zaheer's compatriots did in the whole season. How the heck did they drop the ball so badly on the characterization of these villains?

[Jayngfet]

I completely agree! I said that Amon's and Zaheer's followers felt really weak in their justification, but that Zaheer had the cult leader charisma to keep it all together. I'm not completely convinced about him tbh, his followers scattered for 30-ish years and then he shows up and they are ready to give up their current life.

Someone also commented that Dissent can be manufactured, and while I said that, I didn't specify how you can. To manufacture dissent, you need to have A LOT of power. We're talking Palpatine levels of influence. If someone wanted to manufacture dissent, it should have been Tarrlok, not Amon. The only way Amon could achieve his goals was to get benders (law and crook alike) to attack non-benders. Sato wouldn't authorize such attacks, given his history.

I think the main thing to realize is that Amon wasn't just using general sentiment, he was fanning the remaining flames of Fire Nation animosity(because a century of atrocity doesn't just go away overnight), actual oppression(extortion at the hands of bender criminals is incredibly common, and triads are exclusively benders while the ruling council is also basically all benders enforcing their will with an all-bending police force), and callousness(Korras complete disregard for nonbenders even having an issue is extreme, but it's incredibly apparent that your opportunities as a non-bender are and always have been incredibly limited). There are a number of specific issues showing Benders having more social status and influence in a general sense and they never really got addressed besides the republic getting a president.

I mean really, benders make up all of manufacturing, energy, law enforcement, and basically everything else of status. If you want to run off to make your own settlement, you better be a bender or you won't rate there either. The only others who even compare are the absolute top super geniuses who make up less than one percent of the population.

To make matters worse, tools and equipment that even the score a bit are usually portrayed as being A Bad Thing. Normal people aren't really encouraged to take up chi blocking and tools like shock gloves and mechs, and travel methods that don't rely on bending are either owned by evil people or break constantly or both. So if you can't bend, you'd better just do what the living weapons say or else you're eeeevil.

[Flickerdart]

I don't mind that we don't learn much about Zaheer's gang. They're not really there for the backstory, they're there to do some damage. Frankly I think the Red Lotus captured people's imaginations a lot better than Amon, Unalaq, or Kuvira, all of whom had all kinds of backstory stuff. The backstory just turned out to be terrible and ruined them. And then you have Zaheer and the other people, with dangerous new powers and a very clear goal, unfettered by boring crap.

[Ramza00]

So lets be honest, the finale would have been 10x better if instead of having a big giant metal mech they had an AT-AT walker with a big spirit gun.

[Ravian]

No, Quidditch isn't the same as Pro-Bending because Quidditch was way better integrated into the series. Yeah, it gets dropped towards the end, but it mattered enough to justify its existence prior to that, whereas Pro-Bending basically never really matters to begin with.

I don't know about that. Pro-bending definitely got too much focus, but I felt that it at least had a point to its scenes. Quidditch was largely world-building and served as a setting for other events. (It did have a little relevance though, mainly with the fact that it provided Harry with his flying skills.)

Quidditch really could have been replaced with nearly any other sport and it wouldn't have much of an impact (aside from the aforementioned flying skills.)

Pro-bending was also mostly world-building, but it also incorporated into the plot itself more easily. It introduced characters, and even helped Korra understand Air-bending better. Really I felt it accomplished all that Quidditch did, without lasting for 6 books. That seems pretty good to me.

[Jayngfet]

I don't know about that. Pro-bending definitely got too much focus, but I felt that it at least had a point to its scenes. Quidditch was largely world-building and served as a setting for other events. (It did have a little relevance though, mainly with the fact that it provided Harry with his flying skills.)

Quidditch really could have been replaced with nearly any other sport and it wouldn't have much of an impact (aside from the aforementioned flying skills.)

Pro-bending was also mostly world-building, but it also incorporated into the plot itself more easily. It introduced characters, and even helped Korra understand Air-bending better. Really I felt it accomplished all that Quidditch did, without lasting for 6 books. That seems pretty good to me.

Quiddich was important not because of it's specific rules, but because it was integrated a whole lot better. You get a greater sense of camaraderie from the team than you did Pro-Bending, where they couldn't even convince us half of Korra's team even liked each other(and lets be clear, Korra and Asami had no real chemistry and weren't even friends for half the series. The writers needed excuses for them to even be in a scene together by season 2). You get a better sense of team rivalry since the teams were connected to houses or national lines. The sport had a greater sense of weight given that we knew the value of equipment and what that meant(and that a Nimbus was good, Fireballs were also good, but the crap the Weasley twins had to make due with was not). It was totally integrated into the world around it.

Meanwhile pro-bending ...wasn't. The influence of the sport basically died at the theater doors and it's popularity was nonexistant out "on the street". The teams barely even spoke with each other if at all and the whole thing was an ugly, disjointed mess.

[Jak]

I may be alone in this, but I was totally into pro-bending, and was a bit disappointed when they stopped spending much time on it. In fact, I was really into the first half+ of season 1. It was the latter half that felt kind of... Eh.. And stuff.

I could seriously listen to that stuff on the radio.



EDIT: Actually, can we just go ahead and make a spinoff series about pro-bending now? It'd be kind of like an American fantasy-sport anime.

They could call it Prince of Bending, or Hajime no Bolin: the Bending!! or Meelo the Bender (this last one sounds really interesting, IMO.)

[Anteros]

In my opinion book one was the only one actually worth watching. The other seasons were all just...not bad...but mediocre at best.

[Zevox]

Honestly, season 3 still had issues with focus and pacing (I can't speak for season 4 as I haven't seen it, nor do I care to). It wasn't as bad as in seasons 1 and 2, but it was still there.

For example, Zaheer's gang needed way more focus than they had. Zaheer wasn't a particularly great villain to begin with, but at least he had something resembling a functioning personality. I can't remember anything about the actual personalities of his compatriots. Okay, so random waterbender person is armless and uses water for their arms (still not sure how that's supposed to work considering waterbending works by moving your arms). That's all I know about her. A gimmick is not a personality. Earthbender guy is just as much of a blank slate.

The one who gets the most development is the firebender and the extent of her development? She's in a relationship with Zaheer that isn't explored in any way, and he apparently had backstory in saving her from a warlord under circumstances that are never elaborated upon. None of that even really counts as characterization. And she's the one with the most development of the three.

But, hey, apparently we had time for two episodes spent on Lin having issues with her sister (remember how that was totally an important part of her character before? Me neither!) that are brought up only to be summarily resolved. Because it's not like developing the main villains for the season should be important or anything, right?

Mai and Ty Lee got more development in their first episode than Zaheer's compatriots got in the entire season. Heck, the Dazzlings got more development in the first freaking scene of Equestria Girls: Rainbow Rocks than Zaheer's compatriots did in the whole season. How the heck did they drop the ball so badly on the characterization of these villains?

I would disagree with you on those, actually. Yes, Zaheer's companions were not given a lot of development, but you can glean some things from the way they act. Ghazan (the Earthbender) seems the most normal of the group - he's respectful of pretty much everyone he comes in contact with, even impressed by Bolin when he learns he can lavabend, and he gets a bit exasperated when Zaheer and P'li immediately start making out while they're still trying to get away from her prison. Ming Hua (Waterbender) seems the most cruel of the group, given the wicked smile she often got while in battle, and the fact that Zaheer had to stop her from hurting that Earth Kingdom guy when they went to announce the Earth Queen's death. And the two share that moment with Bolin when they have him and Mako captured where they talk about what it was like being in prison for so long, and it's implied that Bolin's guess about them having an unspoken attraction to each other may be right - that moment in and of itself makes me like them more than pretty much any other villains since Zuko and Azula, personally.

P'li (Firebender) if anything feels like the one with the least personality to me. She's Zaheer's girlfriend, and that's about it. Pretty much emotionless in battle, and never really interacts with anyone else.

Could they have done more with them? Definitely. But I don't feel like any time in that season was really wasted, either. Developing things with the new Airbenders, the Earth Queen and what she had done to her nation, and the Metal Clan were all important. And I quite like Lin, and feel giving her a character arc with her family was a good idea personally, and well worth the time they spent on it. It's not like that family is entirely unimportant going forward or anything either - they're only where the main villains of season 4 come from, and Suyin and Opal prove to be major allies of Korra and the others going forward in both seasons, and Lin's relationship with her family comes back for a significant sub-plot in season 4.

[-D-]

Eh, we see very little of the Red Lotus beyond Zaheer's personal group of four, and none of them do anything at all important, so I'm not bothered by that. (Technically, we don't even know if Zaheer was the overall leader of the group - he names someone else as its founder, after all.) Amon is another story entirely, since his entire thing was stirring up anti-bender prejudice among non-benders.

We see two poisonoers, couple of guards, that Metal Clan Architect. I don't remember cults reassembling after 15 or more years in exile, unless tied by a strong conviction/cause. It's possible Red Lotus didn't disassembled after Zaheer's defeat, but if so what were they doing? They didn't seem to have attempted an infiltrate and free action. But once Zaheer is back they are suddenly back in action?

Quiddich was important not because of it's specific rules, but because it was integrated a whole lot better.

Hmm, good points. One good thing about pro bending is that it didn't overstayed its welcome.

[Ravian]

Quiddich was important not because of it's specific rules, but because it was integrated a whole lot better. You get a greater sense of camaraderie from the team than you did Pro-Bending, where they couldn't even convince us half of Korra's team even liked each other(and lets be clear, Korra and Asami had no real chemistry and weren't even friends for half the series. The writers needed excuses for them to even be in a scene together by season 2). You get a better sense of team rivalry since the teams were connected to houses or national lines. The sport had a greater sense of weight given that we knew the value of equipment and what that meant(and that a Nimbus was good, Fireballs were also good, but the crap the Weasley twins had to make due with was not). It was totally integrated into the world around it.

Camaraderie in Quidditch? I can only remember the names of four of Harry's teammates. Of those Wood was still pretty much a non-entity for the most part, Fred and George were nearly interchangeable and Ron only came in at the penultimate book. The most camaraderie I remember in Quidditch was everyone chanting how amazing Harry was at it whenever they won. But Quidditch wasn't a thing you really cared about them winning or not, it just happened to be going on when other more important things were happening. (Also the rules make no sense, why on Earth does anyone care about the Quaffle when its stated in-universe that the Seeker wins basically 9 out of every 10 games.)

Pro-bending let us see a nice way that bending had become more commonplace, and actually contributed to the introduction and development of major characters. It may have been too intrusive, but it at least realized when it needed to cut back on it.

But imagine if Pro-bending had continued past the first season. That on top of any plot Korra also was worrying about winning the big pro-bending match next week. It would be incredibly obnoxious, just like Quidditch was.

[Zevox]

We see two poisonoers, couple of guards, that Metal Clan Architect. I don't remember cults reassembling after 15 or more years in exile, unless tied by a strong conviction/cause. It's possible Red Lotus didn't disassembled after Zaheer's defeat, but if so what were they doing? They didn't seem to have attempted an infiltrate and free action. But once Zaheer is back they are suddenly back in action?

And the only one of those that's at all important is the Metal Clan truth-seer fellow, and even then we're not sure if he worked with them due to past ties or was simply bribed or something. Zaheer was certainly quick enough to dispose of him once he thought he had become a liability, so he may not have been an actual member of the Red Lotus at all.

And we don't know what the rest of the Red Lotus may have been up to while Zaheer and the others were imprisoned. It's possible they did try to rescue them, but failed. If so, would it really be worth bringing up? Only Zaheer and his immediate companions ever really matter - the others just hold a bowl of poison or get quickly taken out when the rescue group comes for the airbenders.

[Ravian]

And the only one of those that's at all important is the Metal Clan truth-seer fellow, and even then we're not sure if he worked with them due to past ties or was simply bribed or something. Zaheer was certainly quick enough to dispose of him once he thought he had become a liability, so he may not have been an actual member of the Red Lotus at all.

And we don't know what the rest of the Red Lotus may have been up to while Zaheer and the others were imprisoned. It's possible they did try to rescue them, but failed. If so, would it really be worth bringing up? Only Zaheer and his immediate companions ever really matter - the others just hold a bowl of poison or get quickly taken out when the rescue group comes for the airbenders.

Seems to me the Red Lotus was very loose in terms of organization (as befits a group centered on Anarchist goals) Zaheer and his gang were pretty much the only really powerful members of the group, everyone else was just part of Zaheer's cult of personality. I got the feeling there never really was a very large group, and while Zaheer was popular enough to bring back a few people to help with his plan, they probably didn't have enough organization to pull off any sort of plan in his absence.

In the end the other members of the Red Lotus were a few convenient mooks, it's not really worth looking into their motivations any more than one would consider why fire nation soldier #457 joined the military. They bought Zaheer's philosophy, he gets captured, they shrug and move on, he comes back and they join him.

[Jak]

But imagine if Pro-bending had continued past the first season. That on top of any plot Korra also was worrying about winning the big pro-bending match next week. It would be incredibly obnoxious, just like Quidditch was.

That's what I'm saying. Precisely why we need a probending spinoff series.

[Morty]

No, Book One did not need more episodes. What it needed was to keep its focus on important things rather than wasting time with side plots and characters that were ultimately irrelevant to the season as a whole. There's so many things (or in the case of "The Spirit of Competition," an entire episode) that could have easily been excised. If they had taken all the time they wasted on Pro-Bending and love triangles and everything else that ended up being pointless and devoted it to actually important things, they had more than enough time to tell the story. The extra episodes they supposedly needed? They had those episodes, they just wasted them.

I'm tired of seeing the claim that the problem with season one was needing more episodes to tell the story. Season one didn't need more episodes. It needed more focus.

Pro-bending gets a lot of flak, but I don't think it's entirely fair. It had a strong place in the story. It was a way to force Korra to think in terms of tactics and teamwork, instead of brute-forcing her way through problems. It brought the Team Avatar together, essentially, since Korra joined the Fire Ferrets and Asami hooked up with Mako because she was a pro-bending fan. In terms of the Equalist sub-plot, it was a way society put benders on a pedestal, making it a clear target for resentful non-benders, while also showing that not all non-benders feel this way. And it was a good place for Korra's personal story and the overreaching Equalist story to converge - in a way that allowed Amon to put on a heck of a show.

Yes, in hindsight, it feels pointless. But that's because it didn't have a chance to go anywhere, since everything is suddenly and half-assedly "resolved" in the finale. Basically, if you took away pro-bending, you'd have to replace it with something else. I just don't see it working in twelve episodes. If you excised the awful love triangle, you might get an extra episode, which would help, but only so much. It's not like pro-bending and the love triangle aren't, in themselves, rushed and resolved in a hurry.

The reason Book One's pacing problems are so crippling is not just because they learned how to manage them better later on, or because it had to wrap everything up at the end - although both are a factor. Book One also had the job of introducing the setting and the characters, and the relationships and conflicts between them. In further books, we knew what everyone's deal was, so the story could skip straight to whatever problems and conflicts were newly introduced. Book Two manages to screw it up even so, but that's another story. Book Two I think really did waste a lot of its time.

I'm not saying the writers did everything perfectly in Book One, and were only screwed over by the lack of time. But I think that having only twelve episodes was a big and insurmountable hurdle. I think if you stuck a few episodes between Ep9 and Ep10, it could have worked. It would be rough, but not the complete disaster it ended up as. Korra trying to figure out why non-benders are angry enough to follow Amon, and what Amon's deal is, anyway, would be a logical progression after her escape from Tarrlok.

Bottom line: I think pro-bending had a point and I don't think cutting it out would have saved the season. Or, if you want to phrase it differently, it and even the dreadful love triangle were symptoms of the problem, not the problem themselves.

No it wasn't, but that may well just be because the season was made as a self-contained mini-series, before they knew they were getting more than just that to work with. That's what prompted this line of thought: me wondering how things might have been different had Nickelodeon hired them on for a full series from the start, rather than starting with a mini-series and then suddenly deciding before that even came out to bump it up to the full fifty-two episodes.

That's true, certainly. Although I think that even so, every season just doesn't get enough episodes to tell its story. In Book One it's crippling. In Books Three and Four it's annoying, in that you can see the things that could have been there, but there was no room for them. Book Two has serious problems that have nothing to do with pacing, so it doesn't really count.

[AdmiralCheez]

Yeah, as Morty said, Pro-Bending actually worked really well as a means of accomplishing narrative tasks. Now, maybe they spent a little more time on pro-bending than people would have liked, but that doesn't mean it should be cut. Pro-bending effectively leaves the story when Amon bombs the stadium. This triggers the start of the endgame, where the equalists go from minor threat in the shadows, to open war. You can't really have him bomb the stadium earlier in the story, because that would wreck the pacing even more than it already is, and you can't have Team Avatar leave pro-bending before that point, because otherwise they're not there at this crucial moment.

As far as editing/focusing the story goes, you really can't do much without risking messing things up. If you cut out too much pro-bending, then it comes off as just a side thing that Korra and friends do sometimes, and it lessens the impact that it has on their character. For Korra, it's a means of training, and an outlet for her aggression, not to mention the whole reason she has friends outside of Air Temple Island. For Mako and Bolin, it's the thing that's keeping them off the streets, out of the gangs, and out of poverty. You cut down on the pro-bending, and you risk losing the emotional impact of Amon destroying their home, and their main source of income.

And without the love triangle (annoying as it is), Mako and Bolin don't get invited to stay at Asami's place, Korra doesn't get obviously jealous, and she has no reason to suspect Asami's Dad of hiding an equalist weapon factory. At the very least, the love triangle gives Asami, Mako, and Bolin a reason to disbelieve Korra, and don't just blindly accept Korra's insistence that her friend's dad is a terrorist leader.

So, while cutting these things out might seem like a good idea, it might not be. They certainly could have been better executed or better fleshed out with more episodes, much like most of the series, but they have their place in the story, and I don't think it's fair to say that they're completely unnecessary and the story would be better off without them.



Also, I looked it up, and it seems that pro-bending only really takes center stage in three episodes, and is mentioned occasionally in a few others, so I have a feeling people are greatly exaggerating it's presence.

[Reddish Mage]

Also, I looked it up, and it seems that pro-bending only really takes center stage in three episodes, and is mentioned occasionally in a few others, so I have a feeling people are greatly exaggerating it's presence.

Pro-bender is extremely important even if it only is featured for three episodes, because those are formative episodes in LOK. This is how Korra first learns to interact with the world outside her extremely sheltered life, its where she met her first friends (and the first boys not crash dummies) her age, and it is critical to setting the tone and mood of Korra. We revisit that arena several times, and even in season 4, when Korra goes off on her own, the first thing we see is she's participating in professional bending matches of another sort.

This isn't surprising given that Korra is based on a female MMA fighter. The ring is Korra stage, it is a fundamental part of who she is.

[John Cribati]

I think the main thing to realize is that Amon wasn't just using general sentiment, he was fanning the remaining flames of Fire Nation animosity(because a century of atrocity doesn't just go away overnight),

Okay, I'll give you this. That's what he was implying when he said benders are violent.

actual oppression(extortion at the hands of bender criminals is incredibly common, and triads are exclusively benders

Crime is not oppression.

while the ruling council is also basically all benders enforcing their will

And.... the fact that they are in charge, in and of itself, says nothing about oppression. The only anti-non-bender law they make is in response to the equalists, and literally everyone that mattered said it was a terrible idea.

with an all-bending police force),

1) That guy in the park didn't seem to be a bender.
2) the only police force benders we actually see ate the same ones who flew in on a blimp when Korra started wrecking stuff. As in, they call in benders... to take out dangerous benders.
3) as a Black man in his twenties, I know a thing or two about being unsatisfied with the police force. And lemme tell you, besides the fact that a number of the Republic City force were benders... there was really no reason the equalists have for not wanting them around. Nothing was said about bender police brutality toward non-benders. Nothing was said about bending police killing non-benders and getting away scot-free. Just... that the police were benders. So no. This card does not get played, thank you.

and callousness(Korras complete disregard for nonbenders even having an issue is extreme

Yesh, like how she stood up for them when Tarrlok's unfair curfew was about to send an entire community to jail! Total disregard!

but it's incredibly apparent that your opportunities as a non-bender are and always have been incredibly limited). There are a number of specific issues showing Benders having more social status and influence in a general sense and they never really got addressed besides the republic getting a president.

The benders of the Krew were dirt poor, despite all three of them being households names. The one non-bender was filthy rich. Clearly there's a disparity here, but what I see seems to be the polar oposite of what you do.

I wonder why that is.

I mean really, benders make up all of manufacturing, energy, law enforcement, and basically everything else of status. If you want to run off to make your own settlement, you better be a bender or you won't rate there either. The only others who even compare are the absolute top super geniuses who make up less than one percent of the population.

That's a logical conclusion in and of itself. Because grunt work is 80% of the work force, and Lee Xi Bender is generally going to be better and more efficient at grunt work than Lao Xiao Non-Bender.

In any case, "benders taking non-bender jobs" was actually not on the EquaList of grievances, so that point is moot.

[BRC]

From a purely speculative angle, I could see at least one form of "passive" non-bender oppression.
The Police try to protect benders and non-benders equally. Benders are better able to protect themselves, which means that the Non-benders make easier targets.

Since about a third of the population can protect themselves, random street patrols are less needed. Instead, the Police have an airship full of emergency-response metalbenders that they can quickly deploy if they spot any bending brawls. However, they won't stop the Triads from showing up in the night, beating you up, and wrecking your home if you don't pay up.

Benders are left alone, or even recruited, by the Triads. Low-class non-benders are targeted by the Triads, and like police forces throughout history, RCPD are not equipped to handle large-scale organized crime. If the Triads started brawling in the streets they could swoop in and make some arrests, but extortion and intimidation can't be handled by a metalbender S.W.A.T team.

At the time, Republic City's political structure is a city council that answers to foreign powers, there's no official line of communication between the citizens and the Council. To non-bender citizens, it seems like the Triads are targeting them, and the Cops are not doing anything about it. The Cops are doing everything they can, but like many police forces across history they're helpless in the face of entrenched organized crime. The Triads have nothing personal against non-benders, but if you're going to use violence, it's better to target those less capable of protecting themselves.


The first thing Amon does is do something about the Triads. He solves a problem the Police have not been able to handle, and sets himself up as the protector of the non-benders.

[Zevox]

That's true, certainly. Although I think that even so, every season just doesn't get enough episodes to tell its story. In Book One it's crippling. In Books Three and Four it's annoying, in that you can see the things that could have been there, but there was no room for them. Book Two has serious problems that have nothing to do with pacing, so it doesn't really count.

Perhaps. I don't doubt every one of them could have been improved with more episodes with which to tell the story. One thing that notably differs between The Last Airbender and The Legend of Korra, I feel, is that the former had much more time to tell small, character-centric stories, and focus on building the relationships between the characters. I'd hazard a guess that this is because of a combination of the shorter seasons in Korra and the fact that each had its own individual plot, as opposed to being just one part of a larger story. The first season of Avatar was almost nothing but stand-alone episodes about the misadventures of the gang as they traveled from the South Pole to the North, after all, giving the characters plenty of time to develop and grow on the viewer along the way. But they could never do that with Korra, because each season's plot needed to be introduced, developed, and concluded in barely over half the time they had for any season of TLA. And episodes like Aapa's Lost Days or Tales from Ba Sing Se in the second season just wouldn't be able to fit into a season of Legend of Korra, due to not being important enough to the overall plot - despite them being excellent episodes that are part of what made the show great. (Though on the flip side, they did give us a whole episode of Korra's first season devoted to nothing but her going out with Bolin while trying to get together with Mako, but I imagine most people would agree that was a bad idea.)

So yeah, I definitely think that's a fair assessment. They may have gotten much better at pacing things in the third and fourth seasons, but the shorter format never did work out perfectly for them, and each could've benefited from more time.

[LibraryOgre]

My wife has been using "Deal with it" as a phrase since we saw that episode.

[GloatingSwine]

Someone also commented that Dissent can be manufactured, and while I said that, I didn't specify how you can. To manufacture dissent, you need to have A LOT of power. We're talking Palpatine levels of influence. If someone wanted to manufacture dissent, it should have been Tarrlok, not Amon. The only way Amon could achieve his goals was to get benders (law and crook alike) to attack non-benders. Sato wouldn't authorize such attacks, given his history.

{{scrubbed}}

Manufacturing discontent doesn't actually require the thing you are manufacturing the discontent about to be real, you just have to create the public perception that it is real and/or that a specific group is responsible for it.

That said, it would have been better to show slightly more of the criminal underside of Republic City and how some benders used their abilities to prey on people who couldn't fight back, and some news radio broadcasts calling on the council to Do Something.