Korra ~Book 4~ The Thread

Didn't this series get cancelled?

And now there's a fourth season out of nowhere?

And apparently I should watch it even though Season 2 is bad because Season 3 is good? Please assist.

no it didn't get cancelled, they just got picked up for 3 more seasons quickly after doing the 1st and weren't really prepared for it. watch it, season 2 isn't as bad as everyone says but if you must watch like the two first avatar episodes and look up the plot on wikipedia or something and season 3 is pure awesoma powah.

Saying "Book 2 is bad" but just not great quality. After the start of "Book 1" and what was going on "Book 3", "Book 2" can't even claim to be an "awkward middle chapter". Really, there was plenty of good stuff in "Book 2" but a lot junk that didn't work as well and that is why people think it is...bad. Korra's actions and motivations were weird and only done to service the plot specific to "Book 2" and then abandoned and forgotten (thank god!).

Her motivations were not that weird. It was just to show that she was a socially awkward person, because she had not been outside of the White Lotus encampment since she was discovered to be the Avatar. Also ever since she was a kid, she loved being the Avatar, and so having people constantly tell her what she can and can't do put a strain on her. She was left in the dark and didn't know that the whole reason she was being locked up was actually as a form of protection, so you can't really blame her for having some trust issues.

Korra's social skills have nothing to do with it.

The threat was there and something The Avatar can only solve it was actually not that serious. It is a threat she didn't understand. Information was handed to her from a source she sort of trusted form out of the blue and partially from left field. Her friends and advisers didn't have great answers beyond being cautious and even asked to study the situation. So she runs off and does it...and made things much much much worse. She turned what was serious but localized problem into something that borked multiple worlds.

So no it isn't about whether or not Korra can get along with people or knows what to do at parties or knows how to make friends. This was about Korra making strategically poor decisions which lead to tactically unsound, random actions.

To put it another way: It is one thing to not trust or believe her father or listen to her friends or ignore her advisers for whatever reason. It is something really dumb to believe an uncle she rarely sees knowing there are "issues". They didn't even play up the "Hey I'm The Avatar and can fix anything" thing correctly.

i think Book 2's biggest sin personally was all the teen romance drama. besides that it had plenty of awesome, if a tier below books 1 and 3.

e: but this is turning all into a negative thread and shit again! YAAY book 4!! broken and badass korra ftmfw!!

i'm hoping zaheer (and possible surviving cohorts) will somehow make their way into this season. they were too good to keep to just one.

Tch, yeah. Mentioning Book 2 and the ending of Book 1 does tend to open a can of worms. Anyways, here's my last bit of negativity for now. As mentioned before in this and the old thread, LOK seems to have a tendency to drop off issues and do a quick "drive-by solution" in the next season. Book 1, the equalist movement had legimate concerns about inequality in Republic City; Book 2, there's an elective president. In Book 2, the civil war aspect just gonna came and went into the night without any real consequences. Book 3, spirits doing mad disturbance of the city infrastructure and hints of xenophobia; Book 4, in 3 years it was like "Its all good dawg". Having only 13-14 episodes ,disjointed lineup of seasons, and want of self-contain story arcs seem to be the baseline explanation for the drop-offs.

Besides that, get hype boyah, Book 4 in 3 days.

I would love for Netflix to start being a platform for original story driven animation/cartoons. I've wanted this ever since Netflix started making original series like Lilyhammer and House of Cards.

Here's the IGN lok interview/podcast guests:

http://ca.ign.com/videos/2014/10/02/korra-creators-on-book-four-and-ending-the-series-channel-surfing-podcast?utm_campaign=fbposts&utm_source=facebook

Yeah, the right thing to do is always much easier to see when you're watching an event unfold from the outside. Imagine being in Korra's shoes however; being locked up and constantly told not do things in one way or another, and then having a relative show up and actually praise you and tell you that you CAN actually do things and that they trust you. It's like when kids get treated like kids and then suddenly there is that one person who does treat them with maturity and suddenly they feel a lot more respect for that person. You can't blame her for trusting Unalaq, who acted like he was the only one who believed in her. I'm not saying what Korra did was right, but she made mistakes and grew into a better Avatar by learning from them. That shows how in Book 3 she listened to counsel and made a careful plan to take down Zaheer instead of just rushing him. You have to make mistakes to grow. Korra's arc as a character is really well done, because she starts off hot headed and impulsive, and now she's really starting to level out and become wise.

So what happened to all the episodes on Nick.com? I just started Book 3 last night but now half the season is gone.

First episode is up.

It set things up pretty well for the season. The relationship stuff is still awkward, but not much to say about it now. It's just part of the show.

So Kuvira got fascist, Korra got depressed and everyone else got wingsuits. All right, let's see where this goes.

@aegon: I didn't actually think there was an overabundance of relationship stuff in this episode. I actually thought the Opal/Bolin stuff was weirder in Book 3: they had one of those pre-ordained, meet-cute relationships that needs to happen for plot reasons, but the writers don't bother giving the relationship any substance. At least they have an actual dynamic now. God help us if it turns into a triangle, though.

Good set up, and Korra's new look seems awesome.
Lets see how things go!

Pretty interesting start. Kuvira is such a badass bitch! Sad that Bolin is having relationship problems, as he's one of my favorite characters. And Korra is into underground street fighting? She's definitely gotten a lot weaker, that's for sure.

Looking forward to next week's episode, but I think from now on I'm going to watch the episodes on nick.com where adblock should work. There's a shitload of unskippable ads on mobile.

Can't wait to see where this is going. I really wonder what Kuvira is trying to do, aside from become the new Queen. After three years of Korra getting told that the Avatar is no longer needed, it's easy to see why she's broken. I feel freaking bad for her. Hopefully her comeback will be the stuff of legend.

Are you guys ready for Earth Nazis? Fuhrer Kuvira looks like a really promising villain. She will give you help and protection and all she demands is your undying loyalty.

I really liked the first episode, it was nice to see them set up a clear villain from the start instead of being vague about it like the past seasons. I also liked them showing Korra, who loved being the Avatar now being down on herself for it. I still get the feeling she'll die at the end though.

I found this image that perfectly describes the villains from the 4 seasons. I think it's great how each one takes their ideology to the twisted level of an extremist.

The first episode was good. Everything seems to have progressed naturally. Some people seem older than three years more than they used to be, but it's mostly the clothes. They spent a lot of time on Kuvira, which I appreciate. Her abilites were very quick and cool, and the armor she wears seems a lot less out of place than what Bei Fong's do. Can't stop smiling at the old man way she keeps her arms behind her back. It's like watching renegade shepard, who would adopt that pose when excusing some sacrifice for the greater good. I hope Korra isn't fooled. It was great when everyone knew who the villain in season 3 was. Here, even Bolin is working for her and her gasmask-wearing nazis.

Doflamingo and his crew is wonderful, and they get better as everything moves along. It's a messy arc, I don't think there were this many factions and named characters represented even in the battle at Marindeford and there's about four flashbacks, but I love it. Think the ship has sailed on having enough time to do proper one-one-one duels ever again, though. Way too many characters to have one of the straw hats face off against each of the opposing captain's officers for a couple of chapters at this point. I guess I always thought the running and quick fights would be temporary, but they haven't really done duels since the Thriller Bark Arc, and that was years ago.

Luffy has been in plenty of long fights since Thriller Bark but I agree we're in dire need of other crew members in high stakes fights. They've been battling underwhelming, incompetent henchmen for way too long. There's no reason to worry anyway, Smoker, Trafalgar Law and other secondary characters have been in good fights recently. I bet they're just saving the full reveal of their new ability sets for worthy opponents (especially Zoro).

@golguin said:

I found this image that perfectly describes the villains from the 4 seasons. I think it's great how each one takes their ideology to the twisted level of an extremist.

I don't know dude, I'm not sure how you don't have a twisted vision that people should live in chaos.

Just saw the trailer for the first time and FUUUCCCKKKKK the final 3 seconds just blew my mind. Also I'm pretty sure that's Azula sitting next to Zuko in the trailer as she's credited in the cast for this season.

I'm stoked for this. I really like how dark season 3 got and I think it's a strong opening for season 4, though I'm a little concerned at how convoluted the plot currently seems. There's obviously a lot of new allegiances which haven't really been explained.

I also think people are making a lot of weird assumptions about Kuvira being the villain. She's got Bolin and Varrick onboard, and I mean... come on... Varrick and Bolin are basically the only reason I keep coming back to this show.

Don't really have too much to say about this episode (it speaks for itself if you ask me) except TOPH!!! I hope she's as clever and witty as an old hag as she was a kid.

I was surprised they stream this week's episode on Twitch during their NY CC panel.

Nick link to ze episode:

http://www.nick.com/videos/clip/the-legend-of-korra-215-full-episode-k3d2.html

Just finished watching the latest Korra episode. The show is top tier now. If they can keep up the quality then it's going to be an amazing season.

The new episode was probably my personal favorite.

Great new episode. Really interested in seeing what the meaning behind the other Korra is.

Also Toph

Compared to most of Korra, the 2nd episode this season was one of the best. The only thing that bothered me was Korra dismissing the Spirit's offer to help, although it was that same spirit that led her to Toph.

Also, this was a pretty funny reference to that stupid marble trick only Aang found amusing:

@aegon said:

Compared to most of Korra, the 2nd episode this season was one of the best. The only thing that bothered me was Korra dismissing the Spirit's offer to help, although it was that same spirit that led her to Toph.

Also, this was a pretty funny reference to that stupid marble trick only Aang found amusing:

That's a pretty awesome callback. I'm just glad Aang at least had some of his old traits as an adult. Most of the scenes that show adult Aang always make it look like he had a stick up his ass.

Good episode. Toph is a beast holy shit, random Eska appearance was pretty funny, and Kuvira the dictator stepping into power. I wonder if the Spirit Vines Varrick is using are the source of power for those mech things from the trailer?

Also I liked this scene way more than I should.

Enjoying the series very much, and glad to see that Toph is still...well, Toph.

@walreese55 The entire SMT franchise is based on that exact premise.

I've got a question for the thread in general. I watched S2 in pretty much one sitting, and I didn't really have much of an issue with the relationship stuff. Most of my problems came from Unalaq being, well, really poorly defined insofar as motive. Was it a lot different watching it week-over-week? It seems like in that format, it could have been a lot more tedious to see them make all these teenage mistakes - mistakes which I was much more forgiving of given that I knew the resolution was mere seconds away.

On episode 2, have to watch the one with Toph to see if they do her justice!

@turtlebird95 said:

That was my first guess, but it doesn't look like Kuvira's army is hurting for power. There have been multiple references to Kuvira mining ore, so if her army is capped by any resource, it's apparently raw building materials.

I'm going on the record now guessing that it's a fantasy nuke. Varrick's building a deterrent weapon that can attack any target in the world with crazy spirit vines.

Man, that third episode was pretty good. Light on action but heavy in politics and ideologie. Great stuff.

Hey is anyone else kinda of intrigued by the points raised by Toph? That maybe Korra is afraid of being the avatar due to the trauma she received? It's and interesting concept, which makes a lot of sense actually, considering that for the past 3 season every single villain's main goal was to get rid of the avatar, and having Zaheer come so close may explain why she feels so crushed right now. This is a good contrast to the world Aang lived in. In his time everyone needed the Avatar so he got peoples support one way or the other. Plus, unlike Korra, Aang's personality wasn't heavily imbedded with his Avatar identity; to him, being Aang the Airbender came first. With Korra, she can't exist without being the avatar, which not only explains her current situation, but her disconnection from the spirit world in general.

Even in the real world you can never get rid of the "bad guys" because someone will always rise up somewhere else to take advantage of the situation. History has shown us that as long as the system allows people to suffer and wallow in poverty this cycle will repeat itself.

@sweep: It's not Azula. It's Zuko's daughter, who is the current Fire Lord.

Was Aang like a chain smoker or something? All his friends have outlived him by about 20 years.

@faythdream10: No, it was stated that the 100 years that Aang spent frozen in the Avatar state really put a stress on his body, so when he reached the age of 66 he passed away. He was technically 166 years old, but biologically only 66.

@aegon said:

Compared to most of Korra, the 2nd episode this season was one of the best. The only thing that bothered me was Korra dismissing the Spirit's offer to help, although it was that same spirit that led her to Toph.

Also, this was a pretty funny reference to that stupid marble trick only Aang found amusing:

I died when I saw that picture

Yeah like seriously. He must have been dead way early considering how old Korra is and Katara still being alive

@faythdream10 Apparently during his time in stasis in his Avatar State, that drained a lot of his life energy. Saw it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aang

Also, messing with Spirit stuff is never a good idea. Varrick's real dumb to do it.

Oh yeah, I guess that makes sense. I reckon they mentioned that in season one and I just forgot. And yeah, no clue where the spirit-foliage experiment is going. Just hope they don't turn Varrick into a bad guy again.

@faythdream10: Varrick is the eminent capitalist. As long as Kuvira keeps him bankrolled, there's little incentive for him to look at the morality of this situation.

@turtlebird95: This was my favorite:

Something I realized during Book 3 was that this Team Avatar doesn't actually play off each other that well. Maybe it's a product of TLOK being a more mature show than ATLA with fewer extreme personalities, so it takes subtler writing to find good interpersonal dynamics between them.

So it's pretty nice that they're all off doing their own thing this time. I'm finding everyone's individual conflicts pretty interesting to watch. After his demotion to bit player in Book 3, I never thought I'd consent to seeing fucking Mako rise to prominence again, but here I am, interested to see if he'll whip Prince Wu into shape.

Loved that picture of Aang. I totally forgot what it referenced, must be years since I saw that episode. It's very neat.

You mean, like, a Spirit Bomb?

@redhotchilimist: I meant more like giant sentient vines bursting out of the ground and wrecking entire cities. However, the machine will require all Earth Nation Empire citizens to offer up their prayers to Kuvira for it to work, so the Spirit Bomb analogy is very astute!