Korra ~Book 4~ The Thread

So how angry are you guys gonna be when / if they decide to kill Toph at the hands of Kuvira so that they can have Korra going super saiyan? Cause right now, that's looking like a bad decision they might make. I'm rooting for Toph kicking Kuvira's ass, but we'll see.

@aegon said:

They have been pretty good about not killing off old team avatar guys so far, so I'm not really holding my breath. Zuko survived last season's trials. Looked bad for Tenzin for a second last season too, but I can actually not think of a single dead hero so far that didn't just pass away. As far back as like, Jet, probably, when I think about it.

I'm hoping Toph completely wrecks her shit in such a spectacular way that she loses most of her army, then Kuvira's only real choice to regain power would be resorting to her Spirit Nuke. That way we get to see Toph be badass, and Kuvira do something so heinous that Korra has to step up.

Hey guys, if we weren't clear last week, those are Nazis. This week we added ethnic cleansing to the Nazi checklist already containing military dictatorship, work camps, advanced tech, charismatic leader and strong iconography. You know, fun times on a kids show.

She won't die, but she'll definitely be overwhelmed. Wouldn't be a bad choice either, considering she'd die the same way she liked living, fighting the good fight(or just fighting).

Everyone looking forward to the new episode probably oughta read this first to temper any expectations you've got.

It sucks to hear about the budget being slashed like that, but at least they're trying to make the best of it. It especially sucks because, while I still think the first two seasons of the show were pretty bad, 3 and 4 were (for the most part) awesome. I've actually been enjoying and anticipating the new episode releases! I haven't done that since the early days of Book 1, before Mako got introduced.

All that said, I'm still gonna watch because I'm interested in what they do with this... let's be really generous and optimistic and call it an 'opportunity'. Korra's still got some mental trauma to work through, so maybe they can patch some of that up via the almighty, money-saving power of extensive flashbacks.

@make_me_mad: Yeah I really wish I saw this before I watched the episode. Severely disappointed, but I completely understand.

Yeah, managed to read that before the episode. Nick is really, really stupid. Though, some good came out of this episode. Seeing Bolan's face on Spirit Korra's body is a gift that keeps giving, imo.

"Clips" episodes happen in long running shows to make people remember what happened 40+ episodes ago....and to save a bunch of money or rejigger to the production schedule or both. Doing this for such a short series shows how terribad Nick is and how much the creators and producers love the show and are trying to salvage what is left.

@make_me_mad: Wow. That kills me. I honestly would love to give them money to support Korra. :(

Book 4 has been so nice. Korra is finally starting to listen and talk and I don't want it all to flop off. I'm so nervous and excited about the end of this...

Why would you do a clip show over half way through the season? The previous 7 episodes wouldn't make sense if you hadn't watched the entire series.

This episode was equally trolling the fans and acknowledging a lot of their complaints about the series. Still, I'd watch the shit out of a Legend of Bolin mover.

PS. Asami is totally fucking Korra.

Welp, now there's a giant turd in the middle of what has been a pretty alright season so far. That turd is Mako's first third of the episode of course. That section is the show's worst mistakes distilled down to their essence. How pleasant. Korra's section was whatever and kind of laughable at parts ("but you turned into a Kaiju!" "Yeah, I guess that was pretty awesome"). The retelling of Bolin's story was somewhat enjoyable because they at least tried to have some fun with it.

Sucks to hear Nickelodeon being shitty with the budget. Just watch, their next series is going to be on Cartoon Network.

Anyway, as far as recap/clips episodes go this one was pretty decent. They did as much as their budget would allow, which I respect.

Bummer to hear that Nickelodeon slashing the budget. I wouldn't be surprised if the creators take their talents elsewhere for whatever series they decide to next.

So, it's been a while since I watch the first season of Korra, but did they imply in this latest episode that prior to Amon, non-benders couldn't vote? Why was he the bad guy again?

They are pushing those two way harder than I ever would have guessed, which is at all.

Well, I'm disappointed at no Toph, but this episode was still pretty alright. Interested to see how the rest of Korra and Zaheer's encounter goes. And dat buildup son. I'm guessing Bolin is going to do some noble shit and save Opal's family but he himself will be captured or something.

Can't wait for next week.

For whatever reason I thought this season was only going to be 10 episodes.The penultimate episode being about rescuing people from spirit vines didn't seem right. So yeah, another 4 episodes. Again, with this one, the writing and dialogue just doesn't do it for me most of the time. The part with Zaheer was kinda cool though.

MY BOY ZAHEEEEER

Maybe it's just my knowledge that the series is almost over, but I'm getting antsy. There's only a few episodes left, they should be sprinting to the finish line, but I just felt kind of bored this episode. Except for Zaheer.

I'm still a little bummed how fast they turned around on Kuvira seeming like a mildly sympathetic villain. One episode it's all understandable, if aggressive, expansionism for her empire and Korra mentioning that Kuvira saved her dad's life. They even could have justified her obsession over getting a superweapon, considering that the Fire Nation has their own private superweapon that cruises by every 100 years on the dot. It was a bummer to see them go whole-hog with the purging the fire/waterbenders and everyone regarding her as pretty much pure evil.

That said at least the new Fire Lord finally got to speak. I was seriously thinking they'd keep her silent the entire time, and that would have been pretty absurd. I'm also a fan of the subplot of no one having faith in Korra, because after the last three seasons that's a pretty reasonable stance to take, and it gives her a chance to do something rad and shut everyone up.

Damn, now THAT was an episode. I don't know why but when Su put on that metal armor I got chills. That was badass as shit. Guessing next week's episode is going to be all about spirits.

Good episode. Su metalbending the armor around herself was pretty badass, along with the family co-operation.

That was awesome. The fights are so vicious this season. I winced a fair bit in that fight. Shit looks like it hurts.

Well, I definitely saw Kuvira's decision with Batar Jr coming from a mile away. She's pulling a Zaheer and letting go of her Earthly tether. Seriously though, there's two fucking episodes left.

Also lol Varrick.

I'm still wishing they wouldn't go out of their way to try and make Kuvira seem overtly evil; she's got a fair few points in her favor, and the heroes just keep on giving her justifications to attack them. Kidnapping her fiance, threatening to torture him, and then... what was that line? "I'll make it my life's mission to make sure you never see the one you love again" or something along those lines. I'm really hoping that it wasn't supposed to come off as Korra being a badass who'd do what she had to do, because honestly it just made her sound like a vindictive psychopath.

Also, really, a giant robot?

Man, I don't know what happened, my enthusiasm for this season has just been slowly bleeding out of me. I was really into it for the first couple of episodes, but I'm mostly watching out of obligation now.

@make_me_mad said:

Kuvira's megazord gave me flashbacks to the end of Book 2. It looks pretty dumb.

They should've just left it as a giant death train, because fighting atop a moving train is cool every time it happens.

It didn't make her badass but it shows two very important things:

1) She's starting to think with her head rather than her fists.

2) She didn't stoop to Kuvira's level, where she would blatantly beat and torture someone who is betraying his own family at a certain point.

I think the reason why Kuvira was shown to be truly evil is just to give Jr a reason to help the gang. I agree that it's a weak decision, but it's not something that bothers me that much, especially with Korra's great character development.

While I appreciate Korra's newfound reluctance to just smash everything in the face until her problems get solved, I'm not sure that threatening people with weirdly sadistic and unusual forms of punishment for technically not doing anything wrong is much better. For all the talk about him betraying his family... he's in an army! He's friggin' engaged to the leader of said army! What he's doing is completely reasonable, even if he does have a chip on his shoulder against his parents that seems to be egging him on.

Kuvira, even with her weird obsession with superweapons and iron-fisted (heh) rule of her Empire, wasn't that bad until they threw in lines about her purging non-Earth Kingdom citizens from the borders and having re-education camps set up. As far as rulers in the Avatar universe go, she's probably one of the few who actually seems like they're helping their people at all, and she has a point about the United Republic belonging to her. It's annoying to me how ready everyone seems to be to kill her and be done with it, when Su (Who said she was like a daughter to her) immediately decides the right course of action is assassination and urges people to kill her every chance she gets. Compared to the heroes, Kuvira has shown a downright incredible amount of restraint. Suyin and her family looked no worse for wear after they were captured, so it's not like she's torturing people for fun.

I guess it's just that the way everyone reacts to Kuvira feels unearned. After everything they've done to convince me she's evil, she still honestly doesn't seem that bad; a definite step up from the Earth Queen last season, if nothing else. The heroes, on the other hand, just keep doing things that make me wonder if they really should win.

Jr is doing quite a lot actually, and it's not the fact that he betrayed his family that makes me angry the most. Republic city no longer belongs to the earth nation, Aang made it a common ground as an act of piece, so Kuvira has no reason to actually invade and threaten the people to comply with her desires. Republic city is a simple of piece, and she needs to respect that, but instead, she's aiming a giant disintegrator at the whole city and shot a couple of boats with people on it to prove a fucking point, and Batar Jr didn't mind that at all. I can MAYBE understand the fact that Kuvira was at least trying to untie the earth kingdom in the beginning, which is fine and all but whatever her cause was, it's water under the bridge at this point. Sui and her family didn't antagonize Kuvira because of the fact she helped people, they hated her because most of areas she helped turned into concentration camps and the people basically became slave/laborers. It's basic "good goal gone wrong" story. And Batar Jr was basically her second in command, so unlike Bolin, he knew about everything that was really going on, yet he seemed fine with all of the bad things his girlfriend was doing. I'd even go as far as to say that Korra was very benevolent towards Batar Jr, if we consider the shady shit he's been doing for Kuvira.

As for torture, I'm not sure that she would have actually kept him away from Kuvira forever but she needed him to talk, and quick, so she came up with a way to make him spill the beans ASAP. It wasn't really a product of Korra going nuts it was just a way to threaten Batar Jr in a believable way.

Also, Kuvira seemed reasonable for about 3 episodes at best, after that, as you said, her truly colors are shown and I have to say that she's a lot worse than you make her out to be. I respect your opinion, but as far as I can tell the whole point of the season is that sometimes popularity and power may corrupt someone. IN fact, being the follow up to season 3's villain Zaheer, she kind of proves his point that too much power may sometimes bring more bad than good.

Kaiju Spirit Korra vs Jaeger Kuvira please!!!

Dat fart joke tho...

I kinda liked how the mecha completely clashed with everything else around it. It seems out of place and FRICKIN' HUGE! Makes it seem more imposing and hostile. I can agree with some of the Kuvira hate not being completely earned since a lot of the horrible things she done is more told to us as opposed to shown to us, but she is making super weapons. And she is blinded by power. I do have to say, they've done a great job making Kuvira scary to deal with. She so calm and collected. Avatar has some of the best villain writing in a while.

Make_Me_Mad That is a good point about what Korra was trying to to, in regards to her torturing someone to get her way. But she isn't beating him, so it's a start and she still has room to grow.

I totally got villainous vibes off of Korra when she gave her speech to jr. The heroes aren't being ver heroic. And that land was definitely Earth kingdoms first and for longer. It would have been better if she didn't go for a show of force immediately though... but understandable since we are very close to the end of the season, no time left.

And what was she supposed to do? Sit there and let Kuvira destroy the city? They needed info, so scaring Batar Jr was the quickest possible way to make him talk. Speaking of which, when did they torture Batar? They dragged him off but that's about it.

He should feel lucky Korra didn't beat his head, considering that he very much deserved it.

For what? Scaring Batar?

And so the series has ended. Wow, those last two episodes were great but holy shit did it feel rushed. Sucks there isn't going to be a part 3 for the foreseeable future.

Also, Korrasami. I'll be damned.

Goddam. That was beautiful.

Not doing anything wrong? What the bloody hell are you talking about? Kuvira is forcing all the people who are not Earth Benders out of the Earth Nation and sending them to what are essentially slave camps. She threatened to destroy the city that Aang and Zuko founded for a super petty reason, even though the only reason that Aang and Zuko created Republic City was because the people of the Earth Nation wanted them to do so. After the hundred year war both Aang and Zuko tried to make the people from the Fire Nation who had ended up living in the Earth Kingdoms leave and return back to the Fire Nation. But the people revolted against them because they had started new families during the time of war. People of the Fire Nation had married people of the Earth Nations and now lived peacefully together. Instead of forcing them out, Aang made a deal with the Earth King to give them some land, to create Republic City, a place where people of any Nation could comfortably live. Kuvira is spitting in the face of Aang and Zuko by threatening to destroy the city.

That ending though... I'm so depressed the show is over! One of the greatest shows in recent years and easily up there with The Last Airbender. Man, what an emotional roller coaster. I can't even properly express into words my feelings...

This is gonna be a hell of a topic. I'm not really certain that they were implying that they got together, but I'm sure there will be a ton of people who will be claiming that they did. It seemed to me that they just became friends with an unbreakable bond. Either way, it was a hell of a shot to leave the show off on. The only thing that disappointed me a little was that they never showed her coming back in contact with her past lives. That's a tad depressing.

@liquidprince: I think it's one of those things they're going to leave for people to interpret however they see fit. I mean, really, you can't watch that scene and tell me they weren't at least hinting at its possibility. (That or they just wanted to feed tumblr for the next 15 years)

Oh, the hinting was strong. The double hand hold and facing each other moment will feed Tumblr forever. It's the kind of thing that will sort of drive me mad though... I want a definite answer.

@liquidprince: I know what you mean, it's already driving me bonkers. I really hope the creators spill the beans at some point.

Ow... My heart... I can't handle that it's over:

@liquidprince: Hate using this meme, but... THE FEELS.

I can't wait to see what the creators do next though. Sad it isn't another Avatar series, but given how great TLA and Korra were, it's gonna be fucking awesome. I just hope they find a network that treats them right. (It would be hilarious if that ends up being Cartoon Network/Adult Swim)

Guys.......they did the thing.

I definitely got Diebuster vibes off those final few moments. It wasn't 100% there, but you didn't need to squint or wear goggles to see it.

Just saw the finale. Korrasami is officially confirmed after all the major hint dropping this season. Are they the first lesbian couple on a "kids" show?

Loved it. Although I still kind of miss the Immawreckit Korra from the first season she's grown a lot. And seeing her struggle with the poison was immense. I often wonder if show creators understand what the consequences of making a show can be. Telling stories and developing characters is the best thing ever.

It was a subtle ending. They can't confirm it because it would cause a lot of rage, but they did it in a way that thous who wanted them together will be satisfied, to say the least.

I'm still kind of bummed that she didn't get back with mako. Brilliant ending though, it was fucking intense.

Ha, what an end shot! The shippers must be fucking losing it right now.

two women hold hands and walk into a phallic portal?

Hideaki Anno just started weeping and he doesn't know why

The way I saw it was, this is going to be the next 10,000 years of Avatars, so the cycle is starting anew in every sense. Sad that they're gone, but it leaves room for the new guys.

I think it's like the end of season 1 when she almost committed suicide: you might not realize that's what happened at first, but there's really no other explanation for it. There've been a few scenes earlier in the season that people argue hinted at it - which honestly I thought they were reading way too much into, but in conjunction with that scene it's pretty unmistakeable what their intent was. Which, again, the whole thing was wonderfully done, much more so than I really expected.

I hope this doesn't become what people focus entirely on from this episode, though, because obviously the highlight was Tahno bustin' loose on that trombone.