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Ending the Cycle: Let's Discuss the Legend of Korra || Avatar Month
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Planning. Recording. Editing. Marketing. Long ago, these four skills lived together in harmony. Then everything changed when the podcast bots attacked. Only Chatsunami, master of all four skills, could stop them. But when the world needed them most they vanished...
In this episode, Satsunami and Andrew follow up their discussion of Avatar: The Last Airbender by tackling its successor series The Legend of Korra. But as a more mature take on the world of Avatar, did this series manage to fly to the same heights as TLA? Or was the leap too high for the new Avatar? Hold on tight to your polar bear dogs and your fire ferrets as we dive into The Legend of Korra!
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Transcript
Introduction and Podcast Rebranding
00:00:00
Speaker
You know, Andrew, I've been thinking about the future of Chatsunami. I just don't know where it'll end up. Don't you worry. I've got it all figured out. Go on. We need to think bigger, bolder. Each season we end with an overarching story culminating in an epic budget-breaking battle. So far so good.
00:00:17
Speaker
i'm thinking tai chie ninjas evil chat tunami play by flying jellyfish a bald guy with a fan and a giant podcast spot the pandaloians are goingnna love it and i've said the best for laugh ah rebrand the legend of andrew the podcast hosted by yours truly so what do you think I think it needs a lot of work.
Avatar Month Episode 2: New Host, New Jokes
00:00:37
Speaker
Hello, everybody, and welcome to the second episode of Avatar Month. My name's Satsunami, and joining me as the reincarnation of the Chatsunami host is none other than Andrew. Andrew, welcome back. I've replaced Adam, and you've got to deal with it. Yeah, now I've got to send Adam this episode. He's going to love that. I'm sorry, Adam. It's the first thing that came to mind, and I thought it was funny. This is why he's not feedback.
00:01:07
Speaker
ah drove him away i'm sorry for legal reasons lie in dta dr about how are you doing and i'm good feeling all right despite it's still winter here in canada and it's very much showing it it's cold it's snowy and it generally unpleasant but otherwise pretty good yeah sounds about right here as well as of recording this we've just got over a major storm which has pretty much knocked every single tree across every single park but I drove him away.
Introducing The Legend of Korra
00:01:47
Speaker
about right here as terrible segue i apologize after but Yeah, today we are indeed going to be talking about a very special series in the Avatar franchise, that of course being the sequel to Avatar the Last Airbender, the Legend of Korra. Now before we go on and talk about this series, is it safe to say that seeing on the surface level this series has been met with mixed responses?
00:02:14
Speaker
Yeah, it has. It's one of those where you knew that following from the original, it was always going to be a sense of concern and they're always was going to cling to the previous show and always going to be like, you've ruined the legacy of the show I loved. And so there's always going to be people that weren't fans of it and people who became fans of it. And some people who, not myself personally, but some people prefer it to the original Last Airbender. Yeah, that is a way or take. Yeah, I mean, yes and no, I can see it, but we'll get into that throughout the
First Impressions and Marketing Surprises
00:02:43
Speaker
episode.
00:02:43
Speaker
As you were saying there, last week we discussed the Avatar The Last Year vendor series which ran from 2005 to 2008 and it was about four years until we finally got the Legend of Korra. First on Nickelodeon and then for the last season I want to say they decided to stream it online. Very, very interesting choice there, I'm not gonna lie but yeah, Is it right in saying that the marketing for this, and I could be totally wrong here because as I said before, I never really watched Avatar the Last Airbender growing up. It wasn't until I met you in university and you and I were discussing it and you gave me the DVDs to watch, went away, watched it, loved it, and I had no idea about The Legend of Korra until you told me. But is it right in saying you had a similar experience with The Legend of Korra? Yeah, I mean, as I covered in the previous episode, I had a huge history with Avatar Last Airbender. I was well aware of it prior to coming over to the UK because I'd had experience that when I lived in Singapore, where it got released like a year in advance of the UK almost, and I was absolutely obsessed with the show. Yet, while Starship Corps aired on Nickelodeon in the spring of 2012, I didn't hear about the show until I think like fall autumn of 2013, when my brother was talking about it. And I was completely thrown back. I was like, what are you talking about? What do you mean there's an Avatar show that I was not aware of? And so I immediately kind of jumped online and found all the episodes and watched a huge chunk of them. And then just proceeded to watch the entire series during my time at university up until it finished in, what was it,
Release Schedule and Storytelling Impact
00:04:18
Speaker
2014? December 2014. And I can confirm that because I was there for when Andrew watched The Legend of Koda. I was in the same room as you were watching it after finishing The Last Airbender. I have to say the marketing, and again I could be totally off-kilter here, but I don't remember really hearing anything about it online. You know, even as a casual viewer, I might not have been looking in the right places, but It seems quite interesting that although they promoted it probably the same as Avatar The Last Airbender, it's interesting to see that not as many people maybe not realized it came out, but you know that way it's like it just kind of dropped and you're like, oh great, we've gotten the Avatar series. Is he going into it though? Where are you quite excited about it? Yeah, I was, because having that sprung on me that there was a show like a Last Airbender follow-up show that I hadn't heard of and I immediately got to watch, it was very exciting. And upon watching that first season, it is phenomenal. We're gonna get into it a little bit later, but that first season, I thought was incredible. There's downsides and negatives to it, but for the most part, I was absolutely in awe of this show. And then going on to the later seasons, I still enjoyed them. to a a lesser extent but I was always very keen to be up to date on each episode and each season and I was always looking forward to the next one.
Mature Themes and World Changes
00:05:35
Speaker
Unfortunately with the production cycle I didn't have to wait long between seasons. That is something that you and I were talking about before we came on to record this episode. that It is interesting that four seasons of this show came out between 2012 to 2014 which is quite a short period. Genuinely, I never really thought about it. I thought it was probably a lot more spaced out because if you look at Avatar the Last Airbender, you've got that period between 2005 to 2008, you're on the three year gap, so about a year per season whereas this, they just kind of... I don't know if this is because towards the tail end, and again we'll get into this later on, the work Keenan just wrapping it up and they had a really strong line and everything so maybe that contributed to it and it's quite a bold move for them especially for the story of this to set it so late and even four years later from when the original series aired that it was still kind of fresh in people's minds. There wasn't really much of a gap between the two series was there? Well, I mean, there was four years, which for a young person, like I was at the time, that's an eternity. That's like majority of high school. I started high school in 2007. And the Last Day of Render finished in 2008. And so like I was a year into high school. And then I didn't know about Legend of Korra until I started university. So there is a pretty big gap in that way relative to lots of other shows now that are coming out that have such huge kind of gaps in between seasons and Western animation's not as notorious for this as anime, because anime will often have years and years between seasons, but it was still a pretty substantial period of my life that had no new avatar content. You did have the comics, and unfortunately you had the M. Night Shyamalan movie come out in between that time, but there wasn't really anything else to kind of sink your teeth into. And I'm sure people were so eager for the Legend of Koda after flocking to the M. Night Shyamalan film. Yeah. but For legal reasons that is a joke, and before I get lunched by the very avid avatar fans in the audience, will we dive into what makes the Ledger Decoder so memorable, as well as some of its pros and cons? Yeah, definitely, let's jump straight into it. As always, we will be right back after these messages. welcome to shattanami a variety podcast that discusses topics from gaming and films to anime and general interest Previously on Chatsunami, we've analysed what makes a good horror game, conducted a retrospective on Pierce Brosnan's runs James Bond, and listened to us take deep dives into both the Sonic and Halo franchises. Also, if you're an anime fan, then don't forget to check us out on our sub-series, Chatsunani, where we dive into the world of anime. So far, we've reviewed things like Death Note, Princess Mononoke, and the hit Beyblade series. If that sounds like your cup of tea, then you can check us out on Spotify, iTunes, and all the podcast apps. As always, stay safe, stay awesome, and most importantly, stay hydrated.
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00:09:13
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Plot and Character Development in Korra
00:09:21
Speaker
So, Andrew, do you want to take the absolute honour of summarising what The Legend of Korra is about for the plans of audience listening? For sure. So, essentially, following the death of our previous avatar, Aang, at the ripe old age of I think he was 60-something, or in reality 160-something, he was reincarnated, his spirit was reincarnated into the next avatar in the cycle, which was a waterbender girl called Korra. And Cora, we kind of get a big kind of jump in time from an initial scene where we see her as pretty much a toddler who clearly has already had some kind of experience moving the elements at that age, kind of showing that she is definitely Avatar and also is an insight into who she is as a person. and it immediately jumps to her as a 17 year old girl, really keen on fighting. So we're getting a very different kind of avatar to Ang, who is very much about peace and avoiding conflict. And Cora is very keen to fight very in your face, very cocky and full of her kind of ability to bend the elements all but one. And And so we aren't used to her. She leaves her kind of sheltered lifestyle that she's had where she's been raised kind of in a bubble almost to protect her and to bring her up through his avatar training. And she goes to the big city where she's enlightened as to what the rest of the world is like. And whilst the world has improved since the one hundred years war and the legacy of what Ang has done, there are still issues in the world and she's trying to sort of figure out
00:10:44
Speaker
what her place is in this new world and how she can still be this kind of important figure whilst also understanding that there are new systems in place that make it so that she is not required anymore. And so she kind of gets embroiled a lot more on the political end than what we ever saw in The Last Airbender. And we get this very interesting kind of examination of what life is like for people who don't have bending and how they kind of feel like they are treated as lesser humans, which is very kind of interesting that very very briefly gets kind of touched upon in The Last Airbender with one of the main characters, Sokka, but it doesn't really get examined in that same way. And then following the pilot season, we then move on to our next one where Korra is dealing with kind of a more spiritual world and figuring out how she, who has previously struggled with
00:11:28
Speaker
the spiritual side of being the Avatar, how she reconciles with the spirit world and how she understands more about the Avatar cycle and who the Avatar is, what the Avatar is, how the Avatar came to being and understanding that side of things. And we then move on past that season into one where we have more airbenders in the world now following the events of what happened in the second season. And we have an evil airbender who leads this elite group of very scary element vendors to try and sew anarchy in the world. Each villain so far seems to have a very set ideology. You can not necessarily empathize, but you can potentially sympathize with what they're pushing and what their arguments are, like trying to bring down systems of monarchical government and trying to combat authoritarianism. And so Korra is balancing how you can't just unsettle the world in this way whilst also trying to understand that yes, there is balance that needs to be kind of had there. So that's very interesting. And then we pass that season, we move on to a more approach of to what the opposite of that would be the authoritarian kind of rule is now taking over the Earth Kingdom and how As the avatar, she needs to kind of combat what that is and kind of sows in familial relationships and friends separate and are at odds with each other, which then culminates in a very bizarre robot battle. And yeah, we kind of get lots of different relationships in the show, which we don't really see as much in The Last Airbender. It's a much more mature show. And so we can they kind of utilize that with some of the action, the deaths in it, subject matter of relationships and again, the ideologies that we're talking about and even just mental health.
00:13:03
Speaker
gets broached in a kind of a way that would not be touched on in the Avatar world. And then we also kind of very lightly, they still have their kind of restrictions from their Nickelodeon overlords, they talk about
Comparison: Korra vs. The Last Airbender
00:13:13
Speaker
sexuality. And so you do get over four seasons of Korra, quite a mix match of different kind of storylines and ideas and ideologies, which is a very different approach than what you get from The Last Airbender, where it's all just under this one same goal of stopping the Fire Nation, restoring balance to the world. No, I think that's a perfect summary. Thank you all for listening to this episode. No, you bring up an interesting point there because each book of Quora relates to a particular ideology. As you were saying, the first season relates to the idea of inequality and the discussion about people who can't bend being you know exploited versus the people who can bend. It is a very interesting topic and again we'll go into these a lot more in depth later. Season 2 has that side of spirituality. Season 3 has the idea of the pros and cons of anarchy. Probably may have a lot of thoughts about that one. And the last one deals with an authoritarian regime. So they're a lot more mature in a way. Sometimes they're handled really excellently and then other times I feel as if they could have been better. But it is interesting to see them not only shift away from what avatar the last year did, where they had basically the overarching plot of Aang needs to learn the elements and they need to defeat the evil Big Bad. That was it, you know, that was his job done. And obviously there's a lot more nuance in between episodes and things that happens, but that was essentially it. his questline whereas for Kora it almost feels as if every single season they have to have a big bombastic finale with every season. It's an interesting approach, I don't know how much I agree with it right enough but again we'll definitely go into that but before we do and dissect the series these as a whole, I'm quite curious to hear what you think about the setting of this show. So initially in The Last Airbender it was very much a kind of feudal Yeah, if you do, I don't want to say journey to the west, but you know, like a fantasy land where technology was slowly developing. You had the Fire Nation that was just developing things like tanks and other weaponry, but overall it was very much in the past.
Bending and Technology Integration
00:15:30
Speaker
It was very mystical. Whereas in Cora, they skip ahead 70 years from when that took place, and they set it in the 1920s New York. don't they? Yes, it does very much give that kind of setting. Yeah, what are your thoughts about that? I would not normally be that interested in what they have done with the setting. However, I do think they dealt with it in a very interesting way. The kind of idea of we were seeing technology rapidly increasing towards the latter end of the 100 years war, more so with
00:16:01
Speaker
as you said, the Fire Nation, and also other nations who are kind of developing war-related technologies. We had like the submarines that were fighting on the Day of Black Sun, and we have these other tanks, and we had the giant metallic blimps, and the drill, which is just absolutely crazy technology. So there was a bit of a mix match there. You'd get things that developed very late in our own universe's history, but they didn't have something like a gun, for example. And so it's interesting what the writers pick and choose with how technology develops and the utilization of it. This new season, they have motorized vehicles, they have cars. It makes sense in many ways that following the end of the Hundred Years War, when you have all four nations kind of living together, and particularly in this example of Republic City, which is where the majority of the show is set,
00:16:45
Speaker
it is kind of this neutral city where all nations come together and live together, as opposed to living in their respective nations. And so you have them utilizing a firebenders use of electricity to be able to power things. You have earthbenders doing developments with buildings and the police who've learned metalbending can essentially swing around like Spider-Man or like, like Attack on Titan. And you have all these different groups and industries that are developed as a result of that. And so you kind of see how, potentially, within such a short period of time of, I'd say, this 50 to 60 years following the end of Aang's era, how it has developed into this world and how society has progressed in such a rapid and familiar way. So I like it. I thought that there was a, there's a scene in season one where they can't all ride on Cora's polar bear dog. And so one of the characters, the Sami suggests it's why don't we get my car? And so they all jumped in this car. And so you have team avatar bending elements while blasting down the street in like a hot rod. And it's pretty cool. They utilize their bending to make a tight turn and make a ramp and all those kinds of things. So it's pretty cool how they are able to place what essentially their magic system in a semi-modern setting. I have to say I think a lot of people seem to be put off initially that they were just diving into the deep end even with the intro. It's like you know when they try to break some really bad news but they get someone that you like to break the bad news so it's like you're Shaky Simmons to tell you that Aang's dead and they're 70 years in the future. And then he discusses about New Republic City, which was of course, established after the fall of those eyes rain and everything. things So it was interesting to see that and how this world has, I don't want to say naturally developed, but as you said, they really utilize the bending with this world. Granted, it's a bit deflating to see vendors who have these amazing powers working a 9-5 job. I know that they would probably be doing that in the last Airbender. But yeah, it's kind of deflating when you see Mako and things like that going to a factory to shoot lightning out his hands and that was a power that was considered really frightening and a very terrifying thing in that time and now it's kind of been reduced to all right this is your nine to five shift but you can see why it's shifted to that yeah you're right they do utilize the bending within this world really well one of the things i absolutely loved was the triple threat triad i thought that was absolutely incredible yeah it's a mix of the three main bending styles because obviously There weren't any airbenders at the time. There's a reason it's called the last event. I mean, there's a few, but we'll get to them. You just have little Milo just living an old timey watch wearing one of those, like, long suits and long hat next to these giant other vendors. Hey, we got a wise guy here. Shoot to kill. No, Milo, please, murder me.
Korra's Character Journey
00:19:39
Speaker
Crime life's a breeze when you're an airbender. I'm just thinking it cuts to, like, this horrible shot of them brutally beating someone, and it's just I'm farting over.
00:19:48
Speaker
they thinking? And if you think I'm exaggerating on that last bit, trust me, we'll sadly get on to that as one of my least favorite parts of this show. But oh yeah, no, the setting I think is really cool. I do find it interesting as well that there's a lot more of a political slant on it in terms of the way that the governments interact with one another. another. You know, it's as you were saying, it's not just like isolated blocks anymore, squabbling over land and such, it's more that they're all kind of trying to work together in this one city and they're worried about silly things like approval ratings and what's the best PR move and trying to use companies for their own benefits. Again, it is something that I didn't really think I'd be asking for, but it's something that fleshes out at the world, and I do think that, you know, sometimes it doesn't work, sometimes it does, but I think overall it works once you put aside the fact that this is no longer Anne's time, because that is something that is very hard to deal with where the first time we meet Cora, she is a child, and I mean a literal toddler, and she's screaming, I'm the Avatar, you've got to deal with me, or you've got to deal with it which is the line that I got Janet Varney to write on my Blu-ray copy of The Legend of Korra. Really? oh I felt that. I even said this to her. I was like, I know you technically didn't say that line. It was like another actor that said that line, but it's still like the iconic line for me. I like it. It feels very much what Korra is. So I just, I still asked to ask her to sign that. Well, she's just shaking her head, disapprovingly like, I swear to God, these Avatar fanboys.
00:21:20
Speaker
but I was very starstruck when I met her in Dante Baskin. I've seen other celebrities before and I've never been a starstruck in philosopher words when I was talking to anyone as I was when I spoke to those two. It was so overwhelming and embarrassing. They were so lovely. There was such a pleasant two people to chat with and they very much took the time to have a conversation when I was seeing them. See if I were on that topic. Can we just shout out the voice cast for the show? You know, as you said, we've got Janet Varney as Cora. We've got J.K. Simmons, the absolute legend himself, as her mentor and son of Ang, of course, Tenzin. We've got a whole, surprisingly, like, a really good cast of voice actors here. I think Dante Basko even makes an appearance later on, does he not?
00:22:03
Speaker
Yes, Dante Basco plays Zuko's grandson. Oh, so he does, yeah. He's called Iroh, General Iroh, or Admiral Iroh or something. And so the prince twice removed, I guess, because his grandfather Zuko is still Fire Lord. And so he won't be Fire Lord for a little bit, yeah, if at all. I completely forgot he voices Iroh, because I was thinking of Zuko. And I'm like, yeah, I remember if Zuko makes the cameo and he's in it for a little bit. And I was like, oh, yeah, General Iroh. Yeah, no, the cast is absolutely fantastic in this show. Honestly, I don't think there's really anybody that I would say did a poor job. And this is something we talked about last week when we were talking about the characters that we thought, hmm, I don't know. Is there anyone in particular you would say that maybe wasn't this strong? I don't know. I think that for the most part the main cast are all very good. There's a few that are like amazing and that's the worst thing that I could maybe say. Rather than that they're like okay. David Faustino who plays Mako, he does an okay job. I wouldn't say that he blows me away but I don't think the character himself blows me away so I don't know necessarily that that's... David's fault there. But it' it is interesting that you have a very stacked cast of celebrities, both voice acting, the main cast, and also just kind of recurring characters as well throughout the series that you have Clancy Brown in this, you have Steve Blum in this, you have Daniel Dae Kim, which is quite funny, because he plays Hiroshi Sato in this. And he also plays Fire Lord Ozai in the Netflix avatar.
00:23:27
Speaker
um Cool. You have Aubrey Plaza for second season and maybe some of the other, maybe she comes back in some of the others, but I think in much a more of a minor kind of context. Steven Yeun has a brief stint as Avatar One, the very first Avatar that you see over two episodes maybe, maybe a bit more. People might know Steven Yeun from Invincible. He plays the main character, Invincible. He was in The Walking Dead. and He's done a few other things, but those are kind of the two that most people will know or have known for. Greta Lyle makes a comeback very briefly in this. People know her as the voice of Azula. She comes back to play Ming Hua, who I think was one of Zaheer's kind of underlings. I think she was the waterbending, who didn't have arms. Yeah, I think you're right in that. You have Alison Stoner, who's quite well known. You have Zelda Williams in this. I'm sure there were others that kind of came to mind. Mindy Sterling's another big one. People might know her as Frau from Boston Powers. Oh yeah, and Seychell Gabriel, who's Asami Sato, played Princess Yue in the M. Night Shyamalan Avatar, which is quite funny. Yeah, I was gonna mention that one huge shout out for getting back into Avatar unscathed. Sorry, relatively scathed given the film, but yeah, no, that was a really surprising one I have to say when I was looking up the cast and I was like, huh. Well done for her. It'd be wrong if I didn't mention Dee Bradley Baker as well, who returns from his many roles within The Last Airbender to play again several roles in The
Main Cast and Team Avatar Dynamics
00:24:50
Speaker
Legend of Korra. People might know him from literally everything you've ever seen cartoon video game wise. He voices so many things, but he an avatar context.
00:24:59
Speaker
He was all of the animals that you hear. He did the noises of Appa's grunts, Momo's little chitters, any kind of hog monster things you hear. It's usually Dee Bradley Baker doing them. And so he also does Naga, the polar bear dog, Habu, the cute little fire ferret, Oogie, who is another Sky Bison. And then he also plays Tarlock, who is one of the villains of the first season. and So he has quite the coverage in terms of cast and crew of the show. Yeah, I feel as if there's any Western animation out there, he just appears like a moth to a flame. And it's just like, can I get a role in anything? He eventually gets it and you're like, huh, actually fantastic work here. or But yeah, you're right. And all seriousness, the whole cast does an absolutely fantastic job. I honestly can't think off the top of my head to anyone who I went, I don't know, where oh that was a choice. Because they definitely lean very much into, as I was saying before, this whole city is very much a 1920s New York-esque town and a lot of characters lean into that. In particular, there's one who is Essentially he's a bit of a con man, but at the same time he's just so much fun to watch. That of course being Varric played by John Michael Higgins. And he very much doesn't he? He just leans into the whole out how you are sunshine. and did that Oh, that's the other thing.
00:26:21
Speaker
remember who does the durations. Yeah, Jeff Bennett. yeah Yeah, he's pretty prolific within the voice acting world as well. He was like gargoyles and Dexter's lab and hundreds of things. He's very well known. Oh, good. I absolutely love to see his recap. So it's like, previously, I'm Avatar. And then they go on.
00:26:38
Speaker
ah So damn good. But speaking of previously on Avatar, let's talk about the characters after establishing that they are voiced absolutely fantastically there. What are your thoughts about the new team Avatar? Were you sold on them when you watched them in the first season or did you think? and I don't know. I was intrigued by them. I loved Korra. I thought that she was very cool and they dealt with the change from Aang very well. Instead of trying to copy and paste what you had before, you have someone who's very different and like still comes across as what Avatar canon should be, but takes it in a very different way from what Aang is like. She has her annoying moments, but she's 17 years old. Of course, she's going to be a bit annoying, make some bad choices. That's what we were all like when we were in our teenage years, even now. What's quite interesting about this, and I was saying this to my partner when we were watching it, is that we are introduced to the complete team avatar, and like they're essentially all assembled together as a team who are fighting against injustice by episode, I think, like four or five of season one, whereas you don't get tough
00:27:43
Speaker
until think like episode four or five of season two, you don't get Zuko joining the group until I think episode 12 of season three. And so in five episodes, you have what is essentially the complete team avatar, albeit there's some other characters introduced later that kind of come and go from the main team. I suppose the last airbender where that was what 50 episodes in pretty much it's 10 episodes from the end of the show by the time that we have our complete team. Which there's arguments for and against that. You get that slow build, that redemption story from Zuko. You kind of have the back and forth playing of the different characters from the Last Airbender with Toph and Katara at odds and that kind of thing. So a lot of interesting kind of ideas there and Korra might kind of speed into that a little bit. And then there's some kind of clumsy kind of play with.
00:28:28
Speaker
relationships, but you are introduced to our characters. You have Mako and Bolin, two brothers who interestingly control different elements because they have a parent from each side of nations. They have a firebender and an earthbending parent, so they kind of have a split between them, which is very cool. They're introduced is these martial combat fighters, and they kind of introduce this new sport to us. And so we kind of are brought into the world with them. And they act as the serious one who's a love interest for Korra, and the more comical one who we're supposed to kind of at times feel sorry for other times think like, Oh, he's gotten too big for britches, and then he's becoming a bit of a jerk kind of thing.
00:29:03
Speaker
And then you have Asami who looked, I don't know about you from the first season, but looked like she was going to be a villain. She has a lot of the characteristics and her story arc suggests that that's where they were going to go. There's a lot of aspects where you're like, Oh, I don't trust her. They're kind of convenience of her appearances and her decisions. And sometimes you'll see glances where she clearly doesn't like that her boyfriend Mako and seems to be interested in Korra, knowing that Korra is interested in him. You have a storyline where you kind of expect her to be an antagonist that never actually pans out, and she is arguably one of the most level-headed characters in the entire show. I can't disagree with that. Yeah, this is quite an interesting entourage of main characters, I have to say, because although I think they're initially introduced quite well. Obviously Cora's exempt from this but I feel as if Mako and Bolin are quite, I don't want to say bland, but they are a little bit milk toast aren't they? I don't know, they have some funny moments and things but Mako I think especially is very much just like a blank slate fire bender. Bolin's just like the class clown. Asami there is honestly not much going on there. character wise. I actually said a lot of people, genuinely a lot of people have said that they thought in the first season she was an equalist and everything and then it's like oh father I didn't realise you had a warehouse under the mansion and I'm like what?
00:30:29
Speaker
I thought she was bluffing and then she went, I don't think that's a bad thing. I don't think it's a bad thing that the expectation of that was not met because it subverts that. And I'm usually a big fan of subversion of expectation when it comes to show, and particularly with comedy, but and just in story writing. I think it is good to do that for a lot of things because it keeps you in your toes. Absolutely. But yeah, I feel as if maybe, and again, this isn't really that fair because I'm comparing it to The Last Airbender but you're completely right.
Romantic Relationships and Representation
00:30:58
Speaker
With The Last Airbender we had the cast kind of slowly built up. and You had Toph in season two, you had Zuko in the third season finally joining the gang and for this they just lump them there. and say okay. It kind of feels like that is a minor issue with the show that it likes to rush through the wrong things. And again, there's an argument for it and against here, but for Kora herself, the only thing that she can't really master is airbending, but she masters all the other elements, which I know a couple of very
00:31:31
Speaker
vocal fans were against that oh how is she picking these up but on the flip side she was trained by the white lotus and other things so or even before that though i think maybe it's because she came out as i told her ending all the elements but even then yeah as she said you don't want a copy and piece of angst, otherwise people would be a lot more moaning about it. The one thing about Chlorist's character that I really don't like is that I think they write her as a teenager too, Bill. I don't know how you feel about this, especially for season two in bits of season one where she throws mini tantrums in the middle of really serious events. They have the whole love, I was going to say love triangle, but it's not a love triangle. It's pretty much a love square, isn't it? Eventually it turns into a triangle, but Baldwin was in there for an episode or two. Actually, the Kora Asami Mako situation, quite literally, is the only example I can think of within fiction that is actually a love triangle.
00:32:33
Speaker
I don't think because the love triangle is used so often, and it doesn't make sense for the most part, because the love triangle means that each person would have a relationship with the other, when in fact, in most cases, it's like a love arrow, there's no bottom connecting section where two people of what is in this situation, the same gender are dating. Whereas in this, you have a Sami dating Mako, Cora dating Mako, and then Cora dating a Sami. And so you have an actual triangle, you do have Bolin very briefly wanting to be with Korra from when they very first meet. He develops an immediate kind of interest in her, but Bolin as a character always seems to be kind of chasing girls. He seems to have kind of a real interest in finding a girlfriend. For the most part, it does not work out for him. He has a lot of misses. He tries to start a relationship with an actress that isn't really interested in him back. He is kind of forced into a relationship with a daughter of the chief of the Northern Water Tribe, played by Aubrey Plaza, keeps him almost like a pet. Yeah, that wasn't a great highlight. I'm not going to lie. No. And then he meets a very sweet girl called Opal, who he feels like he's more himself with. He's not trying to play up a character with her. He's just kind of his goofy self with her. And it's very kind of sweet to see that that is where he's at. That relationship itself does take some turns and ons and offs. But ultimately, that's kind of his ending point with her, which is nice to see. Mako ends the series with kind of a bromance, where he and the Earth King have like this very odd imperers new groove coded yeah yeah yeah There is almost like a boyfriend-boyfriend relationship about them in many ways, but it is also essentially a case of he is his bodyguard. You have Prince Wu as this pathetic individual that is constantly sort of jumping into Mako's arms to protect him. It becomes very gay-coded in the fourth season, both with that sort of relationship and then at the very end with Asami and Korra. There's a lot of hinting at that if not actually doing it. Now, now, Andrew, they were just roommates, come on. And they were roommates. I have to admit, I completely gaslighted myself when I was really watching this series, because I was convinced at the very end, when in spoilers, Asami and Cora get together, that they hold hands before they go into the spirit world, old and then they kissed. And I was convinced that was a scene, and then And when I was watching it on Netflix, they turn to one another, they hold hands, and then they did just disappear. It fades out and it says The End. And I was like, huh, that was very, very tame. Like, I know what they wanted to go for for the show, but clearly a lot of higher ups, we don't want to let it go that far. Hand-holding. The ludicrous form of klut. Well, yeah, it is funny. You were you're talking about that kind of Mandela effect of the Korosami kiss. I think I had that in my head as well, that that was a scene. I think it was because the show writers said they wanted to do that, but they weren't allowed to. They didn't even actually declare feelings for each other. It is very much just implied that they went to a relationship with each other. Yeah, personally, and again, I could have been missing the signs entirely, but I didn't feel as if they really hinted at it until Season 4, and then they overtly hinted at it, like, you know, Cora blushing when Asami compliments her and she's the only one she's been talking to, that kind of thing. It feels as if
00:35:49
Speaker
and again there's obviously more complex elements to this. It's not just a case of why didn't they put it in season one or whatever but you can definitely tell it was like the last season they thought screw it this is the way we're going and you know good on them but it did feel kind of rushed that it just kind of popped up unless I'm missing something with that. No, I think they had wanted to. My understanding is season four actually didn't air on Nickelodeon. It aired digitally on Nickelodeon's digital platform because Nickelodeon lost kind of faith in the show for a younger audience. They didn't really like a lot of the mature stuff that they were going for. Despite that, I think that Legend of Korra was performing as one of its best shows at the time. like many other more mature cartoons, they didn't really see much of a toy selling appeal to it. They didn't feel like they could really make much money from it other than than just from viewing numbers. So they shifted it onto digital platform. And so it was at that point that they had a bit more freedom to be able to have those moments that they could insinuate that, whereas they couldn't before. That is my understanding, at least I might be wrong, that they had not planned for a kind of Korosami thing prior. But my understanding is that the network television chained them to what they couldn't and couldn't show or imply. And when they didn't have that anymore, they had a little bit more freedom. And I mean, especially back in 2012 to 2014, so it probably would have been a bit harder for them to propose that and get something more of their as it were. Not really needed to have that, but at the same time, yeah, it feels as if it kind of comes out of nowhere in season four. It's cool that they did it, but at the same time, you're just like, oh, OK, for this.
00:37:30
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, it was one of the very earliest kind of representations of a gay relationship in was essentially children's media. And so it very much laid the groundwork for what was then able to be achieved from lots of other cartoon shows that you had, for example, like Owl House that has a very overt gay relationship and that you have kissing in those shows. There's several other kind of examples. I'm afraid I'm not as up to date anymore with young people shows. We are happy. a cool idea. But that you can have what is now being titled as being woke kind of content that you're able to have that without it being aggressively censored. And you can get into a completely different topic about the culture war around that and how finally being represented on on media.
Legacy Characters and Family Dynamics
00:38:12
Speaker
And now and lots of people are claiming like, Oh, it's everywhere now. And you can't get away from it. When in fact, it's just like almost a compensation for the censorship from the previous decades. And that is next week's epic normal.
00:38:23
Speaker
Moving on from that and into before we talk about the main story, I just want to touch on and then see what your thoughts are about the legacy characters of the series, in particular the descendants of them. So, you know, you've got Toph's children, you've got Aang's children as well, Zuko's nephew, I want to So you've got Tenzin, you've got Chief Beifong, General Iroh, you know, you've got all these characters that are more or less descended from the characters from the last Airbender. So before we move on to talk about the story, because I feel as if that's the meaty part of this episode, what are your thoughts on them?
00:39:00
Speaker
You get a bit of a mix because, I mean, just touching quickly on General Iroh, he's the grandson of Zuko and we don't really get that much of him. He's kind of just there in his cool good fighter army guy from the Fire Nation, kind of rocks up towards the end of season one to relieve some of the burden during the fight against the equalists. And then we kind of get him the here and there throughout the other seasons. He's fine. We don't see enough of him to really kind of get an idea of what he's like, that he has much personality. He is a bit wooden, but that's whatever. What were your kind of thoughts on him? Yeah, he's serviceable. I feel as if he acts a little bit like Zuko but without the Akanekai treatment. He's just very, as you said, he's just kind of very there in his voice. Although Dante Bosco does a great job, at it is quite distracting when you're just listening to a future Zuko talking. You're like, yeah, that's definitely Zuko's relative. Dante doesn't have another voice. Yeah.
00:39:51
Speaker
There's a lot of voice actors that will change up their voices for different kind of roles. This is not a criticism of Dante, but he has the Dante voice that he uses. i was going to say he's not called dante bradsley ba Yeah, no, I think he's serviceable to be honest. this He's a good enough character and I like it when he appears, but I think his introduction was excellent. But beyond that, yeah, he's just like a Fire Nation guy. For the other characters though, Chief Beifong, I think she's great. I always like when she turns up and she's just metal bending the hell out of her. thing, but you can certainly tell she's Toph's daughter. Tenzin I do like, but I don't like his children and I know that sounds absolutely terrible to say, well that's a lie. I think two thirds of his children are alright, but you know the one I mean. the one I really don't like and that is Miele because Tenzin of course he is trying to live up to his father's reputation and it's quite interesting what they do with him that he has this burden of responsibility and of course when you see his siblings as well who one of them is a waterbender and the other is like a non-bender until season three when shenanigans happen that we will touch on that he becomes an airbender so I like the family dynamic there and what it meant to be the son of Avatar Aang. But Meelo, Meelo gives me like this indescribable rage every time he pops up where he is obviously a child, I get that, but he constantly uses his ear bending to like fart and things. And that is something that, yeah again, the show shouldn't be 100% serious, you can't have any jokes and things. But when you've got this rugrat lying around,
00:41:37
Speaker
but just farting in people's faces. I think he gets a little bit better since season 4, when he grows up a bit. I don't mind him as much then, but see, before that, no he's just very, very irritating. I don't know what your thoughts are in Tenzin's family for that. is interesting from Tenzin's children, you almost get three distinct personalities from Aang. And so it's almost like Aang's personality is kind of split in three with them. You have the kind of stoic monk side from Jinora, you have the frantic ADHD coded aspect of him in Ikki, and then you have the kind of really goofy babyish kind of aspect of him in Milo. However, I do agree that Milo's scenes are some of my least favorite. I don't think necessarily that he's always a bad character or badly written, but he kind of adds this slapstickness to the show that is otherwise trying to be quite serious. And so I kind of wish that a lot of, and you referenced earlier where they're defending the air temple island from equalists and he farts on one of them and he airbends his fart essentially to blast away one of the bad guys. That would have been fun from a different vibe of Avatar show, but Korra doesn't really give that. It feels a lot more mature and serious in many ways. You can have some humor and brevity to it, but you don't really need that kind of slapstick. in it. He has other scenes which I just kind of find him a bit annoying. There's an arc where he's a really good painter for some reason, and he's hitting on this girl. He's generally just kind of an annoying character. He does have moments where I again don't mind him, but I agree that he's probably one of the worst parts of the show. I mean, there's a bad that I was cheating for Ramon in the first season when he was about to take away the abandon, and I was going, take me those first please for the love of God. leave the others to take me was. What's quite an interesting dynamic just kind of going back to Tenzin and his siblings is that you were talking about this kind of burden that Tenzin has that essentially Aang felt like one of his responsibilities as well as being the Avatar was to bring back the Air Nation through through even just in a small part through his own family. And he succeeded with Tenzin in that Tenzin is an airbender. But the two other children that he had, Kaya and Boomi, the latter named after his good friend, King of Omashu Boomi, they weren't airbenders. And so he almost felt like he'd failed in some way. And because he knew that he had to help Tenzin to increase his airbending abilities and teach him the ways of the Air Nation, that those two were
00:44:08
Speaker
not necessarily ignored, but they weren't given the same level of attention and devotion from their father, which paints Aang as not a very good father, and which is often a criticism held to the show that someone like Aang would be selfish and self-centered in that way, that he wouldn't be a good father and love his children equally, which I don't think is necessarily what the show is saying. I think what it's saying is that that burden that Aang had was represented in having to both help bring balance to the world again following the war and also bring back his people. And so that unfortunately meant that his other two children didn't get that kind of nomad education and that same level of attention. But I don't think that necessarily meant that he didn't love them as much. I can understand what people are saying in that criticism, but I don't think it necessarily means that. And so Tenzin carrying on that responsibility whilst also kind of being oblivious to his siblings treatment took on that extra, I keep saying burden, that weight of trying to uphold his father's vision and his father's wish to bring back the Air Nation in again, in a small way until we have harmonic convergence that brings back the Air Nation through just kind of giving random people airbending. I wonder if it was random or if people were selected by the spirits based on their own personalities and how that works within like an aeronation context.
Season Structure and Villains
00:45:28
Speaker
Actually, that is probably the best point to leap into the story or rather stories of this. And as we briefly touched on before, there are four different ideologies that feel as if each season tries to tackle
00:45:43
Speaker
Now, before we go on, one of the things that I feel as if the show kind of does poorly, and I'm i'm just going to put the firebend out there and risk myself, but I feel as if they try to deal with a lot of very, you know, mature and complex themes like, as we said, book one, equality, book two, the idea of a spiritual balance, book three, talking about taking down corrupt systems, and then book four, we discuss the ideas of authoritarianism.
00:46:13
Speaker
I feel as if every season kind of starts the same way with the villains, where you see it from one side where the villains make a really good point about certain things, like for example with Amon he's trying to literally equalise his movement suggests between the conditions of element benders versus non-benders for season 2. It's about Unalok trying to restore the spiritualness of his people. Well, he says that. Exactly. This is a problem I have though. For season three, you know, you've got taken to corruption. Season four, it's trying to rebuild from that. But I feel as if initially it begins good and then obviously they have to slam people in the face and say, actually, these people are terrible, terrible people. I know they're trying to do that balance of, oh they've got good points but they're still a villain. I never feel as if that comes across great. It always has to be, oh initially they have a good point but then they're the most despicable person in the world. It's one of those kind of things like, I remember people would talk about this a lot with Black Panther, where you had Killmonger, who was making some pretty justifiable points. But then you were like, well, we can't have the audience actually sympathizing with this guy. And so we have to show him strangling this woman and killing this other person and that kind of thing to be like, oh, wait, no, no, he is a villain. You're not supposed to like him. I think season three and four, especially, are terrible for us. With Seguir, as we were talking about, he is very much driven by his ideology of everyone should be free. and whatnot. Obviously it's a bit of a very complex issue about the idea of anarchy versus keeping it up systems of power and you know initially you think oh you know what this guy has a point and then he literally sucks the air out of the earth queen which is by far one of if not the most brutal death scene that we actually see on screen for Avatar. That's the thing as well, they show it. like they show was one of the most brutal deaths you will see because we've never seen evil airbending really, not even evil airbending, because we only ever had one airbender before. But just the use of airbending in such an offensive capacity, the having this use of drawing that you've had bloodbending, which was up to this point, one was disgusting and vile things you could do to another person that you're controlling their body. And then you have a nation of people who have control of the air we breathe and can just remove that from us. And the implication being that, thank God that they are peaceful monks because they've had this ability forever, or at least since the lion turtles gave it to them. I'm just imagining that conversation. Now don't you go sucking the air out of people's lungs. Just a year over a year, like, that gives me an idea. I was gonna say, I wasn't gonna, but now you don't even say that, I wanna. That's an orderly specific thing to say, Lion Turtle. You'd be surprised. It's like, okay, fair enough. I don't know how we thought of that one, but honestly, A for both creativity and atrocities to humankind. Yeah, he's a monster. That's the thing, I feel as if towards the tail end, especially with Season 1. Let's go back to Season 1 for a second, because I feel as if Season 1 is by far the strongest, for me personally, the strongest season of the whole show because we have someone who wants to rid the world of bending and has this really interesting power that you can take away people's bending power and that terrifies Quora. I found that really interesting that up until this point Quora, much like any teenager to be honest, she found herself very invincible. She could take on the world and then she saw this never before seen power other than with Avatar Aang that she thought, oh, hot damn.
00:49:59
Speaker
but I don't want to fight this guy. It was quite fascinating to see not only was he more than just like a mustached twirling villain, he was a smart villain. You know, he got public perception on his side, he manipulated the system, he got in with the right people to the extent that he took over Republic City for a brief stint. It was pretty impressive, I'm not gonna lie, he's a horrible person. But then at the end it's revealed that, and again, spoilers going forward, but that, oh, He's a bloodbender, IRL, and you're like, oh, okay. What were your feelings about that for Ramon as a character? Did you feel as if him being revealed as a bloodbender was detrimental to the overarching themes of this book?
Spiritual Themes and Book 2 Critique
00:50:43
Speaker
retrospectively i can see that argument at the time however it was very much ah
00:50:48
Speaker
oh damn they did that that's so cool they really kind of surprised me i think that's really clever and you then get back finale with the two brothers who were essentially both of our villains were brothers with each other one of whom didn't know the other was his brother because he was hiding behind a mask and then one kills the other or other kills both of them essentially goes suicide pact with the other person a not willing participant yeah I can see that entirely and then when i saw the word escaping from the boat I was like, oh I forgot they escaped. And then two seconds later they bring out the electric gauntlet towards the gas. Yeah, the gas. And you're like, oh oh, this is brutal.
00:51:24
Speaker
but ah no more Ramon for the future. Yeah, I'm trying to think. Season one had that, which was like, oh, Jesus. Season three had the suffocation of the Earth Queen and also the combustion woman blowing her own head off. I think I said this last week, but I got her confused with the combustion man from the last airbender because I was convinced he got metal wrapped around his head and then blew up his own head. Last Airbender would not do that. Yeah, exactly. That's why I was so confused. I was like, it's pretty brutal for the last airbender. I'm like, oh, yeah.
00:51:55
Speaker
es coa of course Yeah. And then season four has like robots. Well, yeah, there is that scene with Kavira essentially committing her husband to death. He is actually saved in the end, but it looks like she has killed him with this like laser gun thing, which was going to be very brutal. I can't really think that much else from that, but season two, I'm pretty sure there's nothing particularly brutal or devastating in that one that I can think of. The thing is, with a lot of the seasons for this show, they all seem very self-contained, which I find quite odd coming from the last Airbender, because as I said, it was the overarching plot of Aang and the Rest of His Range trying to stop the Fire Lord. You know, season one, season two, season three, that was the story that they were carrying over. And although elements of each season of Korra carry over, it feels as if you can almost watch them
00:52:44
Speaker
you know relatively except for season 3 and 4 that's different but for season 1 and 2 you can kind of watch them as their own isolated thing because you know you've got a mon in that one and then they have to get a new big bad and they get Unalok and the second one who becomes the evil avatar which I hate that trope I absolutely hate that trope when they shake the hero's power and then they just say, oh yeah, what if? Evil version. Because I am sure Hunter x Hunter did a similar thing. Apologies for showing my weaving this off, but there was like a movie that they had where it was like the powers that they have, you know, this is very brief summary of it. It's like the powers that they had it's called NEM. They had an evil version of that. Then in reverse. It was, it was like... it was something stupid like that and I remember watching it thinking but we've seen people use that same power but they've been incredibly evil so what's the point of having an evil version in the only highlight of season 2 or so?
00:53:43
Speaker
was as the Avatar origin but while I like that in terms of the way it's animated and how it delves into the lore it feels almost unnecessary and it takes away a lot of the mysticism because I think one of the things that I talked about last week in regards to the spirit realm is the fact that all of the spirits were morally grey. Bar a few exceptions, like some would lean towards being evil, some would be a bit more good and some would just be doing their own thing. Looking at you, library owl, you know who you are. Bahaha. No jokes aside. i apologize to one she don please that i but but yeah there was that kind of moral ambiguity there but I didn't like how they decided to make it more black and white, where it was like, oh, we've got an evil spirit that gives you evil avatar powers, we've got the good avatar, you know, I didn't really like that side of it. I felt as if on the one hand it was interesting and they explored that, but it also took a away. I guess you can argue the spirits in their nature are chaotic. Rava and Vaatu, they're not good and evil, I don't think so. I think they are ordering chaos manifested as spirits, but oh no, he's the spirit of darkness.
00:55:01
Speaker
All right. Fuck checking it. Chatsunami. Yeah, no, okay. Yeah, you have Vaati, the spirit of darkness and Rava, the spirit of light in conflict with each other in like an eternal struggle. I agree. I think that it does remove the kind of moral dryness ambiguity of the spirit world when you have such a clear cut good and bad idea to it. And season two, I think is generally regarded as the weakest.
00:55:25
Speaker
I will say I did enjoy the lore and backstory of the Avatar universe and the animation was very interesting during those I think two episodes. Season two is a very weird one because you get quite an interesting storyline in many ways of what is essentially retouched on this with regards to what season two is about. A large chunk of it is a water tribe civil war. You have the north and south respective water tribes at war with each other. The Avatar, who is herself of the water tribe, and particularly, I believe she's a southern water tribe resident, which is the same place as Katara and Sokka are from, she can't choose sides in this conflict, because there is an element of it that is about one trying to impose its values on the other. And so you can sort of act in a way to say, stop that, let each group be individual. But it is complicated and it is kind of seen from and the bystander's perspective of the Avatar treating them very poorly. And so you have what could be such a brilliant storyline there that is not necessarily ruined, but it is affected by this other storyline that's ongoing about her uncle and the evil Avatar spirit.
00:56:34
Speaker
You could have had so many of these elements exist within this season that did not involve that. And then you had other kind of clumsy aspects of the season with regards to Cora and Mako's relationship. Oh, that was the worst out of all four seasons. I feel as if season two is the worst between those two. They're just constantly arguing with one another. And Cora comes across as really unnecessarily aggressive. in season two, just an absolute pain in the backside to everybody. It just seems very out of character. Yeah, I mean, a lot of the criticism people have of the character of Korra, I feel largely comes from this season. And the thing that happens at the end of this season, not the harmonic conversions, that's separate, but the destruction of Rava, which breaks off her link to approved lives. And so she no longer can access Aang or Roku or Kyoshi or any of these kind of previous avatars. She is completely isolated and she has almost restarted the avatar cycle in a very different way that she is now the first of a new chain that she can't rely on others. And so it means that we don't get what is a very fun part of the avatar universe, which is having that kind of multi-generational kind of link in the avatar state, which allows you to sort of utilize the power of your previous lives, that she does have a different version of that, but it certainly is not as interesting as it once was. And so breaking that connection is one of the main criticisms that I see online that, oh, Cora sucks, she ruined the Avatar cycle and the show is rubbish because it changes the kind of fundamental part of what Avatar is. Which I understand that point, but I don't necessarily agree. I think that they take it in a different kind of way with it, and that's fine. But season two, other than one character that we love very much that is introduced in season two, other than Varric, season two is incredibly weak and should have really been taken in a different
Character Evolution: Varric and Julie
00:58:30
Speaker
direction. Even with some minor changes, there's a YouTuber that I watch called Hello Future Me, things from New Zealand. And he often does video essays on why this portrayal of this character works, how you, within storytelling, utilize these kind of ideas and brings examples of different stories. And within that, he often will reference Avatar with that. And he's actually done a video essay that's like almost an hour long and I've never once gotten through it. I'd often put it on before bed. It's quite a peaceful thing to listen to before I fall asleep. So I've actually never listened to the whole thing. But he breaks down how, if he was writing season two with the template of what season two is about, how he would write it in a way that would be a bit more digestible and that wouldn't quite break the world avatar. And like, despite the fact that I'm saying I've not finished listening to it, it is very interesting. I do recommend it. and again this is purely a hindsight thing and this isn't coming from the point of view of a professional writer or anything like that but there was a lot in that season that definitely weighed it down and I can understand why people didn't like it. Even in season four when they do a recap episode they actually make fun of it and quite frankly one of the
00:59:37
Speaker
they is. Jobs at themself when Varric is retelling his side of the story in recap form and there's like this amazing cutaway gag where... They have the four villains. Yeah, they have Amon, Zaheer and it's not Kuvira is it? Or is there somebody else? I think it's just those two maybe or there's a couple of them and then it's Unawoke. put himself into the goal. And they're just like, no, no, we're hanging it up here. It is one of the funniest things ever and it feels more like an outtake, to be honest, us or just like a kind of improv thing. I don't know whether that is the case or not, but it is absolutely hilarious. It's a bit like a bridge series or a bit like, you know, the bloopers from Full Mail Alchemist Brotherhood. Yeah, exactly. Because it doesn't feel very professional when you're listening to them say these things. You're like, really?
01:00:27
Speaker
far as so damn entertaining. So I give it a complete pass on that one. We referenced, I think maybe in the Avatar Last Airbender episode about how Avatar is so good at recap episodes that you had the Ember Island players from The Last Airbender, which recaps the series so far in the form of these like acting troupe that are like really hamilly going through what happened and so taking jabs at various kind of aspects of the show. And then in this, as you say, we have I'd remembered it as one of the talkies that Varric has that he kind of creates this movie where that happens, but maybe you're right, maybe it's when they're having like that little group discussion and they're recapping it. Unfortunately, in my rewatch of Korra, I didn't get that far. I've seen it several times now and know it pretty well, but I do forget exactly how that scene goes. yeah from what I remember it's pictures of them that pop up and it's like whenever they're talking their one will pop up on the screen and all the others kind of move away. is It's honestly so funny and it's a highlight of that episode because I have to manually skip that episode in the rewatch because it begins with like a very boring Mako and Boland recapping their side of the story and the off triangle and whatnot you're like oh god so here we go. So I skipped through those bits
01:01:43
Speaker
But then when I got to the Varick bit, of course you bit your ass that I sat down and watched it and I was like, this is amazing, 10 out of 10. He definitely carries the show a lot because I think the difference between someone like Varick because I criticise Miele and the one Miele fan listening out there will be like, how dare you? But the thing that I think works for him is, although he's quite funny and he's got a lot of humour to his character, especially when he's with his assistant Julie, you know, Julie do the thing. He's got a sinister side to him as well as a side antagonist and again this technically contributes to the blow of Season 2 but it's like where he's purposely orchestrating false flag attacks on Republic City so that the Civil War will keep going, that he can sell certain weapons to either side, that he takes over a Sami's company through force. He's a slicker guy to borrow a Scottish word. He is a very sneaky, sneaky guy but at the same time how can you hate him? He's so damn charismatic and that is the problem that he is so charismatic he gets away with so much of it. I think he is a great addition He is such an interesting character because there is that morally gray aspect to him where he doesn't really seem to have much of a moral compass. It's very much what works for Varric and he is kind of forced in the last season to build like a weapon that he then decides actually this is bad and he gains a bit of a moral compass to try and stop her. It is still very much a Varric on Varric's terms kind of thing. You have this Julie character who you mentioned the do the thing Julie, didn't you? It's part of this catchphrase that he has that is not as iconic as it maybe could be, because it isn't referenced really at all now. But at the time, I felt like it was very much in the lexicon, at least from that kind of nerdy bubble. So He is very interesting and is such a bizarre character in fiction in this children's cartoon that you have this kind of sleazy businessman that is out for himself that is not a bad guy in many ways but is very rarely a good guy. Can't believe I'm quoting Rekha Ralph but you know that just because you're a bad guy he doesn't make you a bad guy. What I have to say is quite interesting as well as with the Julie's character is that, granted it takes her two seasons to actually become a fully fledged character, but I really like how in Season 4 she becomes more of an independent character. You know, she's not like a tag-a-long for Varric She actually tells them where to go and everything, and she tends to work for Kuvira later, only with to sabotage her machine and whatnot. She becomes her own character in that way, and apparently in the comics, spoilers to the comics later on, but I think it's either the comics or the books that she actually becomes the president of Republic City, which pretty cool but she ends up of course marrying Varric and everything and I do like the fact that they gave
Korra's Struggles and Mental Health Themes
01:04:39
Speaker
her more of a character rather than just her being punchling for Varric's hijinks as of where. Yeah going back to the overall stories though I feel as if It's a very inconsistent series, isn't it? I feel as if, for the most part, a lot of the books start strong, even for Book 2. Even for Book 2, they start off relatively strong, they have the strong elements, and then by the end of it, either it ends in Cora getting absolutely wrecked and beat up, which I feel as if happens a lot. And again, you know, there's three books compared to four, but I feel as if Cora gets really beaten up quite a lot in that show? Far more so than Aang. And I guess it's kind of the nature of again, you're this is grittier, a more mature show, you have a character that is more prone to a fight than Aang who would rather avoid one. And so as a result, she gets into situations where she's bested. And so the roughest moment is certainly the start of season four.
01:05:35
Speaker
where we're introduced to Cora in this grubby back alley underground fighting circuit where she's essentially just earth bend brawling with someone and she is not winning. She's just getting very badly hurt from this that she's trying to cope with this severe mental illness that she's developed as a result of what happened to her in season three, which was horrible, or she was lodged, kind of tortured. And so she's now trying to fight through that in a very unhealthy way. And what she thinks is kind of a catharsis, but is just an unhealthy life. And it kind of results in this kind of relationship that she ends up having with Asami, where she doesn't feel comfortable talking about where she's at with Mako, Bolin, or anyone else, but she does with Asami. And that's kind of where that pen pal relationship develops.
01:06:22
Speaker
It's definitely one of the heavier topics because as you said in Season 3 at the very end, she fights Zegir and these cronies and everything and they have such a terrible fight that he ends up. I don't think it's him in particular as a I think it's somebody else that puts the metal into her body. Her blood. So they put like this form of mercury or something, and this metal is supposed to make her body fight back and trigger the Avatar state so that they can kill her in the Avatar state and end the cycle of the Avatar, which is super messed up because of this horrendous torture she endures, as I said, affects her in such a horrible way. I think season three ends in such a depressing note. You have Korra in a wheelchair just looking exhausted.
01:07:08
Speaker
yeah because it's like meant to be this happy and for obvious reasons that's why she's sad but it's meant to be this very happy and joyous occasion and then it cuts the coda and rightfully so she just looks absolutely defeated. It's a horrible sight to see your heroes in that way And again, I'm not saying that it shouldn't be shown, but it's not something you initially want to see. You want to see your heroes be triumphant and against all odds. So especially for a kid show, and I know this is more aimed towards teenagers, it's quite unique that they're showing that darker side of the Avatar world. Yeah, and I think again, it's why Nickelodeon stopped wanting it to be aired on TV that they kind of pushed it to digital because they weren't comfortable airing that more mature topic that mental health and mental illness is more so just necessarily parodied. But it's almost like, oh, that's crazy, crazy Larry kind of thing in a cartoon show. And you don't really get an idea of actually what mental health issues are doing to people, which is fair enough. It's cartoons, it's kid shows, escapism, but having something that shows that is important and it's an avenue for more discussion. I'm to be a father later this year and once my child is old enough to watch these kind of shows, I'm very much going to encourage that we watch these shows and we'll understand that there's likely going to be topics that are brought up that they say, what was that about? Why was she like this?
01:08:33
Speaker
and that helps to bring about those kind of conversations. It's something that I brought up last week when we're talking about Avatar the Last Airbender. I think while that show tackles these kind of issues in an all ages type way, I don't think I can extend the same description to Korra purely because although, granted, they do it more in a teen and child-friendly way at the same time. I don't know how comfortable I would feel if, you know, I was showing it to, at this point in the podcast and in my life, it's a hypothetical satsanabe train you're out there, but if I was showing it to my child then I would be hesitant to show, you know, a especially Season 3 until they were much older so I can see why they were a little bit hesitant to continue and I'm glad they did continue with the show, albeit with a slash budget and forcing it to be on streaming services as opposed to their prime time slots and I can kind of see that because can you imagine watching the episode with the Earth Queen getting brutally killed and then it's like, coming up next, iCarly!
Viewing Experiences and Nostalgia
01:09:41
Speaker
You know yeah just be like, Jesus Christ, I don't think I want to watch that show anymore. I think that season three was aired. I'm pretty sure it was only season four that was digital, but I might be wrong there. It might be that it moved to digital for both the final two seasons. But my memory is that because of how long it takes for these things to air in the UK, as opposed to America, and I'm not waiting around while everyone was talking about Cora to watch them, I had to find an American means to watch it. And so I never watched Cora air appearing on TV until actually I came to Canada and I was at my wife's parents' house on the TV there. It was airing in syndication. But other than that, I hadn't watched Cora on TV. It just wasn't an option. And I mean, a especially when we were in university, because let's face it, we didn't have TV. It's not even that. I mean, other than that, obviously, I doubt there were maybe, well, maybe there were a few flats that were
01:10:32
Speaker
I would constantly. You know, we had a lot more to worry about than that. But in my first year, your third year, yeah we did have that place that had a TV, had TV included in the student halls of accommodation. We were fancy. We just want to say. But it was our American listeners and maybe I otherwise won't understand this, but it was essentially terrestrial TV, which means that it had a limited number of channels. It wasn't cable TV. It wasn't satellite TV. It was limited to a very select group of channels and Nickelodeon was not one of those. Yeah, it's usually like BBC, ITV, Channel 5, Channel 4, E4, those kind of the usual suspects essentially. There was a very limited amount of channels that we got and I'm not gonna lie, I don't think our flatmates would have been happy if we commandeered the TV and decided to watch Cora and things like that. I think they would have probably been like, why are you watching that? I don't know, when Spongebob came on afterwards, I think they'd be all for it. I mean, true, true. I have a curiosity, and obviously not naming names, but did you show our fellow, well, one of our flatmates, Cora and Avatar, you invited me and another flatmate to watch the very first episode of Attack on Titan? I always remember that, and him absolutely hating it. No, I didn't think that Avatar would be his vibe, so I didn't suggest that to the flatmate that you're asking about. I got our friend from the flat next door to us. She watched it. I actually lent her my DVDs that I've never gone back. This is a call out. Never until later. This is a call out to them. This is why we did Avatar Month just so I could call them out please.
01:12:09
Speaker
This is going to be the thumbnail for this episode. Have you seen this DBT? that's the beatt DVD box out of the Last Airbender that I had was so beautiful as well. like It's such a shame. Now I have a Blu-ray one that has both Cora and Aang together. It's very pretty, very nice. It's Blu-ray, so it's much
Season 4 Critique and Technological Leap
01:12:24
Speaker
better quality. But that box that the three seasons of Avatar Last Airbender were in my DVDs was so gorgeous that I was so sad that I lost it. Well, that it was not returned. You've been trapped in an iceberg under the water.
01:12:36
Speaker
ah May as well be, it's in North West Scotland. But going back to Cora, it was honestly quite an interesting experience, I have to say. You see, as a kind of relatively closing point here, it was quite interesting to watch this with you at the time, because as I said millions of times you had knocked at my door and demanded that I watch Avatar The Last Airbender. I of course complied because you had more DVDs on the way. that you weren't going to let me go by without watching and when I watched it, you know, it made us bond together as friends. Of course we watched Quora and especially when it was coming out weekly, that was something to look forward to. Granted, the final final episode of it left a lot to be desired when they decided to go very gundamling on by saying oh we've got this huge cannon on the back of a train how do we get this to a republic city oh i know let's make a giant robot which yeah it seems s like a very a weird choice i'm not gonna lie
01:13:35
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, it's interesting as well because like they had Varric who's the chief inventor engineer kind of person and in this world develop this laser technology utilizing spirit power how he wasn't employed in the kind of robot development. Season one has these little kind of robotic type suits like mech suits that the equalists use. This is not like them. This is like Pacific Rim, Gundam Wing S, gigantic skyscraper tall robot. Like, Varric presumably would have been involved in this. They had Batar Jr. maybe, who's also an inventor, who was like Kavira's husband, that worked on them. But it does seem quite far-fetched, like get a little bit of a jump the shark moment, that it feels like the writers just wanted to have a giant robot fight. Because I mean, they had
01:14:21
Speaker
the giant spirit fight was like a spiritual mech in season two. And I guess they wanted another one of those kind of big epic final battles. So they felt they had to go big with it. But I think even within the context of like the technology jumps in the show, that felt a jump too far. I think it felt out of place. And I wish they hadn't done that. There could have been other options other than the giant robot. It's a very choicy choice, I'm gonna say, in the nicest way possible. It feels as if, and again, this is something I have an issue with overall, with Kora, where they always have to try and have a big bombastic ending for every single season. There's no real
01:15:01
Speaker
cliffhanger or no moment to breathe, no pun intended to hear, but there's genuinely no time. It's like, alright, for the first season, I thought that was handled excellently. Ammon had taken over the city, that public opinion had shifted towards him and until they found out he was a bender and which had changed back weirdly quickly. I know it's a kid show, but come on now. But I thought that was handled well. season two for very good reason that a lot of people really dislike that because Korra turns into like a giant blue version of herself or rather she protects herself in fights. That too wasn't very good but again you know it's oh this big bombastic light show and then season three again that's a bit more grounded where but not grounded literally because they are flying about, but you know, they're fighting one another and it's more ideals clashing and whatnot. And then Season 4, it's almost like good, bad, good, questionable when it comes to that. Because again, Kuvira seems to be a character that although she's introduced in season 3, her whole motivations and whatnot, they just pop out of nowhere. And that's alright you know, it's not the worst thing in the world but it feels like a huge leap as you said where although we do have exosuits and things like that in and this world,
01:16:20
Speaker
This isn't your stereotypical one, this is very much more in the realms of sci-fi and it doesn't feel like a natural progression. And what I hate as well about that is the fact that there's not really a satisfying ending. You know, the robot just crashes through and then Kuvira's just like, oh okay, I'm gonna fire this cannon anyway. And then they go to the spirit world, they have her back and forth, and then they come back out of the world and then she's like, it's okay guys, the war's over. But what?
01:16:48
Speaker
Yeah, the war's over. And I know they continue that conflict. And when they say the comics again, there's like a remnant of the Is it the Earth Empire or whatever they call themselves. Something like that. Yeah, I have that comic. I've read it. And yeah, so they do continue the Kavira storyline in an interesting way. Yeah, it feels kind of sad that we didn't get that resolution in the show itself, but I can understand why as well on the flip side, because they probably wanted to just enter the high and say, oh, we defeated Gavira. And it's like, wow, that was a very quick conclusion. it's like yeah we just knocked over a robot and took her to the spirit realm and yeah everything's handy dandy so again if i'm summarizing my thoughts overall for kora i don't think it's as bad as everyone says it is at the time i'll hold my hands up here and i will admit i did not like kora as much as the last airbender at the time. I still think that The Last Airbender is the better show out the two, but it doesn't mean that Kora doesn't have its great elements. I think Kora, and you made an excellent point there, that Kora seems to be personified by season two for a lot of fans, that they say, oh she's terrible, she lost the avatar set, like losing a set of keys, which is weird, that she's very aggressive and whatnot but there's a lot of obviously context links for that and I feel as if the good parts are overshadowed by a lot of these bad parts like season 2 genuinely is really bad but it has got some really good elements to it and it's the same with season 3 and 4, it's got its great elements and then it's got its slightly rushed endings, it's got its bad moments but I don't think overall that this is a bad show. I think that this is still a worthy successor to Avatar. Is it the way I personally would have envisioned it going? Probably not, but then again, I'm not a writer. I was gonna ask, do you have a particular vision for where you would have wanted a subsequent Avatar show to go? Honestly, not really, because it's so hard to pinpoint how this world would naturally evolve. Because as we were talking about at the beginning of this episode, you have the Fire Nation with literal tanks against people who are practically throwing rocks at them. And metalbending at this point, it's only just been discovered by the likes of Toph and whatnot. So it's hard to see where it would have gone from there. On the one hand, I was initially quite disappointed that they had such a technological leap from the world of the last yearbend are too cooler with the cars and with the robots and whatnot. But thinking back to our own history, it's probably not a major leap because there have been, especially in recent years, there's been huge leaps in technology and inventions and whatnot.
Initial Concerns and Series Expansion
01:19:40
Speaker
So it is plausible. I think a lot of the anger and maybe dissatisfaction with the series is just because it's not the last Airbender and I think that is a massive thing but it's something you also touched on earlier. I think that if they did do a copy paste of saying, oh she's just like Aang and oh she does this and that the exact same way, people would still be arguing regardless and I think Even I could be wrong in this, you might be able to clarify, but I think when they showed this to test audiences initially, people were worried that the kids watching weren't going to like Cora, and they were nearly tempted to just cut Cora and make it more of a male lead, to which I think a lot of people said when they were watching it, no this is a really good character, what are you talking about? Kids were loving Cora as a character, so any It's interesting, especially behind the scenes where the show could have gone. And as we said, there was a lot of turbulent development with it. I just want to touch on that just very quickly. What was so interesting about the creation of this show is that season one, they did want this to become a big show, the creators, but they have been given one season.
01:20:52
Speaker
to tell a story and I think, I might be wrong this, but I think there might have been an idea that they were going to do a different avatar story. There'll be like one season of like this avatar and then jumping to this avatar and doing that that kind of thing. But season one of Korra was so well received that it was green lit for three more seasons. And so you can see the difference in quality in several ways, but for the most part in its animation from season one to the subsequent seasons, the quality does get worse.
Animation Quality and Industry Conditions
01:21:22
Speaker
in terms of the animation as seasons go on. There are exceptions to that. It's not that it's not a beautiful show, like it is a beautiful show throughout all four seasons of it. And we mentioned the Avatar One section being like a different animation and being very unique and beautiful. But season one of Korra was animated by Studio Mir in Korea, who had had some work on the last Airbender show, I believe. But this was a new project that they had been asked to work on by Nickelodeon, the creator of Avatar, that they were so burnt out working on it because this was the most intensive show for frame animation that they had ever worked on, that they slept in the office. Conditions were absolutely horrendous. What we got from that was one of the most gorgeously animated seasons of television that you will ever see. I will fight anyone that tells me that season one is the one of the most beautiful animated shows because because the action is incredibly fluent. The character design and animation is gorgeous. The colors are beautiful. It flows so, so well. They have, I think, three times as many frames or something like that as any other Western show at the time. I often was of the impression that anime had more frames than Western animation. It usually looks like a more fluid kind of style than what we've seen in the West. But actually, they cut more corners than we do usually. And so they were essentially animating it four times what they normally would for Korean and Japanese animation for this one season of the show. And so when it did get picked up for more seasons, they essentially said, we can't do that. We can't manage that anymore. And so they moved to a different animation studio to work on the rest of Korra. And it's such a shame
01:23:01
Speaker
I do not want to glorify the poor treatment that you go through to create something as good as Legend of Korra season one, but it would be nice if we could put less strain on the animators, maybe just give it a longer creation time, but to create something as beautiful as that consistently. I just hate the fact that you're saying this about a show that came out between 2012 to 2014 and roughly 10 years on, if not over, we're still having that conversation about it. This might have been off air. We're talking about how these days it takes forever for new shows to come out, both animated and non-animated. And what was so remarkable about Cora is you had four seasons of pretty well animated and iffy and writing, but generally pretty good writing of four seasons of animation in two and a half years. There are shows now that have a hiatus between seasons of that long. You can understand now that they are treating their workers better. I at least I hope so. I hope that this is the case.
01:23:58
Speaker
workers are treated better to allow for quality in a reasonable timeframe, to avoid crunch. I think that crunch still exists, but hopefully it is not to the extent that it was then. Honestly, it is a shame because you see that in a lot of creative industries nowadays, like especially with gaming, considering UNI, keep up with that sphere, are hopefully going forward for the future. future of the Avatar series as well, that things will be better for that. But I suppose we'll see in time, won't we? Which is sad, but yeah, true. Not as sad as the end of Season 3, mind you.
Future Hopes for Avatar Studios
01:24:32
Speaker
But still. We're going to see what Avatar Studios comes up with very soon. It's October, I believe, is when we're getting the first movie. and we haven't seen a single, like there's not been any trailers or anything that have come out for it and we're eight months out, seven months out from this movie coming out. We've not really seen anything from it. So I both hope that they're still maintaining at that timeline. I very much want to see it, but if it's going to take them longer to produce quality content, then we wait. It might just be that they're not ready to show trailer yet. that They're holding cards close to their chest, but I'm eager to find out what our trust studios has in store for us in October when it comes out. If you're listening to this in October, after the movie's already come out and the impression's already in, then hopefully it's lived up to expectations. Fingers crossed. Otherwise, we're going to have to put out a very lengthy statement of, we're sorry for encouraging you to go see that film. It wasn't as bad as the Shyamalan film, but... We can hope for sure, but we are intending to both watch it and to review it once we've watched it, so you'll be able to certainly hear our thoughts on it there. Can't wait for that, to be honest. It will be interesting to see another piece of well Avatar content that isn't live-action or Netflix affiliated or Shyamalan affiliated but of course that'll be next week's episode and for legal reasons that unfortunately is not a joke.
Closing Reflections and Farewells
01:25:49
Speaker
Next week of course we are going to be diving into that weird and not so wonderful world which is a shame because
01:25:56
Speaker
Yeah, this is probably the last time we're going to be talking about good avatar content until next week. So seeing that, Andrew, thank you so much for joining me to talk about this wonderful series. And yeah, as you said, successor to Lost Airbender. No, thank you so much for having me on. Just as I said in the last Airbender episode, it's a pleasure to finally be able to talk about these series. It was a show that bonded us in university, and we are able to talk about it now over 10 years later. It's crazy that we're over a decade on from the conclusion of Korra, not even when we like first watched it together. I think it's even crazier the fact that we met 12 years ago. Avatar was one of the pillars of our friendship back then. Avatar and Dragon Ball abridged. Yep, that is true.
01:26:40
Speaker
Listen to our episode on Dragon Ball coverage. Yeah, definitely. Listen to it. Lukas and Echo told me to go fuck myself. for your Apparently spicy views on Dragon Ball. No, it was on Iron Man 3. Iron Man 3, that was it. Sorry, yeah. Yeah, I said I didn't like Iron Man 3 and he told me to fuck off. And that's why we've not had an MCU month yet. We're too afraid of the backwash.
01:27:03
Speaker
Now in all seriousness thank you so much for joining me this week to discuss Quora and as I say next week we will be diving into the Shyamalan film but as we go away and you know build up the courage to go and watch that to review it, where can these lovely panel loading listeners at home find your content? These lovely listeners can find more of my content right here on Chat Tsunami. I've recorded many episodes with you now, including the previous Avatar, the Last Airbender episode, and just dozens of other fantastic topics and other themed months we've done together. They can also find me on my other podcast, Stop, Drop, and Roll Initiative. It's a Dungeons and Dragons podcast where myself, Sat Tsunami, robotic battle toaster, and wrestler Martin McAllister play through a D and&D campaign. You can find that on all good podcast apps, and Stop, Drop, and Roll Initiative and at sdripod on Twitter and you can find me at GreenShield95 on Twitter as well. But where can the lovely Mandalorians find your content and any other extras? Well I'm glad you asked, Andrew. If you want to check out more of our content together of course you'll know this, Andrew. I don't know why I say that like a... Yeah, if you want to check out more of our content, then you can find us on our website, Chatsunami.com, as well as all good podcast apps. As always, I want to thank our amazing Pandalurian Patrons, RoboticBattleToaster, Sonya, Ghosty, and Cryptic1991. Thank you so, so much for supporting the show. Honestly, it means the world to us. But if you would like to become a Pandalurian patron and get exclusive access to early access episodes, special episodes that we've released, the commentary tracks,
01:28:35
Speaker
and our fundraiser for getting Andrew's DVDs of Avatar The Lost Airbender back. Probably good reasons that last one's a joke. I'm putting up wanted posters around Scotland. but Just drawing in by yourself. Like Sokka when he draws in half a wanted poster.
01:28:50
Speaker
then you can check that out at our patreon page patreon.com forward slash chat tsunami this podcast is also a member of the podpack collective for more information please check us out our twitter slash x handle podpack collect but until next time thank you all so so much for listening to this episode stay safe stay awesome and most importantly stay hydrated what event what a drive