Avatar: The Legend of Korra - Book 4

Remember when the Avatar State was actually worth something?

[details=Spoiler]

I think Korra’s Avatar state is weaker than Aangs.
Maybe it’s because she mastered 3 of the 4 elements so early and her bad spiritual connection made her ability/necessity to rely on the previous Avatars so small that it effected the power of her Avatar state.

I’d say Korra is more like Toph than anything, she’s all instinct and rash when it comes to decision-making. Korra is a kick-ass first and questions later kind of person, it’s her biggest weakness and probably why she can’t reach her true potential as an Avatar (and may affect how effective her Avatar State is).

But that’s kind of the whole point to showing her acting this way. She’s supposed learn that there’s more than one way to solve problems, and her role as the Avatar doesn’t mean applying brute force to every situation to get the job done.

She’s got the right idea about defending the Southern Tribe from being taken over, and she’s right about getting support from the UR President. However she doesn’t approach anything from a diplomatic angle, and she’s not the kind of person to notice things from a different perspective.

She’s not evil and she’s far from stupid, but she is young and abrasive when it comes to rushing in blindly. What we’re seeing is her flaw as a young Avatar, which just so happens to be the opposite of Aang’s (whose flaw was running from any conflict).

Korra doesn’t seem to be acting much differently from the last water tribe Avatar, as far as following her emotions as opposed to logic is concerned.

If only her avatar state was stronger, she can take the whole Northern Tribe like a real Avatar can.

Toph was extremely insightful though and thought of the consequences of things in advance. She really didn’t just rush mindlessly into things. There were many instances where she tried to be diplomatic or was the calming voice. One is where she tried to bridge the gap with Zuuko when the rest of them just really didn’t want to give him a chance. Another is where she tells Kitara that Jett isn’t lying and to hear him out. Even how she initially refused to train Aang and the different training methods she had to try because she identified how best to train him. Yes she was young, but she was certainly not stupid and mindless. She even kept Sokka and Aang out of that party because she knew they couldn’t play the parts correctly, Korra would just have rushed in right there without thinking.

There are better ways to show poor diplomacy imo. And it’s important to have a sympathetic main character, or at least some reason for people to identify with someone. There is a reason why in most stories the protagonist is the level headed, usually more boring character. There is a reason why Leonardo and Cyclops lead their teams and are the focuses of their stories moreso than Raphael and Wolverine. Because in order to advance stories properly, there are certain tried and true methods.

Korra is not main character material, at least from the episodes I’ve seen. If the discussions will get reasonable and the quality really is improving according to you guys, I might give it a few weeks to get ahead and then catch up. But for now, I’m just checking this thread mostly, I don’t even mind the spoilers, and will just chime in if the old characters get mentioned.

I was also thinking what that other guy said about Korra not being in touch with the spirit world that much and thus, a weaker avatar state. Before Aang even learned other elements, he going to the spirit world and stuff.

Yep, Korra is mostly a hot head who doesn’t think things through.

It’s probably gonna take some sort tragedy to force her into thinking 5 steps ahead, instead of diving in without any foresight.

The spiritual connection is probably why Korra’s avatar state is still underdeveloped. Aang was pulling all sorts of broken tech like that Moon Spirit thing he did in the S1 finale. I don’t see Korra hitting that level any time soon because she doesn’t have that level of discipline yet. Looking at it now, Aang probably had a better spirit connection due to his upbringing in the air temples. He was used to doing a lot of meditating by nature, so that stuff came a lot easier to him.

And maybe that the more she enters the Avatar State, it becomes rather taxing on her in some way (physically, spirtually, mentally) considering she can’t enter the Avatar State all willy-nilly. Tenzin did say that it wasn’t a power for her to abuse like that, despite that the majority of the time she’s used in it combat about twice or so.

I agree with everything you said, but Wolverine has become a bigger focus point in X-men than Cyclops lately. In fact, he leads a team bigger than Cyclops’.

I remember Raphael being the one to push the story forward in the original TMNT movie and the CG one.

On Toph: She started out rough and tumble, but learned to get along with everyone. She wasn’t always the center of reason, and got easily frustrated in quite a few situations until someone helped her calm down.

On Korra: She is the Avatar, but she isn’t a leader. But the whole point of this is to grow into a leader, to make mistakes along the way and realize the consequences of not thinking ahead. Aang may be the example of calmness, but he was raised as a monk to be peaceful and centered. Korra wasn’t raised like that and doesn’t think that way, she’s a main character who has to develop those qualities instead of being expected to act like that from the beginning. That’s what her friends and family (supporting cast) are there for, they provide a counterbalance towards her attitude and tell her what she needs to hear even if she doesn’t always like it.

Even then, Aang didn’t start as the leader from the beginning of the show either. He traveled alongside Katara and Sokka to discover answers about everything along the way, but only really started embracing his role as the Avatar throughout the show. Only then did he start to fully confront the problems involving the Fire Nation and other troubling issues surrounding him.

Toph’s attitude was very blunt and her dry humor showed her as a tomboy so in that sense she’s rough but personality wise is different from her bending. from the first episode with her we see she’s level headed in how she fights and is quite skillful at her young age to do what she did. Now look at Korra at a young age. the VERY first words out of her mouth were “I AM THE AVATAR AND YOU GOTTA DEAL WITH IT!” I think as I look back that defined her personality as a girl who is going to be very rash.

Korra isn’t like Toph at all. She’s more like a young Zuko who before being banished and up to the end of season 1 was rash, hot headed (no pun intended) and while had power showed it came from rage and reckless abandon. Difference bing that so far Zuko grew in character. Korra WAS growing then S2 starts and she’s back to square one. Now as of this point, I don’t know what the writers are going for but so far she’s still not growing. Only one who is growing is Mako since we see him think clearly and not compromise his job over a girls need to escalate a conflict. Asami still while not having big screentime now shows she has a business to run. Bolin…uhh…shere are they going with him? Guess they’ll use him as Sokka lite with The water tribe guy formerly known as Varrick.

I love Tenzin’s family…Meelo is going to be a beast when he grows up. Master of all Lemurs!

After hearing Lin’s quip about how she took the breakup between her and Tenzin…I STILL would love to see how that relationship went down and how Penma just sweeps away Lin’s former man.

heh…and they say if women ran things, there would be no war. BS we would be at WW5 by now!

I’ve been enjoying the series very much and see where its going. My only glaring complaint was slight cliche of certain turn of events but I think every series has to deal with that. even Last air bender had its cliche until we’ve learned to appreciate them.

Ya’ll acting like Ang was a boss right out the gate :rofl:

A much improved episode, light on the action until the end but stronger in all the other spots and built a lot of potential story into where they can go this season. Glad to see Mako finally call Korra out on her BS, even though I don’t necessarily like the character he said what needed to be said.

Eska seems to be the reincarnation of Azula (having obviously worked through most of the paranoia and trust issues due to being a twin), and I couldn’t be more pleased.

Also stay corrupt Republic City, your previous council leader was ass and no doubt your police detectives are as well.

Spoiler

Calling it now, despite being entertaining Verrick (or his assistant) is going to be behind the bombing at the rally. The cops seem on the take and who else has that kind of cash, he or she would be the perfect symbol of the material world vs spiritual plus brother is getting more screen time then you’d think he’d warrant in regards to advising Korra.

It’s not so much that Aang was a beast from the beginning; he was just more level headed

Really everyone in his crew was.

Katara. Level-headed. Does not compute.

I actually didn’t think that they would make the whole Eska/Bolin situation a serious thing. The last episode made the breakup comedic, but in this one Eska’s actually fucked up over being ditched by Bolin, and her father doesn’t even care that his daughter is bent on wiping out her own cousin because she believed she stole Bolin from her. I was shocked to see Eska and Desna appear out of the blue just like that near the end of the episode.