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The Legend of Korra (potential spoilers within)


KyleJCrb
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Also, the progress from high-end steam engines to early 20th century internal combustion engines was only like 60 years. Hell the development from the hot air balloon to the fixed wing aircraft wasn't that long either, and with a war to push the development even faster, it makes sense that someone would eventually figure it out.

They had large cities well before Korra (Ba Sing Sa, the Earth Kindgom capital, as well as the Fire nation capital), and they all had the same basic layouts: streets, shops, parks, big capital buildings, etc. It's not that hard at all to imagine how they might build a city like that.

New York City was already becoming a skyscraper kind of town back in the 1880s. Here's a photograph from then to prove it:

6282006new_york_skyline_1908.jpg

So, from the end of Last Airbender to Korra, it's been about 60 or so years. They progressed from steam to gas engines, hot air balloons to airplanes, and made big modern-style cities, all in realistic time frames.

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Add in that Ozai was responsible for most of those atrocities (and the two Fire Lords before him). When Zuko became Fire Lord, he vowed to clear the Fire Nation's name. It shows some of this in The Promise, and Republic City was founded partially as a result of his actions. Note that there's even a statue of him (I think it's shown in episode 3 of Korra, when Bolin gets kidnapped by Equalists), so that's something too.

True. I'll agree these are all good points and, in retrospect, the technology jump is within a reasonable time frame. I still feel awkward accepting that the world can dismiss the actions of the Fire Nation, which include the genocide of an entire race, and can be forgiven enough to allow for the cooperation needed to build Republic City. Even if the blame was transferred solely to the previous Fire Lords, the people of the Fire Nation were still following them loyally.

But, they also did have a lot of resources and technology to offer so maybe it's not all that crazy that they could overlook what happened and for forgiveness to come about so quickly.

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In that case, I'd like to point out that Nazi Germany did that whole genocide (not just the Jews, but also Gypsies and some other groups) as well as horrific medical experimentation, rape, the ransacking of national treasures and the burning of books, in far less time, and the rest of the world has been buddy-buddy with them for decades.

Peace has a way of making people not want to be enemies anymore. Sometimes it doesn't work out so well (Koreas, I'm looking in your direction...) but we've had relatively long stretches of peace between major enemies for years and even decades at a time.

So really, The Legend of Korra is pretty realistic when you think about it.

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In that case, I'd like to point out that Nazi Germany did that whole genocide (not just the Jews, but also Gypsies and some other groups) as well as horrific medical experimentation, rape, the ransacking of national treasures and the burning of books, in far less time, and the rest of the world has been buddy-buddy with them for decades.

Peace has a way of making people not want to be enemies anymore. Sometimes it doesn't work out so well (Koreas, I'm looking in your direction...) but we've had relatively long stretches of peace between major enemies for years and even decades at a time.

So really, The Legend of Korra is pretty realistic when you think about it.

Can't fault a well-made argument. Thanks for the thought out responses! :grin:

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In that case, I'd like to point out that Nazi Germany did that whole genocide (not just the Jews, but also Gypsies and some other groups) as well as horrific medical experimentation, rape, the ransacking of national treasures and the burning of books, in far less time, and the rest of the world has been buddy-buddy with them for decades.

Peace has a way of making people not want to be enemies anymore. Sometimes it doesn't work out so well (Koreas, I'm looking in your direction...) but we've had relatively long stretches of peace between major enemies for years and even decades at a time.

So really, The Legend of Korra is pretty realistic when you think about it.

Goddamnit, I was *this* close to calling Godwin's Law on you before I realized Nazis actually worked out in this comparison.

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SPOILERS A' PLENTY:

First of I hated the teenage-romance triangle that the show had going. It seemed like Korra only knew that Mako-Edward-Twilight for a couple of days before announcing her deep affections for him. If that had happened to me, I would have slowly backed away & bolted. Atleast The Last Airbender managed to make the romance story slowly develop over time, and not make one of the characters seem like a douche when they finally kissed at the end (cheating? Really?).

Yeah this probably could have been done better, but as has been pointed out a few times, when they were creating the Legend of Korra they had only been promised a six-episode run, which was eventually extended to twelve. Not until the finale was released to much fanfare was a second (and then a third and fourth ZOMG) season announced. We'll see where they go with it in those.

Also, how did that Amon guy manage to take away people's bending? Aang had to have a demi-god teach him that stuff - the fact that he was just a bloodbender was disappointing to me.

How Amon Removed Bending (It’s a real Chinese technique that many believe in)

When placing his thumb on the center of the forehead, Amon was aiming for the hundred-meetings acupoint (shown above, circled in red). This is a central gateway and nexus for chi. Bending relies on chi flowing through the bender’s body. The idea of this technique is to send chi through the acupoints the wrong way and damage the veins and energy channels. This could be forced with bloodbending. The hundred-meetings acupoint is connected to all the important points through the chi paths, so it is the best spot to cause massive damage.

It is said that a divine doctor can cure internal injuries and restore one’s martial arts power. The injured person could also practice a special, high level skill to regain his inner power. Bryke obviously made the Avatar the parallel to this, as Korra was able to look inside herself to restore her own bending, and she had the ability to restore other’s bending as well.

This was posted along with a pretty sweet graphic earlier in the thread. Basically Amon used Dim Mok techniques(the Chinese martial art of pressure and chi point manipulation which can roughly be translated as "death touch") assisted by blood bending to achieve maximum effect. Pretty damned awesome in my opinion.

As to the questions of how quickly the world could advance and how the Fire Nation could be forgiven in such a short period of time; Bryke and company flat out stated that one, the Legend of Korra took place 70 years after the end of Last Airbender and two, that the new show was set in the 1920's of the Avaverse. This leads to a couple conclusions. The technological difference actually is fairly realistic if you look at the Fire Nation's greatest inventions in each series: in Airbender they have steam ships, hot air zeppelins of monstrous size, and a freaking enormous drill and in Korra they have advanced to electrical wires and cars. This is not very different from what our own industrialized world was able to produce within those very same 70 years, and we didn't have magical kung fu.

This leads to a second thought. The Damned was totally on point with the Nazi Germany example, and that one definitely illustrates how everyone can just make nice after wartime atrocities, but possibly an even better example is East Asia. Nobody has done racism like those guys. They have a LONG and EXTREMELY nasty history (look up the Japanese occupation of China if you want to see some really messed up stuff) and yet they work together now to greater or lesser degree. Hell, we dropped a couple nukes on Japan and we're good buddies now. A big part of what shifts the attitude of nations is how vital another nation is to you, and it would certainly seem like the Fire Nation led the technological charge in the Avaverse.

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Hate to be a negative-nancy here, but I was kinda dissapointed with the finale.

SPOILERS A' PLENTY:

First of I hated the teenage-romance triangle that the show had going. It seemed like Korra only knew that Mako-Edward-Twilight for a couple of days before announcing her deep affections for him. If that had happened to me, I would have slowly backed away & bolted. Atleast The Last Airbender managed to make the romance story slowly develop over time, and not make one of the characters seem like a douche when they finally kissed at the end (cheating? Really?).

Also, how did that Amon guy manage to take away people's bending? Aang had to have a demi-god teach him that stuff - the fact that he was just a bloodbender was disappointing to me.

Not hating, I liked the season except for the love-triangle & finale. Please kill Mako in the next season.

First off, you seem to be ignoring that when Mako apologized to Asami that was his (very poor) way of breaking up with her. No cheating.

Secondly RealFolkBlues handily quoted the thing I posted earlier regarding how Amon removed bending.

Thirdly, if you weren't hating you wouldn't be wishing for the death of a fictional character in the same sentence. Yeah, Mako came off as a bit of an idiotic douche, but they're not gonna kill him off.

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He didn't have much of a character other than "cheating douchebag LOOK I'M SORRY THINGS ARE A LITTLE CRAZY RIGHT NOW"

Lol, he actually used that one TWICE.

I liked Bolin in the beginning, but no one else on the show did, apparently, since he turned into nothing more than a walking punchline sometime after episode 3.

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I have to say I've really enjoyed this series and how it is turning out so far.

Being Korra has reached where she is at the end of the first book makes me hopeful on what is to come. Blood binders are an interesting concept... I suppose the human body is mostly water. Ideally wouldn't more water binders be able to do this?

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I really loved the series, and felt it a worthy successor to the original. Some of the art style shifts bugged me, but I figured I'm nitpicking it too much and enjoyed the show. :)

What did bug me, however, is that ti looks like the backgrounds, while all gorgeous watercolors and line drawings (depending on organic or humanmade, I noticed), were far less detailed and breathtaking the last shows, like the art department took a budget hit and the backgrounds suffered.

I still love it for the story, the characters, and Pabu and Bolin. :D

(I'm more a graphics artist than musician now, incase you can't tell...)

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I finally finished the first season!

SPOILER:

Man I was waiting the WHOLE season (only 12 episodes. . . I know, but still) for Aang to appear to Korra like he did in Ep. 12!

I kind of wondered why in the Last Air Bender, Aang had a lot of interaction with Roku and some of the others and Korra didn't. I guess it was the whole, "I'm not very spiritual" thing. Glad to see she finally had a breakthrough.

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  • 2 weeks later...
I really loved the series, and felt it a worthy successor to the original. Some of the art style shifts bugged me, but I figured I'm nitpicking it too much and enjoyed the show. :)

What did bug me, however, is that ti looks like the backgrounds, while all gorgeous watercolors and line drawings (depending on organic or humanmade, I noticed), were far less detailed and breathtaking the last shows, like the art department took a budget hit and the backgrounds suffered.

I still love it for the story, the characters, and Pabu and Bolin. :D

(I'm more a graphics artist than musician now, incase you can't tell...)

really? i thought it looked TON better than the original show. to each their own though.

i just finished this and the original series in the past month and i want more. immediately. can i buy it in hd somewhere? like i would pay for that.

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  • 2 weeks later...

So, I finally got around to watching the first season. I've been avoiding spoilers and whatnot on the internet, so I don't really know what the general opinion of it is, so I have to ask: am I the only one who thought the show starting coming apart around episode 7? My only real complaint up until that point was a) they completely ignored the whole "learning airbending" thing after about the second episode, and B) they'd never actually let the heroes win a significant victory against the villains, but I figured that there was plenty of time before the end of the season to address both of those.

WARNING: SPOILERS.

Except not. They just kept pulling things out of their ass. Apparently Amon can do whatever the hell he wants as long as it happens offscreen. Raising an army large enough to take over Republic City, including airships that apparently sprung up fully formed? Sure! Using bloodbending to do something that it makes no damn sense for bloodybending to be able to do? Absolutely! Capturing the airbenders after we're shown them successfully escaping? It happened off-screen, so fair game!

Of course, the heroes start fighting fire with fire. Korra's bending is gone? Not her airbending for some reason! Which she can suddenly use now without explanation! And then she's suddenly able to fight through bloodbending when she wasn't before (though Mako does it first). And then Amon's final defeat conveniently happens without any actual input from our heroes, meaning that the closest they ever came to actually beating him was forcing him to retreat, which is pretty lame.

And then they spend five minutes making a point of the fact that no, they definitely can't restore her bending (despite having established this earlier in the series more than once), suggesting that she's going to have to spend the rest of the series only using airbending (which actually might've been interesting) only to suddenly change their minds and deliver plothax that not only restores her bending, but allows her to restore everyone else's, too, through absolutely no effort of her own.

Anyway. Rant over.

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  • 3 weeks later...

dude jovian you must have forgotten to use your ears because other than the airbender thing which is completely feasible, it's pretty much all explained throughout the show. the airbending showing up of course is a mystery but even the part at the end put out a suitable explanation of why she was able to bring back people's bending, especially highlighted by the end of the original series. also, think about where this puts the next chapter at. korra, despite considerable power, has failed continuously. i'm sure that will be explored and make for some good angles.

though as other people have mentioned it would have been neat to have them struggle without bending for a couple episodes and then give it back.

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  • 9 months later...

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