Korra season three!
Jul. 31st, 2014 01:19 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
psocopteraI have watched the first two episodes. Overall opinion: favorable.
Episode 1 - A Breath of Fresh Air
Okay, a bunch of new airbenders suddenly getting bending late in life is an *excellent* hook, and I really liked Korra and Asami's conversation in the car.
Episode 2 - Rebirth
Sweet airship, and I'm enjoying all these White Lotus prisons, very "Magneto in the glass jail". Countdown to slash about these hot villains in 3, 2, 1? Oooh, water villain is a lady! OH HELL YES ZUKO. Well I'm sold.
Further thoughts.
I feel like they're really playing to their strengths with this airbenders plot, setting up Korra and Tenzin, who were both born with these extremely weighty responsibilities, to have to think about what that means in a world where most people choose (or don't choose) their own paths. I think if we've seen one thing in the past two seasons it's that Avatar doesn't do very well with political storylines when the situation is more complicated than "these bad guys are attacking us" and this is maybe getting back to the "Aang grappling with his obligations"-type business that was the heart of the original show. That said I do hope we get some interesting exploration of what it really means to belong to a given nation beyond your color of clothes - what does it really mean to be an airbender in the post-colonial/post-genocide setting where the old culture and way of life is irrevocably lost. I don't feel like the show has quite as good a track record on this sort of thing - they've always been a bit dodgy about the metaphysics of things like whether you can have a Firebender born in the Earth kingdom, or whether there were cases of differently-bending siblings like Mako and Bolin in the pre-Republic City-racial mingling era. But I can hope. Also I would really like to see Asami's voice in this conversation - as the literal voice of The Future she would make the perfect foil to Tenzin's clutching at the forms of the past, and then presumably Korra could come up with the synthesis position.
The only thing that could make me more excited about these villains would be if Zafir has been breaking them out in order of reverse powerfulness and he needs everybody else to break out "his girlfriend" because she's in the highest-security prison BECAUSE SHE'S THE LEADER OF THE GROUP. I know this is not going to happen but I'm going to enjoy pretending it might until I watch the next episode. We are so due for a lady Big Bad on this show.
Oh, and points for one more smart move, younging up the cast with Jet II there or whatever his name was. Kids being written as kids is so much less painful than adults being written as kids, and anyone having character arcs with Jinora is good for there being more Jinora. (Although I do like how they've been writing Bumi so far, and have my fingers crossed that he's going to shave his head in support of Tenzin (or a bid to be Best New Airbender). AtLA is one of the few cartoons I've ever watched where characters changed their hairstyles and it was awesome. More new hairstyles, LoK!)
Please no spoilers in comments for episode three or beyond, thanks.
Episode 1 - A Breath of Fresh Air
Okay, a bunch of new airbenders suddenly getting bending late in life is an *excellent* hook, and I really liked Korra and Asami's conversation in the car.
Episode 2 - Rebirth
Sweet airship, and I'm enjoying all these White Lotus prisons, very "Magneto in the glass jail". Countdown to slash about these hot villains in 3, 2, 1? Oooh, water villain is a lady! OH HELL YES ZUKO. Well I'm sold.
Further thoughts.
I feel like they're really playing to their strengths with this airbenders plot, setting up Korra and Tenzin, who were both born with these extremely weighty responsibilities, to have to think about what that means in a world where most people choose (or don't choose) their own paths. I think if we've seen one thing in the past two seasons it's that Avatar doesn't do very well with political storylines when the situation is more complicated than "these bad guys are attacking us" and this is maybe getting back to the "Aang grappling with his obligations"-type business that was the heart of the original show. That said I do hope we get some interesting exploration of what it really means to belong to a given nation beyond your color of clothes - what does it really mean to be an airbender in the post-colonial/post-genocide setting where the old culture and way of life is irrevocably lost. I don't feel like the show has quite as good a track record on this sort of thing - they've always been a bit dodgy about the metaphysics of things like whether you can have a Firebender born in the Earth kingdom, or whether there were cases of differently-bending siblings like Mako and Bolin in the pre-Republic City-racial mingling era. But I can hope. Also I would really like to see Asami's voice in this conversation - as the literal voice of The Future she would make the perfect foil to Tenzin's clutching at the forms of the past, and then presumably Korra could come up with the synthesis position.
The only thing that could make me more excited about these villains would be if Zafir has been breaking them out in order of reverse powerfulness and he needs everybody else to break out "his girlfriend" because she's in the highest-security prison BECAUSE SHE'S THE LEADER OF THE GROUP. I know this is not going to happen but I'm going to enjoy pretending it might until I watch the next episode. We are so due for a lady Big Bad on this show.
Oh, and points for one more smart move, younging up the cast with Jet II there or whatever his name was. Kids being written as kids is so much less painful than adults being written as kids, and anyone having character arcs with Jinora is good for there being more Jinora. (Although I do like how they've been writing Bumi so far, and have my fingers crossed that he's going to shave his head in support of Tenzin (or a bid to be Best New Airbender). AtLA is one of the few cartoons I've ever watched where characters changed their hairstyles and it was awesome. More new hairstyles, LoK!)
Please no spoilers in comments for episode three or beyond, thanks.
