Korra 4.11

[psocoptera]

Okay, so on the one hand, GOD SOLDIER FUCK YEAH, I have a looooongstanding love of giant stompy whatever that I believe has appeared in this space before and I am SUPER EXCITED by the whole "the superweapon has become the personal weapon of a ginormous mechasuit piloted personally and entirely by Kuvira" business. I am full of hope that it might actually be possible that the guns on the wall that I thought they would never take down will actually be fired and a team of metalbenders is going to animate the giant harbor statue of Aang to fight back in a giant mecha battle. Or that Korra is going to make a colossal water form. OH MY GOD so excited for the finale now.

On the other hand pretty much all of the secondary-character business in this episode pissed me off. Zhu Li telling Varrick she didn't mean a word of her long-overdue richly deserved takedown? UGH. And is the show really going in the "Wu is the rightful ruler and should be restored to the throne" direction? BLEAH. And, I don't know, I really didn't like the whole Bataar Jr. business. There was a glimmer of something interesting there, with them kidnapping him with a bag over his head and edging riiiight up to the torture place, but they blinked before they really did anything interesting there. And why do they need Bataar Jr to tell them what to do anyways? I mean, I guess they haven't seen Star Wars to know that the only solution to giant stompy anything is always flying around the legs really fast with a rope, but I wanted to see some brainstorming at least. The whole army just standing there was pathetic, why not try to trip it by suddenly bending the ground under it, or something. Send out the airplanes to hassle it. Hell, if you could dump something on the head/control room, you might be able to blind Kuvira's ability to target. Don't just stand there and let it walk right up to the city. (Also, dude, when Mako sees that it's targeting them, there are several earthbenders right there, wouldn't it have made more sense to try to go *down*?)

I guess it was nice to see Iroh II again, and, hey, Kai still exists, and Pema got to do something useful, although I thought the thing about "let's get the inconvenient fourth child offstage" was a little odd. But, overall, I'm back to this weird position of being really excited about the upcoming action/spectacle but not trusting the writers with the characters. One week!

Comments

[q10.livejournal.com]

I dunno - it's sort of in character for Zhu Li to try that as a ‘good cop’ move, and we see her ‘bad cop’ face right after.

I'm sorta hoping we get Asami and Zhu Li teaming up flying mecha suits. You know, like Iron Man and War Machine. (ducks.)

As for Wu, do you think there's any chance of him getting offered the king job and realizing he needs to turn it down so the country can try something else? Or taking it and then immediately and more or less irrevocably delegating all non-figurehead powers to an elected assembly? Some version of that is what I've been hoping for for a while, and nothing here really contradicts that, although it also doesn't do much to make me especially hopeful.

[q10.livejournal.com]

Also Kuvira's metalbending UI is an amazing concept.

[psocoptera.livejournal.com]

I'm so interested in what we see in the control room there. Do you think it was designed to also be operable by a team of non-benders (or lesser benders) or is it dependent on one master operator? The way Kuvira takes a stance and then it takes the stance, I wonder. More questions: does the development of the giant mech predate or postdate the development of the spirit weapon? Did BaatarJr. start designing it before he was even involved with Kuvira?

[sildra.livejournal.com]

I think it can move without a metal bender, because there were levers for that, but the weird ball things for the fighting stances and stuff make me think it needs metal benders to fight. But yeah, maybe a team of lesser benders could do it, if they were really well trained to be in sync with each other.

I'm guessing it predates the development of the spirit weapon. Maybe it predates Kuvira and it's what Kuvira saw in him that she decided to date him. (How long have they been together, anyway? They got engaged between Book 3 and Book 4, but were they already dating by Book 3?)

[psocoptera.livejournal.com]

Maybe it predates Kuvira and it's what Kuvira saw in him that she decided to date him.

Yesss, that is my new headcanon now. And she did genuinely care about him, but not as much as she cares about being the Uniter.

[sildra.livejournal.com]

Oh, definitely, she genuinely cared about him. There was that scene at the beginning of the episode where it zoomed in on her closing her eyes when he hugged her--I think the whole point of that was to show that her feelings for him were real.