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Post by ILZ on Jun 26, 2012 23:43:07 GMT -5
I would have rather Korra not be able to bend at all than knock out a guy who can WITHSTAND BLOODBENDING with airbending. I wish it was explained better, but I took it as the reason that Amon could withstand bloodbending had something to do with his own powerful bloodbending abilities. Although it did seem like he had been able to withstand some more powerful bending prior to this encounter. I suppose maybe he was just caught off guard by Korra bending after he had taken her bending.
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Horyo
RP Admin
All your bending are belong to us.
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Post by Horyo on Jun 28, 2012 16:44:39 GMT -5
Besides, the principles between Airbending and waterbending are different anyway. Mechanistically, Korra was pushing Tenzin away, whereas Tarrlok was moving the water inside his body.
Besides, Amon isn't resistant to Airbending. A good 10 minutes before that, Tenzin knocked him off the stage with a gust of wind.
I'm just more surprised that she used air "punches" that worked.
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Post by Ikkin on Jun 30, 2012 12:42:11 GMT -5
re: the hair: It might also be to parallel Korra; at some point before he runs away, Noatak sits contemplative-like just as Korra did in the first episode. This link has the side-by-side screenshots of it. Although if there's supposed to be a further parallel/foil between them, it's too subtle for me. *shrugs* The Noatak-Korra parallel (along with the Tarrlok-Korra parallel) is actually a pretty big thing thematically, if you break it down. Noatak is completely reliant on his identity as Amon in the same way that Korra is completely reliant on her identity as the Avatar. He's defeated not because Korra bested him in a physical battle, but because she completely broke down his identity and essentially killed "Amon" when she threw him unconscious into the bay. And, because of that, the boat scene and the cliff scene are compared with and contrasted against each other. Noatak realizes that he's lost both his identities as Amon and as the boy who wanted to run away with his brother, and gives in to despair and death; Korra chooses to survive in spite of her loss, and reconnects to the Avatar Spirit because of it.
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Zidaneski
Yue
I will win in the end.
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Post by Zidaneski on Jun 30, 2012 14:57:33 GMT -5
I dunno if Korra really had time to "choose to survive" because Aang shows up and makes it all better. Amazing how Amon and Korra in essence destroyed each other and had Amon not died and Korra not regained her bending it would have made for a nice setup into the next season.
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Post by Musogato on Jun 30, 2012 16:24:51 GMT -5
Oh wow, that's really interesting! Thank you for the links! That's cool that the parallels/branches are more than just some superficial details. I hope Korra will address some of those similarities next season though, instead of it being 'I got my bending back, so everything's fine now.'
For her 'choosing to survive' moment, I would guess that it was when she sat down in the snow, but yeah it was a very quick lead-in to Aang. And just because someone chooses to survive at one moment doesn't mean they won't change their mind at a later moment. Even if Bryke didn't want to pull the plot into season 2, I think that if there was more time before Aang showed up, it would've given more weight to Korra's decision to live.
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Post by Ikkin on Jun 30, 2012 17:06:59 GMT -5
Oh wow, that's really interesting! Thank you for the links! That's cool that the parallels/branches are more than just some superficial details. I hope Korra will address some of those similarities next season though, instead of it being 'I got my bending back, so everything's fine now.' Heh, it took me a while to pull it all together, but the "destruction of identity" theme just fits all three of those characters so well and the character habits and expressions are so similar that I just have to keep writing about it. xD I imagine there needs to be some kind of payoff to Korra losing her bending temporarily in the next season -- she needs to at least have the chance to talk about what it felt like to be in that position of "being nothing," considering how terrified she was of that for the whole season. It'd also be kind of interesting if Korra was forced to realize the similarity at some point after going overboard and bloodbending someone (or something like that). I was expecting her to overcome her lack of restraint at some point in this season, but while she did manage to learn a certain degree of patience, she still ended up Sparta-kicking Amon thirty feet out a third-story window to almost drown in the bay in the finale -- she's still the girl who got into a massive escalating ego-match with Tarrlok and attacked him in a self-righteous fury when he had no apparent means to defend himself in When Extremes Meet. If she did bloodbend someone, it'd be the perfect way for her to realize she's Not So Different after all and needs to be more careful about not going down that path. Yeah, my guess is that they probably figured that the show's been bleak enough already without spending an entire act on a suicidally-depressed protagonist. I wish they'd had a chance to make everything after Amon's defeat at Korra's hands into another episode, though I can certainly see why they'd be wary of spending a whole episode with a Korra who's psychologically destroyed to the point that she believes herself to be entirely worthless. (I guess they could take advantage of the extra time to show how Lin and Asami were coping with their own losses, but that wouldn't really make things any less depressing... and comic relief time with Bumi, while potentially amusing, could seem as out of place as Bolin's "At least you can still airbend!" comment in such an episode xD; ).
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Post by copshowguy on Jul 1, 2012 19:50:27 GMT -5
Because dying from a burning and exploding plane isn't ambiguous enough for you? Parachutes aren't the problem; the planes went off screen (the one we know for sure died) such as the guy who took Iroh's fire straight to his missle drop. Just saw the episode again. The guy jumped and parachuted out.
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asian malaysian
Avatar Kyoshi
Let me hear you say this ship is bananas! B-A-NA-N-A-S!
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Post by asian malaysian on Jul 1, 2012 22:38:42 GMT -5
re: the hair: It might also be to parallel Korra; at some point before he runs away, Noatak sits contemplative-like just as Korra did in the first episode. This link has the side-by-side screenshots of it. Although if there's supposed to be a further parallel/foil between them, it's too subtle for me. *shrugs* The Noatak-Korra parallel (along with the Tarrlok-Korra parallel) is actually a pretty big thing thematically, if you break it down. Noatak is completely reliant on his identity as Amon in the same way that Korra is completely reliant on her identity as the Avatar. He's defeated not because Korra bested him in a physical battle, but because she completely broke down his identity and essentially killed "Amon" when she threw him unconscious into the bay. And, because of that, the boat scene and the cliff scene are compared with and contrasted against each other. Noatak realizes that he's lost both his identities as Amon and as the boy who wanted to run away with his brother, and gives in to despair and death; Korra chooses to survive in spite of her loss, and reconnects to the Avatar Spirit because of it. Fantastic job, Ikkin.
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Horyo
RP Admin
All your bending are belong to us.
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Post by Horyo on Jul 2, 2012 9:52:23 GMT -5
Just saw the episode again. The guy jumped and parachuted out. You're right. I missed that.
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Post by Nashk Tategami on Jul 2, 2012 13:40:48 GMT -5
Eh the appointment's is still very strong in me but I can definitely appreciate what the team was trying to do and say with the final moments of the series. Putting in a double suicide, and having the protagonist contemplate suicide were definitely very striking moments, something that will stick with me for some time. I still feel that those heavy themes were undermined somewhat by the blatant Deus Ex Machina not a few second after however.
I still love the series, and while I will always see season one of Korra as lost potential, it is still many MANY times better than what most "mature" cartoons we would usually be privvy to seeing, and the show was a visual treat from start to finish.
I just hope the Avatar crew learned from their mistakes for season 2.
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Post by Ikkin on Jul 3, 2012 0:10:55 GMT -5
Okay, so, you know how I was saying that Korra's scene on the cliffs parallels Tarrlok and Noatak's scene in the boat?
Well, I just watched the finale again, and the music used in those two scenes is nigh-identical -- they might not be exactly the same, but they heavily share instrumentation and melodic elements (along with the visual elements I mentioned above). That elements like that are so similar seems rather telling, does it not?
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