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Post by Musogato on Jun 26, 2014 19:20:12 GMT -5
Discussion for the third episode of Book 3: Change, The Earth Queen.
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Post by Alouncara on Jun 28, 2014 20:13:25 GMT -5
Personally I think it's too bad that they're revisiting the "corrupted Ba Sing Sei" issue we tackled in A:tLA. I would have hoped that things would have become better in the last 76 years, but it's still looking pretty sucky down there.
The Earth queen holds some resentment towards the Avatar because he took lands from her father. But I would suspect the Earth King was quite accomodating to Aang. So why the misunderstanding?
And why the "there are no Airbenders in Ba Sing Sei"? An Airbender ary makes little to no sense to me...But I am interested to see how things play out.
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Post by nymphadora on Jun 30, 2014 18:30:27 GMT -5
I watched all three at once, so since I can't differentiate between them, I'm just gonna put all my thoughts here. 1: The return of the airbenders. While I'd rather put the magic of "harmonic convergence" behind us, I'm okay with this. It seems like an easy out, when it should be a complicated problem, but whatever. I do hope that the new airbenders do have airbending ancestors and its not as much of a plot device (alright it's 100% a plot device, but I'd like to pretend there's some logic. ). 2: For a moment I thought that once the group had plotted their journey to Ba Sing Se, they'd stretch it out for a few one-shot episodes like the beginning of Book One. I was momentarily disappointed, but surprisingly realized that I was happy with the flow of the season. Glad Napoleon Dynamite didn't join the gang - MUCH happier with Kai. 3: Kai. That bs heart wrenching orphan story was great. I like him. Jinora was the only new child character that I warmed up to right away besides him. (Bolin, Asami, and Meelo have all grown on me, still not a Mako fan, and I don't even remember the other little airbender's name.) So I'm happy that it appears that those two will be having stories together. They're both fun and don't serve purely as comic relief, which was my initial problem with Bolin and Meelo. 4: I'm bummed that the guys in the Order of the White Lotus seemed like gooby chumps and so much unlike Iroh, Pakku, Jeong Jeong, etc. It is nice to see that they were built up into a respectable organization that actually worked towards a greater good and wasn't corrupt like every group we've seen so far. 4: The prisons for those four were pretty dang cool. Excited for the inevitable break out of Sparky Sparky Boom Woman. I liked seeing the twins again in the North, but a little goes a long way with those characters. And the Northern Water Tribe is my favorite of the locations, so spending some time there will be nice. 5: This evil foursome kinda remind me anti-fairies in the Fairly Oddparents (never thought I'd be referencing that show again). They're the grown up version of our original gAang, but on the dark side. For now, I'm sort of rooting for these guys. Of course, Korra and co. will win in the end, but I wanna see the havoc they cause first. I do wonder what the airbending leader contributed to the group before he was a bender. 6: The earthbending prisoner lava bending bothered me a bit. It's like Azula flying with fire jets in Boiling Rock. It's perfectly logical, but almost crosses a line of how bending is defined. Like if firebenders could FLY, they'd be flying everywhere. But it only got used towards the end of the series when it was needed for the plot. So the lava was like that for me. 7: The corrupt Dai Li. I have to agree with Alouncara on this one. Yeah, it makes sense for the government to become a bit corrupt in the decades since the end of the war, but I'd imagine embezzlement corrupt, not kidnapping for secret armies corrupt. 8: I'm glad Mako and Bolin found their family, but I don't see what they'll be contributing to the plot, so I hope we move on from that. A break in each episode for family time is unnecessary. 9: All I could think of during Korra and Asami scenes was how crazy shippers would have been back in the day.
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Post by ILZ on Jun 30, 2014 20:07:33 GMT -5
4: I'm bummed that the guys in the Order of the White Lotus seemed like gooby chumps and so much unlike Iroh, Pakku, Jeong Jeong, etc. It is nice to see that they were built up into a respectable organization that actually worked towards a greater good and wasn't corrupt like every group we've seen so far. Yeah I kinda though they were taken out pretty easily as well. Seems weird that they would put all the time, energy, and money into building those elaborate (and super cool) prisons only to employ weak guards. But I guess we're just suppose to believe that the prisoners are just unbelievably powerful. But I've kinda felt that the White Lotus doesn't seem nearly as powerful as it did in ATLA. I suppose it could be that they were more selective when it was more secretive. There is some similarities for sure. But there is always corruption in government so its not unbelievable. I also don't really see the reason for an Airbender army. I mean they are completely untrained benders. Maybe it is a more of an effort to keep them from banning together. Seems that the Earth Kingdom is a position for a uprising of the people so maybe the Earth Queen is trying to protect against that. I'm sure that they'll pull the same trick they did when everyone reunited at the Western Air Temple. Just some kind of "now we must go help the Avatar". But, I did really like that they got meet their family. Character building seems much better in this season which is great.
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Post by Paraiba Ocean on Jul 5, 2014 1:07:07 GMT -5
6: The earthbending prisoner lava bending bothered me a bit. It's like Azula flying with fire jets in Boiling Rock. It's perfectly logical, but almost crosses a line of how bending is defined. Like if firebenders could FLY, they'd be flying everywhere. But it only got used towards the end of the series when it was needed for the plot. So the lava was like that for me. I'd like to attribute Azula's "flying" (as well as Iroh 2.0's) to being prodigious benders, and not necessarily anything Joe Blow can do. That being said, I would be more concerned that any guy can metal bend or lightning bend now in the future rather than jet propulsions. I also am under the impression that fire jets cannot be sustained long term and would be comparable to the different between "flying" and "gliding." As far as the lava bending bit, I didn't quite understand it initially, but it seems like it's simply a matter of phase changing the earth, like most waterbenders seem to do regularly. He simply changed it from solid to liquid form, just as Katara, Kya, and other waterbenders change water from ice to liquid and vice versa. Maybe a stretch, but I suppose if the waterbenders can do it, and Toph, Lin, etc. can bend metal, phase changing earth doesn't seem to be crossing that much of a line. 7: The corrupt Dai Li. I have to agree with Alouncara on this one. Yeah, it makes sense for the government to become a bit corrupt in the decades since the end of the war, but I'd imagine embezzlement corrupt, not kidnapping for secret armies corrupt. I guess the same could be said of our modern times. After as many wars as our world has seen, countries still face multifaceted corruption. And they are corrupt in the sense of extorting money from "subjects," but it would be naive of us to presume a government can only be corrupt in one way. Sometimes, I think, governments are so wrapped up trying to fight something, fear can turn them into the exact thing they were trying to avoid. I don't know if I foresee that being a major plot, like, "meanwhile in Ba Sing Se as the world burns at the hands of 4 mega evil benders, Mako and Bolin share a bowl of noodles with Grandma." More of giving some kind of attention to a plot. I think a lot of people (myself included) have had questions about Mako and Bolin's parents and family (were their parents orphaned or immigrants to Republic City, etc). It may have just served as some type of plot point to give their characters some development, which people seem to be screaming for all the time. I kind of disagree about a break in each episode for family time being unnecessary though, because I think a recurring theme in Avatar is the value of family - whether or not its blood family. Like I said, it would be absurd if the world is in shambles and on the brink of destruction and the brothers are sipping tea with their relatives, but I think it's something heart warming to see them able to connect with their father's family...
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