Leaked Korra!
Mar. 18th, 2012 09:48 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
opusculasedferaBecause I have no patience I have now seen the leaked first ep of Korra and I'm pretty excited!
They did a good job of establishing that Korra is a very different person from Aang and that she has a totally different story. I admit that there were moments when I was a little afraid this was going to totally go the "special person HAS to rebel against society!" route, but it doesn't quite look like it's going to, which I like. There definitely are some interesting questions to be raised about the role of Avatar and what it is and is not in charge of, but I get the impression that things are going to change and the idea of the Avatar is going to have to be altered to fit in with society rather than having the "happy ending" of everything going back to the way things were. It would be interesting if they really went into the stuff about Aang frankly being an exception himself in a lot of ways: I didn't get the impression during A:TLA that previous Avatars had involved themselves in wars in the same way that he did: they were really supposed to be more peacemakers than leaders. And if you look at the Roku flashbacks, he criticises himself for withdrawing a bit much and letting the Firelord get away with things, but there's clearly established precedent for Avatars withdrawing and not involving themselves in a vigilante way except under particular circumstances.
My headcanon (though I don't think anything in Korra disproves it so far) is that Aang had to be very directly involved in non-Avatar-y things for a while because after the war there was so much upheaval and you can't send in the army to deal with bandits or whatever if no one agrees on whose army it should be. And eventually you get the Republic to deal with this, but it means that Korra has this precedent of Avatars being really directly involved, when she really needs to see that there are other authorities too and they are sometimes more effective. We got a glimpse of this with the police in Republic City: they're much better at apprehending criminals and then having a plan for what to do with them than Korra can be, even aside from the fact that she's untrained.
It would be pretty fun if this show was much more about Korra's political training than her bender training and it seems sort of likely? She doesn't have airbending yet so she'll have to learn it, but she already seems way more comfortable using the other three elements interchangeably than Aang did during A:TLA.
I'm not super happy with the idea of the Equalists being set up as the direct antagonist. It's kind of true that benders shouldn't have special privileges just because they can do certain things! But it's not like A:TLA didn't do a pretty spiffy job on redemption arcs and complicating things, so I am cautiously optimistic!
There were also things that were just pretty fantastic. I like Tenzin a lot and Chief Bei Fong is pretty awesome. I just have a lot of feelings about not running countries like they're old boys' clubs, you know? (Which is not precisely the right expression, but gosh, I wonder why we don't have a term for the same thing with a mixed gender group?) It's great that Korra has to prove herself and Aang's pals' kids aren't just all going to be her friend (or even each other's friends) for old times' sake. And Republic City is pretty cool. I am digging all the 20s/30s stuff and Avatar is usually pretty good at having functional seeming cities where you can tell where food comes from and how the place is run (ugh, I am so weak for logistics. ♥)
I've been avoiding most of the leaked clips and spoiler-y interviews so possibly I'm terribly wrong about all this, but don't tell me yet! Though joining in on the speculation is always welcome!
They did a good job of establishing that Korra is a very different person from Aang and that she has a totally different story. I admit that there were moments when I was a little afraid this was going to totally go the "special person HAS to rebel against society!" route, but it doesn't quite look like it's going to, which I like. There definitely are some interesting questions to be raised about the role of Avatar and what it is and is not in charge of, but I get the impression that things are going to change and the idea of the Avatar is going to have to be altered to fit in with society rather than having the "happy ending" of everything going back to the way things were. It would be interesting if they really went into the stuff about Aang frankly being an exception himself in a lot of ways: I didn't get the impression during A:TLA that previous Avatars had involved themselves in wars in the same way that he did: they were really supposed to be more peacemakers than leaders. And if you look at the Roku flashbacks, he criticises himself for withdrawing a bit much and letting the Firelord get away with things, but there's clearly established precedent for Avatars withdrawing and not involving themselves in a vigilante way except under particular circumstances.
My headcanon (though I don't think anything in Korra disproves it so far) is that Aang had to be very directly involved in non-Avatar-y things for a while because after the war there was so much upheaval and you can't send in the army to deal with bandits or whatever if no one agrees on whose army it should be. And eventually you get the Republic to deal with this, but it means that Korra has this precedent of Avatars being really directly involved, when she really needs to see that there are other authorities too and they are sometimes more effective. We got a glimpse of this with the police in Republic City: they're much better at apprehending criminals and then having a plan for what to do with them than Korra can be, even aside from the fact that she's untrained.
It would be pretty fun if this show was much more about Korra's political training than her bender training and it seems sort of likely? She doesn't have airbending yet so she'll have to learn it, but she already seems way more comfortable using the other three elements interchangeably than Aang did during A:TLA.
I'm not super happy with the idea of the Equalists being set up as the direct antagonist. It's kind of true that benders shouldn't have special privileges just because they can do certain things! But it's not like A:TLA didn't do a pretty spiffy job on redemption arcs and complicating things, so I am cautiously optimistic!
There were also things that were just pretty fantastic. I like Tenzin a lot and Chief Bei Fong is pretty awesome. I just have a lot of feelings about not running countries like they're old boys' clubs, you know? (Which is not precisely the right expression, but gosh, I wonder why we don't have a term for the same thing with a mixed gender group?) It's great that Korra has to prove herself and Aang's pals' kids aren't just all going to be her friend (or even each other's friends) for old times' sake. And Republic City is pretty cool. I am digging all the 20s/30s stuff and Avatar is usually pretty good at having functional seeming cities where you can tell where food comes from and how the place is run (ugh, I am so weak for logistics. ♥)
I've been avoiding most of the leaked clips and spoiler-y interviews so possibly I'm terribly wrong about all this, but don't tell me yet! Though joining in on the speculation is always welcome!
