4268 réponses à ce sujet

[animedreamer]

 

[Hellion Rex]

Sounds like it's part two of the previous episode.

It really is. It was a slow, character building episode. The Toph and Korra parts were great. The Airbending Kids side really was quite boring, in my opinion.

 

Was really glad to see Korra finally facing her fears.

[animedreamer]

I think there might be something wrong with Toph's ears, that's the second or third time she's dug in her ear and flicked a huge mass of something out, that's not normal.

[TheClonesLegacy]

She's old and in a swamp. Stuff in her ears is bound to happen often.

 

Anyway. This was a good one. Toph was the right kind of person to help Korra. She's as blunt and too the point as she should be, she didn't dance around the point, she told Korra exactly what she had to do.

 

Also her stories were amazingly told.

[PrinceofTime]

Looks like il skip this ep and watch it with next weeks.

[Hellion Rex]

New clip! Really loving Kuvira, though Su's son is a total idiot.

 

[animedreamer]

New clip! Really loving Kuvira, though Su's son is a total idiot.

 

No he's supposed to be the genius lol. j/k

[Dominus]

I like what I see. Not sure if the major fights will be in that particular episode, but it's got my interest regardless.

Spoiler

And Bolin becomes the puppet, that can't be good. Am I the only one seeing a Bolin/Mako fight in the works?

The Nostalgia Critic's also doing some video criticisms on the new ones. The First Episode, Korra Alone & Coronation.

[animedreamer]

[Inprea]

For the latest episode of Korra I just want to say I loved the final few minutes. I'm a fan of high hope endings. For me the point of a great darkness is so the hope can shine even brighter and that huge step in Korra's recovery was wonderful. I'm eager to see what it means for her and I hope she has a new understanding about her enemies. Their goals weren't bad. It's their methods that needed a lot of refining.

[ObserverStatus]

New clip! Really loving Kuvira, though Su's son is a total idiot.

 

The empty spots she left on the map for the map for the United Republic territories look vaguely ominous, Kuvira left them the same color as Zaofu.

[animedreamer]

For the latest episode of Korra I just want to say I loved the final few minutes. I'm a fan of high hope endings. For me the point of a great darkness is so the hope can shine even brighter and that huge step in Korra's recovery was wonderful. I'm eager to see what it means for her and I hope she has a new understanding about her enemies. Their goals weren't bad. It's their methods that needed a lot of refining.

 

Im not so sure I believe what they said about Amon, equality was never really his goal. If it was he wouldn't had needed to lie about his water bending, or blood bending, he could have told the other equalist the truth from the start and his plans if that was the case, but he didn't because what he really wanted was to carry out some grudge passed down by his father against the Avatar, and of course the Power of being the leader of a whole city, and a powerful army.

 

Same with Unalok, if Balance was what he really wanted he wouldn't have striped Korra of Rava, and how come now he became so interested in becoming the Dark Avatar, all of that sounds like jealousy to me, I mean the guy wanted his brothers possession as clan leader of the Northern Water Tribe so he framed his brother. Then he hears his brother is the father of the New Avatar, that had to sting, that has got to be part of the reason why he became so obsessed with getting Korra to open the Spirit Portals so he could try and become the Dark Avatar, not for Balance for Power. Look at the BS excuse explanation Zaheer told Korra about her Uncle being a member of the Red Lotus, nothing that Unalok did coincided with what Zaheer was trying to do. I mean Unalok and Korra's dad were alive when Aang was still alive, perhaps even younger and thus in their prime back then, so why didn't Unalok try getting Aang to open the spirit portals? 

[animedreamer]

The empty spots she left on the map for the map for the United Republic territories look vaguely ominous, Kuvira left them the same color as Zaofu.

 

People in this thread and else where already suspected that she wanted to retake Republic City as Earth Kingdom/Empire Territory.

[Hellion Rex]

People in this thread and else where already suspected that she wanted to retake Republic City as Earth Kingdom/Empire Territory.

Indeed. Republic City technically lies on the Earth Continent, right?

[animedreamer]

Indeed. Republic City technically lies on the Earth Continent, right?

yup, it was part of Earth Kingdom that the Fire Nation took when they conquered the Earth Kingdom, Zuko rather than just give it back repurposed the territory as a free state for people of all nations to live together in peace and harmony a sign of the possible future where there were no nations of bending that separated the people, or something like that.

[OdanUrr]

So comes 'The Calling' and the end of this particular story-arc:
 

Spoiler

Previously, in The Legend of Korra…
 

Okay, I cheated, the scene is from this episode but it's so much more descriptive. So, yeah, it looks like the kids are going on a field trip. Roll the title card…
 

‘The Calling’ can be easily divided in two halves. On the one hand, you have the Tenzin kids’ journey to find Korra per their father’s instructions. Tenzin himself cannot go look for Korra because reasons. I mean, I don’t know about you, but the previous episode made it clear diplomacy was out the window and it looks like the only thing Kuvira will respond to is a show of force. With nine episodes to go, though, I doubt it’ll develop into a full-out war. There’s really not enough time unless they use time jumps and I wouldn’t recommend it seeing as we’re already set three years after Book Three. But I digress so let’s turn our attention back to Jinora, Ikki, and Meelo.

The episode provide us with an excuse to see how they’ve grown up and how that has affected their personalities. For instance, we’re soon treated to Meelo’s artistic side and his rather spot-on drawing of Korra that Ikki and Meelo show the locals of an Earth village (now complete with Kuvira’s propaganda). Jinora, on the other side, is much more like Tenzin, demanding patience from her younger siblings as she attempts to locate Korra through her spiritual connection. Of course, since that connection is blocked, Jinora doesn’t have a lot of luck, prompting Ikki to tease her that her powers are broken.

Even though Meelo still has a few more gags going what with girlfriend problems and his disastrous effort to “live off the land,” it’s really Ikki’s show as soon as she gets captured by a couple of Earth Empire soldiers. These soldiers are clearly not the Empire’s best and brightest (insert appropriate Tag and Bink reference here) but, fortunately for our young heroine, they’re also not the Empire’s meanest. In fact, they’re just a couple of soldiers who are bitter and bored having been relegated to sentry duty in the middle of nowhere who would just as sooner do something, anything really (like going to Zaofu like the rest of their pals).

Ikki catches on to this pretty quick and tells them the truth: that their father sent her and her siblings on a mission to find the Avatar. Initially, one of the two soldiers sees an opportunity for a transfer should they capture Tenzin’s kids and deliver them to Kuvira but this idea is kind of dropped (or at least temporarily forgotten) when the soldiers decide instead to help Ikki track down Korra (maybe they’re smarter than I give them credit for). So Ikki shows them where they’ve previously searched:
 

Like I said, not the best nor brightest. With the aid of the map and the Earth Empire soldiers, Ikki soon surmises that Korra’s most likely location is the one place the Earth Empire has decided to stay out of: the swamp. She’s even about to be released by the nicer of the two soldiers when Jinora and Meelo burst through the door, knock out her ‘captors’ and ‘rescue’ her. Ikki being Ikki she apologizes to the unconscious men for their rough treatment and we’re off to find Korra!

Meanwhile, back on Dagobah, Korra is unsuccessfully trying to get Toph to tell her some stories from her time with Aang but she finds her stark descriptions entirely lacking. It’s apparently been some time since the metal-extraction session and, true to her word, Toph has chosen to help Korra no further, prompting our Avatar to get more than a bit anxious. Seeing this (get it? ‘cause Toph’s blind and… um… yeah), Toph tells Korra to go find dinner and so we enter the swamp once more.
 

 

The swamp being the swamp, before Korra gets anywhere close to the big, slimy, mushrooms, Toph instructed her to find, she comes across a vision of Amon taking her bending away. She backs away and turns only to find Vaatu-Unalaq (he hadn’t entered full Kaiju mode just yet) vacuuming Raava out of her. Sweating with fear, she trips into another nightmarish scene as Zaheer placidly observes the effects of the poison on Korra’s body.

An innocent-looking Toph soon finds her pupil sitting huddled on the root of a tree, clearly still tormented by the visions she just had. She explains this to Toph who simply nods and says she expected something of the sort. Korra being Korra she’s mad at the deception but Toph explains this is the swamp’s way of telling Korra she needs to get better.

Here comes a scene that was partly unexpected. Sure, Toph tells Korra that she needs to let go of her past enemies if she’s to fight her future ones. Much like the metal in her body, Korra still carries her fears with her (though those didn’t prevent her from stopping Kaiju-Unalaq-Vaatu or Zaheer). In the words of Guru Pathik, “You must surrender your fears. Let your fears flow down the creek.” This is, of course, easier said than done, unless your name’s Aang in which case you can do it in all of five seconds (seriously, go back to that episode and start counting), prompting Toph to take more extreme measures.

This is all fine and good and it’s really what we suspected pretty much since the second episode of the series. What I find most interesting, however, is how Toph suggests Korra that maybe she could learn something from her past enemies. After all, their ideas weren’t, at their core, entirely bad.
 

Amon wanted equality for all but his ideology stemmed from the incredible power benders wield and how it can be used to abuse and coerce the non-bender population. Of course, he took it a bit too far sparking a civil war trying to take away everyone’s bending. It didn’t help that he was a bit of a hypocrite seeing as he himself could bend. In his defense, though, his revolution was largely bloodless and he was content with taking away Korra’s bending.
 

Unalaq brought back the spirits. Again, he took it too far and readily merged with Vaatu to ensure the complete eradication of humanity and the supremacy of the spirits for the next ten thousand years at the very least. However, unlike Amon in Book One, it was much harder for us to sympathize with him in Book Two. There was no oppression of the spirits like we saw with the non-bender population in 'When Extremes Meet.' To be honest, there wasn’t even much of a reason to bring them back in the first place and saying it’s because “the world was out of balance” just doesn’t cut it for me. Sure, it seems to have worked out in the end but I’m sure President Raiko also thought things would work out in the end when he gave Kuvira free rein to stabilize the Earth Nation.

It’s only fair to note Korra did learn something from Unalaq and decided to keep the portals open. Why she did this it’s never really clear (and I don’t buy Zaheer’s explanation in Book Three) but she did it so that’s that.
 

Last but not least, Zaheer wanted freedom. I think that’s a rather broad and inaccurate generalization of his goal, which was anarchy, but let’s roll with it. Zaheer was against power structures and really believed in every man for himself. In his own words, “Together we will forge a world without kings and queens, without borders or nations, where man’s only allegiance is to himself and those he loves. We will return to the true balance of natural order.” It’s quite hypocritical of him to have decided removing the Avatar would achieve this without also realizing that, if we follow his reasoning to its ultimate conclusion, bending does not really have a place in his “natural order.” After all, it was the lion turtles who gave humanity the ability to bend the elements, an ability humans previously lacked in their ‘natural’ state.

It is also interesting, but potentially problematic, to note that at the time humans lacked the innate ability to bend the elements the portals at the South and North Poles were both open and nobody magically gained bending powers. Sure, you could argue that the world was already “in balance” so the universe decided not to grant bending powers to all, but I could counter-argue the universe could have easily removed all bending at the start of Book Three and brought balance just the same.

At any rate, even if his methods were rather extreme and his ideology had probably more holes in it than Swiss cheese, Zaheer and his cohort did liberate the oppressed sectors of Ba Sing Se, after a fashion and unconcerned about the consequences of such a drastic action.

Given the events of Book Four, the themes of freedom and equality should resonate with Korra or at least with the viewers who have the benefit of knowing everything that’s going on. Two out of three ain’t bad, right?
 

Like I mentioned previously, since Korra still doesn’t know how to release her fears Toph decides it’s time to bring out the big guns so she takes her to the Banyan-grove tree. She proceeds to enlighten Korra on the nature of this tree and how it’s connected to the entire swamp, unlike Korra who has been disconnected from herself and the people who love her for far too long.

I don’t know whether I should analyse this or not. The scene itself feels a bit disjointed at first glance. Not long ago we had Toph telling Korra her problem was that she was carrying her past enemies with her and now she tells her she’s disconnected from the world. No wonder Korra doesn’t have a clue what to do. My take on it, for what it’s worth, is that Toph is telling Korra that cutting herself off from the world is not the way to deal with one’s problems, what is quite ironical considering that’s exactly what Toph has done (but who better to realise this, right?). Being around the people she loves and that love her can go a long way to help her overcome her fears, be it a wise word from Tenzin, a funny line from Bolin, or even plotting with Asami how to make Mako uncomfortable.

Korra instinctively follows Aang’s footsteps a century before and places a hand on a root, prompting a bolt of energy to swiftly race across the swamp’s network and reach Jinora, who happily informed a quarrelling Ikki and Meelo that she knew where Korra was. I have a couple of things to say about this particular scene. Let me get out of the way that I loved how we follow Korra’s and the bolt’s journey and connect with Jinora, Ikki, and Meelo. However, there are a few things that would have made this scene epic.
 

First, the choice in music. I would have gone with the music that plays when Wan decides to look for the other lion turtle cities to master all the elements, probably while repeating Toph’s earlier line of how she’s connected to the entire world in the background. It’s a small thing but I feel it would have fit better provided the second thing had also come into play.

That second thing, and what would have made this scene legendary, was if instead of merely connecting with Jinora, Korra had connected with people all over the world. Imagine, if you can, Wan’s music playing as we’re shown glimpses of Tenzin, Tonraq, Raiko, Kuvira, Mako, Bolin, Asami, Zuko, and even the average citizen or two (hey, maybe even Zaheer in prison!), all suddenly dropping whatever it is they’re doing and muttering ‘Korra’ or ‘The Avatar.’ That moment, ladies and gentlemen, would have made Avatar history.

Alas, we got a more subdued (but still great) scene followed by an emotional reunion where Meelo ingratiates himself with Toph and the kids beg Korra to resume her Avatar duties and put a stop to Kuvira’s evil plans. You already know my thoughts on this matter so I won’t repeat myself and simply say it’s time to be the Avatar again and you know what that means: metal extraction session 2.0. This time, however, Toph informs Korra she’ll have to do the extraction on her own.

Again, the music in this scene, the ambiance, they all fit superbly as Korra tries to let go of the poison in her body and thusly (metaphorically speaking) of her fears. Toph delivers yet another great line here when she tells Korra, “That fight is over,” and urges her to try again. After all, we’ve had two to three (depending on how you look at it) episodes dealing (more or less) with Korra and her fears so a few more seconds won’t hurt, not to mention it would be a tad anticlimactic were she to release her fears on the first try. So, after a second try, the mercury slowly leaves her body, Korra bends it into a small silver sphere that Toph promptly encases in rock, and…
 

The Avatar is back in business, ladies and gents. Well, she’s no longer as lost as she was six months ago at any rate, and she won’t be the same Avatar either. Even if the show’s creators hadn’t specifically said Toph doesn’t completely heal Korra, I would still be sceptical if that were the case. I am not entirely convinced Korra has let go of her past enemies mainly because it was never explored what it was exactly that she feared. Was she afraid for her own survival, of getting hurt? Sure, Korra readily admits this to Toph. Was there more to it than that? Perhaps, I certainly think there could be, but if the show hasn’t addressed it by this point I very much doubt they will later on. They have already given the issue with her blocked Earth Chakra (they don’t outright admit it but I strongly believe this is the case) a lot more screentime than I thought they would within the usual order of thirteen episodes.

Anyway, Korra’s regained her connection with the Avatar spirit and feels lighter now. I should probably make a (bad) pun about the density of mercury but I’m sure someone’s already beaten me to the punch. Korra manages to give Toph a hug (I fully expected Toph to earthbend a wall again and laugh at Korra’s naiveté) and the gang finally leaves the old master to the peace and quiet of the swamp in a rather abrupt ending that made me think out loud, “That’s it? At least make Toph vanish into nothingness and show she was a spirit the whole time.” That would have been another awesome moment.

‘The Calling’ brings to an end the story-arc about Korra’s lost connection to her Avatar spirit and her fears of the past that continued to torment her present. Honestly, it wasn’t as tight as I would have preferred, certainly nowhere close to Yoda’s training of Luke on Dagobah, but it was still pretty damn good.

In the end, Book Four’s first third retreads old ground making Korra unsure of who she is without her connection to Raava, an issue that is briefly explored at the end of Book One, and then more thoroughly at the end of Book Two. At the same time, Korra has reached breaking point what with everyone trying to hurt her in some way or another: Amon taking away her bending; Unalaq taking away Raava; and Zaheer trying to take away her life and ending the Avatar cycle. She faces a crucible she has begun to overcome by the end of ‘The Calling’ and from which a new Avatar will emerge, hopefully one who has learned from her past mistakes and even incorporate (the good) part of her enemies’ ideologies (and tricks?). I don’t expect the road ahead of her to be easy, in fact I fully expect Korra to get her butt kicked by Kuvira at some point, but I think that is for the best.

Of course, that means Korra needs to pull some reckless stunt like, I don’t know, go straight to Zaofu and challenge Kuvira to a duel while they wait for reinforcements from the United Republic of Nations? Sure, that will work wonders but, hey, it’s Korra and she’s back.

[Neoleviathan]

Teefury has a Korra shirt design up today. If someone already mentioned that, I missed it.

[Inprea]

Im not so sure I believe what they said about Amon, equality was never really his goal. If it was he wouldn't had needed to lie about his water bending, or blood bending, he could have told the other equalist the truth from the start and his plans if that was the case, but he didn't because what he really wanted was to carry out some grudge passed down by his father against the Avatar, and of course the Power of being the leader of a whole city, and a powerful army.

 

Same with Unalok, if Balance was what he really wanted he wouldn't have striped Korra of Rava, and how come now he became so interested in becoming the Dark Avatar, all of that sounds like jealousy to me, I mean the guy wanted his brothers possession as clan leader of the Northern Water Tribe so he framed his brother. Then he hears his brother is the father of the New Avatar, that had to sting, that has got to be part of the reason why he became so obsessed with getting Korra to open the Spirit Portals so he could try and become the Dark Avatar, not for Balance for Power. Look at the BS excuse explanation Zaheer told Korra about her Uncle being a member of the Red Lotus, nothing that Unalok did coincided with what Zaheer was trying to do. I mean Unalok and Korra's dad were alive when Aang was still alive, perhaps even younger and thus in their prime back then, so why didn't Unalok try getting Aang to open the spirit portals? 

 

Toph disagrees with you. Amon could have been deceiving his fellow equalist because he believed they wouldn't follow him if they knew he was a water bender and especially a blood bender which is viewed very negatively and he'd been right. If there had been some grudge against the city itself I doubt he would have excluded those that can't bend from it and Toph didn't say Unalok wanted to bring about balance. She said Unalok brought the spirits back. Which from Toph's view was a good thing as Korra wouldn't have done it without Unalok's scheming.

[Treacherous J Slither]

New clip! Really loving Kuvira, though Su's son is a total idiot.

 

 

BOW BEFORE THE MIGHT OF THE EARTH MAGITEK EMPIRE!!!

 

I said it here first folks. That dood Varrick (pointy mustache guy) is gonna find a way to harness energy from spirits and then is Final Fantasy 6 all over again. Magitek!

[animedreamer]

BOW BEFORE THE MIGHT OF THE EARTH MAGITEK EMPIRE!!!

 

I said it here first folks. That dood Varrick (pointy mustache guy) is gonna find a way to harness energy from spirits and then is Final Fantasy 6 all over again. Magitek!

they kind of eluded to that 2 episodes ago.

[OdanUrr]

What do you think of this?
 

Dante Basco on being asked, “We all know that Zuko and Katara were meant to be together….In the Legend of Korra, mostly everyone has “expired.” Now that there’s no-Zuko’s there…Katara’s there. You think the walls were finally broken down and they were meant for each other? Even if we don’t see it…”

 




 

[OdanUrr]

Not great news on the 3DS front. This is a user review I found:

 

http://www.ign.com/b...a-begins-review

 

Plus some gameplay: