So, I figure I best write about this before another urge to rewatch an episode of King of the Hill overtakes me again. Welp, I've been keeping up with this show-- :
--Along with hoards of other fans of this awesome universe that is Avatar the Last Airbender, and Saturday it's first season finale aired although I was currently indisposed at the time, subsequently missing it. Anyway, I finally managed to watch it a few hours ago after daydreaming about it throughout the week before and I must say I was UTTERLY...
...disappointed.
Yeah.
Man, let me just say that there is nothing more upsetting than religiously following a series to only be bitterly disappointed by its ending when everything comes to a head. I mean, you wake up every day at a certain time to catch it on TV; you sit at the edge of your seat whilst it's playing, marveling at its brilliance while tolerantly cringing at some rough patches before brushing said patches off with a trusted assurance that when everything is said and done all will be amended and equalized (yeah, I had to go there), only to find out that, nope, all of your optimism and hope was completely for naught. You basically-kinda-got-screwed.
So, yes, I did indeed feel a little screwed with the ending of The Legend of Korra. Here's why:
Amon (I'm going to do the list thing here)
So for anyone else who happens to come across this blog and who also happened to watch the show, uh, WHAT THE FUCK? After we've been treated to this image, this belief that Amon was a mysterious, super insanely talented non-bender who has the odd ability to siphon away bending, we instead get hit with a revelation that he's actually just a pissed off, super insanely talented water bender who's Dad was kinda a jerk and kinda made him blood bend some animals and then kinda made him so mad he ran away to be come this cold, masked avenger for all the "oppressed" non-bending peoples in Republic City. Now here's the thing:
I'm actually okay with that. Sorta.
I'm okay with Amon's past, him actually being a bender, his abusive power hungry dad, and OH YEAH, Tarrlok actually being his brother. That doesn't really bother me, what bothers me is that I never knew why he was so pissed at benders, why he decided that he, a bender, had the right to start a revolution that would effectively end bending. Instead, with the extra reveal that Amon made up his whole cock-and-bull story about his parents being murdered by fire benders, him going all Batman, and the subsequent scar that ended up on his face as a result of his parent's attack, Amon left me feeling like he was more than just a fraud who saw it fit to manipulate people. Him running away and kind of punking out on Korra's newfound air bending abilities just made him cheap. This being a bad thing, when the series really built him up to be more than what he actually was, and then not tie up some of the loose ends in his story so that at least everything he did from the beginning seemed justified. I'm rambling and making no sense I know, but I guess what I'm trying to say is that Amon's end didn't really justify his means. I still have no idea why he feels the need to start a revolution against benders...I mean did his father's assholery, abuse, and power hungry ideals convince him that all benders needed to have their bending taken away? When he left his family, was he constantly bombarded with the sight of benders taking advantage of non-benders? I mean, what the hell was this guy's hang up?
All in all, I would have to say that his character was cheapened to me at the end, and only because the series asked too many questions that weren't answered in its twelve episode span. Yes, I know there's still a season two, and, yeah, I can acknowledge that Amon will come up at least once maybe, and YEAH, I still kinda think he might be alive, but come ON. Really? That's all we get?
The Politics and the Supposed Bender vs. Non-Bender Thing
Uh, where was that anyway? Amon's whole driving force behind his campaign was to raise up all of his non-bending "brethren" against all of these evil, element bloated benders who wanted to see them all crushed under their all opposing thumbs. Unfortunately, I felt like there wasn't enough evidence to show why benders were so bad and why there was at least some reason to sympathize with the non-benders.
Sure, they were some pretty bad bending gangs that inhabited Republic City, but they weren't really talked about much or shown enough to suggest that they were singularly what was wrong with all benders. I'm sure there were plenty non-bender gangs in the city and I'd like to think that they ruled their roosts with the same ruthlessness.
And sure---it's not at all hard to believe that benders are arrogant because of their powers and feel it's within their right to lord it over non-benders but, again, evidence? There was only one time when I felt that this whole bender supremacy was introduced in the series and that was during this episode. Korra interrupts Tarrlok during an arrest of an entire neighborhood of non-benders under the false accusation that they were Equalists and Korra, after having been shouted at by a woman that she was "their Avatar too" that I could see where non-benders definitely have to unfairly bear the brunt of sharing a word where some people can shoot fireballs out of their palms. Otherwise, it was sort of left up to the audience to kind of go along with the reasoning that non-benders would naturally want to overthrow benders because one, the Council was made up of benders, and two, hey, it kind of sucks not having elemental powers.
It was the lack of really developing this problem and all of it's political implications that once again left me feeling rather underwhelmed.
Makorra and Character Development (yes, I have to go here!)
Okay, so 'Makorra' is a minor irritation for the most part. Did I know that Korra and Mako were most likely going to end up together? YES. Did I know Asami being thrown into the mix to cock-block Korra from hooking up too quickly with Mako was intentional? YES. Did I expect Mako to be all concerned about Korra's protection after having been all up in Asami's mansion and her pool and her noodles? (noodles?) YES. So, really, Makorra's coupling didn't really disturb me, just the way they eventually coupled.
You know, I'd like to think that Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko have a sense of humor and really there's plenty of evidence to support that. Hell, these guys definitely have a sense of humor and The Ember Island Players is all one needs to see to know that the creators of the Avatar series can definitely poke fun at themselves. I'm okay with that. In fact, I kind of suspect that The Spirit of Competition was indeed another episode where the guys are intentionally corn-balling up the teen romance angle to show how okay they are with toying with the obvious cliches. Personally, I guess I would have liked to see Korra with Bolin at first to sort of deepen the inescapable love triangle aspect, along with sparking a bit of sibling rivalry between Mako and Bolin.
So, speaking of sibling rivlary...character development. Yeah. That. Sibling rivalry betwixt Mako and Bolin would have been interesting, right? They, who had been through running errands for triads and Shady Shinner's and the like, who had been through so much, find themselves at odds with the arrival of Avatar Korra into their love lives. Or how about the whole Asami thing? I would have liked to see Asami a little more defiant toward Mako's sudden fickleness when it came to Korra. Okay, so I'm ranting now, but what I'm trying to articulate is that I can't help but feel that the characters didn't really develop as hugely as they did in A:TLA.
YESSSS, I KNOW that the first series was three seasons long, more time, blah, blah, but after coming from there I guess I was expecting more in the personal growth department when it came to Korra and co like her predecessors before her. Probably my folly, expecting some of the exact same things from a sixty one episode series that had much more time on it's hands but, hey, the bar was set pretty high and I can't help but fume about the expectations that weren't met. Everything felt really slap-dashed throughout every episode before the finale, but I guess I just figured it would all to make sense in the end. Like Iroh for instance? Um, hello, he was Zuko's grandson, right? Erm, why didn't we get to see him more in action? Yeah, he took down Amon's planes and everything and helped out for the most part, but not by much. He spent a fair amount of time locked up with Asami and Bolin and everything about his appearance was just mediocre. I'm thinking that maybe he was just supposed to be a guest character, considering Dante Basco was the only original actor from the main cast to return to the series, but it wasn't a hugely impacted cameo, just a cool little tidbit.
So to wrap this up because I'm rambling and not being very concise about this, everyone just felt really underdeveloped and too nice. Or maybe too supportive is the word I'm looking for. Asami didn't turn out to be a bitchy rich chick who was a rival/foil to Korra, which was okay because it was nice to see them getting along, but I can't help but feel like things would have been more interesting if they had acknowledged the stake they both had in Mako.
Tenzin, god, was HE a disappointment. Not really the more interesting one of Aang's children. I felt like he was a pretty crappy mentor to Korra considering all the times she was captured by Amon or injured as a result of her bad choices. Don't get me wrong, I wasn't expecting him to hold her hand throughout the series, but there were plenty of times I felt like he would merely henpick over Korra yet she'd still end up none the better for it. I guess it would have been cooler to see him step up sometime and really guide her when she needed it. He always seem more concerned with other things which I guess he was.
There's more but I'll just move onto my last points--
Airbending and the Ending
Right, Korra is in a no-win situation against Amon and suddenly she learns how to airbend? THAT was when it was most important?
All right, all right so Mako was about to have his bending taken away and Korra had to save him and something had to be done, blah, blah, I GET it. Yet, her sudden spurt of airbending coupled with the fact that she suddenly, after having HER bending taken away, connects with Aang and the other avatars and gains the ability to restore someone's lost bending? Come on, peeps.
Deus ex machina is the word to use here. The writers deus the HELL out of this episode. Again, it just left me disappointed and unimpressed that such a cheap solution was used to solve Korra's problem. I held the belief that maybe Korra would lose her bending, sure, but that would prove as one of the challenges for her to overcome in season 2. Overreaching I know, but Aang suddenly showing up out of nowhere when Korra has done little meditating that we the viewers have seen to help her really made me consider that Korra didn't really earn the title of Avatar for me. When Tenzin called her "Avatar Korra" it really didn't feel like that for me, like she got to that level. At the end of A: TLA Aang had proven that he had been through enough trial and hardship when it came to mastering the four elements and all the other crap that surrounded him, that he finally deserved to be called "Avatar Aang" when the time came. For Korra it was all just rather slap-dashed.
Okay, so I'm going to have to stop here. I have tons more to say, always, but I would just like to leave this thing and wait on season 2. Am I pessimistic? Yeah, a little, but just as hopeful as well. I'm hoping they'll pull out some of the brilliance that made the first series so memorable but who knows? At the very least, they'd better not pull any more Spirit World tropes that magically end up saving the day. Kinda getting tired of that shit.
So, night for now. I've got baby-sitting in the morning.
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