Legend of Korra: Season 2 finale
All four episodes released this weekend of the finale of Season 2 for Legend of Korra, AKA: Legend of she did what now?, so please take this as your warning of spoilers if you were watching the broadcast on Nickelodeon rather than streaming all the episodes!
Dorkadia has had a love affair with the Avatar series since the beginning, and given the opportunity (as evidenced by the upcoming podcast this week) will talk, at great length, about the show. I buckled in when I saw the whole season ending was of season 2 for Legend of Korra was put up online at once – and aside from the terrible streaming (I couldn’t buffer more than 15 seconds at a time for the most part – probably because there were 857 bajillion nerds like me trying to stream these episodes), I whelmed with the ending.
So we left off that Korra opened the other spirit portal to save Jinora from Unalaq, and that the world was in danger of being consumed in harmonic convergence for another 10,000 years of darkness by Vatu. In a mash of 4 episodes, Bolin saves the president from a plot by Varrick, Tenzin saves Jinora as well as his siblings from the fog of lost souls in the spirit world, Korra has Raava ripped from her body and while she loses her connection to previous avatars, she meditates in the tree that had been Vatu’s prison to become a giant blue spirit and fight back against the combined Vatu and Unalaq to save us from the dangers of harmonic convergence. Much happened in a seemingly short period.
But, at the end of the day, Korra makes the choice to stop being the bridge between the worlds, and leaves the spirit portals open so we are now in a world where humans a spirits live together. Hence the Legend of she did what now?
Let me be clear – this was a cool ending. I felt like it was lacking though. Maybe it’s because i’m comparing season 2 of Korra to Season 3 of Last Airbender? Aang was facing the destruction of cultures by the invasion of the Fire nation – while very destructive, not nearly to the scale of Korra facing 10,000 years of darkness for the entire planet. And yet, I cared SO MUCH MORE about Aang and his crew. After much thought, I think I figured out where my cognitive dissonance comes in here – Korra is much more western in values and in all the characters.
The Last Airbender was very team oriented. While it’s true everything boiled down to what the Avatar could do – the Avatar could get nowhere without the support of the rest of the cast. Aang was younger, more unsure of himself, and had internal conflicts that blew my mind at the end of season 3 where we thought there would be no resolution in sight. Korra, if by design of age or setting, is much more about the individual. She is a 16 year old girl trying to prove herself, and while she surrounds herself with a team, they are also dealing with their own personal conflicts (Mako can’t chose between the ladies, Bolin apparently is still trying to find his place… anywhere, and Asami is left with the fallout of being the head of Future Indistrues), they all want to assist Korra, but not to the point of dropping everything to do so. We’re also in a cultural setting of the industrial revolution – again, this is about the individual working, owning things, and having a place / name for themselves.
To wrap this up, I was happy with the season ending of Korra, but found that I wasn’t as moved with it as I have been in previous series of this show. All of this aside, I am REALLY looking forward to Season 3 where the spirits roam the earth. SEASON 3: SPIRIT ROUND UP – FEATURING KOH THE FACE STEALER!!!
