Season Review: The Legend of Korra Book Three

 

The Legend of Korra’s third book was entitled “Change.” This fit almost perfectly into the theme of the season, because the Avatar’s world changed, and we’re not too sure if it’s for the better or the worse. The best part of this theme, is that most of the characters went under some serious changes as well.

Obviously, the biggest changes came from Korra. She is the title character, so almost of the themes have to involve her the most. Korra goes from world savior at the end of Book Two, to almost being reviled because of the way she has handled the spirits and spirit vines growing throughout Republic City. The President was so worried about his approval rating, he actually banished Korra from the city.

That worked out for the better, because Korra set out on a new goal, and that was restoring the Air Tribe. This is the first time since Aang was frozen that the Air Tribe was more than maybe four people. For the first time in The Legend of Korra, the majority of time was spent in the Earth Kingdom, trying to find all of the new Airbenders that have sprung up because of Harmonic Convergence. Oh, look, the theme of change pops up again.

Nothing is ever easy when it involves the Avatar. Every person who Korra and Tenzin approached for joining the Air Nation balked, because they can’t just uproot. One of the best scenes came when Korra tried talking to the Napoleon Dynamite imposter, Ryu. It was a classic internet troll moment, and drove Korra insane. It was great to see that everyone wasn’t enamored with Korra, and that Korra definitely had shortcomings when it came to the aftermath of her fight with Unavaatu. She most definitely isn’t Aang, and being cut off from the past Avatars definitely hurts when she needs to fix things.

Now, if there was ever a time where Korra could have used the past Avatars, it would have been this season. Korra has been the game for four escaped criminals: P’Li, Ming Hua, Gazhan, and the leader Zaheer. Zaheer, and the voice talents of Henry Rollins, are what made this season so fantastic. Don’t worry, we are going to talk more about Zaheer later on.

Most villains from the Avatar universe make the Avatar go to them. This time, Zaheer and the Red Lotus went right after Korra. This chase took up eight episodes, culminating in one of the most beautiful scenes in this series. The fight between Korra and Zaheer was one of the greatest finales in either The Last Airbender, or The Legend of Korra.

What cinched it for me in this finale, was the state Korra was left in after her fight with Zaheer. She is confined in a wheelchair, and her brethren in from the Air Nomads take her place as the “world’s police.” So, let’s review things for a minute. Korra is a broken person as of now because of the fight with Zaheer, she isn’t sure of her place in the world anymore, and she is replaced for who knows how long. Yeah, I would have a sad face on too if that were happening to me.

As for Zaheer, I think he really is one of the more unique villains to come out of the Avatar universe. The way he went about getting the Avatar was nothing short of brilliance. For some reason, no villain before him (save for Zuko, but that’s even debatable) has tried to hunt the Avatar. He planted doubt in every single person, including Korra herself, and that contributed to Korra being the broken person who is unsure of her place in the world.

In the span of about five minutes, Zaheer took a innocent plan, and turned Ba Sing Se into total anarchy when he killed the Earth Queen. The Earth Queen was not much better than Zaheer, but he took no mercy on her. “Long Live the Queen” was one of the darkest episodes, and was only topped by “Enter the Void” because of how Zaheer went cold blooded with P’Li’s death. Everything he did up until “Venom of the Red Lotus” was for one purpose, and his people were ultimately a means to an end.

Like I said in the review for “Venom of the Red Lotus,” there was one time where Zaheer faltered, and it led to him ultimately being defeated by Korra in her Avatar state. He underestimated the juiced out Korra, and she took him to town. He then underestimated the Air Nation initiates, who stalled Zaheer long enough for Korra to get enough strength to end his bid for total anarchy.

I think that the writers going a completely different route when it came to Zaheer confronting Korra was something we haven’t seen before. We have always seen Korra trying to fight the big villain of the season, only to get punked out. That’s been done numerous times during The Legend of Korra. What made this season so different was that Korra only really fought Zaheer in the last two episodes. Keeping them away from each other and keeping Zaheer’s true powers hidden from the viewer was a beautiful thing. It’s the little nuances that kept Korra flowing this season.

There were a lot of questions that were left on the viewer’s lap at the end of “Venom of the Red Lotus.”  Su, for instance, has always been this person that hated authority. She met up with Zaheer when she was in the circus, and I am sure the authoritative hate spewed long and hard with them. Then, the split, and she ends up back at Zaofu? If you look at how she responded to Zaheer getting captured, it was a look of disappointment. Not because Zaheer did these, but because Zaheer got caught. Granted, this is me just going on conjecture and theories, but there are a lot of holes in this story.

The voice talent also had one of the best seasons yet, which is saying something. Book three of The Last Airbender was my favorite of the entire run of the Avatar saga. This cast, with a star performance from Henry Rollins, pushed this season to be one of the best yet. I sung my praises of Rollins from top to bottom this season, and I am praying that we get more of him to come. Hopefully, we at least get a guest cameo next year. Every member has nailed their roles, and I cannot say one wrong thing about that.

Not everything was all bad, though. One of the big questions was how Jinora will evolve into her role as an Airbending master. Jinora came into her own in Changes, even pushing Tenzin past the breaking point by insisting she go under the Airbending master rituals.Once Kai put that notion into her head, you knew that she was going to become a master by the end of the season. Also, tell me Aang and Jinora almost look exactly alike:

When compared to last season, the difference is light and day. We got our villain at the end of the first episode, and Book Three was off to the races. There were some hiccups, like “Original Airbenders,” and “The Stakeout.” But while they were the low points, nothing really detracted from the season as much as the entire first half of Book Two.

My one huge gripe with this season doesn’t actually come from the show itself. It comes from Nick making this show the bastard show of the network. It’s the best quality show amongst the bullshit repeats of Spongebob and Fairly Odd Parents, yet they put the show before one of the worst lead-ins that I have ever seen. You are fragmenting your audience, because no one will stay to watch Korra after In Witch Way, or watch In Witch Way because Korra is on after. Oh, and let’s not forget to tell anyone when The Legend of Korra is going to premiere. We want to have as little notice as possible that The Legend of Korra is airing. I’ve chronicled this before, but it needs to be said again. We got less than a week notice that The Legend of Korra was premiering, and we weren’t able to get any sort of publicity for the show out there.

Then they moved the show to the Nick website, and that turned into an even bigger clusterfuck. The video player didn’t play past 480p, and it was a disgrace. The last five episodes had some of the best visuals of the series, and we were stuck watching them on the world’s worst video player. The visual of the airship going over a burning Ba Sing Se would have been great, but it looked pixelated when using Nick’s video player. But sometimes, I couldn’t get to have those problems, because I couldn’t get onto Nick’s site to watch the episode, like for the two part finale, “Into the Void” / “Venom of the Red Lotus.” For a mega corporation like Viacom, their website management system sucks. You know something is gold when it transcends the show, and hits real life. There we go again, change has hit the article again.

All in all, this was a fantastic season of The Legend of Korra. It is right there with Book One for best of the series, and very close to the final season of The Last Airbender for best ever. There was a lot of uncertainty left on the table, and a lot of questions to answer. Now, let’s hope that Nick will actually let Korra air this time.