Tor.com’s offices are here in the Flatiron Building in New York City, a distinctive architectural wedge. Seeing Korra face down Kuvira’s giant platinum Colossus in The Legend of Korra series finale from atop a sharp triangular building in Republic City was a fun coincidence, huh? Really makes you feel like you’re in the thick of it…but then, I felt the same way when they put the Daily Bugle in the Flatiron Building in Spider-Man. Hey, and J.K. Simmons, Tenzin’s voice actor, played J. Jonah Jameson. Weird.
I know I’m rambling, but I’m still filled with nervous energy from the cliched-but-truly stunning conclusion of the series, and trying not to use a spoilery image at the top of the post. The Legend of Korra ended with action and romance and most importantly of all, the series ended with Korra continuing the arc of the Avatar spirit, begun in Aang: towards greater compassion, greater empathy.
I’m going to go ahead and consider “Korasami” confirmed and canon. There is part of me that says: “oh, this is the Modern Family issue, give us the kiss, we got a kiss with Mako, didn’t we? Heck, we got the kiss with Aang and Katara!” I hear that. I feel that. But the next thought that popped into my head was “at least they seem to be going about starting a new relationship in a more mature fashion!” I mean, Korra just started getting over her trauma, Asami’s dad just died, they’ve both been part of an awkward love triangle in the past… frankly, riding off together into the sunset is the romantic ending I want. But let’s be clear: there’s nothing “friendship” about it. I wonder how much a “Korasami” fight was at the heart of The Legend of Korra’s difficulties with Nickelodeon?
Last season, last Book, ended with Korra crying in a wheelchair. This season, this series, ends with her hand in hand with Asami, going on walkabout in the Spirit World. To me, that’s even bigger than Avatar: the Last Airbender’s peace, as least as far as character arcs go. The Gaang were kids, and their story ends with a bow on it. It’s the Buffy: the Vampire Slayer ending. The Legend of Korra gives us the Angel ending. It doesn’t end, because life doesn’t end until you die. Korra’s story isn’t over, Korra’s growth isn’t over…and she choses to explore her future with Asami. She choses to grow with Asami. That sure sounds like love to me.
Watching Korra and the team go Skywalker and Dak against the AT-AT of Kuvira’s Colossus was so great. For a moment there I really thought they were going to bring it down with Bolin’s lavabending, Airbenders doing stunts,Meelo coming through in the clutch with the paint bomb plan, Korra pelting it with chunks of masonry, and the Beifongs and Bolin dropping a building on it. Everyone just going, as they say, HAM.
Nope; apparently the Colossus uses Palladium’s MDC rules and no amount of normal damage can really make more than a scratch. And, of course everything is made of platinum, which, looking into, could be plausible? I mean, assuming there was just oodles of platinum somewhere in the Earth Kingdom. Maybe in a secret tunnel. Or under a cabbage patch. It’s still really impressive to see our team, all grown up, paragons of their crafts, cutting lose on the Colossus. The Spirit Cannon is like trying to swat a housefly with a howitzer, but the collateral damage is extensive.
Meelo also gets the snatch to save Tenzin, as Ikki saves Jinora after they dodge for half damage and are knocked from the sky. I gotta tell you, between that and making a face at Kuvira—leading to a “why are you hitting yourself?” slap to the chrome dome—he did good this finale. Alright Pema, you’re right, if you raised that little fart machine, you can wrangle the crowds with Wu. Everyone gets in on the action this episode, even Tahno. Hiroshi Sato is back as predicted, and well, you didn’t really see him getting out of this alive, did you?
Once the two-seat set-up of the Hummingbird/Mosquito was clear, I had a pretty good idea of where that was going, and Varrick and Zhu Li’s use of Chekhov’s Ejector Seats crystalized it. Still, score a big point for reconciliation: if Asami hadn’t started to forgive her father, they never would have gotten inside the Colossus.
How great is it when Lin and Suyin disable the Colossus’s Spirit Gun? How awesome is it when Kuvira just rips the damn arm off? That kind of disproportionate response—that solves the problem, as it takes the Beifongs out of play—is why I like Kuvira as a villain. That’s her “by any means necessary” ethos, playing out on a personal scale, rather than a political one, for a change.
Remember last week when I waxed poetic about mecha interfaces? Well I didn’t know one key factor: the balls are meteoric iron! As gravy, Kuvira turns ’em into a whirling buzzsaw of metaldeath in her melee with Korra. The rest of the fights aren’t with scrubs, either; Kuvira’s elite suffer no Law of Inverse Ninjas problems, no Stormtrooper clumsiness Purple Death Star pits, zappy Saw Boss Mother Brain lookin’ Tesla core, ornithopters, plasma torches; all the high-tech gizmos you could ask for.
Speaking of personal ethos on a grand scale: I had wondered whether the Avatar learned over incarnations. If Aang’s struggles and lessons carried over into Korra’s spiritual fiber, if Roku’s life experiences informed Aang’s spiritual journey, and so forth. I think with this finale I say yes: Korra extends the open hand, not the closed fist, as Aang before her; Korra not only doesn’t kill Kuvira, she saves Kuvira. That’s better than most cinema Batmen. She sees herself in Kuvira, not just because it is true, but because Korra has learned empathy.
It isn’t just her, either: it’s Asami and Hiroshi, and Opal and Bolin, and Suyin and Batar Jr, and Mako and Kai…the list goes on and on. Heck, in the cluch Wu comes through and abolishes the monarchy, even!
It’s hard for a show about the chosen one who is the link between the spirit and the flesh not to get a little messiah complex at the end, and why not? They earned it. As did Korra. Seeing her with Kuvira, saying they are alike and shutting down Kuvira when she says the obligatory “I’m nothing like you!” That was a class act. You’ve come a long way, Avatar Korra. And we’ve all come a long way together; thanks for being such a great community to discuss this show with! It’s been great having a built in group of friends who want to pick apart each episode each week. I’ll see you around!
Mordicai Knode was completely wrong about reuniting Vaatu and Raava, okay, he admits it. Maybe in the comics, though! He definitely didn’t tear up at all when Iknik Blackstone Varrick and Zhu Li Moon get married! Keep in touch with him on Tumblr and Twitter.
THIS EPISODE WAS MADE OF WIN!
I say I pretty much called it with the “Korra will bend the FUCK out that spirit ray”
And KORRASAMI YAY!!!
When she was standing by herself looking at the portal, I was so forcibly reminded of Aang leaving the party to be by himself, that the whole time, I KNEW someone would walk up, I kept saying, “please be Asami, please be Asami”
But no, it was Tenzin, and that was because they made it BETTER!
Something I also missed but was pointed out to me: The Colossus was most likely made out of Zao Fu’s protective domes, which were mentioned as dismantled in a previous episode (and they wouldn’t be especially protective if any metal-bender could get past them, so they were presumably made of platinum all along).
1. Aeryl
Tenzin was so great. One of my favorite characters of the whole series. I’m sad we don’t get more seasons; there is so much more I want to see from him, from everyone.
What, no reaction to the ‘good evacuation’ gag?
I really thought you would mention that Milo saves his dad by using proper air bending instead of farting. You (quite rightly) went on and on about the annoying toilet humor but now he matures into real air bending in his big damn heroes moment, he did that just for you.
Seeing her with Kuvira, saying they are alike and shutting down Kuvira when she says the obligatory “I’m nothing like you!”
I’ve just realized what a great twist that is on an old trope: Usually it’s the villain who (gloatingly) says “We are not so different, you and I,” and the hero is the one who has to prove otherwise. Having the hero show empathy for and identification with the villain is pretty radical storytelling.
@@.-@, I laughed, and yes during that moment, I waited for Meelo to fartbend.
YAY for maturity!
Tenzin: “The spirits have returned.”
Everyone else: “Get lost you useless freebooting bunch of jerks!”
Was anyone else convinced that Mako blowing up the engine room would wipe out the entire city in a giant purple nuclear explosion? That was a big mess of vines.
2. Peter D.
Yeah, folks were discussing that in the thread last week. Well spotted!
4. ChocolateRob
I feel like I was pretty good at giving Meelo credit where due!
5. Bluejay
Yeah, I struggled with how to articulate it & ultimately moved on in the review, but there is something very powerful in that scene. What makes it different, I think, from the typical villain/hero trope, is that Korra truly knows herself. Not just the justification of herself, not just the paper tiger of herself, but warts & all…& that’s why she is able to look at Kuvira with empathy & speak truth to power.
7. ChocolateRob
Mostly I’m just annoyed at the spirits being like “ha ha sorry, suckers, peace out!” when push came to shove.
I loved the finale, and I can’t add much to the praise others have lavished, but I do have a few minor disappointments.
1) I have a hard time believing the Avatar State wasn’t equal to defeating the Colossus. Avatar Roku in the State was able to fight an entire exploding volcanic island. Avatar Kyoshi in the state was able to create an island by accelerating large-scale geological processes. Are we really supposed to believe that Korra in the Avatar State couldn’t do anything more than fire a big gust of wind at the damn thing? Heck, Ghazan was able to destroy the entire Northern Air Temple with lavabending; why was Bolin limited to a single “hotfoot?” Granted, maybe the defenders of Republic City wanted to limit collateral damage to the thing they were defending, but once they started knocking down buidings on MechaKuvira, that excuse should’ve gone out the window. So if anything, it was the heroes who suffered from the Inverse Ninja Rule. They should’ve been able to make short work of MechaKuvira.
2) I also have trouble believing it took Korra until the final moment to realize that she could bend the spirit energy of the ray. By now, she should’ve outgrown her tendency to default to hitting things, so she should’ve had the idea sooner to approach MechaKuvira as a spiritual problem rather than a physical one.
3) I wish the final Korra/Kuvira scene had been at least a few lines longer. I wanted to see Kuvira recognize that she was driven by the fear of abandonment but had ended up pushing away everyone who loved and supported her, leaving herself totally alone.
4) Bolin didn’t get a final scene with Korra. He got the big wedding speech, but then we just barely saw him going out onto the dance floor with Opal, and he was left out of Korra’s wrapup scenes with Wu, Mako,Tenzin, and Asami. I feel that’s an oversight.
5) Korra and Asami totally should’ve kissed. But that’s been extensively discussed elsewhere. And we’ve got a fan animation of it, at least. (I’m hoping they made an official extended cut of that scene and will put it on the DVDs.)
In the post on Korrasami, I talked about the questions I’d like to see answered about their relationship. Here, I’ll talk about the questions I’d like to see answered about the mechasuit, maybe in some future art book. How did it work? I see now that Kuvira was controlling it by metalbending levers, so what purpose did the ring of meteoric iron globes play? Some sort of amplifiers for Kuvira’s metalbending senses, giving her feedback on the mechasuit’s position and movement (metalbending proprioception, as it were)?
Walk good, Avatar Korra…
9. ChristopherLBennett
1) I kind of agree; that being said, a deus ex machina– or deus ex avatar, I guess?– would have side-stepped the drama. Narrative rules, I think. Still, I feel you on this point, for sure. I can only say that Korra has a troubled relationship with the Avatar state, & that the Avatar state isn’t always the be-all-end-all, even in the original series.
2) I dunno, “let’s stand in front of this laser beam & see if I can bend it & maybe it will catastrophically tear the fabric of reality to do so?” is one of those ideas that I think works best as a last resort.
3) I disagree, that would have made it too pat, too easy. I liked where they left it, personally, I felt like it was all tied up. Of course, it is easy to want MORE, I want more, more of EVERY scene! More Korra, more Avatar!
4) it would have been nice for everyone to get a moment…but that’s a crowded ending. Mako was there to misdirect on the romance, Tenzin deserved to be there, & well….Asami.
5) YES. I agree. GIVE US THE KISS. Still, it was unmistakably queer, as an ending; not good enough, but still better than everybody else!
Those balls were like the control ball on the old Catapillar game!
@11:
1) Sure, I can believe that maybe Korra has a way to go before she can master the State as well as Roku or Kyoshi in their maturity. Maybe Aang was precocious in that regard. And maybe the fact that MechaKuvira was powered by spirit energy gave it an extra resistance to bending attacks, although that doesn’t explain why Bolin couldn’t just melt the underlying rock and sink it to its waist.
2) It didn’t have to be jumping in front of the beam; she could’ve realized that if the suit was powered by spirit energy, as Bataar Jr. explained, then maybe she could get in touch with that energy and power the suit down from the outside.
4) I don’t think Mako was a misdirect. I think he deserved a wrapup because of the role he’s ended up in, as Korra’s true friend and loyal ally. And he’s just generally the male lead of the series, more so than Bolin or Tenzin, so it made sense that he’d get a wrapup scene.
@9: I’ve actually got a theory in regard to the Avatar State’s apparent weakness. In Last Airbender, Roku told Aang that the Avatar State “empower[s] you with the skills and knowledge of all the past Avatars.” If that’s the case, it seems logical that Korra’s being cut off from her past lives may have resulted in the Avatar State becoming weaker than it was for previous incarnations.
I know they said this is the last Avatar series, but.. I want more.
I see it in my head already… another time jump, so now we move into another genre… Cyberpunk, letting us deal with themes like environmental damage and the dangers of unchecked corporate power: What Kuivira did with the spirit vines was only the beginning, now that the knowledge is out, other people will begin to exploit the spirit resources, and with so many different actors, corporations ruthlessly pursuing their own interests, even Avatar Korra can’t completely stop them all. She does her best, mitigates the damage, tries to encourage green life styles in balance, in the last few years of her life, they reach a tipping point, people stop being born benders, maybe the spirit portals are closed to protect the spirit world… but nothing’s completely locked away. Imagine an internet that runs off the few remaining spirit lines, where (in Cyberpunk fashion) people jack their consciousness into, but that also contains routes to the spirit world. The library of Won Shi Tong can be accessed through Wikipedia, maybe kids playing around on the darker corners of the net wind up faceless, victims of Koh the Face Stealer engaging in the ultimate of identity theft. Into this world comes a young street rat who doesn’t know he/she’s the Avatar (maybe Korra wasn’t sure whether there would be another after her, because of her being severed from the line of past Avatars), doesn’t even realize they’re a bender at all, since they’re now so rare and mostly old people, until they eventually discover a destiny and a duty to help (and, when the new avatar finally connects with Korra’s memories, we get to see more of her life with Asami).
Ah well, pipe dream, probably, but I wanted to share it anyway. :)
(And yes, then after that we get a final series involving the Fire Avatar, which would be a space opera, natch)
14. Peter D.
See, my pitch for the next cycle? Flashback. GIVE ME AVATAR KYOSHI!
@14: I’d gladly contribute to a Kickstarter for that. :-)
@13: Ooh, good one.
@14: Ooh, a spiritual information economy. Neat idea. When you meditate, do you need a password?
More lingering questions I’d like Bryke or the comics to address someday:
How did Aang and Sokka die? Katara said at the beginning that most of her friends were gone, but we later learned that Zuko and Toph were still alive, so those two seem to be the only ones who died. What happened to them? (Was Katara talking about other friends she made after A:TLA?)
What about Sokka’s heirs? We met Aang and Katara’s kids, Toph’s kids, Zuko’s daughter (briefly) and grandson. Did Sokka ever reproduce? And was it with Suki?
@@@@@ChristopherLBennet
Like mordicai said, the “mouseball” of metoric iron were the primary method of control for the mech. She also used levers.
I didn’t have an issue with Korra only trying to bend the beam of energy as a last resort. We did get confirmation of spirit bending in the spirit vines episode, but I still wouldn’t jump in front of something that has devastated the entire city and just trust that I’d have the power and experience to deflect the energy unless it was a last resort. Because she had never tested herself against it.
I thought that the finale was excellent and everything that The Legend of Korra deserved as a send off. I still think that Book 3 is my favorite of the series with Book 4 close behind.
@18: If the iron was the control mechanism, then how did it work? That’s what I want to know. I want to see technical specs and design drawings in some future art book, or published online.
And as I said, she didn’t have to jump in front of the beam. The moment Bataar Jr. said the power source for MechaKuvira itself (as opposed to the gun) was spirit vines, it could’ve occurred to Korra that maybe she could shut down its power using spirit-bending. The gun might still have been dangerous, but the suit could’ve been immobilized that way.
@@@@@ChristopherLBennett
I’m guessing that it’s a feedback loop where the various joints were controlled by how far and in what direction the trackballs rotated, the difference is then sent to the power unit which moves the joint by that amount.
As far as the spirit bending goes…that’s fair. How it ended up playing out didn’t bother me, though.
@ChristopherLBennett
The reason Korra didn’t go to the engine room to deal with the spirit vines(which Mako did a beautiful job with anyway, I was SRSLY concerned for his survival there) is because if she did, we wouldn’t have gotten that completely AWESOME fight in the cockpit.
QED
It’s true that too many ending moments would have ruined the pacing, and there was no way to do it without it being totally contrived, but a big part of me wanted to see Katara and Zuko and Toph to together again, maybe even standing in front of the statue of Aang. I realize there would have been no way to do it right, and I know this wasn’t their story, they already got their ending, etc. etc., but still…I wanted it.
I honestly thought they were going to kiss there at the end. They turned to each other, and I literally caught my breath for a second until the camera began to pan because I thought they were actually going to.
@14 – I wish, so much so. Also, I just realized that Avatar would be pulling a Mistborn in that case, because that is almost exactly what Sanderson has planned for that series by the time he wraps the Cosmere.
@14. Cyberpunk is exactly what I was thinking: how hard would it be to “hack” one’s elemental alignment? To switch from a waterbender to a firebender, say?
Essentially what Wan was doing before he and Raava fully merged (using one element at a time and having to switch).
Taken to its logical conclusion, could spirithacking create a new Avatar? An Avatar with all of the elemental power, but none of the spiritual awareness?
@25: I think one would pretty much have to be a lion-turtle to “spirit-hack.” Although maybe there are other powerful spirits with the ability, and now that the spirits are back among humans, maybe one of them could do such a thing.
I suppose you could say that bending is hacking to begin with, if you wanted to use that metaphor.
So basically now I want to play in an RPG campaign in the cyberpunk Avatar future.
Mike and Bryan have BOTH confirmed Korrasami as canon this evening on their blogs and tumblrs! I’ve been watching tumblr and reddit explode since I got home right after they were posted.
I am going to miss this show and hope there are more comics with the Krew.
Thank you for posting that LynMars. While I had no doubts reading the care the creators took in crafting this story is very heartwarming.
@17, I have this theory that Sokka was killed during the Red Lotus’ attempt to kidnap the young Korra.
We know he helped stop it and if he was killed, it would explain Zuko’s “Oh S***!” reaction when Zaheer got loose and started springing his buds.
@30 I could swear that I heard that confirmed but hell if I can remember when or where.
As far as I know, the events surrounding Sokka’s death are still unknown.
Speaking of the Red Lotus, part of me’s pissed that sequel hook was never tied up. As far as we know, they’re still out there.
Then again, the ascendancy of Kuvira and the Earth Empire completley undermined their agenda. They managed to overthrow the Earth Queen, only to see their ‘chaos is the natural order’ approach backfire and lead to the worst dictatorship since Ozai.
It’s a PR nightmare and shows why anarchism doesn’t work. Zaheer shot their group in the foot and I doubt they’ll be trying this again anytime soon.
Take this with a grain of salt, as there’s a lot of Nick-hate in some of the sites I frequent, but I read in one of the Adventure Time blogs that Nick’s S&P actually forbids outright depictions of same-sex couples? Can anyone confirm, or is this just some out-of-hand Nick-hate?
But this ep…from the animation, to the fight choreography, to just HOW Korra chose to bring down Kuvira (face it, the Korra from the first three seasons would’ve been more punchy less surrender-offering-y) and of course the end…this was just soooo on.
Yeah, while she didn’t de-power Kuvira, I liked the parallels with how Aang handled Ozai.
Korra, like Aang, ultimately ended the conflict in a way that concluded the cycle of violence peacefully.
I’ll just add how perfect Zhurrick was once it picked up speed. From Varrick’s proposal (“…would you do the thing for the rest of our lives?”) to Zhu Li’s acceptance (“This is exactly how I imagined our engagement would be!”), and Bolin’s sermon (“…the longest of long shots…”).
And I’m glad I’m not the only one who went “ORNITHOPTER!” at the sight of the hummingbird mechs :)
The Beifong Clan was formidable, and they even let Bolin join them in their awesomeness.
Korra’s and Kuvira’s scene would certainly have benefited with a few more seconds; a couple of lines felt a wee bit forced. And in retrospect, I also think that Kuvira was misrepresented. Too many evil bastard smirks, self-assured gloating… even in private with Baatar Jr., who would know better. I’d have liked to see more of that vulnerability and abandonment issues that would drive her to betray her mother-figure because she wasn’t helping people, and which would have attracted Baatar Jr.
All in all, I’m satisfied. I love open endings, and it’ll be fun imagining what adventures Korra and Asami will have in the Spirit World.
33. sn0wcrash
Per this post, Bryan Konietzko sure makes it sound like Nick put a limit to how much equality they were allowed to show, yeah.
Another post-finale question that occurred to me this morning: Who’s running Future Industries while Asami’s on her romantic getaway in the Spirit World? What state is FI in after its home city was largely destroyed? I imagine they’ve got a lot of the rebuilding contracts, but how much does the firm itself need to be rebuilt?
@32: The Red Lotus all seemed to be gathered together for the climax of Book 3. I figure that, aside from the four leaders, it was mostly just followers like the nameless metalbender who administered the poison. So they were probably taken into custody or hunted down after the battle, or else the Air Ranger Flying Lemur Corps mopped them up over the ensuing three years.
@35: I think that Kuvira’s harsh, haughty exterior was compensation for her inner vulnerability. Her fear of showing weakness made her a bully. Even with Bataar Jr., there was probably a limit on how much she really trusted him or opened up to him. So her vulnerable side wasn’t something we could really see until she finally let her guard down.
Bryan and Mike’s commentary was great. Damn, this was a phenomenal show. Thanks @@@@@LynMars for posting those links.
No one has mentioned the very Game of Thrones esque score this episode’s action had. Was I the only one who noticed? Because even the Sailor pointed it out and he’s not known for his attention to these details.
@39: I was very aware of Jeremy Zuckerman’s terrific score, but I’ve never seen GoT. His music for the climactic sequence of “Day of the Colossus,” in conjunction with the action, was so intense that in that final moment where we saw the heroes catching their breath inside the hole in the mechasuit, I was panting like I’d just run half a mile — both times I watched it. I haven’t had a reaction that intense since the closing battle of “And the Winner Is…” in Book 1. (And it disappoints me that only a portion of the music from that sequence is on the soundtrack album.) Zuckerman has really done remarkable work throughout this series, and I hope there are more soundtrack releases somehow, including the score for the final two episodes.
Glad to know I’m not the only one who wants the full cue from Amon’s attack on the Pro-bending arena.
i’d been wondering, where did the review of “beyond the wilds” disappear to?
42. rsndn
Good looking out! It’s there, it just accidentally got left out of the index. I’ll email the Tor.com gremlins, but in the meantime:
http://www.tor.com/blogs/2014/12/the-legend-of-korra-beyond-the-wilds
Korra x Asami
This finale was indeed one of the best endings of a nickelodeon cartoon I have seen. The action was great as well as the plot line too.
When I saw these two girls move towards the portal, I thought that they now have a girl balanced friendship relationship. When I saw them holding hands in the portal, i couldn’t believe what i was watching. I had to replay 13 times to understand that there is some romantic relationship between them
I was shocked and unlike the tumblers who came up with korrasami, i once never saw them in a romantic relationship. In fact, Korra seemed so straight and into Mako for the first 3 seasons. It took me a while to get over this ending and eventually I was comfortable with it. I just felt like a hot glass being put under cold water and cracking from the pressure. I felt they should have made the relationship a bit more obvious so I could feel less suprised and more happy for the two couples.
So I guess the cartoon is truly over….
I really hope it continues some time in the near future