The Physicist and I finally got around to finishing Book 2 of The Legend of Korra, and I was underwhelmed, to say the least. Warning: spoilers ahead.
First of all, what the hell is up with Jinora? Her last-minute-save-the-world intervention seemed like a total ass-pull, and it was hard to tell exactly what was going on. If you’re going to have a tertiary character save your protagonist’s ass, you need to do a much better job of foreshadowing it–a propensity for cuddling cute spirit animals isn’t enough.
Korra’s duel with UberUnalaq was also unsatisfying. It didn’t really have any emotion–it was just two giant beings slugging it out like they’re in a Godzilla movie. I would have liked to have seen more of an emotional conflict between the two of them. Unalaq is Korra’s uncle and he had her father thrown in jail on trumped up charges, but Korra basically reacts to him like he’s a random Monster of the Week.
The other problem with Unalaq is that his character development was incredibly uneven. At first he starts out as a well-intentioned extremist, but he abruptly becomes a garden-variety villain in the last few episodes. I would have liked to have had a better idea of why he thinks that unleashing Vaatu is going to make the world a better place. Even if he thinks that the spirits have gotten a raw deal, releasing the spirit of chaos and darkness isn’t exactly the next logical step. Now it seems that he just did it for the Evulz, and that’s unsatisfying.
Compare that with Zuko and Azula from the first series: we had a much better idea of what made them tick and why they acted the way they did. Because the audience actually got to bond with them, they were much more satisfying as villains.
The lack of character development isn’t confined to Unalaq. Korra suffers from it, too. The problem is that she doesn’t seem to learn from her mistakes. At the end of Book 1, she supposedly learned that it’s okay to rely on others, yet when Book 2 began, she was back to being a lone wolf. It also doesn’t help that she remains a flat and uninteresting protagonist. She needs to have more depth beyond a kick-ass-and-take-names attitude. And I wish the writers would lay off the Korra/Mako relationship drama. It’s tepid at the best of times since the two characters don’t really have any chemistry.
I was also kind of annoyed by the whole Varrick subplot. It felt like little more than a series of plot contrivances, and in the end, it didn’t really go anywhere. Varrick certainly isn’t punished for his crimes: the last we see of him, he’s escaping with his loyal assistant on his back (trust me, it makes sense in context).
I think a lot of Korra’s problems ultimately stem from the decision to have these truncated seasons. Filler episodes are not bad. Done right, they can help the characters grow and advance the meta plot. I think the best example of this is probably “The Beach” from Book 3 of The Last Airbender. That episode really had nothing to do with the main plot, but it did a great job of giving us background info about Zuko and Azula. There’s nothing like that in Korra, which is why everyone seems so damn flat.
On a more positive note, I liked that the writers actually did something risky by having Korra’s connection to her past lives severed permanently (?), though the impact of this change was somewhat reduced by the fact that Korra never really had much of a relationship with the past Avatars. That could set the stage for some truly interesting plot developments in Book 3, provided they don’t go and hit the reset button within the first few episodes.
I enjoyed watching the interactions between Tenzin, Bumi, and Kya. We don’t really know what Aang was like as an adult, so it’s interesting to hear what his kids thought of him. It seems that he wasn’t exactly a model father, and he played favorites with Tenzin since Tenzin was the only airbender among his progeny. One thing I’ve always liked about Aang is that he’s generally not a Gary Stu. He’s always had flaws, and that made him a lot more interesting.
Finally, I really liked the art of Book 2, particularly the glimpses of the Spirit World and the flashbacks that made up “Beginnings” parts 1 and 2. Avatar has always been exceptionally well animated, and Book 2 has some of the most stunning episodes of the entire series.
Despite my disillusionment with Korra, I’ll still watch Books 3 and 4. I just hope it gets better….
Codex Lochianus 