Due to audio issues that were caused in the initial recording of the recent attempt to bring back the Three-Way Podcast, the recording we wanted to do in regards to the Legend of Korra, it will not be posted. I was a tad heartbroken, but we'll find a way to fix this up for future Podcasts (like me getting better internet and some others getting better mics). Until then, consider it still on hiatus until said problems are fixed. That being said, I wrote this to go along with the podcast a few weeks back. So here's my personal review of the Legend of Korra Book 3: Change. (New bit added at end).
It’s hard to really place exactly where this newest season
sits for me. On the one hand, it did a number of interesting things that kept
me watching, took a few gambles that (eventually) paid off, and manage to
surprise me in ways I hadn’t ever expected. On the other hand, it pulled its
punches a bit too much for what they were trying to do, we didn’t get enough
characterization overall (especially for the villains), and it felt like they
were trying to do a lot of different plot ideas within a short time-span of
only 13 episodes in what would more likely occupy 2 full 20 episode seasons of Last Airbender.
In short, it works and does enough right to keep me coming
back (especially at the end), but it still stumbles over the finishing line
because, unlike Last Airbender, the
series just isn’t getting enough time to show us everything it should be
showing us. And a lot of the motivations and actions here felt heavy on
exposition, which is never good. But now that I’ve made my general statements,
let’s get to the nitty-gritty of the season.
The plot starts (as you may remember from my previous post)
about how the spirit world and the physical world have become more connected
and everyone is sharing the space instead of being separated. This caused lots
of changes that upset some people like those of Republic City. It confused others,
namely those who suddenly got airbending out of (no pun intended) thin air. It
also emboldened people to take action, namely the season’s main protagonist,
Zaheer, who gains airbending powers. 
To keep things simple, through a series of unfortunate events,
Korra and friends are pushed into seeking out more Airbenders instead of
solving Republic City’s problems. In doing so, they come across a corrupt Earth
Queen, meet Lin Bei Fong’s sister, and also encounter Zaheer for the first
time. Lin’s sister started up a Metal Bending city, which was visually
impressive and offered up a reasonable amount of Varrick screen time.
As for Zaheer, he had a following of other benders who he
worked with to attempt his plan of capturing and killing the Avatar. Each one had
unique bending talents that came in handy for the most part such as
lava-bending, combustion bending, and… umm… the waterbender had no arms but
could still waterbend… if that’s considered unqiue. They were all very powerful
and were easily the biggest challenge Korra and friends have faced thus far.
So much so that Zaheer manages to kill the Earth Queen and
send the entirety of Ba Sing Se into chaos. And the manner in which it was done
was fairly dark… for a kids show no less. Zaheer then unleashes his ultimatum,
which is that he’ll take out the newly-made Airbenders if Korra doesn’t give
herself up (leading to the finale). Korra puts her own life on the line (no
exaggeration) to rescue the airbenders and save the world from Zaheer and his
Red Lotus organization. The end result of the encounter destroys Zaheer and his
team of four, unites the airbenders, cripples Korra, and ultimately reveals
that the world isn’t safe anymore so long as the Red Lotus continues to exist.
And that’s where the season basically ends.
So let’s talk about what worked first.
This is the first season of the entire show in which I felt
like I wasn’t watching a kids show. This series got incredibly dark, incredibly
fast. Using suffocation to kill people? Blood-bending was creepy enough, but at
least we didn’t see it used to kill people (more than once). But pulling the
air out of someone and watching them slowly die, gasping for air… that’s dark.
Not to mention the scene in which Tenzin is just beaten down and we get to see
the aftermath. Or the scene in which P’Li blows her own goddamn head off. Thank
god that it cut away, though it was odd we didn’t hear the explosion sound
effect at all.
This is also the season that finally gives Bolin something
to do. I mean, yes, he was comically awesome in the first two seasons
(outclassed, sadly, by Sokka and Varrick). But this season actually allowed him
to step up as a reliable fighter as well in more ways than one. He learns a new
sub-bending, he gets a girl of his own (I think), and he is actually helpful
while still being funny at the right time. Hell, I was not really a fan of his
and I just hated Mako anymore. But now I actually like Bolin and only Mako is
sitting in my imaginary shame-car. 
We also get some build-up for the Asami X Korra
relationship. No, I’m not insinuating they’re going to be a couple. But until
this season, they’ve barely interacted, which is odd considering they’ve both
dated the same asshole and been dumped by him (and not at the best times). I
was never really into Asami’s character because she felt like a blank-slate in
Book 1. But she’s slowly gotten better and her forming this best-friend thing
with Korra has been incredibly delightful. If it evolves into a full
relationship, then it would most certainly be a welcome change for the series
to take on that kind of challenge. That said, it’s a kids show and I can’t
imagine them pushing a gay-relationship front and center like that. Even if
it’s only implied but never directly stated, I think I’d be fine with that.
There are plenty of other great things too like a look into
the Bei Fong family’s history. Seeing Tenzin and the other Airbenders, period.
Jinorra’s whole coming-of-age arc. Revisiting old locations from Last Airbender we haven’t seen in
forever (unless you have the DVDs). But I want to talk about the villains.
I’ve been a strong advocate for the idea that a story is
only as good as its antagonist (at least when there is an antagonist). The less
interesting or threatening the antagonist, the less interesting the story is
overall. If they aren’t a threat/challenge, we aren’t scared for the trials
ahead of the hero. If the villain isn’t interesting, then we won’t care about
the problem or if/how it gets solved. Thus far, Legend of Korra has delivered on fantastic villains with Amon,
Varrick, Unalok, and Vatu. This season… we get Zaheer and the Red Lotus.
To sum up their whole agenda, they are anarchists. They
think governments and world leaders are corrupt. They want to overthrow the
ruling classes and dignitaries around the world AND the Avatar. They don’t want
anyone to feel like they need to have an allegiance to anything but themselves
and the people they love. And their ideology is actually kind of beautiful and
presented in a very logical way of thinking. At first, you almost want them to
succeed because it’s not like they’re wrong. They are proposing good ideas with
strong conviction.
But everything changed when the fire nation attacked… wait…
I mean when the Red Lotus attacked Tenzin and threatened to wipe out the
Airbenders. Eliminating the Earth Queen because she was a corrupt leader doing
horrible things (with proof) is one thing. Trying to eliminate the Airbenders
because you want Korra to give herself up I wrong. And if they hadn’t gone that
way and managed to keep themselves in the grey (morally speaking) the ending
could have been a more complex piece of work. Sadly, this made everything
predictable in the third act, and ultimately less interesting in terms of the
villains. 
Next is the ending. Of the entire finale, the best part of
it are the last five minutes of the show. It opens with Korra after her last
encounter with Zaheer and his attempt to poison her and end the Avatar Cycle…
and she’s in a wheel chair. The expression on her face is one lacking of hope
and full of pain. She goes to Jinora’s promotion ceremony, where the President
of Republic City makes amends with her (clearly a political ploy and nothing
more). In the ceremony, Tenzin promotes her daughter to the rank of Master
(with tattoos and everything). He also offers the services of the Airbenders
while Korra is out of commission, stating they will go around the world to
defend innocent, promote peace, and bring harmony to the world while Korra is
in recovery. 
Everything in those final five minutes are heavy in tone and
very moving, bringing Korra to tears (and almost me as well). But while it’s
heavy in tone and making everything feel like a low-point, we are also given a
sense of hope through Tenzin, Jinora, and the airbenders. It leaves me with
lots of questions for Book 4 (which I’ll get to in a bit). But it’s a
five-minute scene that I won’t forget as being one of the lowest points in tone
for the entire franchise to date, even lower than when Azula struck Aang with
lightning at the end of Book 2. 
Let’s get on to what doesn’t work. As I mentioned already,
the villains start to falter nearing the big showdown. At first I’m siding with
their philosophy and while their actions were extreme, so was their ideology,
which still kept them in a morally grey bubble. It was when Tenzin and the
airbenders were getting the crap kicked out of them that they fell into
archetypical villain roles and that was disappointing. More so was the
unveiling of their vaguely established plan.
Their entire plan was to capture the Avatar… to kill her.
Apparently her existence threatened the order-less world they wanted. And while
that is partly true (even though she agree with SOME of their philosophy) the
issue still comes down to the fact they were planning to kill her. Killing the
Earth Queen is one thing. Lots of people distrusted her and disliked her. But
the Avatar is both a religious and political symbol. She’s an entity that is
supposed to inspiring hope, peace, and harmony. Lots of different nations trust
and believe in the Avatar. By killing her for your agenda, she becomes a martyr
and a jumping off point to start a whole new war against the Red Lotus. One
they will lose because they are hopelessly outgunned. 
Killing the Avatar, as I said from the get-go, would be a
terrible idea for them. I figured they’d capture her and make her do something
she’ll immediately regret. I figured they’d make her disappear and show her
what a world falling into their disorder is like. But they just want to
up-and-kill her without even considering how horrible that backlash will be or
how doing so will tip the balance of the world into an entirely bad direction.
The logic of these guys is almost Team Aqua and Team Magma levels… ALMOST.
Aside from that, I still feel like the characterization, for
the most part, is still the series’ weakest trait. It buggers me to no end how Last Airbender is right alongside
Telltale’s Walking Dead for a
master-class in creating good characters and having their personalities shine
through in their actions, but Legend Of
Korra has always struggled with this particular problem. Book 2 felt like a
fair improvement, but Book 3 is back to the same feeling of Book 1. It’s rushed
and not slowing down to give us a better glimpse into the lives of the
characters. Worse is that this show has so many different plots it’s trying to
juggle this season while it’s rushing. This gives the sense that this season
was pushed out the door before it had time to brush its teeth.
That in mind, it’s still better than Book 1 in most respects
simply for just being more interesting, at least by the conclusion. It’s just a
shame that Book 2 inspired so much hope and it was let down by Book 3’s
somewhat lackluster following. Again, this is mostly me nitpicking. If you
actually like Korra, Airbender and the Avatar series as a whole, then you’ll likely have enjoyed Book 3,
warts and all. But I still need to poke the hot coals of these nagging issues
in hopes they’re fixed for Book 4.
This season reminds me of a person trying to juggle several
heavy balls. You have one for each plot, which is about three. You have one for
each side-plot, which adds about another three. Then you have the
characterization ball, the animation ball, the world-building ball, and the
fan-service ball. It takes talent to juggle that much with only THIRTEEN 22 minute
episodes to work with and still come out alive. But along the way we dropped
the characterization ball. The World-Building ball got lost a couple of times.
And a few of the side-plots were tossed aside by the end because they were
totally fucking irrelevant.
But, in hindsight, Books 1 and 3 did shove that fan service
card in our face a bit more than it ought to have done. I’m not saying I don’t
appreciate nods to the original series. But when I start ignoring those nods
and start paying attention to what is happening, I see that the fan service is
nothing more than a distraction for Korra
somewhat lacking substance. Like how you could remove garnish from your plate
to find out there’s barely any meat on your chicken bones and the mashed
potatoes are more like potato-flavored water. It still looks good and does a
few things right, but Korra is still
stumbling over the same issues it has since it began.
But, I digress. Book 3 was fun and enjoyable despite the
many issues I seem to continue finding in it. The ending is still the strongest
in the entire franchise and I look forward to seeing how it builds up from
there. Book 4, Balance, was recently announced as the title for the supposed Last Season of Legend of Korra. I'm excited to see what that all entails over the coming months going into next year. Until then, I'll make due with the upcoming Legend of Korra game and rewatch some of my Avatar DVDs for the commentaries. See ya next time.
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