The Legend of Korra - Book 2: Spirits

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Here's my few issues:

1. How the hell was Unalaq/Vatuu able to bend all the elements? Vatuu did NOT go to the lion turtles to get the bending himself. Remember how Ravaa traveled with Wan and Ravaa was the one that had to hold all the elements FOR him? So it REALLY bugged me that Unalaq was able to FLAWLESSLY earthbend and the likes, while it takes an avatar a lifetime of rigorous training to do so.

2. Jinora. Just what.

3. Remember how if you die in the Avatar state, it ENDS the Avatar cycle? I would say it's pretty safe to say that since Unalaq was a giant red monster, that that was his 'avatar' state. And he was killed in the avatar state. Pretty safe to say that he won't be reincarnating into another person. And think about it, if the dark avatar DOES reincarnate, there's going to be a several year gap while the dark avatar 'grows up'. The show isn't going to skip ahead years and years.

4. In the Wan episodes, Ravaa explained that once the other one is destroyed, they will start to grow in each other again. You can't have light without the dark. Etcetc. So roughly in several thousand years, Vatuu will start to reappear inside of Ravaa inside of the Avatar now that he's fully been destroyed.

5. Bumi. Absolutely LOVED him. Enough said.

1a: Derek also just informed me that Unalaq did not bend the other elements, so I apologize. The chasm that Korra was being crushed in, I mistook that for earth, not ice.

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What. The. Hell. I'm perfectly fine with a season ending with unanswered questions, but only if they are answered later.
1. Jinora. What?
2. What the hell was the blue Korra thing? It clearly wasn't Rava, so it must have been Korra's spirit. However, then the question is how did Korra get such a strong spirit (So strong it could Rival the dark spirit)

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Honestly, I feel like that's the biggest unanswered question of them all.

From how it was explained to us, in every other situation before the Avatar, Ravah and Vaatu fought until one was dead. But Vaatu wasn't technically killed, he was purified. There's a huge difference there. Purified could mean that Vaatu is gone forever, or at least for a longer amount of time than normal. It could also just mean nothing at all in the grand scheme, and in 10,000 years he'll be back.

Of course, that brings up the quote from Ravah where she says that when dealing with Light and Darkness, one cannot exist without the other.

I doubt this question will ever be answered unless the Season 3 and/or 4 plot is "New Badguys that plan to revive Vaatu like Jinora revived Ravah." Obviously they will be called The Order of the Black Lotus Rolleyes

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Tumblr just pointed out a VERY, VERY interesting fact.

After Ravaa, the one who was holding all of the elements, is ripped out of Korra, she's not a water bender. She's an airbender. Thoughts? Rewatching the last episode, and she does in fact use Airbending at 6:36, when jumping into the tree of life with Tenzin before she goes all blue-giant.

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She still had all four elements. Ravah didn't hold the elements for the Avatar. She only held them temporarily for Wan until he was ready to accept all of that power. If I remember correctly, during the Wan episode when Wan was learning how to bend all four elements, Ravah only entered Wan temporarily so that she could transfer the power to him. They were not connected the entire time he trained with all four elements. Once she transferred that power it was inside Wan forever.

As far as I can tell, the only thing Ravah really did was create the Avatar State, and connect each Avatar life to the next. The second Avatar gained the ability to bend all four elements because of its connection to Wan, not because of Ravah, although Ravah is the connection. Removing Ravah removed that connection, however the ability to bend all four elements was already within Korra because she was born with that ability.

When Ravah was removed from Korra, she lost the connection to the Avatar's past lives, but she didn't lose the ability to bend all four elements because that's part of her, not Ravah. The only thing lost when Ravah was ripped out of her was the connection to the past Avatar lives and their power/knowledge.

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Not necessarily an Airbender, if anything we know Korra is NATURALLY a Waterbender, were she not the Avatar, same as how Aang was naturally an Airbender. We know this as fact because of the way the Avatar line passes on between the elements.

We know that Wan (and everyone else) gained bending from the Lion Turtles, but later on in Aang-times, we know that people are born with bending powers. So it stands to reason that the Avatars are born with all 4 bending powers, and that it is part of them, rather than a result of having Rava inside them. Hence why Korra is still able to use all 4 elements after losing Rava. Rava's only involvement is the spiritual connection and the avatar state.

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Her spirit purified vaatu with waterbending. It is as it was said above, she could still bend everything.

Although...this is kind of a weird flow switch. Last season we were dealing with the fear of not being able to bend to now knowing we can bend not one but all the elements even without the thing that made you "the avatar".

Also what's the point of the avatar state now? It was to remember the experience of past lives. She has no past lives.

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The point of the Avatar State was to connect to ALL of the Avatar's inner power, which included all of the Avatar's past lives. However, one has to imagine that it also includes Ravah herself. That's why it made Wan more powerful as well. Ravah is the spirit of light itself, so you have to imagine she's pretty powerful. 10,000 years of Avatars combined with Ravah's power made the Avatar State so powerful. With no past lives anymore, there's still Ravah's power that the Avatar State connects to, so it's still useful. Just like Unalaq got powerful in the "Dark" Avatar State, even though there were no past "Dark" Avatar lives to draw power from. He was drawing power from Vaatu.

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Though I did not like the ending. I was assuming Vaatu would win, and the next two seasons would be focussing the story afterwards. Instead Korra saves the day in a matter of minutes. It suprised me, but I think I would've prefered the other option.
And like others stated; the heck was going on with Jinora?

Noting the post above made me think. The combination of all air nomads being wiped out during the Aang era and Korra losing the connection to her past lives. Imagine how weak the general ability to airbend would be now. Much knowledge is probably lost.

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Did you mean you expected Vaatu to win?

You bring up a very good point with Air Nomads. I wouldn't be surprised if some point in the remaining two seasons they will go over that. If you noticed, however, more than just Tenzin's family was in the Air Temples, it's likely that Aang passed on the Air Nomad traditions to non-Airbenders in anticipation of the Air Nomads being restored in the future. They might not be able to Airbend, but they may know a lot about it and were instructed to pass it on to future generations so that the Air Nomads could be revived.

Side Note: I really wish they had just done a bending battle royale after giving Unalaq all four elements for some crazy reason. It would have been a whole lot better than the giant spirit form battle like we got, visually that is. That battle was pretty bland and uninteresting, but Korra vs Unalaq before Ravah was ripped out was extremely entertaining, reminiscent of the battle between Ozai and Aang. Probably would have made more sense, too, considering Vaatu's defeat made almost none to begin with.

I feel like they intentionally broke the link between Korra and the old Avatars so that they had a plotline of her attempting to recover it, even though they didn't really need to make one considering the ending. Overall the Avatar State was pretty disappointing this season. Korra should have been far more powerful than she was considering what we saw from Aang and his predecessors.

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I thought they were decent episodes. Nowhere ont eh scale of ATLA, but still pretty good fro a kids TV show.

Popular theories about Jinora:

Her light spirit butterfly guided her to the rainbow bridge to the real world and she implanted the light butterfly into Vatunaloq, thus seeding the revival of Rava.

Light spirit guided her to Iroh to get Wan's/Rava's teapot and she somehow extracted the final "essence" of Rava to implant into Vatunaloq.

Honestly, part way through the episode when Jinora was all "There's a disturbance in the force! I must attend to it!" I was thinking "OHGOD she's gonna die and become the second coming of Rava D:" But then I realized it's a kid show and killing pre-teen kids is a huge no no.

Varrick I think is set up to be the next season's villain perfectly. He escaped jail, he's rich and has connections to the mafia. Seeing as the next book is to be heavily focused around Lin and her background, I can totally see this as a "terrorist hits Republic city! Something needs team Avatar + Lin to kick ass and chew bubblegum!"

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Somehow I doubt it's going to be Varrick, because I feel as if they need to make the next season even more grandious. Seriously,

Season 1: OH NO ALL BENDERS ARE UNDER ATTACK.

Season 2: OH NO THE WHOLE WORLD IS GOING TO EXPLODE INTO DARKNESS AHHHHH.

Yeah...I have no idea how they're going to overcome that, but downgrading to rich Varrick being the villain is quite anticlimactic. It's going to have to do with Spirits, obviously, since the merging of the worlds and all.

Also, hoping Azula and Zuko shows up. I didn't realize Part 3 of The Search was released last month and I just finished it.

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They don't need to. The entire world has just become open to Spirits again. They roam free. There's all kinds of intriguing possibilities that don't necessarily have to be pure evil like Books 1+2 were. That's why I like this ending even though I wasn't really too fond of the finale itself. The lore can expand so much, it can become so amazing.

I don't think Varrac will be a main bad guy either. He's being used mostly as comic relief, and he's the only comic relief that's actually working so far, at least in my opinion. His position wasn't exactly evil in this season really either. He was a Southern Water Tribe member who wanted to get Republic City on his side, and knew the only way to do it was to gain power. The kidnapping plot is going a tad far, however overall his motives weren't exactly pure evil. He's clearly one who has his own plans, but being the big bad is not one of them.

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See I don't think it needs to be that big a deal. Maybe Varrick isn't the "main villain", but he probably will still be the crafty guy behind the scenes trying to making a gazillion dollars off of a war. Maybe he funds an international terrorist from the Earth kingdom (not Ba Sing Se, but elsewhere) and they start some pomegranate (because terrorism). Incorporate the fact that spirits can actively enter the human world, I think we could have a viable plot line where the spirits take sides in a human conflict. Now it won't be a war between humans, but a war of the humans and the spirits as they learn how to interact and discover each others capabilities.

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I really loved Varrick even when his plans were finally brought to light. He was hilarious and definitely ranks as one of my favorite TV show characters. "Zhu Li, do the thing!" ...priceless, I just can't haha

But anyways, the ending itself was pretty great. Jinora played a role I never expected her to but as a result I grew to like her a lot more. The only thing I wish were explained better was Korra's decision to leave the spirit portals open. I mean, didn't Tenzin, Kya, and Bumi just return from being tossed into a deadly pit by one of these spirits where human souls wander aimlessly forever? I don't think humans know how to properly interact with them well and I personally felt that bit was a bit rushed.