Indeed. In fact, that's the same point of a reviewer I watched on YouTube. He's all "It's not just that Mako is a douche but Korra and Asami like a douche, which causes them to be less attractive."
But yeah, Mako is just not interesting. He has no stakes in the story and only seems to be around because the old Gaang had a Firebender pretty boy. Only makes sense for the Krew to have one too.
Though really, imagine if the series was just about Korra, Tenzin, and Lin dealing with Tarrlok and the equalist threat. You can even include the Asami story without the Fire Ferrets really.
Originally posted by TheAuraAngel
Indeed. In fact, that's the same point of a reviewer I watched on YouTube. He's all "It's not just that Mako is a douche but Korra and Asami like a douche, which causes them to be less attractive."But yeah, Mako is just not interesting. He has no stakes in the story and only seems to be around because the old Gaang had a Firebender pretty boy. Only makes sense for the Krew to have one too.
Though really, imagine if the series was just about Korra, Tenzin, and Lin dealing with Tarrlok and the equalist threat. You can even include the Asami story without the Fire Ferrets really.
Even though I've defended them, said the series was fine with them etc, I will admit that I was wrong and say that yes, the show should have cut the romance and probending episodes. Because without them you'd have a tight story with time to explore the stuff I believe they should have and actually develop characters beyond 'Korra likes Mako, Mako likes etc.'
This dde knows whats up:
Originally posted by SatansBestBuddy on Something Awful.Spoiler:
Just finished watching the finale. Man, that was a big heaping pile of horseshit, wasn't it?What the hell happened? This show had so much promise but it kinda just pissed it all away by focusing on shit that didn't matter. Hell, let's recap all the interesting plot threads the series brought up, and how it chose to conclude them:
- The Mafia are terrorizing the citizens of the city and attracting even decent guys like Bolin into their ranks thanks to the money and influence they command. Crime is so widespread that everyone just accepts it as part of living in the city, and the police seem powerless to stop them.
Conclusion: We see one mob don lose his bending. I guess Yakone being a mob don also counts, maybe? Point is, this plot thread had AWESOME potential written all over it but it was basically ignored.
- The Equalists are non-benders sick of all the opportunities and advantages benders get over them in society, from better paying jobs to benders-only sports, fame and fortune just come easier to benders. Non-benders all over the city are joining the cause, believing in a better world where everyone is equal.
Conclusion: The Equalists are warmongering fascists who use benders as a scapegoat to cause a revolution and turn the entire city into a warzone. Admittedly, that's still a pretty cool storyline, but it came off as really black and white, as the oppression of benders was never properly expanded upon, nor were we given a glimpse into their side of the struggle so we could have a chance to sympathize with them.
- Councilman Tarlokk is ambitious, charming and dangerous. His Task Force actually succeeds at finding and capturing Equalists, but the idea of using a secret police force to find and arrest anyone deemed an Equalist on the slimiest of evidence is on slippery ground when it comes to the morality of the situation, and Tarlok keeps pushing more extreme legislation before the council that subtly gives him more and more power to do whatever he wants.
Conclusion: Tarlokk snaps and tries to kill Korra after she accuses him of being just as bad as Amon. He reveals himself to be a bloodbender and that he wanted to rule the city because... uh, he wanted to rule the city. Really this was the best plotline in the show until we realize Tarlokk's ambition is just to rule because he wants to rule. He's not aiming to make the city a better place or anything, he just likes power. Pity, the rest of this plotline is really good and probably delivered on it's promises the best.
- The Order of the White Lotus are a secret organization of powerful individuals from all four bending nations. They work together to keep balance in the world and try to stop those who seek to disrupt this balance. Their position as a secret organization means that almost anyone can belong to it without you realizing they do, and thus they have a huge network of contacts and spies throughout the four nations that would be willing to help, should you ask them to.
Conclusion: They built a fortress at the south pole to train Korra at, and later guard her while she trains in the Air Temple. They are nowhere to be seen when she's actually in danger and in fact completely disappear between episode 2 and episode 10, when some of them are briefly seen getting their asses kicked during the raid on Air Temple Island. It's implied her previous bending masters are part of the order, but we don't see them do... anything. At all. Considering the last season had them play an important role in recapturing Ba Sing Se during the series finale, it's more than a little disappointing their just background fanservice here.
- The new Avatar is a bending prodigy capable of bending three of the four elements while just a toddler, and even easily mastered those three by the time she's seventeen. She's a buffed up meathead of a jock who can still be pretty damn girly when she wants to be, and is overconfident and strongwilled. She's charge headfirst into most situations without thinking or considering the consequences, and has a hard time grasping diplomacy as a concept. She sucks at comebacks.
Conclusion: The first confrontation with the big bad of the series has her charging in headfirst to fight against him, which doesn't work and he catches her off guard, leaving her helpless and crying in fear. He lets her go. The final confrontation with the big bad of the series has her charging in headfirst to fight against him, which doesn't work and he catches her off guard while she's hiding and crying in fear. Oh, but this time he doesn't let her go. Then, after she's lost her bending and has to save the boy she really likes, she gains the ability to airbend and win due to sheer dumb luck and the bad guys momentary idiocy. Basically Korra was awesome as the series started, but never really learned from her mistakes and kept charging in headfirst hoping that brute force would work everytime. She's a fighter and she kept fighting when it was time to stop and actually think about how to solve problems instead of beat them up. Don't get me wrong, she does do that a little bit, like when she overheard Sato's phone call she didn't bust down the door but instead asked the police to investigate his factory, which was the right call, but then her final confrontation with Amon she just blurts out his backstory without any evidence to back it up and no way to escape so all she can do is run and hide from him after giving him free reign to use skills he'd been hiding the entire time. So, yeah, I'm kinda disappointed that the strong leading female character of the series who was full of confidence at the beginning was a big crybaby who didn't do anything right by the end.
- Pro-Bending is a sporting competition that Korra takes a huge interest in and wants to see live. Pro-Bending is an intricate sport reminiscent of team boxing that involving one of every bending type except air, complete with a ring to be knocked out of and rounds you need to win. It's less flash and more nuance, less raw power and more deliberate and precise. Basically, it's a sport that will teach Korra the skills she lacks and will give her a circle of friends and fans (and rivals) outside of the walls she was trapped in for seventeen years.
Conclusion: She doesn't learn a damn thing from probending. The friend's she makes form an awkward love triangle that eventually ditches one third after he's dumped by Korra, where he stays as a background character with no further development for the rest of the show. The actual sport itself takes up more time than it really needs to, distracting from every other potential plotline and filling up time with tensionless action scenes. I was actually cheering for Amon when he blew up the ring and kicked the series plot into gear after it'd been stuck at a near standstill for 1/4 of the season. In short, a plotline that didn't accomplish what it promised it would (teach Korra airbending and nuance) and took one episode too long to wrap itself up.
I could probably think of more stuff, like Tenzin learning from Korra or Lin's fall from police chief to vigilante, but I think I've covered enough to prove my point; this series started out with so much promise, but it tripped over itself trying to deliver. Really, this series needed to be 20 episodes long, badly, as it's fairly obvious that cutting out 8 whole episodes from the season meant a lot of stuff had to be cut, and considering how much more ambitious this series was compared to the last one, that hurt it a lot more than it would have hurt The Last Airbender. It's a real shame, they built such a wonderful city here full of interesting possibilities. Here's hoping the next season has less of a laser focus on it's main plotline and leaves more room for character development, the real strength that Mike and Bryan have as writers.
Originally posted by Nephthys
Even though I've defended them, said the series was fine with them etc, I will admit that I was wrong and say that yes, the show should have cut the romance and probending episodes. Because without them you'd have a tight story with time to explore the stuff I believe they should have and actually develop characters beyond 'Korra likes Mako, Mako likes etc.'This dde knows whats up:
Again, romance isn't bad. I like my stories to have that element in them. But Korra simply had too much as it is.
Yay that dude seems pretty smart. One thing that always annoyed me was when the Equalists captured the police force and Lin swears to get them back. That needed to be near the beginning. Not only do you have a situation where people are in danger of losing something important but you can do a lot with that. Say, let Lin work with Tarrlok to help rescue them, have Tarrlok's self preservation cause him to personally abandon them, and let Amon reveal himself to Tarrlok, which ultimately causes his radical behavior towards Nonbenders. You get a situation that has some dire consequences, some real reasons for Korra to have contempt for Tarrlok, and you can understand his fall from grace by foreshadowing his relationship with Amon.
In the show, Lin accidentally finds them...what a pay off.
Watched the season finale. Was disappointed with the way they resolved the plot. Extremely disappointed with the way Amon was handled as well. The bloodbending son of Yakone who was once extremely kind and gentle? Getting owned when Korra gained the ability to airbend simply because Mako was about to get his ass kicked? Aang somehow giving Korra her bending back despite him being a spirit, and Korra then undoing Amon's handiwork after she has somehow become a fully realized Avatar when she had only just unlocked the Avatar State a few moments ago? F***.
The ass-pull(s) in this finale make the ass-pull in the Aang-Ozai fight look like it was foreshadowed extremely well.
Did feel sad when Tarrlok killed himself and Amon. Surprised they made it very clear that Tarrlok had committed a murder-suicide.
Yakone was such a d***. Felt sorry for Tarrlok. The 3 strongest non-Avatar benders to have ever lived all tried to take over one small city using different tactics and methods, and they all failed miserably. Lulz.
On the other hand, General Iroh and Bumi are awesome. As was Tenzin, as always. Iroh should just hook up with Asami and replace Mako at this point IMO, who is only here now as he and Korra are going to screw each other while laughing at Asami, as well as Bolin whose sole purpose at this point is to serve as comic relief.
Bumi had no lines, but his entrance and Tenzin's reaction manage to make him one of the, if not the, best things in the finale.
dunno what ur griping about. once contact with the previous Avatar(s) is established, all of their knowledge is transferred, so it makes complete sense that she mastered it so quickly.
I do agree with the last part though, they need a threat that can't be dealt with simply by having the Avatar go into AS.
Aang was never able to master the Avatar State by contacting Roku or any of the Avatars preceding him. Not to mention, he was far more spiritually adept than Korra was, and he still needed to unlock his chakras in order to willingly access the state.
I can argue that Aang used his Energybending to master the Avatar State for Korra, but that would make me hate Energybending.