The Legend of Korra "Old Wounds/Original Airbenders" Talkback [7/18/14]

[Neo Yi]

I'll say much more on these episodes when I get to recapping them, but I will state I have been waiting forever for Bolin to potentially learn Metalbending. I hope he does, the poor guy.

 

[Light Lucario]

Tenzin and his family issues are the main reason I'm invested in the airbending training. Tenzin is one of my favorite characters in the series and seeing him deal with trying to train new Airbenders, dealing with Jinora growing up and Bumi helps to make it more interesting. A part of me still would have preferred for Bumi to not be an Airbender, but it does add something new to the situation to help make it a bit more interesting.

 

[Lerkero]

Tenzin and his family issues are the main reason I'm invested in the airbending training. Tenzin is one of my favorite characters in the series and seeing him deal with trying to train new Airbenders, dealing with Jinora growing up and Bumi helps to make it more interesting. A part of me still would have preferred for Bumi to not be an Airbender, but it does add something new to the situation to help make it a bit more interesting.

I enjoy Tenzin because he is a sympathetically naive character. He his the best intentions in mind but he doesn't realize that other people do not have the same tendencies and views as he does. I think Tenzin's biggest mistake is trying to revive air nomad culture exactly as it was rather than letting a new air bender culture naturally develop. Maybe the reason why fire benders were able to get the upper hand is because of how pacifist air nomads were (and the eclipse).

 

[Light Lucario]

I enjoy Tenzin because he is a sympathetically naive character. He his the best intentions in mind but he doesn't realize that other people do not have the same tendencies and views as he does. I think Tenzin's biggest mistake is trying to revive air nomad culture exactly as it was rather than letting a new air bender culture naturally develop. Maybe the reason why fire benders were able to get the upper hand is because of how pacifist air nomads were (and the eclipse).

I agree. His desire to revive the Air Nation comes for the best of intensions and given how much he loves the culture, I could see why it would be even more of a personal mission for him to restore it the way it was. The problem, or at least one of them, is that he doesn't see or treat them as individuals. He's too focused on the end goal of getting them to be like Air Nomads and good at airbending that he can't understand why they woudln't want to adopt the entire lifestyle and culture so quickly. Tenzin was born as an airbender and spent his entire life devoted to it, but airbending was thrown to these people out of nowhere just a few weeks ago. He's too impatient to see and understand that, at least not without some guidance for himself. Letting a new culture naturally develop might be better or at least be less stressful on the new airbenders, but I'm not sure how they would go about doing that and I can't see him not encouraging them to be more pacifistic. Being less strict with the teaching and allowing at least some of the old traditions to evolve with modern time might work though.

 

[ShadowBeast]

I thought that these episodes were pretty good. I was glad to learn more about Lin's side of the story. I always wondered how she got that scar, but I thought it was the result of a much tougher fight. Given that and the fact that Toph retired apparently due to the guilt she felt for letting Suyin go, I could see why Lin would harbor such strong negative feelings towards her. Plus, Suyin was a pretty stupid and rebellious teenager with acting like driving thieves away wasn't a big deal. At least she was able to patch things up with Toph relatively well from the sound of it and seeing Toph again through a flashback was neat. The fight was pretty good and I did get a bit of a laugh with Korra asking if she should stop them.It did kind of feel like they resolved the tension a bit too neatly. Granted, I figured that the tension would be resolved, but I was expecting a bit more than just a couple of episodes for them to get on fairly better terms with each other. I thought that it would be more of a progress throughout the whole season instead or at least another couple of episodes. This was the same episode where we got all of the details for their backstory, so doing that and resolving it enough to where they're on fairly decent terms with each other seemed a bit much. At least they seemed to be taking it slow for now. I liked how Suyin actually did genuinely change as a result of leaving Republic City, recognized that she did make mistakes when she was younger and agreed with Lin that she probably would have been arrested if she did stay in the city. That kind of makes her more friendly demeanor here more meaningful in that she had to grow and mature a lot to reach that point.

Yeah I would've expected Lin to show some anger towards her half sister for a little while longer then that.

He became a bit too on edge after Bumi quit and Jinora going through growing pains didn't help matters either. I still don't quite like the relationship between Jinora and Kai, but part of it is my general distaste for any romance in this series. I'm still not a fan of Bolin and Opal partly due to that as well, although feeling kind of forced doesn't help matters either. Still, beating up on that bison smuggler was kind of cool. Speaking of which, the Earth Queen is a lot more cruel and heartless than I thought if she supposedly ate her father's pet bear. Dang, that was just dark. I'm still not sure how I feel about Bumi becoming an Airbender. I still think having him as a non bender was kind of important, especially as Aang and Katara's first child, but he was apparently able to understand the spirits tell him that Jinora was in trouble and his moment with Tenzin was nice. Tenzin also agreeing to think about giving Jinora her tattoos was kind of nice and tying it with the baby bison starting to fly was cute. The baby Sky Bison looked far too adorable.

Kai seems to be causing alot of trouble and I hope he doesn't bring Jinora down with him because she was acting like a teenager in the episode and it seems to be Kai's doing, so far he's the only problem with this season.Bolin and Opal seems to be doing good so far and hopefully it stays that way, they got that Bolin being a show-off to impress the girl attitude out of the way last week which was great to get rid of that part of Bolin.With the Earth Queen it's hard to believe how she turned out considering who her father was.

Overall, these were some pretty good episodes. This season so far has been relatively good. It hasn't done as much to annoy me like a good chuck of season two or was disappointing like parts of season one, so that's nice. This season desperately needs more Varrick though. His one scene at the beginning of the first episode was hilarious and he needs more screentime.

I fet bad for Zhu Li in that one scene where Varrick told her to clean up the mess. Poor girl needs a vacation.

 

[Srebak]

Truth be told, i just can't fault Tenzin in "Original Airbenders", I just didn't see what was wrong with his training methods in the beginning. Though this could be partially be due me not seeing much wrong with the old Air Nation culture. Think about it, all the Air Nomads ever did was practice the Art of Airbending, meditate, tame and care for Sky Bison and Lemurs, fly on gliders and generally just enjoy life, what about that culture needed to change? The only arguable change needed this time around is the way they inducted new members: since none of the new airbenders were born into the culture, the training in Air Nomad culture would just take significantly longer.

However, this feeling of not faulting Tenzin didn't come without a price: I seem to be unable to fully invest myself in the points made by Bumi, Jinora and Pema (all of which were very valid by the way).

 

[Manhunter]

With the Earth Queen it's hard to believe how she turned out considering who her father was.

She most likely takes after her ancestor, the 46th Earth King:

46th Earth King - Avatar Wiki, the Avatar: The Last Airbender resource

 

[Mister Mayhem]

Compatriots,

beifong being more chirpy and calm after a good nights rest was unexpected but i guess the conflict between her and her sis had to be mostly resolved by episodes end (or the acupuncture had a delayed effect). i had a good laugh when korra smugly said conflict resolution is what she does even though she's pretty bad at resolving stuff through her words instead of fists.

i think most of the recruits just care about learning airbendending techniques and not so much learning everything there is to know about the culture. it would probably be better if tenzin just taught the history to people who were genuinely interested instead of everyone. also letting people go back home to visit their friends and family every weekend or something would be better than just staying at the temple everyday. loved the scene of the guy whose head got shave getting the airbender version of spidey sense.

great stuff yet again this week, if this keeps up it'll be my favorite season of korra, even though that's not saying much.

 

[Wan]

Truth be told, i just can't fault Tenzin in "Original Airbenders", I just didn't see what was wrong with his training methods in the beginning. Though this could be partially be due me not seeing much wrong with the old Air Nation culture. Think about it, all the Air Nomads ever did was practice the Art of Airbending, meditate, tame and care for Sky Bison and Lemurs, fly on gliders and generally just enjoy life, what about that culture needed to change?

I agree, but the recruits are more interested in heroism. They finally bonded together after the rescue mission. This new Air Nation might be less pacifist than the last one. It'll be interesting to see how Tenzin reacts to that direction.

 

[Light Lucario]

Truth be told, i just can't fault Tenzin in "Original Airbenders", I just didn't see what was wrong with his training methods in the beginning. Though this could be partially be due me not seeing much wrong with the old Air Nation culture. Think about it, all the Air Nomads ever did was practice the Art of Airbending, meditate, tame and care for Sky Bison and Lemurs, fly on gliders and generally just enjoy life, what about that culture needed to change? The only arguable change needed this time around is the way they inducted new members: since none of the new airbenders were born into the culture, the training in Air Nomad culture would just take significantly longer.

However, this feeling of not faulting Tenzin didn't come without a price: I seem to be unable to fully invest myself in the points made by Bumi, Jinora and Pema (all of which were very valid by the way).

There's nothing wrong with the old Air Nation culture per say, but he was expecting for these people, who were just given Airbending abilities out of nowhere just a couple of weeks ago, to pick up on the culture's history and airbending techniques relatively quickly, or at least be really into all of that due to his desire to restore the nation. That's where the problem comes in. He isn't seeing these people as individuals, recognizing that they would need time to master everything, especially when they weren't born Airbenders like he and his children were, and basically not having any patience with them. Unlike how Korra's behavior was in the first half of the last season, I think that this behavior comes from a more understandable place because he clearly loves Airbending and the idea of restoring the Air Nation after being brought to near extinction, but it's still a problematic way of handling the situation.

They would need to change how not everyone would be into learning the culture. Just because they know airbending doesn't mean that it makes them Air Nomads or change the fact that they come from the Earth Kingdom. Allowing people to actually visit their family and friends instead of dropping everything to go train with them at the Northern Air Temple would be good too. They can't do that with this group of Airbenders yet due to how the Earth Queen kidnapped them, but eventually doing that or allowing at least immediate family members to join them would be good too. I thought that Pema's points were the best ones and what Tenzin needed to hear after getting so upset.

 

[JTMarsh]

I still think "Old Wounds" was pretty lame, no redeeming qualities at all. The conflict between Lin & Suyin (who never comes across as the complex sympathetic character the writers seem to think she is) felt forced, the dialogue was stilted, the fight scene was boring, the voice acting was phoned in and the reconciliation scenes Lin has with Opal and Suyin don't resonate the way they should. I honestly couldn't stop laughing at how bad those reconciliation scenes were, they were MST3K riff worthy.