History Recap / TheLegendOfKorraS2E7BeginningsPartOne

* VocalEvolution: One of the few complaints about ''Avatar's'' GrandFinale was how it could be difficult to understand what the lion turtle was saying under all that vocal processing. Here, it's Creator/JimCummings doing a gravelly, but crystal-clear voice.

* CallBack:

->''Go back. Return to the beginning. Find Raava.''

After falling unconscious on the beach, the Fire Sages carry Korra to the temples where they reside. There, the shaman uses firebending to read Korra's energy, and concludes that she is infected with a dark spirit who would consume the Avatar Spirit if it was not cleansed in time. The shaman orders the sages to lower Korra into subterranean spirit waters, where she reconnects with her spirits, as well as four of her past lives: Aang, Roku, Kyoshi, and Kuruk. The past Avatars attempt to remind her of who she is, but she is unable to remember, prompting a young man to appear behind her in an orb of gold light. She asks him if he was the spirit Raava, whom she was told to find; the man said that he is not, but that assures Korra that he can aid her in finding Raava, before introducing himself as Wan, and recalling how he became the first Avatar.

Wan shows Korra his life, starting with his stealing food from the Chou brothers to feed himself and his friends. He successfully evades his pursuers for a while, but the brothers eventually catch up to him and subsequently throw him into a pen with hybrid pigs. Wan returns to his treehouse, bringing Yao and Jaya what little food he had managed to salvage in his tunic. He laments over their impoverished lifestyle, wishing they could live like the Chous. Jaya cautions him against stealing from the Chous again, fearing he would wind up dead, or rather banished into the Spirit Wilds. Despite Jaya's attempt to convince Wan that some people, like them, were simply born without power, Wan seems only inspired to develop a plan to obtain power.

In the city, a group of hunters prepared to journey into the Spirit Wilds in order to collect food, knowing that the local lion turtle would grant them the element of fire to protect themselves against wild spirits. Wan immediately volunteers; however, after receiving the ability to firebend, he feigns fear and is told to return the power of fire to the lion turtle before returning to the city. Wan returns to the city without returning his bending, and shows his ability to Yao and Jaya back at the treehouse.

That night, Wan leads his brother and several other citizens on a raid of the Chou estate. To allow the others sufficient time to escape, Wan battles the Chou brothers and the palace guards, and is unmasked during the altercation by one of the Chous. Hesitating to kill the smallest of the Chou brothers, Wan is apprehended and brought before the lion turtle. Refusing to reveal the names of those involved in the raid, Chou the Elder banishes Wan to the Spirit Wilds and orders him to give back the ability to bend fire to the lion turtle. However, Wan pleads with the lion turtle and convinces the giant beast to allow him to keep his firebending in order to survive the wilds.

As he lands, he finds himself looking at an oasis with trees bearing actual fruit. Still hungry, Wan approaches the island, but before he could reach it, an aye-aye spirit appears and tells him that, being a human, he is not welcome at the oasis. Wan tries to reason with the spirit, telling the entity that he was hungry and in need of sleep. The spirit refuses to listen, prompting Wan to attempt firebending to force the spirit aside. The spirit easily evades the attack by teleporting behind him and proceeds to shove him to a nearby bush. Shortly after, a procession of spirits approaches the oasis. In a final attempt to enter the oasis, Wan disguises himself as a bush spirit and briefly manages to fool the oasis guardian; however, he is stopped by the aye-aye spirit, who recognizes his distinct human scent. The spirit guardian orders Wan to return home once more, and he reveals that he was banished, causing one of the spirits to suggest moving to another lion turtle city. Wan expresses disbelief at the thought of other lion turtles, and inquires as to where he would find one. The aye-aye spirit refuses to help him and Wan stalks off in frustration.

While traveling through the wilds, he spotted a cat deer caught in a net. He initially decides to have the creature for dinner, but ultimately chooses to help set it free. Before he could release the animal from its restraints, the group of hunters Wan was initially supposed to accompany show up. To protect the cat deer, Wan fights the hunters and leads them away from the creature, using the forest's own hazards to his advantage. Though he manages to stop two of his pursuers, Wan is eventually chased down. Before he could be apprehended, however, the aye-aye spirit appears and possesses one of the hunters, prompting the other to flee in fear. The oasis guardian then carries Wan to the oasis, and allows the spirit waters to heal his injures. Deciding that he has had enough of humans, Wan resolves to stay in the wilds to learn the ways of the spirits.

As time passed, Wan befriends the spirits and learns the Dancing Dragon form from a white dragon, mastering the art to the point where fire became an extension of his own body. In doing so, he dramatically improved his firebending skills and managed to drive off any hunters that trespassed in spirit grounds. Eventually growing restless, Wan decides to leave the oasis with the company of Mula, in order to travel the world and find the other lion turtle cities.

!!Tropes:

* AdiposeRex: The Chus are all overweight, and are said to hoard most of the food.

** The Lion Turtle we saw in the GrandFinale of the previous series mentioned an era before the Avatar when the Lion Turtles bended energy. We finally see this era here.
* CharacterDevelopment: Wan was kind of a {{Jerkass}} before his banishment (albeit one [[JerkWithAHeartOfGold with a heart of gold]]), but eventually becomes a better person.

* DarkIsEvil: Vaatu, the spirit mentioned below.
* DeathWorld: In Avatar Wan's time, the planet is a very dangerous place to be for humans, ever since the spirits have colonized it following Vaatu's penetration of the veil between realities. Even if their patron lion-turtle lends them some bending for protection outside the rare few cities, life is still nasty, brutish, and short. Wan searches for ''two years'' before he finally locates other humans.

* {{Irony}}: Aang's greatest foe was Ozai, a firebender and the leader of the Fire Nation. This episode reveals that the ''very first avatar'' was from a fire city as well, and firebending was his first element.

*** The scene where the spirits cross the bridge to the Spirit Oasis, used to heal the weak and tired spirits is very similar to ''Anime/SpiritedAway''. As well as humans having a distinctive smell considered unpleasant to spirits.
*** Mula is also considered reminiscent to the red elk from ''Anime/PrincessMononoke'', who also serves as a mount for the banished protagonist. Both also deal with conflicts between humans and forest spirits.
** Lion-turtles only give humans Bending for protection when they hunt and forage for food in the "Spirit Wilds". They're supposed to give it back when they return, but Wan breaks the rules by "stealing" (as Jaya calls it) Firebending and taking it back to the city, making him a "fire thief" just like the famed Greek mythological figure Prometheus.
** As the Lion-turtle of Wan's city gives humans the power to control an element (in this case, fire), he says, "[[WesternAnimation/CaptainPlanetAndThePlaneteers The power is yours]] to keep..."
* StumblingUponTheLostWizard: This episode deals with the aftermath of Korra happening to meet the mystical Fire Sages, with them using their mastery of spirituality to delve into Korra's mind and uncover her memories of her first life as Avatar Wan.

* TheTimeOfMyths: The story takes place in an ancient time when humans lived in cities built on the backs of giant lion-turtles, while the wilderness was the dominion of spirits.

* UncertainDoom: Of the four hunters that chase Wan after he rescues the cat deer, at least three are unaccounted for. One falls into a pit of spirit vines and is dragged underneath, another is carried away by a swarm of the fruit wasps, and the third one is [[PartialTransformation briefly possessed by the Aye-Aye spirit]] leaving his body deformed. The third one runs screaming into the wilds. The three hunters are are not specifically mentioned as "dead" but the hunting leader comments all three are gone.

* VocalEvolution: One of the few complaints about ''Avatar's'' GrandFinale was how it could be difficult to understand what the Lion Turtle was saying under all that vocal processing. Here, it's Creator/JimCummings doing a gravelly, but crystal-clear voice.
* WhatTheHellHero: Raava was definitely not happy with Wan forcing her to release Vaatu and tells him so.

** Wan has a chance to kill a captured cat-deer for some food, but instead chooses to protect it from the hunters.
** Earlier, he hesitated before attacking an unarmed assailant (who had been a jerk to him before).

* SomethingCompletelyDifferent: Except for a short prologue and epilogue featuring Korra, this two-part episode is devoted to chronicling the life of the first Avatar Wan, who lived 10,000 years ago. Even the art style is different than in regular episodes.