History Recap / TheLegendOfKorraS2E8BeginningsPartTwo

* GodLivesInTheSky: The end of the episode sees the god-spirit Raava leave the mouth and fly into the sky upon the death of her first incarnation, Avatar Wan. Since she's going to the body of her next incarnation, you'd think she'd fly left or right into going straight up, but we gotta get across divinity somehow.

* BadassBoast: Vaatu boasts that no human can defeat him several times during the battle, and quite awesomely too.

* [[CantArgueWithElves Can't Argue With Spirits]]: There were no spirits in the Human World before Vaatu broke through the barrier between realities, at which point the spirits followed through the polar portals. When the few surviving humans struggle to survive on the DeathWorld their planet has become, the spirits charge humans with being violent and destructive worthy only of contempt... despite the spirits being aggressive colonizers who have no qualms about exterminating the natives whenever they get in their way, and are impossible to kill by virtue of being spirits. Wan deals with this at the end up sending them all back to the spirit world and sealing the portals. Very few remain after this.

* DidYouJustPunchOutCthulhu: Wan eventually becomes the first Avatar and defeats Vaatu.
* DoomedByCanon / ShootTheShaggyDog: While it was a given that Wan was eventually going to die given his status as the ''first Avatar'', it's still a gut punch that, given the state of how the world was even when Kyoshi and Roku were alive, that Wan was going to fail to maintain balance.

* GettingCrapPastTheRadar / ParentalBonus: Aye-Aye calls Wan's friends [[PlayingWithFire fire]]-[[DoubleEntendre tossers]]. A tosser is British slang similar to the word bastard.

* InHarmonyWithNature: Unsurprisingly, the ancient Airbenders are shown to get along with spirits just fine, and plenty live on the lion turtle with them. Until Raava comes along, that is.

** For Wan, by inspiring people not to accept things as they are, he's started a cycle of conflict between humans when before the turtles kept them protected.
** For Korra, opening the spirit portal. Turns out Wan sealed them for a good reason.

* [[FairyCompanion Spirit Companion]]: Raava becomes this for Wan before they merge.

* TheReveal: The Portals were closed by Wan, in order to create balance in the world, and should have remained shut.
* TookALevelInBadass: Wan certainly did.

* WhyDontYouJustShootHim: If Vaatu had just killed Wan after the young hero accidentally freed him, he wouldn't have been defeated.

* InHarmonyWithNature: Unsurprisingly, the ancient Airbenders are shown to get along with spirits just fine, and plenty live on the lion turtle with them.

* GettingCrapPasttheRadar / ParentalBonus: Aye-Aye calls Wan's friends [[PlayingWithFire fire]]-[[DoubleEntendre tossers]]. A tosser is British slang similar to the word bastard.

* ActorAllusion: Creator/BarbaraGoodson once again voices a shaman who heals an injured young woman, using "spirit water". She even gave the character a very similar accent, to the one she gave to [[WesternAnimation/StarWarsTheCloneWars Mother Talzin]].

* BadassBoast: Vaatu boasts that no human can defeat him several times during the battle, and quite awesomely too. Wan gets one as well.

* DoubleEntendre: "When you pass through me, I feel an incredible rush of power!"

* GettingCrapPasttheRadar / Parental Bonus: Aye-Aye calls Wan's friends [[PlayingWithFire fire]]-[[DoubleEntendre tossers]]. A tosser is British slang similar to the word bastard.

* NiceJobFixingItVillain: If Vaatu had just killed Wan after the young hero accidentally freed him, he wouldn't have been defeated.

''Korra realizes what she must do to restore balance to the physical and spirit worlds.''

* [[CantArgueWithElves Can't Argue With Spirits]]: There were no spirits in the Human World before Vaatu broke through the barrier between realities, at which point the spirits followed through the polar portals. When the few surviving humans struggle to survive on the DeathWorld their planet has become, the spirits charge humans with being violent and destructive worthy only of contempt... despite the spirits being aggressive colonizers who have no qualms about exterminating the natives whenever they get in their way. [[spoiler:May have changed at the end, when they go peacefully into the Spirit World.]]

* AbsenteeActor: Again, this is the second time that Mako and Bolin don't appear in the series, the third time that Tenzin and his family don't appear and the fourth time that Asami doesn't appear.

* KickTheDog: After Wan fails to stop his spirit friends from fighting his human friends, Vaatu shows up just to tell him that the humans all died in the battle.

* FusionDance: Wan and Raava eventually fuse together permanently.

* [[CantArgueWithElves Can't Argue With Spirits]]: There were no spirits in the Human World before Vaatu broke through the barrier between realities, at which point the spirits followed through the polar portals. When the few surviving humans struggle to survive on the DeathWorld their planet has become, the spirits charge humans with being violent and destructive worthy only of contempt, and the show does little to defend humanity's actions... despite the spirits being aggressive colonizers who have no qualms about exterminating the natives whenever they get in their way.

* TheReveal: [[spoiler: The spirit portals are supposed to be closed]]

** Except for the part where the spirits and humans from the fire lion turtle line up and the settlers point out that many of their own have been killed by spirits. The contempt that spirits show humans is also shown as unjustified as the humans are just doing what they have to do to survive. On the whole, the issue is presented as "The spirits have a point, but they go so overboard with it it's essentially FantasticRacism on both sides".

* BadassBoast: Vaatu boasts that no human can defeat him several times during the battle, and quite awesomely too. Wan gets one, too.