History Recap / TheLegendOfKorraS3E11TheUltimatum

* AdultFear:
** For Suyin. Knowing your teenage (and only) daughter is in a faraway place that's being attacked by a madman is a really unpleasant idea.
** Zuko was just about to leave for the Fire Nation for the same reason. Zaheer is after the world's leaders, so he feels he must go back to protect his daughter, who is the Fire Lord.
** Tenzin has his family, siblings, and students all in one place when the Red Lotus come.
** Mako and Bolin's grandmother refusing to leave her beloved home even though staying risks being burned alive, and despite the frantic urging of the family that won't leave her to that fate.

* InstantExpert: Deconstructed during Zaheer and Tenzin's fight. While Zaheer has a ''lot'' of talent, Tenzin is a genuine master and has decades of practice on him. He is about to win their fight before Zaheer's buddies join in.

** Mako and Bolin's grandmother refusing to leave her beloved home even though staying risks being burned alive, and despite the frantic urgings of the family that won't leave her to that fate.

* AnOfferYouCantRefuse: Zaheer plans to attack the Northern Air Temple unless Korra gives herself up.

--> '''Tenzin''': Yes, I do. *airbends them into the wall*
* BaitAndSwitch: Bolin's grandmother doesn't want to leave the home she raised her family in even as Ba Sing Se starts crumbling to the ground. Bolin then gives her an emotional speech telling her that ultimately home isn't a place, it's where you're family is. Yin looks at Bolin teary-eyed... and then declares that she's still not going. At that point Bolin more or less says screw it and just hoists her on his shoulders and gets the family out of there.

* ByTheHair: Ghazan getting his hair pulled is now the image for the page.

* CombatParkour: The Avatar series' first airbender vs airbender fight, and it's awesome.

* CurbStompBattle: Tenzin easily beats Zaheer, deflecting or dodging all of his attacks and knocking him around with relative ease. Unfortunately, the rest of the Red Lotus intervenes and overwhelms him.
** Kya proves no match for Ming-Hua. Bumi's fight with Ghazan is even more one sided, with Bumi only managing to mildly annoy him.

'''Tenzin:''' [[PreAssKickingOneLiner Yes, I do.]]\\
\\

** When the airbenders are pinned down by P'Li, Kai takes off on a glider to draw her fire so everyone else can get to safety on the sky bison. He ended up getting shot down and P'Li's shots scared the bison off, but he survived and was able to escape.

** It seemed that the airbenders would get to the sky bison on time.
** Tenzin inflicts a CurbStompBattle on Zaheer, but his siblings lost their fights with Ghazan and Ming-Hua.

* InstantExpert: Deconstructed during Zaheer and Tenzin's fight. While Zaheer has a ''lot'' of talent, Tenzin is a genuine master and has decades of practice on him. He was about to win their fight before Zaheer's buddies joined in.
* KarmicJackpot: Downplayed. The only reason Kai escapes was that he was shot down while trying to buy time for the other airbenders. He was pretty lucky with that fall though. He also got woken up (and quite possibly saved), by one of the baby air bison he helped rescue earlier in the season.

* PlotDrivenBreakdown: In order to give the Red Lotus enough time to reach the Northern Air Temple before anyone can warn the airbenders, the plot conspires to keep the characters away from a radio with a sufficiently powerful transmitter. Mako and Bolin hijack an airship which has had its radio stolen, Lin's portable radio does not have the necessary range once they meet up, Zaofu is the closest city with a proper transmitter, and finally no one answers at the temple until the Red Lotus is already on top of them.
* RealityEnsues:
** Bolin notes that Korra is lost across hundreds of miles of desert, and it's going to take a while to find the wreckage (which the episode clearly shows).
** The Krew can't immediately contact Tenzin and the other airbenders because their radio isn't powerful enough to reach the Air Temple, and they need to go to Zaofu to get a more powerful one.
** Zaheer may be a natural airbender, but he's only been using it for a month at best. Tenzin, on the other hand, has two legs up on Zaheer: First, he's a master practitioner of an airbending style that has probably dozens (if not hundreds) of lifetimes' worth of refinement and optimization before he learned it. Second, Tenzin has squared off against an airbending opponent before; sparring with his father in his training. The result is that Zaheer is no match for Tenzin and only wins with the help of the rest of the Red Lotus.
** Bumi's outside the box thinking fails to defeat Ghazan, and just ends up annoying him.

** Bolin notes that Korra is lost across hundreds of miles of desert, and it's going to take a while to find the wreckage.

* ConservationOfNinjitsu: Averted in Tenzin's fight. He clearly has the upper hand against a single opponent, but once the rest of the Red Lotus join in, we see just how hopeless a true four-on-one battle actually is ( or at least when the four are more than just FacelessMooks).

** Zaheer may be a natural airbender, but he's only been using it for a month at best. Tenzin, on the other hand, has two legs up on Zaheer: First, he's a master practitioner of an airbending style that has probably dozens (if not hundreds) of lifetimes' worth of refinement and optimization before he learned it. Second, Tenzin has squared off against an airbending opponent before; sparring with his father in his training.

* BaitAndSwitch: Bolin's grandmother doesn't want to leave the home she raised her family in even as Ba Sing Se starts crumbling to the ground. Bolin then gives her an emotional speech telling her that ultimately home isn't a place, it's where you're family is. Yin looks at Bolin teary-eyed... and then declares that she's still not going. At that point Bolin more or less says screw it and just hoists her on his shoulders and gets the family out of their.

* Zaheer learning that all new airbenders are being send to the Northern Air Temple to train from "The Metal Clan" comes back in a horrifying way when he and the rest of the Red Lotus arrive and threaten to wipe them all out to get to Korra.

* UnexpectedCharacter: Once again, Iroh shows up and helps Korra. He even lampshades that neither of them expected to find the other. Zuko is surprised to even ''hear'' of his uncle after many years.

* CombatParkour: The Avatar series' first airbender vs airbender fight, and it's awesome.

* {{Determinator}}: Tenzin refuses to stop fighting the Red Lotus as long as he has a breath left in his body.

* WhamEpisode: The Red Lotus attack the Air Temple and brutally beat Tenzin.

'''Tenzin:''' Yes, I do.\\

* CutenessProximity[=/=]BabiesMakeEverythingBetter: Meelo quickly distracts Bolin from the urgency of the radio call by mentioning that they discovered a herd of sky bison with babies.

* DeathFromAbove: P'Li plus an airship apparently makes a one woman AC-130.

* DisneyDeath: Kai is thrown off a cliff, but gets his foot caught in a plant and manages to escape.

* FightsLikeANormal: Bumi apparently hasn't learned how to actually attack with airbending, so when he fights Ghazan he just uses it to move around better then tries to grapple him.

* InstantExpert: Deconstructed a bit during Zaheer and Tenzin's fight. While Zaheer has a ''lot'' of talent, Tenzin has decades of practice on him.

* NeverSayDie: Played straight in regards to Hou-Ting; the closest anyone comes to saying she's dead is Mako and Bolin's grandmother hoping that she "rest[s] in peace". Averted by Kya and Bumi, who muse out loud about the possibility of dying when hanging from a ledge and about to be shot by P'Li.

** Kya's reaction to Ming-Hua's MultiArmedAndDangerous. Her "no" sounds like she has just come to the conclusion she is fighting a monster of a waterbender who she has no chance of beating on her own, who [[IAmNotLeftHanded wasn't even fighting seriously]] until she pulled out this move.

** Zaheer may be a natural airbender, but he's only been using it for a month at best. Tenzin, on the other hand, has two legs up on Zaheer: First, he's a master practitioner of an airbending style that has probably dozens (if not hundreds) of lifetimes' worth of refinement and optimization before he learned it. Second, Tenzin has actually squared off against an airbending opponent before, sparring with his father in his training.

* WhatWouldXDo: Korra asks Zuko what her predecessor Aang would do.

** It may or may not involve any actual respect, but Ming-Hua's extreme SlasherSmile indicates she at least very much enjoys Kya being an opponent worth going all-out against.

* ShoutOut: The scene when Ming-Hua rises up with multiple water limbs just screams "[[DoctorOctopus Doc Ock]]".

** Zaheer may be a natural airbender, but he's only been using it for a month at best. Tenzin's been at it his entire life and clearly has the advantage over Zaheer until the rest of the Red Lotus join the fight.

* ByTheHair: Ghazan getting his hair pulled is know the image for he page.

* DeathFromAbove: P'li plus an airship apparently makes a one woman AC-130.

** Jinora whispers this when she sees Kai get knocked out the sky by one of P'li's combustion blasts.