The Legend of Korra

Foamy Mouth Guy

Toph's perfect in it, but the rest seem a little off (Sokka and Aang don't seem to match the in-series older versions of themselves).

She looks older to me. She's intended to look older. She's wearing make-up, remember.

But it does need more Appa and Momo. Too bad Hawky never came back.

I really like that Lin is not part of the New Friends picture.

Despite what the fandom may think, she is not a member of the nakama.

I wonder why Jinora isn't though.

Because that's objective fact and not an interpretation of the relationship between characters. As far as Season 1 is concerned, Lin is as much part of the 'New Friends' as Tenzin is. Book 2 kind of excluded her, but from what we've heard of Book 3 she'll play a huge role in them.

Slightly off the current topic, I showed my dad the first two episodes of the Legend of Korra, and he made a joke about how he could totally do the spinning gates exercizes after a few drinks.

The image of alcohol helping someone master a bending style will never leave my head now. How many beers do you think Korra will need to be a master Airbender?

Korra with alcohol in her system is a frightening concept to imagine. Unless it makes her actually mellow out somehow.

Lin danced around the line between protagonist and antagonist, rarely interacting with the cast outside of her role as a police officer, and while she demonstrated loyalties to Tenzin and, by association, his family, she never became a part of Team Avatar and rarely voiced anything but disdain for said team. Throughout Books 1 and 2, Lin is a neutral force, acting upon both the protagonists and antagonists as befits her own separate motivations as Chief of Police for Republic City.

This may or may not change in Book 3, but that's where she stands right now.

edited 16th Mar '14 5:26:54 PM by TobiasDrake

Except for when she quit her job to help break the team out of jail and rescue Korra. She does what is "right" and usually that means defending the law but she will act on her own conscience. She wouldn't work with an antagonistic character willingly.

edited 16th Mar '14 10:58:04 PM by byakugan0889

When we first meet her, she is an antagonistic character. And she works just fine with an antagonistic character willingly when she investigates Mako on her two detectives' say so, then locks him up when they find their planted evidence. She won't work willingly with someone who she knows to have evil motives, but that doesn't mean she can't work with an antagonist.

She does what is right, but she does so based on what looks right from her own perspective, and not from the perspective of Korra and her family. That is why she's a neutral player in the protagonist/antagonist conflict and not part of the nakama; because her choices are made completely independent of Korra and her friends.

She's Good, certainly. She's Lawful Good if you want to go by the D&D alignment scale. But she is not family, and will not give Korra and her nakama any further benefit of the doubt than she would anyone else. She's a Wild Card, and whether she will stand with or against Korra at any given time depends entirely on how the situation looks through her eyes.

edited 17th Mar '14 10:03:58 AM by TobiasDrake

I agree with this statement most. Sometimes, 17-18s are wrong and need guidance. Lin may not always agree with Korra's crew but I think calling her an antagonists incorrectly puts her in Corrupt Cop territory instead of being an obstacle because of the law.

Lin functions a bit like Hakoda. An adult with legal/tribal responsibility doing the right thing for his people.

Antagonist is different from a villian.

There are some certain connotations, though, especially with phrasing like "according to their own views".

Exactly. If someone really wanted to - for sake of argument - I'm sure it wouldn't be that hard to retool the story to make Lin the main character with a lot more positive light cast on her actions, in which case you'd wind up with the Korral as regular antagonists in spite of them being good guys in the grand scheme of things.

It really just hits on the difference between a villain and an antagonist. For instance, with Harry Potter, Voldemort is a villain and Snape is just an antagonist more often than not.

Alright, I was thinking of a What If scenario here. Since there seems to be a lot of debate on the internet about Korra's general behavior and developement over both seasons based on the whole "White Lotus compound" situation, what about if instead of ending up with a rash, hot headed protagonist we got a far more subdued and unagressive one as a result? Not like Aang exactly, but less idealistic and more of a sheep.

As an example: Korra eventually reacts to 13 years locked in the compound not by getting frustrated and eventually rebelling against their control, but by following orders. The White Lotus gets the "perfect" Avatar prodigy (except the element of Air, ironically) who listens and does what they believe is best. As a result Korra has almost 0% confidence in her own decision making skills outside of whatever she was explicitly taught. She only gets to Republic City in the first place because of Katara's insistant prodding and encouraging for her to run away after Tenzin says he can't stay at the South Pole.

For speculation, how much would the main story go off the rails from this?

To be honest...

my AU-Ometer kinda exploded when I calculated that.

Excellent.

Korra would never run away to Republic City in the first place, leading to a successful Equalist takeover. She'd probably be sent in with an army after rubbish!Iroh's fleet got sunk and end up de-bent.

Since her Airbending was partly fuelled by the power of wuv, and she wouldn't have had any Airbending training under this scenario, she'd have no way to escape. She'd contemplate suicide in her prison cell, followed by a similar deus-ex-Aang as we got in the existing series.

Assuming she does get her powers back and survives and ultimately defeats Amon (while learning a lesson about self-confidence etc. etc.), she'd be even more susceptible to Unalaq's manipulations than 'our' Korra. His plans go off without a hitch and the whole world is plunged into ten thousand years of darknessJinora goes on a spirit world journey and learns enough to warn Korra of Unalaq's plan, leading to a climactic fight with a broadly similar outcome; Korra's rejection of him symbolises her finally taking fate into her own hands. Without the presence of any of Korra's friends, Varrick never escapes from the South Pole and so has no real effect on things. I'm not sure whether she'd make the same decision as our Korra regarding the spirits.

I like the way Alt! Season 2 played out there, but I sort of stated up there that Katara gets her to Republic City via encouragement/heavy persuasion for "her own good".

In this version, I think the airkids would have a much larger role in general. Korra wouldn't run away to join in pro-bending, so she wouldn't get to know anyone off the island. She'd become more like a part of Tenzin's family. Jinora (with her being fairly mature and level-headed for her age) would bond with her especially, I think. And I'm not just saying this because Jinora is one of my favourite characters.

I can also see... oh, whatsername... Pema pushing Korra to go out and have fun every once in a while.

So if Korra doesn't get into probending, then the Fire Ferrets get kicked out of the tournament when Hasook abandons them. Mako and Bolin are now in need of cash, and Bolin goes to the Triple Triads and gets debended by Amon since Korra didn't help Mako track him down.

They might still end up meeting Asami after that though, and then going to the ball Tarlok put on to get Korra to help with the Task Force. It'd be super depressing though.

edited 20th Mar '14 4:35:23 PM by ScorpioRat

All I'm reading out of this What If? is that Imadinosaur is desperately hoping Jinora can keep it from derailing into Neon Genesis Korrangelion. Which I would gladly shut up and give all my money to see, but not before the The Legend of Space Jam.

edited 20th Mar '14 6:41:36 PM by TheAirman