Discussion Characters / TheLegendOfKorraEnemies

"A" victory, but one battle won does not mean he won the war. Most of his plans failed and he's back in jail. Not the trope.

It's a Bittersweet Ending. The Bad Guy Wins is described as complete and utter triumph of the bad guys in its trope description. Zaheer at best scored a Pyrrhic Victory (though I feel Korra and crew did), but considering his organization is now known to the world, his greatest and most loyal allies are dead, he himself is captured, and there are four (five?) other nations that are not in total disarray, he's only achieved partial success at incredible cost.

But Zaheer felt like it was worth it. Stopping him does not stop the Red Lotus. There's more out there and that has been acknowleged

The Bad Guy Wins is an unambiguous victory. The fact that he's captured, lost his friends, has his organization at least somewhat exposed, and the other nations are still up and running when he wanted global anarchy means that while he achieved a partial victory, it's not the total victory that him toppling all the nations would be, and thus it's not The Bad Guy Wins.

The fact that Zaheer was reduced to a screaming wreck after seeing Korra wake up basically confirms that his revolution was only a partial victory. Thus, not The Bad Guy Wins.

I'm telling you, it was just like when the Fire Nation took Back Sing Se. That was a major blow to the heroes. As it stands, it may as well be too late to save the Earth Kingdom. Who says the anarchy won't spread to the other nations like a disease? If you ask me, the anarchy spread throughout the Earth Kingdom like a disease. As long as there are more red lotus around, the other leaders are still a target. So if Zaheer does escape again, he will have more associates. After all, his resources are not limited to his friends.

The Bad Guy Wins is a plot trope, basically when the villain wins in the story. I am extremely dubious that it applies to The Legend of Korra.

But it happened at the end of book 2 in the original series

"We're all used to heroes winning out over the bad guys. The bad guys get theirs, justice is done, and the heroes walk away happy. Sometimes things are a little more bittersweet, but we at least expect the villain to lose in the end. One can even get away with a Downer Ending where it ends badly for the heroes, but many of these kinds of endings are "nobody wins" affairs where everybody pays the price (fatally or not). Even if the villain wins in these kinds of endings, it's usually at great enough personal cost to the villain that he or she is utterly ruined as a result. Not so with this ultimate of Downer Endings. The Bad Guy Wins is Exactly What It Says on the Tin: complete and ultimate triumph for the villain, and complete and utter devastation (frequently with death or worse) for the hero or heroes who dared to oppose them. A bad guy who wins is a Karma Houdini by definition, and such endings can frequently be depressing as all get out — even more so than your regular Downer Ending. When this trope is parodied, it is the happy ending stuck on for the villain instead which is despairingly from the hero's perspective."

Zaheer didn't get this. He's captured. His friends are dead. The other nations are aware of his organization's existence. We're looking at Pyrrhic Villainy at best.

Well he still has other associates out there and clearly, it's too late to save the Earth Kingdom. Next thing the heroes know, the anarchy could spread to the other nations. Also, as long as the Red lotus is still a threat, the other world leaders are still in danger.I'm not convinced if you don't address these points.

They don't need to be addressed, they are speculation and therefore irrelevant. You're ignoring the fact that Zaheer's plans mostly failed. Again, a single victory in a larger war does not equal winning the war.

What DrakeClawfang said. I'm willing to concede that they managed to hurt the good guys. They managed to accomplish some of their goals. But the amount they had to sacrifice was immense. It was nowhere near a decisive victory given what they lost. That puts it into Bittersweet Ending if we assume Korra's side won, and Pyrrhic Villainy if we assume the Red Lotus did.

But there really are more members of the red lotus and it may be too late to save the Earth Kingdom. Third, the president and Zuko are right, the anarchy can spread to other nations. I don't see how it is speculation if it was addressed by the characters. And one more thing, stop using the word "speculation" I hate it. Everything is relevant, EVERYTHING, including the lack of a leader in the Earth Kingdom, the fact that there are still plenty more red lotus out there, and thus the idea that the world leaders are still in danger. Plus, Zaheer did say he was willing to make whatever sacrifice it takes to achieve the red lotus' goals, including P'Li whom he called a martyr to their cause. Stopping Zaheer probably made the rest of the Red Lotus angry and it definitely will not save the Earth Kingdom. Can't you see the logic in this?

Because their goals are far more far reaching than just the Earth Kingdom. The Bad Guy Wins has a specific meaning in which the bad guys win a decisive victory over the good guys. Here, they might have succeeded in getting something done, and it's not trivial, but it cost them heavily. That's why it's not The Bad Guy Wins.

And the world leaders were always in danger thanks to those guys, because the Red Lotus existed before Zaheer's defeat. The fact that they are still out there doesn't change the fact they were always out there. But now, the world is aware of them and will be looking out for them. That is a disadvantage when you're a secret society.

"And one more thing, stop using the word "speculation" I hate it." - Stop SPECULATING then. Re-read what you just posted. "May be too late", "Can spread", "probably made". Do you see the problem in declaring Zaheer the victor based on things that have not happened and we don't know if they will or not?

Then let me rephrase, the chaos in the Earth Kingdom already IS spreading, and that counts for something, just like it did when the Fire Nation took over and the earth kingdom fell. And Two, it matters not if the world is aware of them, because the Red Lotus will not stop at anything and it will still be hard to find them and pick them off. The Red Lotus is like a cockroach—no matter how thoroughly they are defeated they're not going to let the loss of 5 members stop them. And third, the only reason they are a large threat now compared to before was because other villains' plans made it difficult for them to carry on while the core members were imprisoned. As a result, the world leaders were safe for a time without the core members actively pursuing them.

That's a lot of unfounded speculation. Better get to the WMG page.

As far as we know the chaos is contained within Ba Sing Se. Almost all major members of the Red Lotus are dead, Zaheer is suffering a mental breakdown and got thrown back to prison. The forces of good/order also seem to be regroupping.

Finally, the Bad Guy Wins has a specific meaning in which the bad guys win a decisive victory over the good guys. Which isn't the case here. At all.

Rephrasing your speculation as a declaration doesn't make it any less speculative. Numerous people have explained to you repeatedly why TBGW is not an appropriate trope here. Let it go and drop it already.

It isn't over till I say it's over, and two, I am not hearing any of you now, no matter how much you try to convince me, because like I said, the loss of four or five members isn't going to stop the Red Lotus, hence why Zuko reemphasized that the Red Lotus is still a major threat to be dealt with.

"It isn't over till I say it's over, and two, I am not hearing any of you now."

This isn't a way to debate.

"...hence why Zuko reemphasized that the Red Lotus is still a major threat to be dealt with."

True, the Red Lotus still have some fight left in them. Meaning that they can probably fight more battles. But this one, they lost.

"It isn't over till I say it's over, and two, I am not hearing any of you now, no matter how much you try to convince me" - then it's a waste of everyone's time including your own since you're clearly only interested in arguing and not discussing. Good day and good riddance then.

Calm down, people.

Torresp, you don't get to impose the terms of discussion here. Checking over, nobody seems to agree with you on adding The Bad Guy Wins, so we ought to leave it off.

So, with Kuvira turning the Earth Kingdom into the worst dictatorship ever, even Zaheer's victory in the Earth Kingdom came to a grinding halt.

The page is far too large. 596557 characters. Almost server breaking, I think.

I split them off into two pages. All the Book 1 introductions are on one page, the rest on the other. That should be sufficient to deal with any size issues.

Since there are four books, why not have the antagonists introduced in Books 1 and 2 on one page and the antagonists introduced in Books 3 and 4 on the other? I feel like that'd be a more even split.

The Brute is more then just overall power. Being the brute also requires the character to be The Bully, a distinct lack of empathy, and even be somewhat lacking in intelligence. These are basically all things that aren't present in Ghazan as a character. Not even P'li has these qualities.

Perhaps it isn't really a good idea to incorporate the Five Bad Band tropes into The Red Lotus.

I would not assign Five Bad Band here. These ensemble tropes are prone to misusage and what I am seeing here seems like another example of such misusage.

Finally got to checking (though The Rogue Penguin beat me to it, my thanks). Feminine pronouns it is.

I removed them earlier, but re-added them because I don't really have the patience to argue it out, but since this is here I'll just put in my two cents.

Larkmarn puts it succinctly. They're not similar enough. Vaguely similar roles is not enough to justify Evil Counterpart.

Though Ming-Hua's not really that similar to Toph beyond Handicapped Badass. She isn't nearly as snarky as Toph was/is.

I might buy them as Shadow Archetype, but not outright Evil Counterpart.

The example writeups sounds fairly weak to me - they looks more like similarities than indicators of being an Evil Counterpart. So I would support a pull.

To be honest, I'd label them more as Expies rather then straight up evil counterparts. Is there a requirement that the counterparts should have interacted with each other at some point? No such interaction has been shown on-screen.

They don't necessarily need to have interacted, but they need to have some connection to make us believe that the writers had them in mind when they gave these characters these traits. And looking at them, I find it hard to believe that they had Toph in mind, and just thought "know what would be awesome? Someone with water Combat Tentacles instead of arms" or "Combustion Man was cool... why not Combustion Woman?"

Big Bad Wannabe as well, maybe? Zaheer's clearly the bigger threat, and if push comes to shove he'd beat her and her forces in a fight.

Because they're not? A Legion of Doom is a bunch of established villains that later join up. So if Amon, Ozai, and Vaatu join up in the Spirit World and wreak havoc that would be a Legion of Doom. But a bunch of people who have always been known to fight together? That's not.

But in an episode of Justice League, namely "Injustice for All", that episode was the first appearance of those villains, and even the Injustice Gang was still considered a Legion of Doom. The whole premise of a Legion of Doom is that they are the antithesis to the heroes

As noted, Legion of Doom is not the right descriptor. The Psycho Rangers would probably work though for Zaheer and co.

^^ It's their first appearance, but they clearly establish that they're already independent entities that are teaming up, rather than a team that's getting back together.

Zahir should have somewhere:

Badass Normal: It's implied he was one, given that he commanded a team of powerful benders while he himself was a non-bender.

According to this whashisface and armless are named Gazan and Ming-Hua.

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=jpt2fzb3gcpamt5ywgqzdoct&page=1931#48275

I don't see how it fits the trope at all. Which method or weapon of Unalaq's is used directly against him to defeat him in this instance?

It was a plan, I'm mostly taking from the Downplayed example on the Playing With Page. Having the soldiers concentrated at the portal and not go after the resistance was his gambit to give Unaloq an advantage as part of his big Take over the world plan. It backfires because he ignored the Resistance, and they recapture the town, and in the grand scheme of things all he suffers is a temporary setback which he remedies.

That's just a plan not working. Hoist by His Own Petard would be if he's taken out because someone adopted his own strategy. A subversion would be if someone adopted his own strategy, but Unalaq won anyway. This is just someone trying to exploit a flaw in his strategy and failing.

Interesting, I seem to have misinterpreted the Playing With page, rereading it and I seem to have been aiming for a Downplayed rather than Subverted, it does't matter now. Thanks for clearing this up.

Yeah...that's like, not at all. They have a vaguely (and I mean vaguely, as in they're both really really tall and thin) similar appearance, and they both shoot laser beams from their eyes. That's pretty much it. Yeah, they're both Large Hams, but Aku is the intentionally silly kind while Vaatu is the "I'm a god and you're not" kind.

Yeah, but both Aku and Vaatu were unleashed by the heroes' predecessors by accident, that's where the backstory is similar. Vaatu was fighting the embodiment of order, but compared to when he was freed, he couldn't do much while stuck on Raava. Both Aku and Vaatu are Gods Of Evil, and both of them were imprisoned in a plant later on.

Silly as Aku is, he was still a villain not to be taken lightly, just like Vaatu.

They're similar because their both Sealed Evil in a Can. And once you have evil in a can, it is inevitable that someone is going to accidentally (or on purpose) open that can...

So yes, they are not similar enough to call them expies.

Although, since Mako (the actor) voiced Aku, it is possible that the tree thing is a shout out (unless both derive from a common mythology?)

Not only were they sealed in a can, they were sealed in a plant. But what about the fact that the heroes' predecessors' unleashed them by accident?

At most, that's a Homage, which is about a similar event being used to reference another. Expy is about characters, and these two are not similar enough to count.

Fighteer reverted it. You're right, spoilering all instances of Vaatu's name is unnecessary, as is spoilering his description (which is flat-out against the rules).