She can be quite... demanding.
Team Avatar arrives in Ba Sing Se. While Korra has an audience with the Earth Queen, the others notice that Kai has gone missing, prompting Mako and Bolin to go look for him. They track him down, but he manages to shake them in the monorail, which takes the brothers to the Lower Ring, where they eventually run into their family from their father's side. Meanwhile, Korra and Asami set course for a small village to collect taxes as a favor to the Queen. After getting her money, the Queen brushes off Korra's request for help in tracking down the airbenders, leaving the Avatar to storm out of the palace. In the city, Kai found himself arrested by the Dai Li and subsequently conscripted in the Queen's first airbending regiment.
Tropes:
- Brick Joke: Bolin convinced Mako to join the trip by humorously making up a scenario where they happen to meet their grandmother and he'd have to break her heart by telling her Mako didn't come. Hilariously enough, once they meet their family in Ba Sing Se, they DO actually meet their grandmother... who then asks where their parents are. Then they have to break her heart by telling her they're dead.
- Call-Back: Zuko brings up the Combustion Man when talking about the prisoner held in the secret North Pole prison, and of how they both have the ability to fire beams from their respective eye tattoos.
- Continuity Nod:
- The apartment complex where Mako and Bolin's family lives is in fact the very same place where Zuko and Iroh briefly lived while they were hiding out in Ba Sing Se
. - The Earth Queen claims that there are no airbenders in Ba Sing Se. This is reminiscent to the claim that "there is no war in Ba Sing Se", repeated several times when Aang and his friends visit Ba Sing Se in Avatar: The Last Airbender. In both cases the Dai Li are covering the real truth, which of course is the opposite to these claims.
- The apartment complex where Mako and Bolin's family lives is in fact the very same place where Zuko and Iroh briefly lived while they were hiding out in Ba Sing Se
- Contrived Coincidence: Mako and Bolin plan to steal fruit from a random fruit seller, who just happens to be a cousin of theirs that they've never met before.
- Cross-Referenced Titles: To "The Earth King" in the parent show.
- Disproportionate Retribution: Upon learning about a secret prison belonging to the Northern Water Tribe, Desna notes that he wishes he could throw his tailor in there for not getting the cuffs on his robe right.
- Evil Debt Collector: Ironically, the bandits called Korra and Asami this for getting the taxes on behalf of the queen.
- Femme Fatalons: The Earth Queen has a very fancy and doubtless expensive (but still remarkably
tacky) set. Part of the emulation of real-life historic Chinese culture: aristocrats typically grew their nails rather long. - Fetch Quest: While Mako and Bolin are stuck in Ba Sing Se's outer ring, Korra and Asami are tasked to bring some taxes from a vault in a town south of the city by the Earth Queen so that she will give them information about Airbenders. They of course run into trouble.
- Five-Finger Discount:
- Actually Averted with Kai, who pays for his hotel room and food. He just stole the money to pay for it.
- Mako and Bolin discuss doing this to a fruit vendor, but after discovering it's all rotten and getting in an argument with the stall's keeper over whether or not the fruit is even worth stealing, they don't.
- God Save Us from the Queen!: The Earth Queen is not a nice person at all. She's a Jerkass who, in addition to not honouring her end of the deal with Korra, is also kidnapping the new airbenders in Ba Sing Se to build an airbending regiment for her army. Furthermore, she overtaxes and extorts her own people for a living.
- It's a Small World, After All: In all the huge Outer Ring of Ba-Sing-Se, Mako and Bolin almost immediately manage to stumble into their previously unknown relatives.
- Laser-Guided Karma: Kai ends up getting captured by the Dai Li after screwing everyone over. Technically though, they didn't arrest him for pick-pocketing or stealing, they captured him only on the basis of him being another airbender for the Queen's airbending regiment.
- Locked in the Dungeon: After being taken by the Dai Li, Kai is thrown into a cell with other new Airbenders, who were captured to serve as a new Airbending regiment for the Earth Kingdom Army.
- Long-Lost Relative: Mako and Bolin discover family, from their father's side, in the poor district of Ba Sing Se.
- Mood Whiplash: Bolin and Mako reuniting with their family takes a sour turn when it turns out the others have no idea what happened to their parents — the brothers are forced to reveal that their parents are dead (they were killed when they were little kids).
- Parting-Words Regret: San apparently got into a huge fight with his dad before leaving Ba Sing Se.
- Redshirt Army: The Royal Guards are far less competent than the Dai Li. Korra is quick to voice her reluctance towards having them as escorts. She's proven right when the guards run at the first sign of trouble.
- Secret Police: The Dai Li from the previous series are back.
- Shout-Out: The motorcycle gang seems straight out of Mad Max.
- So Bad, It's Good: In-universe, Bolin's cousin Tu finds the Nuktuk: Hero of the South movers hilarious. Bolin ruefully notes that they weren't supposed to be.
- Surrounded by Idiots: The Queen feels this way about her gardeners.
- Uncomfortable Elevator Moment: Korra's dad Tonraq has one with Eska, Desna and Zuko when it comes up that he's the only person in the elevator who never tried to kill the Avatar.
- Villain Has a Point: Korra admits that the bandits are right about the tax money belonging to the people.
- Wrong Side All Along: The biker gang warn Korra that she is helping the wrong side, and that she very much helped the Queen extort her own people. Korra admits they're probably right, though she still delivers the gold in the hopes the Queen will deliver. Korra calls the Queen out when she doesn't honor her end of the deal.
- Your Other Left: The Earth Queen has trouble directing her gardeners.
