The Legend of Korra

Yeah Ozai was going for straight up genocide of an entire continent that represents more than half of the inhabitable land mass of their planet. Japan is an archipelago that lost two cities.

I'm pretty sure he isn't going to commit genocide unless those zeppelins are going at mach speed, or if he actually want to rule over the Earth Kingdom. Maybe burn down Ba Sing Se to destroy the Earth Kingdom's only chance of resistance and crush their spirits completely at seeing their greatest city getting burn down.

They were sort of sweeping along the coast from what we saw, I think he was trying to torch the entire continent, or as much of it as possible.

Not at the speed they were going.

Interesting. Is there anything in particular that gave you this idea?

The Players did a lot of research for what was supposedly a pure propaganda piece, and portrayed everything Team Avatar did very sympathetically. Obviously they got a lot wrong, but those seemed to be genuine mistakes instead of malicious ones. Until the very end, the play could easily have been in an Earth Kingdom theater.

Eh, I take that as Rule of Funny rather than anything else and the portrayal of the Avatar and company could be to mock them - after all, they come across as a joke.

Not to mention, the entire play was from the point of view of the supposed bad guys, rather than the heroes hunting them down.

Also, The Avatar, regardless of propaganda, is an important figure in the history of the entire world. I have no doubt that the Avatar defeating the Phoenix King would defeat the notion that the Phoenix King has whatever "divine right" or inherent right he claims to rule his own nation, much less the world. Not to mention, the new Fire Lord isn't sending their children to die in wars like has been happening for 100 years.

edited 19th Apr '18 9:07:31 AM by blkwhtrbbt

Azula is still free in the comics isn't she? I'm guessing she's going to make some kind of coup attempt in one of them.

My understanding is that she's given up on directly ruling the Fire Nation herself, and instead, she's going to manipulate the public by driving them to a state of paranoia such that they become the same kind of nation they would have become had she been the actual ruler, and such that Zuko would effectively become the kind of ruler Azula would have been.

I took the play to be a sort of Greek tragedy. You aren't meant to root for the Avatar and his crew, but to empathize with the train wreck of their lives unfolding. They're just likable enough that you can feel for them as their very pronounced flaws and more obnoxious qualities lead them to their tragic but inescapable fate: undone and destroyed by the qualities that led them to rebel against the Firelord.

They're likable Villain Protagonists, basically.

edited 19th Apr '18 11:42:01 AM by TobiasDrake

That might be a bit more thought that was put into "Avatar State! Yip yip!"

Wouldn't Azula be in her 90s by now? Obviously, as Toph and Bumi have shown, age doesn't necessarily affect bending prowess, but I don't know if I can take a nonagenarian who was only The Dragon of the last series seriously as an main antagonist.

Not to mention how she ended the original series. Still, looking at how Bumi was in there, maybe.

I haven't read it yet, but I understand The Fall of the Fire Empire has a pretty terrifying old Azula.

OTOH, AFAIK it was never really jossed that that healer from "Beginnings" was Azula....

I've seen two ideas for Azula that I like.

One is that she finally found peace, and became the Head Fire Sage from "Beginnings".

The other was part of a larger idea of people other than the Avatar reincarnating (linked to the original "Gyatso -> Momo" idea - this idea held that this chain would further continue into Jinora) - that a desire to have been able to defy her father (regrets late in life, I imagine), led to her to reincarnate as Asami, of all people.

edited 19th Apr '18 2:14:04 PM by KarkatTheDalek

WELP.

Had we ever gotten a season that prominently featured the Fire Nation, I would have liked to see Azula. I could accept her either in a protagonist role, having broken her father's pedestal and come to understand that she didn't need to be what he would have had her as, or as Korra's final villain in a sort of Passing the Torch story.

But we got two seasons in the Earth Kingdom instead, so shrug.

I think Bryke did excplicitly joss Azula being that Fire Sage.

I also wonder what their sister Kiyi is doing. I mean she should be in her eighties right now. It would be cool to see Zuko introduced his less known half sister, I would love to see Kiyi to have grown up to be a very Crazy Aewsome person or maybe someone who is an awesome firebender and lives a humble life.

If they did, that's what they think, and nothing more.

Last of her appearances was escaping after trying to force Zuko into behaving more like their Dad by being ruthless, which might or might not count as a coup attempt.

I'm not sure she needs a "happy ending" to the point that she becomes a sage or a chaman. The comics show she was a nasty piece of work before Ozai stopped to consider Zuko his son to spite Ursa, so while there was obviously some nefarious parental influence at play, she had issues that went beyond those causes.

The only thing I'd like is for her to reconcile with her mother - at that point, I don't even think Zuko needs to reconcile with her, now that he has his mom and Kiyi, just knowing she's better would be enough to make him satisfied. Then she could move away and live her own life without having destiny or greatness in mind, and try to find her own happiness. Azula repeatedly demonstrated sociopathic tendencies, and I'm not sure she would be a credible atoner - but she could at least decide to move forward and stop being actively malicious.

I think the comics seem to be setting something like that up for her, even though she's still villainous she does seem to be getting somewhat better in a weird way. And I do really hope she reconciles with Ursa at some point, ever since they started doing the post series comics that's really all I've wanted out of them.

Do we know how many more comics they'll do? I feel like Azula getting redeemed or defeated for good would be something they'd save for the last one.

Last thing Korra needed was more ATLA holdovers taking up center stage, in my opinion.