The Legend of Korra

Wang enlisted in the Fire Army in one of the side comics, so that's Private Fire to you civilian.

Seriously though, did A. Firebender just have it out for parents or something? Did the police have a code so the orphanages would know to prepare more beds?

Code: Orphaned AF

I want them to have a code for it specifically to alert Private Fire that A. Firebender has struck again. And the reason I want this is so that it can be called Code: Wang.

• Asami: I lost my mother to a Code: Wang.
• Korra: I am so sorry. About our government.

Edited by TobiasDrake on Feb 25th 2019 at 8:18:37 AM

Hah

But where does Nuktuk, Hero of the South fit in?

Does anyone else think Jinora is a poorly written character? Or is it just me?

Jinora is a bit overpowered in terms of airbending abilities, but I think she has the best personality out of the Korra cast.

You're right that Jinora had a good personality. But perhaps a little too good. I'm talking primarily in seasons 2 and 3 where she took up a whole lot of screen time and was never exactly in the wrong. One of the biggest detractors about Jinora for me was the fact that she just seemed too perfect.

Thus her sister getting frustrated in that one episode.

This thread was a hoot and a half when it really came up with something funny.

I agree that Jinora is a very poorly written character. I've been saying that for ages. I genuinely think she's the closest thing the series has to a Creator's Pet in that she gets loads of arbitrary and nonsensical new powers as the plot demands, is written into scenes where she has no business being, is presented as being in the right even when she's acting like a jerk, and we're expected to admire her for abilities she was born with.

Also, her voice actress is kind of bad, especially in season two. I only ever liked Jinora as a character in the first season, where she was just a snarky side-character rather than the Messianic Little Miss Perfect of seasons two and three.

Edited by DrDougsh on Mar 3rd 2019 at 6:16:22 AM

I've never felt one way or the other about Jinora.

Didn't she master astral projection early then immediately get captured by Wan Shi Tong? That, and her shaving her head, and her question about Zuko's mom getting cut off by her sister, are the only scenes I really remember her in.

I think she doesn't master astral projection until season 3, after the incident with Wan Shi Tong. She just kind of... has that power in season three. They claim it's a subset of airbending, despite it having nothing to do with air.

Makes your spirit free as air, or something

It does fit in with air bending being the most spiritual though

Well we know that air nomads were like the most spiritual sect of benders, right? And Tenzin probably taught his kids in the "old way" of Airbending which, if we recall with Aang, involved a great deal of spiritual training.

Korra sucked at being spiritual, and therefore sucked at airbending, whereas all of Tenzin's kids and even Ikki were good at it.

So it being a "subset" of airbending, because you are flying around invisibly and weightlessly while passing through things "kind of" like what air does, makes sense. And therefore Jinora being good at it makes sense.

Maybe.'d

Edited by Soble on Mar 3rd 2019 at 7:02:28 AM

I didn't mind Jinora all that much, but I did also notice the plot's tendency to make her a bit of a spotlight stealer later on with her sudden abilities.

I'm very glad that they toned down her importance in season 4. Because I'm one of those people that enjoyed all four seasons of Legend of Korra, but what I liked the least from seasons two and three was just how much attention Jinora only got because the writers gave her never before seen powers. If any of the other airbending kids was the one to gain them, then Jinora wouldn't have had such a large impact, and that's not how you write a good character.

Jinora was awful post-S1, and the awfulness was only compounded by Kai. One of my least favorite LOK characters easily.

Maybe if they had spread it around among the kids, but Jinora clearly was a favorite amongst the writers.

I liked Jinora and Kai, I thought their subplot in season 3 was great. I also don't get people saying they gave Jinora a bunch of new powers when it was really just that she's more inherently spiritual than most other people. She didn't do anything that Aang and Korra couldn't also do. Also, she wasn't any more prominent than any other main character. Like, Bolin or Mako didn't lose any screentime to Jinora.

I did not like how they kept insisting Jinora was a talented and powerful airbender but she had to get herself saved by Kai like every single time.

Jinora being "more inherently spiritual" than other people is part of my problem with her. She's supposed to be this highly learned and talented child prodigy and bookworm, but at the same time the special things she does and contributes don't stem from her being especially learned or intelligent. They stem from inherent abilities that she, seemingly, was just born with and can't be cultivated through learning. They say as much in season two: Jinora has simply always had an affinity with spirits.

Which, you know... fine. Obviously, being born with special abilities that others can't learn is kind of a theme in Avatar. So Jinora having special spiritual powers isn't inherently a problem. The problem I have with it in Jinora's case is partly that in season three, Jinora actively starts rubbing her dad's nose in the fact that she's more spiritually connected than he is:

This moment really makes Jinora seem like a gigantic douchebag because she's effectively boasting about having abilities that she was born with, and mocking her hard-working father about not being born with those abilities. And instead of being in any way refuted for her hubris, she's eventually validated for it by being declared an airbending master at age eleven. Which according to the show's lore, makes her the youngest airbending master ever, even younger than her grandfather the Avatar.

Then there's the fact that the show — especially the season two finale — paints Jinora in an almost Messianic light. Her appearance in that episode, returning Raava's light, evokes Jesus-like imagery. And, well, this show already has a Messianic figure; it's the Avatar. Trying to make Jinora one as well feels really shoehorned in.

On a somewhat more minor note, I also really don't like that moment in early season three where Tenzin decides to take Jinora along on a trip of the Earth Kingdom while leaving Ikki and Meelo behind. This is only a season after Tenzin learned how deeply hurt his own siblings were when Aang took Tenzin travelling while leaving Kya and Bumi behind. It illustrates to me that the show's willing to ignore Tenzin's character development in order to give Jinora more screentime, which is not a point in her favour.

Edited by DrDougsh on Mar 3rd 2019 at 2:45:36 AM

Everything you just said and more. At many moments it appeared that Jinora was more of a main character then Korra. It especially became annoying when she became the only one to figure out answers to problems when in reality, anyone should have been capable of doing so. Like when Jinora said that the airbenders could use a vortex to ensnare Zaheer. Or how the mercury inside of Korra could be removed using earthbending. Yeah. Well of course. But for some reason, Jinora was the only one to figure that out. Because let's be real, she was heavily favored by the writers. Even though I like the legend of Korra more than the last airbender, Jinora alone could have changed that sentiment.

Saying "she didn't do anything two Avatars didn't do" is not really helping your case, I'm afraid. The Avatar is pretty much the most powerful person in the world, regardless of who it is.

And it does feel like a bit more than just being more in touch with her spiritual side.

The whole point of the Avatar is versatility, but they don't tend to be the best in the world at any one thing. Katara and Toph were better at water and earth bending than Aang was, and Ozai was a stronger firebender. Why wouldn't there be people just as spiritual as the Avatar? Zaheer and Iroh were more spiritual than Korra, just to name a couple of examples.

Also, I might be remembering wrong, but wasn't that Jinora speech immediately followed by her getting in over her head and overwhelmed by the Spirit World? Like, there's a whole bit where she realizes she was wrong and shouldn't have been rude to Tenzin, right?

Edited by PushoverMediaCritic on Mar 3rd 2019 at 6:47:07 AM