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| Tuesday, January 6, 2015 10:11 AM |
| On the Viewer - The Legend of Korra: Book Two - Spirits |
 by Fëanor |
All the shows I was watching on TV went on winter break, so I took the opportunity to catch up with one I'd left behind: Legend of Korra! The second season delves into Korra's family's recent past, as well as the distant past of the Avatar and of this world.
Korra heads home to visit with her parents and meets her uncle, Unalaq, who has expertise in one of Korra's few remaining weak areas: spirits and the spirit world. There's some bad blood between him and his brother, however, connected to some unpleasant events in the past, which make things a bit complicated. When those events finally come to light, it drives a wedge between Korra and her father, and between Korra and her adopted father, Tenzin, and convinces her to turn to Unalaq for her continuing education.
Unalaq reveals that a once-in-ten-thousand-years event is about to occur: the Harmonic Convergence. Before this happens, Unalaq says, it's essential that Korra open the spirit portals that sit at the North and South Poles. This will bring balance back to the world and stop the invasion of dark spirits that has recently begun. But Unalaq's plan is darker and more far-reaching than he's letting on, and it will lead first to civil war, and then to momentous changes not only in the nature of the Avatar, but also in the structure of the worlds themselves.
Book Two is thrilling and epic, and a lengthy flashback in the middle reveals the identity and origin story of the very first Avatar, which is really cool and interesting. For comic relief this time we have crazy rich guy Varrick, and Bolin's relationship with Unalaq's creepy daughter, Eska. I particularly love Varrick; he's hilarious. I was kind of happy to see Korra and Mako's relationship fall apart, too; I never really liked them together, and their breakup adds some interesting drama. Another fun dramatic relationship is the rocky family dynamic among Tenzin, his waterbender sister Kya, and his goofy, story-telling, ex-soldier, non-bender brother Bumi. They all have very different personalities that don't fit together well, and they all have very different memories of their childhood and of their father who, it comes out, was not always the perfect hero he's been made out to be.
My only real problem with the season is some of the hand-wavy (to borrow a favorite phrase of my friend Peccable) spiritual shenanigans that occur near the end. There's a lot of back-and-forth and up-and-down in terms of who's got the magic powers and what their exact nature is and where the spirits are and what they can do and so on and so forth, and all the sudden Korra is a big glowing giant. There are a lot of rules to all this that the writers seem to be making up as they go along to generate drama, and I always felt a step behind, not quite understanding what was going on or how. It's possible that I just wasn't paying close enough attention, but I don't know.
Still, the big climax is exciting and amazing to look at, and the fundamental change to the world that occurs as a consequence is really interesting, and the writers do so many things right that I'm willing to give them a pass. This is still, unquestionably, a really great show. In fact, I'm nearly done the third book now, and if anything it's the best season of the show yet. Look for the review soon! |
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