Legend of Korra 2.03 - "The Civil War" (part 1)

[lizbee]

APPARENTLY I'm having too many feelings to type a cut tag. THAT'S PROMISING. In fact, I'm having a lot of thoughts, and am looking forward to watching this again tonight with weaver and indeed. (Saturday nights are Feels 'n' Korra nights for the next few weeks.)

So narratively, the Water Tribe plot and the Air Temple plot were only linked by themes of family, but I found them equally compelling. But let's cover the Water Tribe first.

It's interesting that both seasons of LoK so far have been about pitting the Avatar against Fascism in its various forms -- season 1 had your "let's persecute minorities while appropriating the language of social justice" types versus Tarrlok's law and order types, and Unalaq is more your nationalist, I think. delphi remarks that Korra's so sheltered she has no Fascistdar, but let's face it, lots of people don't.

I sense some retconning here, with the establishment that Southerners who hold the title of "chief" are merely village chiefs -- sorry, Hakoda, turns out all this time we've been promoting you -- and that the Northern Water Tribe technically has sovereignty over the South. I'm kind of glad that has been made clear, because the two tribes, though quite similar, have been separate for at least a few hundred years, and have different cultures in many respects -- and basically, I've been feeling like calling this a civil war is like ... okay, if England invaded Australia (again), and people called it a civil war, I'd be pretty shirty, you know? So setting up that the tribes are, on paper, a single political entity works.

Having said that, like Senna says, the conflict between the tribes has been going for a really long time. Probably since before the North said, "What, you're the subject of genocidal attacks? Welp, good luck with that!" and effectively abandoned the South. They're closer again, with the infusion of northerners to repopulate the SWT, but that in itself is probably a source of tension. I mean, they have a seat each on the Republic City council.

Anyway, this is all what Bryke neatly described on Tumblr as "Trade Federation stuff", and the important question is, how does it affect Korra?

Things Korra's not good at: politics, defusing hostilities, admitting she's wrong. I get a certain sadistic amount of glee at watching her try, and then fail, and then try again and fail differently.

(Fandom has been exceptionally misogynistic this week with regard to Korra. It's been quite ugly, and between you, me and the entire internet, I'm beginning to side eye anyone who says Asami is a better character. I mean, Asami's great and all, but there's something dodgy about disregarding the unfeminine, imperfect, bolshy heroine in favour of the pretty, feminine one who never causes any upset.)

I really loved the scenes where Korra interacted with her mother. And not just because Senna's voice actress is amazing. Senna seems terribly quiet, maybe even shy, but there's immense strength behind that. I'm curious, though, because she says she and Tonraq really wanted to raise a family -- but Korra is an only child. Did they think it would be best if they could give Korra all their attention, or were there other factors? (There's four years between Korra's birth and her manifestation as the Avatar, after all.)

Oh, and Bolin and Mako were around.

MEANWHILE, AT THE AIR TEMPLE, we have some really unexpectedly mature stuff about being the middle-aged children of a Great Man, and being an adult who feels that your childhood(s) could have been better, and sibling rivalries and stuff.

Judging from my Tumblr dash, fandom is not happy (HAH! AS IF FANDOM HAD THE CAPACITY FOR HAPPINESS!) to learn that Aang was not in fact the perfect dad. Words like "character assassination" are being chucked around.

For my part, I'm over the moon, and not just because "established character turns out to be a pretty average parent" is a major narrative kink of mine. (Why do you think I love writing kidfic?)

It makes a lot of sense that Aang wouldn't necessarily be a great dad. For one thing, as Korra's plot demonstrates, there's a certain amount of inherent conflict between "being the Avatar" and "having a family". And Aang grew up in a culture where children weren't raised by their own parents. He probably saw his relationship with Tenzin as replicating the one he had with Monk Gyatso -- a sort of loving spiritual mentorship (with pranks), very much paternal to our eyes, but I doubt the Air Nomads perceived it that way.

I mean, there's also the bit where Kya and Bumi's perceptions may not accord with reality either. As kids, my sister and I were convinced that our brother was Mum's favourite, when really, it's just that they had the same temperament and communicated more easily. Families are complicated! And it's actually kind of cool that all this is coming out in a setting outside of Republic City, because if Lin was there, she'd be able to offer a more objective outsider's perspective. And I kiiiiind of don't want that yet. I'm quite enjoying the sibling dynamic in isolation.

I'm also enjoying that, both last week and now, there seems to be a growing conflict between Jinora and Ikki. Which makes sense to me, because while they're very close in age, Jinora's on the cusp of puberty, and that's a time of, you know, tension.

GROWING UP IS HARD. JUST ASK KORRA.

Comments

[delphi]

It's interesting that both seasons of LoK so far have been about pitting the Avatar against Fascism in its various forms [...] delphi remarks that Korra's so sheltered she has no Fascistdar, but let's face it, lots of people don't.

Just so - and I'm hoping that this repetition is actually leading up to some kind of subversion of our expectations. I'm afraid of getting my hopes up because of the loose thematic ends left in season one, but we'll see.

(Fandom has been exceptionally misogynistic this week with regard to Korra [...])

I learned my lesson from last year and am now not reading any comments on this show from anyone I don't know. I found myself calling Korra a dumbass after this episode, but that kind of pleased me because she's being a dumbass in the exact same way a "headstrong" male character would be. She reminded me a bit of Zuko in this one, actually.

As I mentioned in my post, I'm loving the Air Family interactions. I was surprised to see some people speculating that there was something sinister in the discrepancies of Bumi, Kya, and Tenzin's memories (maybe because my own sister and I have virtually no overlap in our perceptions of our childhoods). To me, that just seemed like the usual sort of interactions between a set of adult siblings, and pretty mild when you factor in them being the children of the Avatar. If anything, I would think that Aang was probably a pretty good dad to be around if Bumi and Kya were so jealous of how his attention understandably shifted when Tenzin came along.

[lizbee]

She reminded me a bit of Zuko in this one, actually.

Yes, me too! I think because, like Zuko, she's balancing family against the good of her nation, and she doesn't even know what that "good" looks like yet.

I was surprised to see some people speculating that there was something sinister in the discrepancies of Bumi, Kya, and Tenzin's memories...

Wow. People are touchingly sheltered, I guess.

If anything, I would think that Aang was probably a pretty good dad to be around if Bumi and Kya were so jealous of how his attention understandably shifted when Tenzin came along.

Yeah, exactly! And no matter how important the stakes, if your dad has to spend less time with you because of [work, Avatar duties, whatever], that's going to leave a bruise.

(Personally I've been thinking that it's really cool that, with Tenzin, we have a fairly powerful man being really happy to give up his job to spend more time with his children.)

[nonelvis]

Fandom has been exceptionally misogynistic this week with regard to Korra.

... and so I see that my decision not to bother checking Tumblr's LoK tag after the episode was a wise choice.

But let me guess: she was a heartless bitch for not listening to her father last week, and is a stupid bitch this week for not catching on sooner that her father would never betray his brother?

[lizbee]

So I understand! Also, Bryke's decision that Aang was not in fact the world's greatest dad means that (a) they personally hate fandom and storytelling, and (b) Aang was basically Ozai but bald.

[nonelvis]

As usual, fandom is blind in the shades-of-gray spectrum.

[skywaterblue]

I thought both of these themes were surprisingly weird for a TV show still ostensibly aimed at eight year olds. Unless Nick's changed marketing strategy, it's not really a network analogous to something like BBC's family dramas hour where a whole age range are expected to sit down. I mean, undoubtedly Nick KNOWS that a large chunk of the audience are not children, and are in fact, adults looking for the cartoon version of prestige drama... but! Still! This episode featured the following plot points: raising gifted children is hard, parenting in general is hard, minor traumas in childhood can burst into intense resentments in the middle-aged, long simmering tribal politics sometimes leads to civil war!

Regarding the Water Tribe, I'm not sure that the South was always under rule of the North. To me, with last week's revelation that there are barbarians (!) in the North suggests that the real history might turn out like this: the Northern Tribe is actually a colony of the South that fell away from the North in a time prior to the 100 Year War. After the tribes regained contact, Aang encouraged them to unite in an effort to save the existence of the Southern culture, but acting on imperfect knowledge of the past (which no living Southerner may have been capable of fully explaining) didn't know that this would basically be setting up this conflict in the future.

Thus, Hakoda really WAS the Chieftain of an independent Southern Water Tribe, but due to reasons, it was swept under the rug and the previous form of governance, with the South functioning as a colony of the North, was resumed.

Aang not seeming like the perfect dad to Bumi and Kya makes a lot of sense. He had a great deal of angst about the death of his culture, and with only ONE airbending child to pass on an entire legacy... (Yet curiously, Aang also seems to have decided to set up the Air Acolytes, so why they didn't just raise Bumi and Kya as Acolytes...?)

ETA: They seem to be setting up a Mako/Korra split pretty heavily, don't they?

[innerbrat]

Have you read The Promise? You don't need to, it's not very good. But it sets up the foundations of the Air Acolytes as basically a group of Air Nomad/Avatar fans, who chose independently to live and preserve the ways of the Air Nomads. It touched on cultural appropriation and Aang's discomfort with the way his people were fetishised, but essentially he didn't so much set them up, as work with them to make sure they didn't fuck everything up.

[lizbee]

Yeah, and the way the proto-Acolytes treated Katara, I really can't see her wanting her kids to be brought up among them!

[skywaterblue]

Yeah, I haven't read any of them. Supposedly they have bits that are relevant but I'm actually mostly not interested in actually seeing HOW the interregnum years worked out, or the mysteries of Zuko's mom, etc. I think it's more interesting to watch Korra and then extrapolate backwards.

ETA: I think the frustrating thing here is that I feel like the things that get explained in these comics are better in my imagination.

[innerbrat]

They are, almost certainly, better in your imagination.

[lizbee]

I thought both of these themes were surprisingly weird for a TV show still ostensibly aimed at eight year olds.

I believe LoK's being marketed at tweens/early teens, hence the prime time slot.

the Northern Tribe is actually a colony of the South that fell away from the North in a time prior to the 100 Year War

Except that's the opposite of everything the show has always implied and extended material has said outright. Not to mention that it wouldn't make sense for the colony tribe to have the larger, more sophisticated city.

[skywaterblue]

Except that's the opposite of everything the show has always implied and extended material has said outright. Not to mention that it wouldn't make sense for the colony tribe to have the larger, more sophisticated city.

I get confused about which one is which a LOT*, so despite looking it up I bunged it up. What I meant is that the tribe that Korra, Katara et all are from is the colony tribe and the one they visit in Avatar with the Moon Princess and the large city is the founding population. Which explains why the North (?) didn't care very much that their tribesmen were getting slaughtered en masse. Because fuck those rebels.

*I have dyscalculia. It's fun because no one knows it's a thing!

[lizbee]

Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhh, okay, yes, that makes sense, sorry!

[skywaterblue]

No, I'm sorry! I... really fucked that one up.

[rj_anderson]

I loved this episode SO HARD. I was taken aback too at first by the revelation that Aang wasn't the perfect dad, but that feeling only lasted about five seconds before I mentally shot my arms up in the air and went "WOOOOOOO!" over how much sense it made and how smart the writers are not to deify their past hero just because he's dead.

Of COURSE Aang gave all his attention to Tenzin. He must have figured Katara would look after Kya since they were both female waterbenders, and that Bumi was tough and resilient enough to make his own way in the world, whereas Tenzin was a fragile airbending flower who must be protected for the sake of future generations. Actually it's fairly amazing that Aang let Tenzin ride dragon-koi because WHAT IF HE DIES NO MORE AIRBENDERS EVER, but I suspect he was guarding Tenzin pretty closely the whole time. I wonder if that's going to come out later, and whether it plays into Tenzin's desire to protect Korra and keep her in the bosom of her family (or, that failing, his family)?

Basically I have no idea where things are going to go from here and I adore it.

The only thing that bugged me a bit was Korra's meekness toward Unalaq even after he brought in his troops. I was expecting her to show more anger and challenge him for making such a radical oppressive move, as opposed to merely asking him why he did it and then accepting his explanation as though it made perfect sense. It didn't seem like Korra somehow. And Unalaq's explanation of what he wants her to do with the portals might as well have DRAMATIC MUSIC all over it, because there is no way a teleportation portal between the North and South that spirits can use is going to lead to good.

Also grating, though not because the show's writing is bad but because Mako annoys me: Mako's advice to Bolin on dumping girls. I suspect you're right about the foreshadowing, and that Mako is going to get dumped by Korra and feel the pain for once instead of causing it (in which case I will rejoice, yea, rejoice evermore). But hey Mako, it would be nice to factor in the girl's feelings to this equation, even if the girl in question behaves like a robot.

[lizbee]

I loved this episode SO HARD.

YES, SO DID I! *clings*

The only thing that bugged me a bit was Korra's meekness toward Unalaq even after he brought in his troops.

That bugged me, too, except that she's trying really, really hard to be diplomatic and politic, and she hasn't realised yet that there are times when it's appropriate to be really mad. (Also, unlike with, say, Tarrlok, she actually respects her uncle, and he's much more formal with her than Tenzin was.)

Also grating, though not because the show's writing is bad but because Mako annoys me: Mako's advice to Bolin on dumping girls.

See, I thought it was quite good advice delivered badly. I mean, a break-up is something you want to get over fast (and it's nice that Mako actually realises that now!) because if it drags out, it just becomes more painful in the long run for everyone. But I'm seriously feeling like the show could lose Mako and Bolin, and that would be perfectly okay with me. As long as Pabu stayed.

[opusculasedfera]

I think the North thinks Hakoda was a village chief, but I don't get any impression that the South agreed. Which would also be a nice source of tension for Korra, if she's been brought up to think of them as more united than they are because that seemed like something the Avatar should think, so she's just making it worse by calling it a civil war, when the South disagrees completely.

My issue with Aang not being a perfect parent was just that it was SO on the nose. I could believe in it as a function of how he was raised if the show had ever been the least bit willing to do some worldbuilding around Air Nomad society. I can absolutely buy that he was more invested in Tenzin's training than Kya or Bumi's. But it seems implausible to me that he left everyone else behind so often. This is my main complaint with LoK, that nothing is ever the least bit understated. Kya and Bumi could still be understandably resentful if Aang took them all to Ember Island and then spent a huge amount of time teaching Tenzin special airbending techniques for building better sandcastles. Which could still be memory as a source of tension, if Tenzin remembers Aang playing with all of them equally, and it turns out in the end that Aang did teach Tenzin more things, but also was ultimately very proud of everyone's sandcastles.

[skywaterblue]

I thought the on-the-noseness of this episode was grating as well, but apparently we're two years into Korra and people JUST figured out that Korra is angry about having been cloistered and treated with kid gloves.

So. You know.

I'm glad I'm not the only one who thinks there's going to be more to this North/South story than we've been told so far.

[opusculasedfera]

This is true, but I would honestly rather they just retconned all that repetitive character stagnation than kept it so as to be consistent within the season. We get it. Korra doesn't like to be protected. Now give her something else to do except SAY it.

Well, I can see a lot of interesting places this story could go. After all of this obviousness, I'm a lot less certain that these writers plan to go there, which is sad after A:tlA.

[musesfool]

Aang not being a perfect dad seemed totally in character to me - obviously he loved Kya and Bumi, and they wanted his attention and were jealous when it shifted to Tenzin, but it makes perfect sense to me that once he had another airbender to train, that was going to take all his attention. I think it slots neatly into Aang's character flaws and blindspots.

I just wished Korra were a little less angry at her dad and a lot more angry at a bunch of soldiers who were going to launch an attack on some kids. I thought that made her look ...not very bright, to be charitable.

[lizbee]

I think it slots neatly into Aang's character flaws and blindspots.

Yeah, I agree.

I just wished Korra were a little less angry at her dad and a lot more angry at a bunch of soldiers who were going to launch an attack on some kids. I thought that made her look ...not very bright, to be charitable.

I thought so, too, although the same could be said for Tanraq.

[aberration]

I really love Asami, but I... also really love Korra? I mean, what I love about having both of them in the show is that I think their contrasts work to display how there are different ways to be feminine And They Are All Okay. You can be brash and/or athletic and/or wear lipstick and/or be cutesy sometimes and those are all okay! And I love how Korra's not traditionally feminine in a lot ways, but is also quite openly emotional a lot of the time, while Asami tends to be more reserved, because while being 'emotional' tends to be the more stereotypical 'feminine' thing, it's also the case that if you're a woman and emotional, you're emotional and irrational and make a fuss, but if you're reserved or stoic and a woman, you're an Ice Queen. Because women can never win!!! Yay.

(I also feel like it's a lot easier to not earn fandom's ire when you're not on screen, so. We'll see!)

But I also generally liked this episode, and I like what you've said about Aang and Aang's own experience in terms of having a 'family.' To be honest, Aang being a perfect father would seem more like character assassination to me.

Whatever. Aside from the Bolin and Mako stuff (no, not breaking up with someone because you feel genuinely threatened by them is not funny, and though I've... come up with reasons for why Mako does the things he does, I'm still not finding his saying words about things particularly enjoyable to watch), I mean, I'm very interested to see how all of this goes. And I while I'm sort of ehn on More Northern Water Tribe Men on a meta standpoint, I don't really see it as Korra falling for the same trick twice, as I do think Tarrlok and Unalaq worked very different angles. On the contrary, I thought her demand that the detainees be tried pretty clearly demonstrated that she had in fact learned from her experiences during the Equalist Revolution. It's just that yeah, Korra's bad at recognizing manipulative and deceptive behavior, and sometimes when you're bad at something, you're still going to be bad at it even if that flaw has tripped you up before. Because that's... having a flaw.

[lizbee]

And I love how Korra's not traditionally feminine in a lot ways, but is also quite openly emotional a lot of the time, while Asami tends to be more reserved, because while being 'emotional' tends to be the more stereotypical 'feminine' thing, it's also the case that if you're a woman and emotional, you're emotional and irrational and make a fuss, but if you're reserved or stoic and a woman, you're an Ice Queen.

Yes! But at the same time, both of them are quite open (to differing degrees) about their enthusiasms, ie, they're both really into sport.

On the contrary, I thought her demand that the detainees be tried pretty clearly demonstrated that she had in fact learned from her experiences during the Equalist Revolution.

Yes, I agree.

Tarrlok and Unalaq worked very different angles.

Tarrlok was pretty easy to see through, because he was trying to appeal to Korra's vanity, and then her pride. Whereas Unalaq is appealing to Korra's genuine desire to be a really good Avatar.

It's just that yeah, Korra's bad at recognizing manipulative and deceptive behavior, and sometimes when you're bad at something, you're still going to be bad at it even if that flaw has tripped you up before. Because that's... having a flaw.

I have to say, the way fandom is acting, I must be the worst-written female character EVER.