Legend of Korra with Jacob! Episodes 19 and 20

I watched the original Avatar: The Last Airbender some time ago and I remember the basics of the world, but not a lot of specifics.  However, I remember liking it very much, so I thought I’d watch the follow up series.  Please no spoilers for this show, but if I’m forgetting something from the original series, feel free to remind me.  I will be spoiling episodes as I go along, naturally, so consider yourself warned.

Episodes 19 + 20 - Beginnings Parts 1 and 2

So, after an unavoidable delay, I'm back and with two fantastic episodes.  There's so much to talk about I don't know where to start.  We're given a two parter about the origins of the Avatar and I love this stuff.  These episodes were tailor made for me.

First off, I love a good origin story.  That may be surprising to some who have heard my opinion on certain superhero movies (if I have to see Batman's parents get shot one more time...), but it's because those origin stories are so played out.  The new Spider-man movie better not have a whole thing with the radioactive spider, because EVERYBODY KNOWS, seriously.  He's Spider-man, move on to him Spider-manning.  But when it's not horribly saturated into my very soul, an origin story is fantastic.  Dr. Strange was fun because we haven't seen it a thousand times before and also because it's a fun (if very tropey) origin.  It also lends itself well to making the character interesting.  If the main character has to learn how powers work and what they  can and cannot due, that's a character arc that writes itself.  It's probably why so many superhero movies resort to origin stories; it's the easiest self-contained storyline to portray.  I think it's definitely part of the so-called "Superman Problem."  Once he's established as the most powerful hero, where do you go?

But here is where both Avatar shows really shine.  Yes the Avatar is more powerful than anyone else, that's a premise of the show, but every Avatar we meet is flawed and very human.  Aang is a coward, Korra is an entitled brat, and Yuan, who we meet in this episode, is a thief.  He steals firebending from a giant Lion Turtle and goes to live with the forest spirits in the Princess Mononoke-verse.  He's just struggling to survive most of the time, we don't even get a fancy character flaw like "entitled" because his struggles are so primal; food, water, not getting eaten.  This man is not a hero.  It reminded me a lot of Disney's Aladdin, from the giant cat head granting powers to the way Yuan acted.

These episodes answered so many of my questions.  Bending was originally a gift from the powerful Lion Turtles, which are beings the size of cities that are basically really powerful spirits.  It was originally loaned out to people for weeks at a time, but eventually became a gift that is passed down.  I wonder exactly how the terms of this arrangement work, but I feel like genetics is probably the closest way we have to modeling it.  You can't mix them, though, because a normal human can't do it. And that's where we hit the main thing I'm excited about.  We now know the meaning behind the name of the show.   The Avatar can wield all the elements because they are literally an Avatar of the Spirit of Balance in Life.  Is everything explained?  No, but enough is that I'm very happy.  Sometimes you just want the answer to be "magic", making everything rational detracts from the work (see: Midichloreans).  And these two episodes put everything together in a context that is very satisfying and fits the show.  

Lastly, this episode did open up some interesting new questions about the ecology of Avatarland.  First off, we clearly see that there is some sort of global cooling going on.  The North and South Pole in the past have no snow or ice and the water tribe appears to be somewhere tropical.  They still call these areas the "poles" however, so we know this isn't a case like our world, where Antarctica used to be a jungle because it was located tropically.  The fact that the poles are anchored in place by dimensional portals would imply that plate tectonics is probably not a factor in Avatarland.  

Animal populations also would be strange, to us.  I have yet to see any animals that are native to both poles (I also haven't thought to look for it before), but seeing as the spirit portals are right next to each other in the spirit plane and animals wander through them freely, I would guess there is a lot of shared species between the North and South Poles.  What I am left confused with is the status of what constitutes a spirit versus an animal.  One of the talking animals that was definitely exhibiting spirit powers was like a giant Ferret Monkey?  But the Cat-deer (who is my new favorite creature in Avatarland) was definitely just an animal despite hanging out with spirits.  We also know that certain animals, like Air Bison, have a natural ability to manipulate elements, despite being animals.  Although, just about every animal we've run into on the show demonstrates a level of intelligence and a comprehension of human language well beyond even the smartest dog in our world.  These ecological questions will require further study.

Stray Observations:

1. The art style for these episodes was gorgeous.  Truly original and different and I want more like it.
2. I find it interesting how both of non-main character Avatars we've met were Firebenders.  I think the show is making a conscious effort to show that there are balanced, non-crazy Firebenders, despite the fact that they were the bad guys of the first show and have murdered the parents of just about everybody on this one.
3. A lot of fun with the spirits, it's hard to believe this is an American show sometimes.  
4. In all the generations and societal upheaval of the world changing drastically since the first Avatar, the Air nation kept the head tattoos.  I wonder what they mean.