Legend of Korra with Jacob! Episodes 23 and 24

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.

Episode 23 - Night of a Thousand Stars
Episode 24 - Harmonic Convergence

I'm kind of at a loss for what to say about these episodes.  I have a lot of little things to touch on, so today's entry is rather scattered.  They're very exciting, definitely building  towards a cool finale, but they don't really give me a lot more information about anything.  That's not a fault, it's simple story structure.

All the background details need to be in play already for the payoff to work, adding a crucial bit of information now would be cheating.  To keep things Avatar-y, the best analogy I can think of is a Shymalan movie.  The Sixth Sense worked because all the details were already there from that very early shot of Bruce Willis sitting alone with his depressed wife, not talking.  Everything you need to know about the rest of the movie is right there, you just don't have the framework to do that.  The character building and story of that film lead you to the correct interpretation.   It's a lot less stark here, where I don't think there's going to be a sudden twist, but it's still basic structure.  If they reveal now, out of the blue, for instance, that's there's a third major spirit force, it'd feel cheap.

There were some things I looked into because of these episodes.  Varrick really likes false flag operations, for instance.  A False Flag is where you pretend to be your enemy and do something to yourself, so that you get the political backing needed to go to war.  It comes from an old Naval tactic of flying the flag of the wrong nation on your ship to identify yourself as an ally.  Real world examples abound, but also conspiracy theories surround every major attack in the last 200 years.  A Google search lead me to some pretty scary places in just a few links and I'm really not interested in talking about ones that are pretty well established.  It's just depressing and it really doesn't add to the show in anyway.

Bolin's propaganda film is another thing that I thought was interesting, but again, I didn't find a line that really ties in with Korra.   Yes, those kind of serials existed, yes, they are even more ridiculous than portrayed in the show, but they are also, at this point, embarrassingly racist, misogynistic, and not for a good cause.  The film works in the show because Unalaq is literally trying to alter the fabric of reality.  Unalaq claims he's doing it for good reasons, but the show seems pretty clear cut that he's been driven mad by the dark spirit.  I give it credit for making him not evil for evil's sake, but he still is thoroughly corrupted.  Maybe it will surprise me and seasons 3 and 4 are all about adapting to the new spirit infested world, but I seriously doubt it.

Space is really something I get excited about, as most people who know me already know.  So seeing things like the whole solar system is great.  Avatarland is definitely not Earth.  8 major bodies make the syzygy that forms the Harmonic Convergence, although it's possible there are others that are not pictured.  The recent discovery of the Trappist system shows that you can jam a lot of planets into a small place.  I am fairly confident in my understanding of orbital resonance to say that an 8 planet syzygy as shown on the show is impossible in our universe, the system would not be stable and some of the planets would be ejected.  But, this is a magic world, so let's ignore.   The 3rd and 7th planet have rings and they get progressively larger as they get further from the sun.  Or perhaps its a trick of perspective and they're all the same size or something, the angle is not great.  However, that's a very different system from ours.  Also, as there are no rings visible from the ground, we know Avatarland isn't on the 3rd planet.  It does have a moon, though, and my early blog entry where I questioned if the world is round and how gravity might work is answered.  Despite the presence of magic and spirits, gravity appears to be generally the same.

However, unlike last week, where I think looking at how long 10,000 years really is helps to appreciate how long Avatars have existed and how much society must have changed under the guidance of an Avatar, I don't know that looking at the astronomy of Avatarland really helps the show any.  It's a magic, astrological plot point.  I could go off on Pluto's status as a planet or orbital ratios, but it doesn't meet my nebulous criteria of being related to the show.  It's just a thing that is happening.

One theme of this show that I do want to talk a bit is family strife.  I mentioned this towards the end of last season, when Amon and Tarrlok ended up being brothers, but it really continues to be a huge theme.  The brothers Unalaq and Tonlaq are ready to kill each other and I think they only reason they haven't is because this is a kids show.  Unalaq's children, creepy as they may be, are seriously having second thoughts about following him and the show seems to be further exploring the concept of this familial bond being tested.  How far does loyalty to your father go?  Korra had hers tested earlier this season when she sided with Unalaq against Tonlaq,    This theme of internal family fighting pervades everything and I'm not sure how to read it.  Tenzin has a very stable and solid family, his bickering with his siblings is just standard sibling stuff, it isn't anything that's going to lead to conflict.  So what do we make of this?  I don't know, I'm really interested to hear other people's thoughts on this.  Is it just a way to make the drama more intense, personal, and Shakespearean?

Stray Observations

1. I can't decide if I like Ginger or not.  I liked her when she was putting her foot down on Bolin for being a dope, but then she immediately reverses when Bolin is a hero.  
2. The First Lady is named Buttercup?
3. Varrick really gets away with it with everything, doesn't he?  I mean, he's in prison, but it's a palatial cell and he keeps all his comforts and assistant.  Sometimes Avatar just kind of skirts over some really hard hitting commentary, like how rich people never really get punished.
4. Amnesia making the break up go away?  Dammit Mako, Asami is going to be rightfully mad.  I really hope they have a conversation, I hate plot points that revolve around two people simply not having a conversation.  See, Marvel's Civil War (comic or movies).  Mako and Korra really never sat down while on the boat and talked out what she forgot?
5. Korra is the angriest air bender ever.  They're supposed to be all calm and stuff