The legend of korra season 2 episode 2
It just knows how to display wrath and disagreement.
It’s all part and parcel of how the sense of urgency feels like it emphasizes in the wrong places in the wrong ways, emblematic of how little this show seems to know about how to milk drama. And yet on the other other other hand, it somehow feels like the show isn’t treating her family being at risk as ENOUGH of a worry and often loses sight of it during her exploits. But on other other hand, it also feels like the show shirking off its original mission statement and embarrassing the idea that what better powers the dramatic engine show is objective-based bad guy war-ing (a la Avatar).
But on the other hand, that lack of neutrality is SO damn obvious in this case because her family’s life is on the line that it it’s too easy a realization to make. In one way, it should be a character defining moment where she’s tossing aside the parameters of her job and realizing there ISN’T such a thing as neutrality. That’s what makes this “I’m not neutral” moment so interesting. As an audience, we can never get our feet under us, nor get them under her. As I’ve said for the millionth time, so many of Korra’s decisions aren’t actually complex, they’re either vague, poorly motivated, or fall into the obvious trap of some bad guy machinations.
Don’t get me wrong, The Legend of Korra is “sensitive” in all directions, but everything that could really get us truly involved in deeply emphasizing with a character and their goal instead crashes against the rocks of this constant web of convolution. For one, I don’t think the show understands empathy building in quite same way (or at least doesn’t know how to construct it as clearly). There are bigger root problems, of course. It falls short of virtually every requirement. It mistakes vagueness for complexity, it renders bad guys not into humane portrayals, but cartoonish architects of master plans, it “both sides are wrong” virtually any moral issue to remain above it. And in writing out the comparisons between Avatar and The Wire, it’s interesting seeing The Legend of Korra get caught between the two competing instincts and often gets tripped up on both. Everything that was complex still operated within that operatic hero space. There was straightforward goals of training Aang to become the Avatar, find balance within himself, and take on the super clear bad guy from minute one. When I think back to Avatar it was a show with empathy in all directions, too, but it had different dramatic construction. For if you want the both the humane beauty and crushing depths of relativism? Look no further than superlative shows like The Wire, which dive into complex systems and yet send empathy in all directions.īut The Legend of Korra did this… poorly.Īnd the reason sort of might be part of the DNA of the show and conflicting instincts. There can be such dramatic power to these sorts of portrayals. She would have to do what we thinks is right, then it would go one way or go another, and the results could either showcase the character learning why they were wrong, or provide a meditation on why we stick by our decisions. But to actually do this, Korra would have had to feature episodes that center around complex decisions that challenge the character’s belief system. Originally, this show was supposed to be about the difficulties of navigating the moral complexity of the modern world. There’s a moment in this episode where Korra shouts “I’m not neutral!” And I think it’s really interesting because it brings us to the weird nexus of the show’s changes in both identity and intention. Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4 / Season One Finale