Banana Scoop

This past weekend Nickelodeon wrapped up The Legend of Korra Season 1 in an explosive fashion. I’ve talked about it before and how awesome the set up has been. The finale featured two episodes, Skeletons in then Closet and Endgame, and they wrapped up all the build up from the ten episode set up. There weren’t many spine tingling moments in these ten episodes, as compared to the Avatar: The Last Airbender, which usually had me goosebumping, but the last two episodes had its fair share of epic moments.

With excellent character development, beautiful animation and music, and enough hints to the previous series mythlore, the Legend of Korra season finale puts another big hole in my heart as I have to wait an entire another year before we can see anything from this again. I relate it to my experience with Game of Thrones, where I had to fulfill my fix by beginning the book series. But there are no book series for this. So this post won’t be the last we hear of this series, as I’ll try to keep the spirit alive and try to find as many pieces of Legend of Korra related pop culture over the next few weeks.

Read below to get my opinion and feelings on the season finale. SERIOUS SPOILERS BELOW

General Iroh, General Bumi, and the Alliance are Pretty Badass

We got a glimpse of General Iroh in episode ten. He’s been confirmed since then as the Grandson of Fire Lord Zuko. The same voice actor brings a large amount of nostalgia. For focusing on the first 10 episodes on Team Avatar, we were granted a large amount of screen time for the young, strong jawed newcomer general. General Iroh is pretty much a monster. His fight with all those airplanes were beautifully rendered and an awesome application to firebending. Essentially becoming the Human Torch, he pretty much bad-assed his way as he took out half a dozen planes.

We weren’t allowed too much else out of the alliance. We saw that they’ve got about a dozen ships and only heard about another General: General Bumi. Tenzin’s brother and sister were known to be far more silly than Tenzin himself. The ten seconds we were allowed to see him gave me goosebumps. I look forward to seeing him and Kya in season 2.

Amon was a Fearsome and Unexpecting Foe

The entire series built up how fearsome Amon was. The idea of taking bending away was only a skill that belonged to the Avatar. This in turn spawned a whole mess of theories that related him to being another Avatar born when Aang ‘died’. Or that he was Bumi, who was angry that he wasn’t born with any bending abilities. We were revealed a lot of who he actually was [expanded on down below], but that didn’t take away how fearsome of an enemy he was.

He literally had Republic City in the palms of his hands with the help of Future Industries leader Hiroshi Sato. He had technological superiority and smashed the alliance fleet with his innovations. His personal army not only had the skill to subdue benders, but their same agility and skill could put down any citizen. He even had the power to subdue the Avatar even for a moment. A truly fearsome enemy that I hope they can top in season 2.

Go Away Tenzin…

After it was all said and done when Amon was defeated, Korra still had to deal with the fact her bending was taken away. No manner of mortal healing was said to save her, so in her grief, she ran away to be isolated. One of my favorite parts of this episode was when the man clad in air temple robes came behind her. In response to Korra’s shrugging away of who seemed to be Tenzin, a familiar voice and face responded. An appearance of all the previous Avatars appears and comforts her in her grief. And in the same manner Aang has previously taken away bending, he restored hers. Definitely one of the best moments in the series so far.

Tarloc and Noatak Carry Highly Emotional Baggage

We were given a large amount of flashback to who Amon was an his relationship with Tarloc and Yakone. The flashback itself was extremely emotional and the touchy subject that involved morality in the presence of power. The two brothers had a complicated relationship that was wrapped up in the most jaw dropping manner. I find it almost unbelievable that Nickelodeon allowed the notion of murder/suicide on children’s television. It was emotional, hard to watch, and it provided a small sense of redemption for Tarloc. I want to hear ya’lls opinions especially about this part.

Avatar Korra and Her Future

Korra may have been known as the Avatar, it was only in this last ten minutes that she became a fully realized Avatar by finally going into the Avatar State. What lies for her in the next season will be extremely exciting. While season 2 is confirmed, we’re all very excited for what’s in store for her. The story structure is already completely different from Avatar Aang’s journey, and the greatest aspect of this series is how unpredictable it is. Goosebumps friends, goosebumps.