Maybe a digital route is the way to go. The show has a pretty bad time slot
Seeing the latest episode and what happened, I can now see why they went digital and Nick felt that perhaps it was time to take it off the air - as the series just a good bit darker today, in addition to last week''s episode with Zaheer condemning Aiwei to spiritual death in the Fog of Lost Souls.
I knew Zaheer and the Red Lotus were intensive - but I wasn't expecting what happened today when he killed the Earth Queen in choosing to literally take her breath away. The first murder of a leader in
Legend of Korra and probably the most explicit death we've seen on
The Legend of Korra, at least
since Tarrlok's murder/suicide in Book One.
I was glad discovering they chose to have an air bending individual as the enemy for this season - but t
o witness what he did and showing the darker side of air-bending (consistent with air nomad philosophy he was raised on AND being completely peaceable/calm on it throughout the process) took me off guard completely. As another
noted best:
Remember how Avatar: The Last Airbender used to position the different forms of bending? Firebending came off as the most threatening, especially because most of the villains were firebenders. Earthbending was kind of dangerous, because, well, rocks hurt. But waterbending and airbending always seemed rather harmless. You could blast people with air or soak them with water, maybe even freeze them in some ice, but the lasting damage never seemed all that severe, physically or psychologically.
And then "The Puppetmaster" introduced bloodbending, and suddenly, a whole new use for waterbending came into horrifying relief. It's scary and creepy, and the franchise's animation of the effects of bloodbending has always stressed its contorted nature, which makes it the worst to see. That leaves airbending as the one seemingly innocent and least life-threatening discipline of the bending arts.
Or rather, it was—right up until Zaheer airbended the air right out of the Earth Queen's body and we had the honor of seeing her eyes bulge as her oxygen swirled about her head until she (apparently) died.
"You think freedom is something you can give and take on a whim... But to your people, freedom is as essential as air."
As with waterbuilding and bloodbending, it's one of those applications that seems obvious in retrospect—well, of course you could do that!—but it continued to build on Zaheer's adherence to the more radical and less peaceful ideas that have surrounded airbending since the inception of the this franchise. It wasn't just a shocking use of airbending for the sake of a shocking use of airbending. Bending the air out of someone's body isn't something we could imagine Aang, Tenzin, or sweet old Monk Gyatso doing; it spits in the very face of the Air Nomad's respect for all living things, after all.
Air bending just got taken to a new level, as they can literally kill any individual by making a vacuum to suck the air out...expanding upon the air bending arsenal.
The detailing of the scene was literally breathtaking - seeing Zaheer’s tai chi movements, the Earth Queen’s blistering eyes, and her shaking hand as the last breaths of air evaporate above her — it was something that brought home the point that each and every element has a dark side...and it's arguably the case that air bending is possibly the most deadly form of bending in existence - something that the air nomads probably realized and part of the reason the culture (from what we've seen) was so big on restraint. Seeing what Zaheer did made me think "If the air nomads COULD do as Zaheer had done, why didn't they defend themselves and prevent their own genocide?" - but then again, what we're seeing is philosophical differences... Zaheer would have had no problem dealing with the Firelord, unlike Aang who felt that all life was precious.
To be honest, however.... I've always wanted to see the true power of Airbending and yet even a tyrant like her didn't deserve to die that way. I wouldn't even say she deserved to die at all, as she never had anyone killed that we could see and the worst thing she did was conscript Earth Kingdom citizens into the army. At worst, she deserved to be overthrown and replaced with a better Earth Monarch. But given Zaheer's extreme antics, I am not surprised at what he did.
It was fascinating to see the fact that Zaheer was not demonized by the people for what he did. For if Zaheer had murdered an innocent, he’d be the ultimate evil and there would be no problem with Korra choosing to swoop in and take him out as the world cheered on. However, Zaheer was an enemy who actually represents the people - one whom the poor loved when it came to them freeing him. As we see when Gahzan melts down the walls of Ba Sing Se, the people welcomeD the Red Lotus’ revolution - seeing the death of the Queen as the end, as opposed to addressing the means.
Zaheer's philosophy is an excellent means of showcasing what air nomads would look like if they chose to go to war - as the air nomads of Aang's persuasion were about being peaceable and never harming life - like Buddhist do in certain camps. For Zaheer, his form of Buddhist Anarchism is something which would be very much opposite of that - and on the issue, more has been discussed elsewhere on the matter:
People don't like change, especially when they are used to what they already have. It will probably take some sort of catastrophe before the majority of the developed world changes its ways.
Gxg (G²);66123191 said:
There have been cases of others standing in the way of aggressive destruction of the environment (like these Buddhist monks in Cambodia blessing trees which are about to be destroyed to make way for a banana plantation - with the orange cloth making them sacred and used in the hopes of deterring loggers from cutting them down.
But if things do not change, there's no sense in fear being promoted within that system.
As Zaheer noted to the Queen when she was oppressing others, " You think freedom is something you can give and take on a whim... But to your people, freedom is as essential as (pause) air. And without it, there is no life. There is only (pause) darkness." Air cannot be controlled - air is the symbolization of freedom just as the wind goes where it pleases. And likewise, Zaheer feels that true freedom comes with no controls.
We see where Zaheer quoted Guru Laghima and stated that new growth cannot exist without the destruction of the old ..as evidenced by his conversation with Korra in the Spirit world. His allegiance to the teachings of the air bender
Guru Laghima make me consider that there was perhaps a fall-out between airbenders in the traditional sense of non-violence and those who were for violence...
Guru Laghima's philosophy is probably the most developed core philosophy of the Air Nomads - as the goal is to free yourself from worldly wants and desires, and be one with the void. It seems possible, of course, that he took it to the extreme - and started thinking that because he was untethered and free because of his teachings, that meant that if everyone else was, there would no more war in the world. What we see now is Zaheer's using the same philosophy but applying it to tearing down the current systems of government in the world. And if Guru Laghima represents an off-shoot of air nomad philosophy, that will be huge in showing where things will go and where they evolved from Wan's time. To have airbenders in the past like Zaheer who admired Vaatu is not surprised when considering how the airbenders actually operated..
There was a scene where the air benders actually met Raava and Wan together and what's interesting is seeing the ways that they are work. They clearly knew more about the spirit world and recognized Vaatu and Raava. Whereas Wans people had no concept of the spirit world beyond the wilds. Specifically, after separating Raava and Vaatu, Wan eventually made his way onto the lion turtle where the air nomads resided and introduced himself to the Nomads - with Vaatu gaining con
trol the spirits on the island and began to terrorize the inhabitants, before revealing his presence, which the airbenders questioned due to the absence of Raava. Wan tried to fight off the spirits with firebending, when Raava arrived.
So even at the beginning of time, there was a respect air benders had for for Vaatu - and thus, they are going to have to go back to address this in order to give more reality to what happened to the evolution of the air benders.
And they will probably do more exploring on that background later.
It's not accidental that Tenzin and the new airbenders are currently training at the Norther Air Temple, which was also once the home of Guru Laghima - and in light of Laghima's philosophy which Zaheer adopted, one must wonder if perhaps we'll see an eventual confrontation between Zaheer and Tenzin ..both representing two differing schools of thought. As another
wisely pointed out...
I feel like it would make a lot of sense and provide the viewers with greater understanding if Tenzin/Kai/Jinora discover a secret room at the Northern Air Temple that once belonged to Laghima which will further explain the Red Lotus' plans (I am guessing Xia Bao was also a fan of Laghima)?
Tenzin had a locket with one of Laghima's poems, so it's unlikely that the Air Nomads ostracized Guru Laghima.
With Zaheer, we have a side of Air Nomad philosophy which is all for peace - except this peace is one that comes about through violence....one that feels the world should descend back before there was government and society...that chaos is the natural order of things. With Zaheer, we the mirror opposite of who Aang was since his goals are to achieve true freedom for the world but that would also bring chaos too.
For the Red Lotus, they are not so much heartless villains as they are antiheroes - for their methods may be less than benevolent (i.e., killing the Earth Queen, threatening others who do not fall in line with their goals, etc.), but at the end of the day, they're good people who are just trying to make the world a better place for regular people. And that is something that makes things VERY complicated for Korra. It was not accidental that we witness several times throughout the episode this theme, like when Bolin conversed with the lava bender and waterbender and both of them were humanized when they talked about how lonely they were in prison and how they entertained themselves by thinking about the lives of the guards. It was classic witnessing how the lava bender shared a genuine moment of connection with Bolin - and on top pf that, when Zaheer stopped his waterbender associate Ming from hurting the radio guy, saying they were trying to help people like him, it was clear that these guys were not simply out for power.
And again, when the lava bender Ghazan brought down the walls of Ba Sing Se, that was a VERY historic moment...
I wonder how Korra is going to be able to handle things as they are now that the problems have increased for her. Who knows - but one thing is certain, things will NOT be the same afterward.
And I appreciate the ways he contrasted with Aang who earlier defended the Northern Air Temple from being defiled:
).
