Hey everybody. Well another week another episode of Avatar: The Legend of Korra. Today we will be looking at episode 10: A New Spiritual Age. I admittedly don’t have much to talk about this time, at least from a negative point of view. This was a very solid and-dare I say it-great episode, though I did find one or two things to comment on, but the negatives are for later. Let’s focus first on what I liked about this episode!

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What I Liked

The Animation

Once again the animation in this episode was incredible, breath-taking to behold. I think it’s confirmed at this point that when they want to show us the Spirit World, they really go all out to show off.

Of course like Beginnings (which also had fantastic animation), this episode was done by Studio Mir, as opposed to Studio Pierrot. I hate to jump on the bandwagon here, but yea, Studio Mir’s episodes are much better animated, though having the more interesting episodes to show off with probably didn’t help Pierrot much either.

Really, that’s all I’ve got to say. The animation was incredible, and truly captured the various atmospheres of the Spirit World and the surrealness of it all. Speaking of which…

The Spirit World

This isn’t technically a new thing for the series, but really, I do love how they portray the spirit world in this episode, as this world where our very notion of reality and rationality are broken. In one second Korra and Jinora are in a peaceful, serene hillside, but in the next scene they’re underwater, about to be eaten by a giant spirit, and in the next Korra is alone in a dark forest.

I think what was good about this episodes interpretation was how aligned it was with the one we see with Wan and his interactions with spirits. This series has tried to show us a lot about how spirits seemingly live their lives in this world and because of it are ironically humanised.

Case in point: the wedding between two frog-spirits. It was just there to introduce a setting and as small, tasteful joke, but with it we learn quite a bit more about  the spirits, and how many of them are peaceful, friendly and most certainly likeable characters that grow attachments just like humans. I’m really digging this.
We were also shown though how Korra has a direct influence on the spirit world by her emotions, and how when she’s upset or angry it has negative effects on the spirit world.

Now with this, it’s been suggested that Korra’s past child-like tantrums and grief would have caused the problems with the spirit world to become worse by her feeling that alone, and to some this is the creators addressing her-let’s be frank here-pathetic behaviour.

Do I feel the same? Honestly, no. I know I’m sounding like an old record here, but I’m quite convinced that the problems with Korra as a character is simply down to bad writing, and not some elaborate ploy by the creators with some deeper meaning behind.

Anyone reading this is entitled to disagree with me, but I do feel many people read too much into some parts of this show, or think irrationally high of the creators capabilities.

But back on topic, while to me this isn’t the creators addressing Korra’s missteps, I do love the idea of her having direct influence on the spirit world, and I do at least find it feasible to believe her inner turmoil had some negative effect on the spirit world.

So yea, digging the spirit world stuff a lot. If only it’d been shown more in the first half of the series.

The Original Iroh Returns, And He’s As Awesome As Ever

Ahem.

FFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCCCCCCCKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK
YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!

Oh god, oh god, oh god! You should’ve seen my face when I first saw Iroh! Iroh is one of my favourite characters from the original series, and having him here just filled me with absolute glee.

If it had just been a nice bit of fanservice, then that alone would’ve been enough, but no, Iroh actually plays a significant and vital role in this episode as the one to help Korra and explain to her more about the spirit world.

For a spiritual mentor, Iroh is quite frankly perfect. Some people have criticised Tenzin as being a poor teacher for Korra, and regardless of whether that’s true or not, Iroh is the ideal mentor for Korra who can win anyone other with his calm reason and abundantly sweet personality. It’s also an incredibly fitting scenario that Iroh lives his life peacefully with other peaceful-seemingly old aged-spirits and spends his time drinking tea and playing Pai Sho, which must be his form of heaven.

That alone makes my day, because seeing Iroh happy and content with himself makes me feel warm inside, because lord knows he’s one of the many great characters from the show that deserved such a happy ending.

The Spirit Library

As you all clearly know, this was one great fanservice episode to fans of the original series. First, the classic motherfucking Iroh returned in all his glory to help guide
Korra, and with Jinora’s side she finds herself at the Spirit Library from season 2!

Seemingly, the library has fallen so far underground that it has literally fallen back into the spirit world, which I honestly find mildly hilarious for some reason, and of course this meant we got to see Wan Shi Tong, the libraries protector. I think we can all agree that the initial scene between Wan Shi Tong, Jinora and the fox was hilarious whilst also emphasising how the old spirits are barely in touch with the modern, industrial one.

Interestingly, Wan Shi Tong has gone through change since we last saw him; he is even harsher than he was with Aang and it turns out he is in cohorts with Unalaq (meaning
Unalaq has likely researched Vaatu at the library, which is believable). This works because not only has he had his promise broken twice by humans, one of them was the Avatar, so it makes sense he has little to no trust for the Avatar.

The very small scene with Professor Zei’s corpse quite honestly made me sad, even though it’d be obvious he would be dead by this point. If anything though, it’s a good sign that the death of a minor, one episode character made me sad, and it was a really nice continuity nod to the original series.

Korra’s Emotional Journey

I am glad once again to be able to praise Korra’s character development because it was really good in this episode. It was certainly unique, and while it didn’t address all of my problems with her character, it was nice to see some development that will most likely stick.

Having her become a child throughout most of this worked really well, because it made her look and feel vulnerable, frightened and confused. It fitted the setting she was in and said setting made such a thing possible. It was a given she’d revert back to her teen form at the end, but it did feel earnt and appropriate.

The lessons she obviously learnt today was her influence on the spirit world and her role as the Avatar was drilled into her again, which is reinforcing what she learnt in Beginnings, but as opposed to simply watching Wan’s life,  this time she is understanding her role in the grand scheme of things and how she must act. As well as that, there did seem to be the lesson of her not trying to tackle something violently and think of cleverer, more peaceful method to solving the problem…

…Admittedly a bit annoying since she already WENT through that lesson, but hey, chances are this time it’ll stick…maybe…hopefully…yea.

One more thing I’ll add about Korra is that for once, her failure at the end didn’t make her look bad. In other words, it wasn’t really something she could’ve avoided. Unalaq had Jinora, she had no choice and probably did the only thing possible to save her, so no criticism there.

Will these string of good Korra episodes last? Hard to say for sure, but at least we’ve had two episodes in a row that took her character in a positive step.

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And that was what I liked, and boy did I enjoy it all. Really strong points about this episode, and better yet, only two issues with this episode!

What I Didn’t Like

The Confrontation with Vaatu and Unalaq

Before you get the wrong idea, what actually happened didn’t bother me. As previously stated, I had no issues with what happened.

This is only a nitpick…buuuuut the actual confrontation between Korra, Vaatu and Unalaq did feel a wee bit rushed.

I think the episode probably could’ve cut down other parts of the episode a bit to have made more room for this scene, because it did come and end a bit too quick for my liking, especially since this was the scene this entire episode was based around.

That said, I do hold that this is just a nitpick because the actual scene was overall okay. I’d have probably given it more time though.

Unalaq, Again

I am openly repeating myself from my previous review, but to be honest if that episode highlighted this problem, this one makes it official.

Unalaq, what happened to you man? You were such an awesome villain at the start of the show. A well intentioned extremist that could’ve been this shows first true anti-villain.

But now look at you: you’re just helping the obviously evil spirit do obviously evil things to the world whilst you don’t even try to justify what you’re doing.
Seriously, I mean that last part. At least in past episode he made it clear he believed he was doing the right thing. Now he doesn’t even bother whilst he clearly takes pleasure nearly killing a defenceless young girl.

This is a recurring problem from season one, only worse in my opinion. I personally found any sympathy and ambiguity for the Equalists and Amon lost fairly soon, and that is the case with Unalaq, but HE’S trying to help the ultimate dark spirit be released from his prison, for reasons he’s pretty damn sketchy on.

But you know, having an outright evil villain is nothing new in this show, and both Ozai and Azula stand as the shows best villains, but the thing they were both menacing, frightening and clearly had fun doing horrible things that made them a joy to watch them be evil and power hungry.

Unalaq though? He’s just stoic, quiet and a dick. I’m sorry but Unalaq is fucking BORING. Without that ambiguity, that debate as to whether he’s doing the right thing, he’s just a really uninteresting villain.

I dunno, maybe they will expand on what he exactly wants to do with Vaatu, maybe he will also try to double cross him, but I bet it’ll be pretty disappointing. I do still hold that Unalaq would’ve been more interesting if he too was trying to stop Vaatu, but through questionable means.

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And that wraps it all up. Indeed, this was an overall great episode, probably second only to Beginnings. Despite a few issues, I do like where the show is going and it is a much need improvement over a the sloth that was the seasons middle episodes. Stay tuned for next week!