Image Description: The Red Lotus’s principal members. From left: Ming-Wa, P’li, Ghazan, and Zaheer
Season three of Legend of Korra is my favorite season. It was the most intense of the seasons, and it introduced the Red Lotus, an evil counterpart of the White Lotus, a secret organization to helping the Avatar that was introduced in the original series. I should point out that their leader, Zaheer, was voiced by none other than Henry Rollins. I don’t know if he’s worked on any other cartoons, but he should. I should also mention they introduced a new form of bending with Ghazan, who bent magma. According to the mythos, this can only be achieved if one is born of both fire and earth benders.
Sadly, however, Nickelodeon proved to be the greater villain. Nickelodeon doomed the show from the start by airing Korra on Friday nights. For those who don’t know, Friday is traditionally the “death slot”. Very few programs have ever lingered on Friday nights. (The only ones that comes to mind are X-Files and ABC’s TGIF block) It is where many programs have gone to die. Nickelodeon failed to promote the show enough to even give it a chance. A mere three weeks after the season had started, Nickelodeon axed the show. Instead, the remaining eight were aired on Nickelodeon’s website. And I for one do not like the way Nickelodeon’s website is designed. Episodes are not displayed in the proper order, and you don’t even get all the episodes. They need to take a cue from Hulu’s design.
Now, I’ve heard fans say online was a better deal. These fans realize that making Legend of Korra solely online limited its accessibility. The show was designed for bigger TV screens, not the small monitors we normally use. Besides, it was already limited enough being aired on cable rather than network TV. These fans do not consider that not everyone can afford cable or satellite, and not everyone can afford the Internet. Some can’t even afford both. (My family is a Direct TV subscriber)
Image Description: Kai, one of the new air-benders introduced in Season Three.
Getting back to the show, we learned that random people were being bestowed air-bending powers, as if nature itself was attempting to restore the balance that was lost when their nation was all but destroyed in the original series. Lord Tenzin was eager to revive the Air Nomads by training these new recruits. One, Opal, was actually a descendant of Toph and lived in a nation of metal-benders that Toph founded. Another one named Kai became Jinora’s new love interest. Jinora herself was on her way to receiving her tattoos, a rite that would show she had mastered the teachings of her people. Her grandfather, Aang had the very same tattoos, and her participation in this ritual was one of my favorite moments in the entire series.
Image Description: Jinora receiving her tattoos
The Red Lotus were more than formidable villains. They broke Korra both mentally and physically and even poisoned her to cut off her powers forever. The writers never even showed whether or not Korra was even able to access the spirit world anymore. For all intents and purposes, Korra was now powerless. How could she carry on her role now?
Season four was shaping up to be an interesting season. Fans everywhere were encouraging everyone to watch the show through Nickelodeon’s site in the hopes that the ratings would convince Nickelodeon to air the remaining seasons on their channels. However, their efforts were for naught, and it was announced that season four would be exclusively online as well.
Join me in December, when I conclude my review. Judging by my opinion on season four’s finale, I’m probably going to tick off a lot people.
Aspie Catholic 