Korra, when will you learn.
Tbh Aang was annoying too, and apparently not a good dad
When that girl called Korra the worst avatar ever, I felt that. My heart also broke upon learning that Aang was not too much of a good dad to all of his kids.
Wow Korra is more of a child than Aang was (and she’s older than Aang). This is not great writing or character development.
Review by Andrew BloomVIP 9BlockedParent2017-07-30T20:09:25Z
[8.1/10] It’s time to face facts -- Korra may be more than a little bit naive. After all, she was the one who thought she could just announce to the Equalist that Oman was a fraud and everyone would just listen to her without any proof. Now, she’s also the one who sees Unalaq marching his troops through her homeland, without having told her about this plan, and goes “well, this is probably fine.”
That makes the conflict of the episode a little strained. We’re supposed to believe that Korra has effectively pledged her loyalty to Unalaq after he expresses confidence and trust in her while her father has tried to limit her and keep things from her. But when Unalaq seems like an obvious strongman trying to unite the two tribes by force, a fact that he kept from Korra, it’s hard to think that she wouldn’t pretty quickly smell a rat.
That said, it does give us an interesting conflict, one where Korra has to choose between loyalty to her own homeland versus loyalty to the person she believes (however naively) has its best interests at heart. Her struggles to fulfill The Avatar’s responsibility to make peace, particularly when the Northerners and the Southerners already resent one another, is compelling. And the fact that the conflict is dramatized via her conflicted feelings about her father and Unalaq gives it some extra oomph.
More than that, I like that amid all this family drama, Senna provides a pretty persuasive explanation for why they tried to keep Korra with the Southern Water Tribe and didn’t tell her about what happened with Tonraq. They wanted to have as normal a life as possible, and even though her becoming The Avatar was eventually going to hinder that, they wanted her to have as normal a childhood as possible. Creating a loving reason for their “holding her back” gives force to the conflict.
By the same token, while the feint with Unalaq’s would-be kidnappers is kind of cheesy, it does create a moment of catharsis when Korra returns home, grateful that her father wasn’t part of Varick’s rebellion, and hugs him with tears in her eyes. There’s something to the idea of the sibling bond between Korra’s father and uncle, that whatever their differences, Tonraq wouldn’t do that to his brother, that’s heartening and speaks to him as a decent man despite Korra’s frustrations with him at the moment.
That ties in nicely with the adventures of Tenzin, Bumi, and Kya in the other half of the episode, which I frankly felt was much stronger. I loved the way “Civil Wars Pt. 1” teased out the various longstanding conflicts and grudges for Aang’s children. Bumi and Kya resent Tenzin for a certain amoutn of favoritsm that Aang showed him when they were growing up since he was the airbender, which Tenzin defends by noting that he had the fate of an entire culture on his back. Bumi resents his two younger siblings because they’re benders while he had to do things the hard way. And Kya resents her two brothers because she was the only one who packed up her life and looked after Katara when Aang died.
They’re all very believable conflicts, and have the shorthand, longstanding anger, and side-taking that feels right for a family growing up the shadow of a parent who’s a renowned global figure. The frustrations, both personal and semi-political, are well-drawn, and it makes their relationships with one another feel lived-in and real.
(I also neglected to talk about Ikki being drawn to the statue room from last episode. It’s an interesting approach to take, with her seemingly lured by the statue of a former Avatar doing Unalaq’s spirit spell and now missing. A nice tie between the Korra-focused and Tenzin-focused parts of this season.)
Last but not least, there’s some good comic stuff with Bolin trying to break up with Eske and having trouble with it. I’m not much for romance of this show, but when it’s played for comedy like this (with the funniest character on the show and Aubrey Plaza to boot) then I’m on board.
Overall, a good episode that forces Korra’s conflict a bit, but finds interesting places to go with it, and which adds a lot more depth and interesting places to go with Bumi, Tenzin, and Kya.