The Legend of Korra -Get your booties in here to talk S4

[Barabba]

But who did the animals and spirits learn it from?

[Riku]

What's more, when the Lionturtles bestowed the elements to the individuals, they were expected to give it back. The humans weren't using their own powers, they were temporarily borrowing someone else's. We don't know if the Lionturtles had everyone who already had elements keep them, and it's not necessarily stated that this is the same type of energy as modern bending. It's the RESULT of Energy Bending.

It's also been established that modern bending isn't necessarily hereditary. People with parents that bend are just more likely to discover their own bending than someone who has no bending history and therefore would have no reason to expect to be able to bend. So regardless of whether the Lionturtles gave everyone currently alive the elements to use, without the knowledge of actually bending from an internal source, all use of the elements in that sense would be gone within a few generations. Keep in mind that this is so far back in history that it's considered a myth. That leaves plenty of time for people to forget the Lionturtles' elements and then discover bending based in their own spirits.

The Sky Bison, Dragons, Badgermoles and moon were what taught people to use their own internal source in order to bend the element into use.

So basically, the original benders weren't the ones who learned from the Lionturtle. if you'll notice, they don't seem to know how it works or require any training to do it, whereas once Wan had practiced the element of Fire with the dragon, he not only had amazing control over it that no human ever had before (which the hunters noted), but if you watch, he visibly controls more fire than the people who were just borrowing Fire from the Lionturtle. My thought is that Wan basically learned to bend from an internal source with the dragon, and layered it on top of the fire that he had gained from the Lionturtle, which he had used as a stepping stone to get to his own bending. In contrast, my theory is that the Lionturtles were the ones bending the fire for the humans on some level, they just let the humans be the channel.



If this is the case (which my guess would be that it is), Oma and Shu were the original human earth BENDERS, just not the original human users. But maybe some spark of the Lionturtles' elements remain in the spirits of descendants of those original users of the elements, which explains why certain ethnicities of people are more prone to certain elements. And it could be that some trace of the Lionturtles' elements are needed in order for someone to have the internal bending source.



What I want to know, is how many Avatars know about Wan and his origin during their material life? Is this a common legend that most people in the Avatar world know? Is it something that they find out as soon as they are able to access the Avatar state? We hear no mention of it, but is it just because it's common knowledge, so no one feels the need to mention it? Or have there been so many Avatars over so many years that not only has the general population forgotten about the myth, but even the more recent Avatars have been unable to reach Wan in the crowd of generations?
Basically, would Korra be learning of this for truly the first time? Or, prior to losing her memory and needing to relearn it, would the Order of the White Lotus have taught her this when she was younger?

Also, now it makes sense why they're called the Avatar. They aren't just the avatar of bending four elements, they're the new face of Raava.

[Reyo]

Being familiar with past avatars seems to have an effective range to encompass the recent avatars to include all four nations. Like Aang was extremely familiar with Avatar Roku sifce he was the most recent Avatar prior to Aang, thus acting like an avatar spirit guide. Aang serves this purpose for Korra since he is the equivalent to Roku for Korra. The next two avatars were Avatar Kyoshi and Avatar Kuruk. When Aang was alive, he received visions, and wisdom from the three past avatars with more information coming in from the more recent avatars.

Like it seemed like he would receive advice from Roku every other episode, received a huge chunk of wisdom from Kyoshi every once in a while, and for Kuruk it was like "Oh, here's something one of your past lives did that should help you..." It seems like this way, wisdom from all four bending perspectives are able to get to each reincarnation of the avatar, where there is no real wisdom needed from the past avatar from the same bending art as the current avatar. Like with Aang it stopped at Kuruk, one step after Yangchen, as it would probably be assumed that Aang already understood an airbender's perspective.

Like for Korra, she recieves most of her advice directly from Aang, the most recent avatar, and marginal help from Kyoshi and Roku, stopping right before it would get to Kuruk, probably because Korra is already expected to have the wisdom of a waterbender.

My guess is it's almost like a mentorship program. You meed enough help to encompass all four nations, to adequately call yourself a liaison for all four nations, but having ALL of them, going all the way back to Wan would just be redundant. Like Korra required wisdom spanning all the way back to Wan to gain particular information from her past lives, but then again they also skipped all of the avatars between Kyoshi and Wan because Wan was the only mentor who was needed.

[Riku]

That seems like a bummer for all of the other Avatars, because I would think that regardless of mentoring, it would be good to know about their origin while they're still capable of using that information to do their job.

[Reyo]

Korra might be the first avatar in a while who has needed to go that far back to receive a piece of avatar wisdom.

Especially since it was more of a history lesson than a "Here's what you should do" lesson. It seems she just needed to know what a) she was the avatar, and that b) the spirit of light was bonded with her soul the whole time. I almost want to be mad at it for being some kind of cheeky movie plot twist. "The answers you sought were within you the whole time!" But then again the whole point was that she was trying to get her memory back in the first place. Kinda hard to externalize that shit.

It was fairly different compared to when Aang had to learn how, and why, Avatar Kyoshi did what she did to for Kyoshi island. That was philosophical, to show him how even the more aggressive avatars were capable of peaceful, although forceful, resolution. Korra more needed a history lesson to relearn who she is.

Then again, I don't know...would it be reading too much into the situation to think that this is all supposed to be foreshadowing to say that Korra's crazy uncle intends to release the spirit of Chaos?

Because I can't for the life of me think of a reason he'd want to do that...

This spoiler says nothing of significance.

Tomato.

[Riku]

Tomato.

Aw shit, son.

Also, I was thinking the same thing regarding Unalaq, except remember how spirit-pious Wan was so easily tricked into freeing Vaatu? Who's to say that Vaatu didn't take advantage of Unalaq's reverence for spirits the same way. Especially if Wan's story has been forgotten, Unalaq might not know of a precedence where someone has unwittingly freed Vaatu for the harmonic convergence. Alternatively, he could be one of very few non-Avatar persons to know about the whole binding with Raava thing, and he is trying to set up a fight at the harmonic convergence because he believes Korra can take Vaatu out for good.

[Reyo]

Seems a little misguided still, since the reason Wan imprisoned him at all, instead of destroying him altogether, was because of the whole "one can't exist without the other" thing.

Unless that's the second part of his plan. "Let's destroy both the spirit of chaos, AND the avatar!"

What a douche...

[Riku]

Augh, I am impatient and don't want to wait until next week for an episode.

[SaintCrazy]

Caught up on all the episodes and I can actually read this thread now!

[Riku]

Whatever you do, don't go to the Korra section of memebase.
"Retcon Bitch Retcon Wah Thinking is haaaarrrrrrrrrd"

[Great Eyewarp]

Well, to be fair, there do seem to be a lot of continuity errors in these latest episodes. Mind you, they could patch those up, but there are a lot of flaws with Beginnings. That said, the person who posted that is complaining a bit too much and not seeing just how much the episodes' strengths vastly outweigh their weaknesses.

[Riku]

Please see mine and Reyo's conversation above to dismiss any thoughts of retcon. The only continuity issue this season is Korra's personal growth.

[SaintCrazy]

Listen, I'm totally okay with Korra having her memory wiped, her character development (or lack thereof??) has been my least favorite thing about the series. Is it kind of a cheap narrative tool? Yeah, but not as cheap as some of the other deus ex machinas and other crap they pulled last season IMO. Don't get me wrong, though, I am liking this season a lot. Seeing how the first Avatar and bending all started? Too cool.

Besides, the spirit world/first Avatar stuff isn't retcon at all, you'd have to way way way oversimplify the origins of bending to think that it is.

[Riku]

THANK YOU.

[Omnithea]

One of the problems with excessive fandoms is their acceptance of every first theory as absolute canon. I've seen people "analyze" the Nolan Batman movies, the Bleach anime, and a hundred other things and it's always beyond their comprehension that characters can lie or be mistaken. They throw the word retcon in there like an allergic reaction to something they don't understand.