Well, The Legend of Korra continues to be amazing. Like, old-school, top of its game, Avatar the Last Airbender good, that’s what I’m talking about. Zaheer…ah, I’ll sing his praises as this season’s villain enough later on in the post, no need to start now. Asami, sure, I’ve been asking for more Asami and now I’ve got it. Basically at this point I’m starting to get a little cocky—can I just ask for anything and get it? Stock in Cabbage Corporation? I never got that Koh the Face-Stealer cameo I was hoping for from the Book of Air with Amon or from the Book of Spirits’…well, spirits. Maybe I’ll be in luck next week; at this point, anything seems possible. I’m very excited about this show right now, and I really hope the “digital transition” is going well. If there was ever a time to proselytize a show to show the number-crunchers and bean-counters what’s what, it’s now.
Oh Zaheer, Zaheer, Zaheer. I continue to wonder what The Legend of Korra could have been like if Amon had played out differently. The two villains following Amon have both been reflections of him. With Unalaq, it’s the belief in power as an ends taken to a cosmic extreme, but that sort of hubris and comeuppance is a tale as old as time. Oh, but Zaheer, he’s the better of the two by far, he’s what I’ve been waiting for, he’s Stan Lee’s True Believer. He’s the zealot, he’s the one who fights for something. It’s why the White Lotus were able to overthrow Ba Sing Se, and it’s why the Red Lotus is able to, as well. What a great moment that was. Zaheer anonymously (no pun intended) on the radio and then Shaka when the walls fell? The Revolution will not be televised but it will broadcast; video killed the radio star, but the radio star just killed the Queen of the Earth Kingdom.
This airship crew…I’m not gonna lie, guys, I think these guys are great. Don’t leave, airship guys! Be Asami’s team of minions! Especially you, Captain who is basically Captain Gloval, or every dignified Miyazaki old guy who is capable of keeping his mustache under control. Watching Asami get to go all escape artist then mechanic then MacGyver… thanks for an Asami episode. Now, do like this, all the time.
I’m not that surprised, actually; Asami is sort of the Sokka of the group, and now that Korra can metalbend like Toph…well, you remember how much trouble Toph and Sokka (and Suki and bye spacesword!) got into with an airship. Or a few airships. Then a sandworm, no wait, sand…carp? Candygram? No, wait, that’s it, it really is a… LAND SHARK!
The sense of scale on the creature was great; we’ve seen all kinds of “big” on this show, including Astral Korra reaching up to touch the sky, but it’s the comparisons that really make the sizes make sense—that’s why the Elephant Koi and Unagi seem so big, that’s an earlier piece of really well done juxtaposition—so it was nice to see the tremor in the distance. Then the vastness compared to the zeppelin, and the leaps, making the chase all the more tense—we know the Land Shark is colossal, but we also know it isn’t so big that they’ll all just play Jonah in there. It’s going to eat them! (A similar detail; even old Zuko still seems to sulk; the slump in his body posture, just like angsty teen Zuko. Look at that dude. “Hello! Zuko here!”)
You know, there’s always this “kid’s show” Sword of Damocles thing hanging over the show—Avatar: the Last Airbender lampooned it with “The Ember Island Players” and “Jet”—but it can be easy to forget about it. Korra has flaunted that line. From “Amon a boat” to “ka-boom”—that one was a magical time things got real. Plus, bloodbending brothers. And there has long been pretty much a fan-logic consensus that an airbender could suck the air from someone; after all, something killed all those firebender skeletons around Gyatso’s corpse. (Sozin’s Comet powered firebenders, no less.)
Here we see it on display—and brilliantly animated—and all of Zaheer’s lines are “darkness” and “I took her down,” and I’m like, come on say it, and then the radio announcer used the phrase “abrupt and violent” and I was like, yep, there it is. That’s our confirmation. They’ve made the Queen truly unlikable this season; not just as a person, which is comically unlikable, but as a slaver and a poacher, a greedy tyrant extorting her people through force and terror. Zaheer is at his most (relatively speaking) reasonable now, which makes me think he’s about to do something that makes us really, really hate him.
Speaking of people he might do those things to, there is always Bolin and Mako. The bending brothers are in a real pickle, tossed in the clink by the Red Lotus as a bargaining chip between Zaheer and the Earth Queen. Bolin tries again to metalbend, and fails. I predict one of three outcomes. No wait, four outcomes. First, he can’t metalbend, and sometimes them’s the breaks. I was always too tall to be an astronaut, myself. Second, he has a “Sokka’s Master” episode where he gets a character portrait and learns. Third, it comes, but easily, not hard; he’s been doing it backwards, and it is a comedic anti-climax.
Fourth is that he can’t metalbend, but he does learn to lavabend, which I like because it involves the brother’s mixed heritage; hey, maybe they can both lavabend, coming at the same problem from two different directions? This episode we get the brothers doing their Orange is the New Black segment, but it ends with Zaheer coming to loom at them menacingly. I’m guessing things will be more interesting than just violence, especially seeing as how Bolin was bonding with them, but like Zaheer said; it’s time to make Korra come to him.
Mordicai Knode wants you to know that “The Beach” is his favorite Airbender episode. Tell him yours at Twitter or see other stuff he likes on Tumblr.
Oh god, “Zuko here!”
I start snickering & then laughing every time I remember it.
“Zuko here!”
“Watching Asami get to go all escape artist then mechanic then MacGyver…”
All three of those things are MacGyver.
But yes, Asami totally rules now. I want a spinoff!
Apparently the creature is called a sandshark. Not one of their more interesting portmanteaus.
And I do hope we don’t find out later that the Earth Queen has just been thrown in prison.
A great episode. I felt like the Korra part was a bit filler, but it’s good filler, especially as we finally see Asami DO something.
I think this episode shows very well why the switch to digital happened. There’s absolutely no way Nick would’ve shown this on TV. That was the most brutal death I’ve seen in a cartoon so far, and for me even on of the most brutal deaths in general. People being shot etc. may be a lot more gore-y, but the way she’s coughing, her eyes turning red, with the needed oxygen so close and yet so far away….
Mako Lavabending? It’s not really related to fire, considering lava is just hot stone. Waterbenders could always turn ice into water, so Earthbenders should be able to change earth into lava too. No firebending ancestors should be needed.
But yeah, Bolin is definitely learning Metal or Lavabending. I’m leaning towards the latter, because Korra already got Metalbending and enough people can do it so it’s not that special, while Lavabending is still hot shit (bad pun intended) with only one Lavabender. Considering the buildup, Bolin learning just metalbending would be somewhat anti-climatic.
My guess is Zaheer is headed for the NAT. That plotline needs tying up, and Zaheer’s message will probably be the threat that he’s going to off Tenzin (I do wonder whether Zaheer would consider him a leader?) to get Korra to follow him there. Also he might try to convince the other airbenders there that he’s right (with Guru Laghima as the main argument?)
Also, I do hope this carries over into Book 4, and more than just a few consequences, as was the case from Book 2 to 3. We only have 3 episodes left and imho, that’s not enough to do these villains justice. Zaheer is really great and might overtake Amon (pre Bloodbending reveal) as my favourite villain. But we still don’t really know much about him, and even less about the others. We don’t know what was up with Guru Laghima. We don’t know the plan for Korra.
(Side note: Are future episode titles considered spoilers? Going to white it out just in case, roll over to read) Episode 12 is called “Enter the void”. My guess is that is something in the spiritworld, used as a trap against Korra. Something that will end her permanently
They can still tie it up in three episodes. But it would be really rushed and waste a lot of potential.
No mention of P’Li’s stature. There haven’t been many static shots to get a true perspective on her stature, but this episode sure delivered and WOW! I love it when they have a woman be tall and powerful, and a love interest to a smaller man.
And yes, Lots of Asami!
I hope she secretly learned to chi block and she’s the one who takes down Zaheer. Benders seem to be really limited in what they can do against him, but Asami’s been outthinking everyone this year.
@3, I really hope these are our villains next season.
@@.-@: Asami doesn’t need to chi block, she’s got her zap glove! She’s a technology-bender. Inventing is her superpower.
(Okay, she didn’t invent the zap glove, but she’s certainly taken it to heart, and it’s the kind of technological solution she favors. And she’s probably added a few improvements…)
2. ChristopherLBennett
To be fair, everything is MacGuyver; isn’t that kind of the point of MacGuyver?
Nah, I think the “violent overthrow” combined with what we were shown is their way of pulling “a Jet,” & being like “what, no, you could totally pretend to your kids that the evil old lady was just…uh…dethroned! WINK.”
3. Jineapple
Kind of reminded me of Joffrey’s death. Was I supposed to feel bad about either? The Earth Queen might not be Joffrey/Ozai level evil, but she might just be a Balon Greyjoy sort of nasty!
I don’t buy it. Or rather; I don’t think an attempt to cram physics together with classical hermetic elements is a convincing argument; lava is LAVA, it is fire & rock, clearly! Or that is to say, when there are elements like “could a waterbender bend your blood? Could a metalbender?” I have to say “I don’t know until the show tells me.” I mean, sure, if a character said “waterbenders make ice, I make lava with earthbending, same thing in reverse,” I would buy that, sure, but I’d also buy it if they were like “oh, it’s a family thing, like how Noatak & Tarrlok both inherited bloodbending from Yakone. I’m an earthbender, don’t get me wrong, I can’t bend fire, I’m not the Avatar but…I can do it with a twist.” Fits with the whole “brothers” motif we’ve seen each season.
Dude if Tenzin dies…
4. Aeryl
Oh woah, it didn’t even occur to me that Asami should be learning Equalist martial arts! YES PLEASE I WANT THIS.
It also didn’t occur to me just how different their statures are; weirdly, I came home to my wife watching a British period drama in which a very tall woman is married to a smaller man in one of the plotlines.
6. ChristopherLBennett
Hey, Batman has Batarangs but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t have a backup plan.
@@.-@: One of the things I’ve liked about these shows going back to A:TLA, but much more prominently in Korra is the diversity on body types on display. Toph and Katara in the former. There was Iroh, who retained his body shape even when he got into shape. Then there’s, like, everybody in the latter. Mako and Bolin have distinct body types without one being the “fat” one or the “small” one or whatever. Korra has always been great for being genuinely a physically imposing young woman. She’s plausibly strong, and not some powerful waif trope. And she’s distinct from Asami, and both are distinct from P’Li, who is taller and slimmer than Korra, with a different musculature, but clearly also plausibly imposing in her strength, who is distinct from, say, Opal. And there’s the Earth Queen, who has P’Li’s height but without the rock solid build. It’s great.
(I mentioned Steven Universe at some point in the past, and that show is also great at celebrating diverse body types)
@7: I could swear I covered this in an earlier thread, but maybe it wasn’t on this board:
All four classes of bender have been shown to have thermal control. In firebenders it’s obvious. In waterbenders we’ve seen water changed between all three phases at will, even ice being turned directly into vapor. In airbenders, we’ve been shown Avatar Roku cooling an erupting volcano with just wind and been told by Tenzin that airbenders can warm their own bodies in freezing weather by controlling their breath. So why should it be remotely implausible that earthbenders can also affect the thermal content of their element? After all, heat = energy = chi, and bending is all about directing chi.
Besides, no one other than the Avatar can call on two different bending disciplines. That simply does not happen. Wan needed to merge with Raava before he could be capable of harnessing even two different forms of bending, and he could only do so briefly until he fused his spirit to hers permanently and started the Avatar cycle. So any kind of bending that a non-Avatar does must be explained as a function of a single category of bending.
As for Asami, I’m sure she has a ton of backup plans. But chi-blocking is Ty Lee’s thing. I prefer for Asami to be more original in her approach.
When Zaheer airbent the air out of the Earth Queen, I literally said “Holy shit, that got dark!” to my wife. I was not expecting that in the least. Jet is one thing, but this was active murder. Thank heavens for Bryan and Mike. :-) Avatar and Korra continue to surprise me in the best possible ways.
8. GarrettC
Yeah, there is a fundamental diversity to the show; it gets a lot of press for its presentation of race– especially juxtaposed with the Movie We Do Not Speak Of– & of women, but besides the big ones, in general the show just seems to understand that there are tons of interesting ways human beings can be depicted, because there are tons of ways real humans are interesting.
9. ChristopherLBennett
I would say that I am dubious of the traditional four-element paradigm. That is to say, I think it WORKS, but I think we’ve also been seeing ways in which it does not completely describe the universe– lightning & fire? Fire from thin air? Bending metal– which reminds me of how Newton’s understanding of physics is all well & good & very utilitarian…but does not completely accurately describe the universe, either. I explicitly think “dual bending” would be a non-starter– unless that was a specific “thing” for a character, someone took a quest to a dragon turtle, whatever– but I wouldn’t rule out an overlapping area in the Venn diagram of “fire” & “earth.”
10. hihosilver28
Murder is a funny word; assassination, sure, but at what point does a tyrant become so villainous that death is deserved? Everybody seemed to think Aang should kill Ozai. Aang disagreed, & I think that is a huge credit to his ethics, but I also think that, say…my dear Avatar Kyoshi might have had…a similar permanant solution to an Earth Kingdom tyrant. You know?
@mordicai
Absolutely. Though it was a little different with Kyoshi as they made it pretty clear that it was her primary intent to create the island and the tyrant died because he refused to step away and fell to his death when the cliff crumbled.
This scene with Zaheer struck me just with the intentionality of it all. That and the fact that it was prolonged. Kind of how when a scene shows someone being shot, it’s different from showing an up close and drawn out strangulation. I find the second way more brutal than the first. Both are murder, but the first you see all the time in PG and PG-13 movies, the second is typically R. So, when you see the Earth Queen clawing at her throat for air as her eyes progressively bulge out and get bloodshot, it’s pretty much the last thing I expect to see from a Y7 show. I think that it was a phenomenal choice by the creative team and by Nickelodeon to allow it, but it still shocked me nonetheless.
Well, murder is nothing but killing that isn’t legally sanctioned, so it counts. It also seems to imply some degree of pre-meditation, so it still counts.
There is, however, this kind of disturbing trend to find out how many ways we can justify having our heroes kill. A certain Gentleman of Metal comes to mind, for what are probably obvious reasons. But it’s a weird thought experiment though because the only reason a character would be in a position that forces him or her to kill is because the writers wanted that to happen. So it’s not, “what would have to happen to create this situation?” anymore. It’s “how can I force this person to be a killer?”
One of the reasons I liked A:TLA is that it rejected this. Aang showed that awful tyrants can be stripped of power without stripping them of life. What he did not do was recognize that the system that creates tyrants needs to be stripped as well. He put Zuko right in as Fire Lord, left the Earth Kingdom under a monarchy, and took a half-measure with Republic City to mitigate the damage.
It seems that Korra is being put in the same position that Aang was, except that while Aang was being tasked with taking down an individual, Korra will have to take down the institution that breeds those individuals. That’s what Zaheer is talking about, after all.
And Zaheer is the one who sees no alternative but death to make it happen. He’s the hero of this story if Zack Snyder is directing it. Korra, like Aang, will find an alternative.
@11: I think Aang was right. Violence is the resort of people who can’t find a better way or can’t be bothered to try. Aang found a better way, because he was more committed to looking for one than the others around him who were content to settle for the lazier, more obvious solution of violence. As for Kyoshi, she didn’t deliberately kill the invader — he fell to his death because he foolishly got too close to the rift in the earth.
Aang understood that with great power comes great responsibility: the more power you have, the more careful you have to be to wield it gently and avoid succumbing to the temptation of exerting power over others’ lives just because you can. Zaheer doesn’t understand that. However much he pretends to be about freedom and anarchy, he still doesn’t hesitate to use his new power to force his own beliefs and will on others, and that means he doesn’t understand the ethics of power. If, for the sake of argument, it is ever justifiable to take the life of a monarch (or anyone else), it’s a decision that should be made by a court of law, not by one guy acting unilaterally and consulting no one else. Zaheer is a hypocrite to claim he’s fighting for the people when he doesn’t even give them a say in his actions. Ultimately he’s just indulging his own power over others, and that’s what makes him the villain.
So when he creates the bubble around Queenie’s head has he created a complete vacuum in that space?
If you think about it her whole head was actually going through depressurization, no wonder her eyes were popping out.
Vacuum is a pretty powerful force, just try fitting a mug over your mouth/chin and try to suck all the air out, then try pulling it away from your face, then imagine that pressure on your eyeballs.
You know, some people complain that Henry Rollins is “wooden” as Zaheer, but I don’t think they appreciate the nuance of his performance. He is, after all, basically playing a viciously amoral Kwai-Chang Caine.
I see a strong parallel between him and the Air Nomad Avatar Aang spoke to in the series finale, who advised him to do whatever was necessary when he was unsure about killing Ozai. They both have that whole pragmatic zen thing going on—the sense of detachment that makes them basically okay with breaking some eggs if that’s necessary to make the omelet.
@9 ChristopherLBennett, But metalbending was “Toph’s thing” and we are all happy that it’s an established discipline now. We’ve already seen that chi blocking is an established discipline from Book 1, I think it would be awesome to see Asami integrate that into her repertiore, a la Lt. Mustache.
Instead of Bolin learning to lava bend, I imagine that he and Mako will have to learn to take Ghazan on together, with Mako deflecting the heat, while Bolin counters with earth. It will call back to their pro bending, which is truly their strength. As Asami made painfully clear during Pai Sho, they’re lack of formal education about a lot of things, including bending, really holds them back from performing as well as the characters from ATLA. Their fights are cool, but you have to admit, they aren’t as technically skilled in combat. They do have a lot of raw power and a great deal of ingenuity. I think that’s where this season’s heading for them, bringing them closer together, which explains why Korra is paired off with Asami(YAY) so much this year.
While Zaheer will surely do something terrible, Korra may have to let it work itself out(even the NAT) and stay in Ba Sing Se. If Zaheer goes to the Fire Nation(next season) I have confidence, because Zuko’s daughter, they can handle it. NAT is vulnerable, but another airbender is probably the only one who could face Zaheer, and I’d LIKE to see Kya throw down with Ming Wua. The airbenders aren’t as vulnerable to explosions or lave either, if they can stay mobile.
In Ba Sing Se, she should immediately say the city WILL hold elections is several weeks time, institute a temp governing body representing ALL rings of the city.
What I haven’t seen anybody comment on is that, with all the attention this show (and A:tLA) put into movement and bending styles in particular, we can see exactly what Bolin’s doing wrong.
He’s using strong movements and stances to try to metalbend, but the metalbending we’ve seen isn’t like earthbending; it’s more fluid and subtle (which makes sense since metal doesn’t crumble like rock, it deforms).
Which strikes me as a potentially interesting way to mix things up; what would happen if, say, a waterbender tried to use earthbending techniques? Or a firebender tried to move like an airbender.
Tenzin mentioned that Lin and Aang were close; it’s even possible that Lin’s wire-fu incorporates some airbending elements (which would explain her whole Spider-Lin act way back in S1).
@18: We’ve actually already seen a similar question answered in the show: what would happen if a firebender used waterbending techniques? He’d be able to redirect lightning, that’s what.
Also: @3: I doubt Zaheer’s going to go after Tenzin. But I’ll bet he goes after the President of Republic City.
@16, Yeah, this is one of the reasons I’m loving Zaheer.
What we’re seeing with him is the Air Noamd theology about wordly detachment being taken to a more extreme, far right interpretation. Yangchen would probably approve.
Also, the concept of a militant Airbender as the season villain is such a great idea.
Something you don’t think about so much is how good Avatar has gotten at evoking the old pulp serials that it’s using as its inspiration. Ending on cliffhangers, opening with a narrator who has that particular clipped speech pattern associated with old-time radio…exotic locales, extraordinary savants both good and evil, motor vehicles, airships, technology, art deco armor suits, funky shining metal cities that close up at night…
It really is like it came right out of the pages of some alternate universe’s pulp magazines, and would be right at home alongside The Shadow or Doc Savage.
ChristopherLBennet @14:
Well, other people may not have been as ready to gamble with the fate of the world just to preserve their personal moral purity ;). Because that’s what Aang did – he took huge additional risks of defeat, which would have spelled Ozai’s world domination + crispination of nearby Earth Kingdom settlements.
And I always thought that energy-bending was a massive cop-out. We can’t be seriously expected to think that all these Fire Nation soldiers who were thrown down sheer cliffs and buried under avalanches by Aang in the Norther Air Temple survived, can we? Or all the crews of airships punctured by Aang over the Fire Nation capital, etc. Speaking of which – having Aang start to agonize over killing the Fire Lord only _after_ the Day of the Black son, after so many have risked so much to support him, was patently absurd, IMHO. Oh, well, the wonders of children’s episodic TV, I guess.
Oh, and this episode of Korra? Brilliant! Like others here I hope that Zaheer and Co. Hang around for the next season too. And that the equalist issues re-emerge in some form. Not necessarily just as a justifications for villains either.
Oh, and I really hope that the new airbenders don’t become Air Nomads again, but something new. I mean, Tenzin is not a nomad, he didn’t give away his children when they were born, but finds great joy in his family, separating men and women in different convents is stupid, etc, etc.
I don’t believe that’s what Aang did. He saw that the fate of the world was tied to his decision, and he knew that fate could not be based on the symbol of worldly balance slaughtering his enemies.
Quentin Tarantino’s cinematic universe is giving us a vision of a (western) world that proceeded from a point at which Hitler was brutally slaughtered by “heroic” American forces. It’s not a pleasant alternative world. I’m no real fan of Tarantino, but it’s an impressive vision.
Aang was playing a bigger, longer game than would transpire in the events of Sozin’s comet. Korra is, right now, playing a bigger and longer game than Aang was.
Yeah, killing Ozai was what the world wanted…but was it what the world needed?
Aang was trying to conclude a cycle of violence in a way that would (hopefully) not kickstart another cycle of global warfare.
GarrettC @23:
But Aang came very close to losing because he refused to use lethal force against Ozai. How would his moral high ground have helped the world if he _did_ lose? Not to mention that morally speaking it was quite a “clean” fight – a duel against the person ultimately responsible.
Not to mention that Aang’s and Co.’s attacks are always potentially lethal anyway. It is just that their named opponents are good enough to dodge or block, while the fate of unnamed ones is discreetly ignored.
And I may have been more accepting of Aang’s moral dilemma, if his inner struggle happened _before_ the Day of the Black Sun, because the way it is it looks like he wantonly sacrificed his supporters and allies for something that he wasn’t willing to succeed at. Even if he had found Ozai, he had no means to neutralize him and was unwilling to kill him, so it was all for nothing anyway. But that’s children’s episodic TV for you – they either didn’t have a resolution in mind yet or didn’t want to spoil the surprise, so opted for rank idiocy on the part of the hero instead.
Re: “slaughterung” Hitler resulting in an unpleasant world – please. It is not even on the same moral scale as bombing population centers or dropping atomic bombs. It makes no sense that it would have lead to a worse outcome due to moral considerations. Now, Hitler’s early death may have lead to Germany making peace years earlier and on more favorable terms, which might have lead to unpleasantness in the future due to various variables. But morality would have had little to with it.
Anyway. Personally, I was greatly disappointed by season 3 of ATLA. After the great job they did adressing resistance/ terrorism, defensive war and the extremes it can drive people to, police state, etc. in the Earth Kingdom, I was hoping that they’d give jingoism/patriotism, “white man’s burden” of the Fire Nation the same treatment. But nope. In fact, we didn’t even hear what normal citizens thought about the war, having to join the army or send their children ditto, etc. And winning hearts and minds of at least some of the populace to help unseat Ozai was never on the table. Oh, well.
@25: I’m disturbed by the idea that making glib excuses for violence is somehow morally superior to having the courage to look for a better way. Violence is easy and stupid. Any mindless force of nature can kill. It’s nothing to be proud of or to hold up as some more enlightened view. It’s just something that most people are too lazy to look beyond, and it’s that laziness that keeps the cycle of violence from ending.
Especially today, when the nation is reeling from the ongoing abuses of police power in Ferguson, Missouri, we should not be so quick to assume that violence is automatically the superior option. Sure, maybe sometimes there’s no other choice, but it should never be assumed to be the only appropriate response, because that way lies chaos and moral bankruptcy. The effort to look for peaceful alternatives is the only thing that keeps us from descending into brutality, and so it should never be scoffed at. Even in those cases where violence may be necessary, it should be lamented as a tragic failure to find better alternatives, not smugly celebrated as some kind of moral high ground.
@14, @22 through @26: Isn’t it great that this kind of moral discussion can be elicited by what is, supposedly, a “children’s cartoon”?
@25: Aang was losing to Ozai because Ozai was better. Aang had no access to the Avatar state and Ozai had access to greatly improved abilities, and Ozai was winning the fight. Aang was resolved to at least try to kill Ozai, if it came down to it, from the start of the fight. When he entered the Avatar state, he was intending to kill Ozai.
And ultimately he found another way, a way which had been woven into the story since season 1, with lion turtles and chi blocking techniques both well established.
I don’t know that I see your point. He wasn’t trying to protect his own sense of moral well-being. He was perfectly willing to break that if necessary. He was looking to protect a greater morality.
As far as Hitler vs. the atomic bomb, surely I don’t need to discuss the importance of symbols in this kind of thing. Hitler is a VERY different kind of symbol than thousands of anonymous innocent lives. The bomb was violence to be ashamed of. Slaughtering Hitler would have been violence celebrated. See bin Laden.
23. GarrettC
I agree about the Long Game; that’s a good way to view it.
& I also very much like that Tarantino theory.
“Shaka, when the walls fell”
If I recall correctly, that meant “failure” in the story you’re quoting. Which would be incredibly appropriate, given that the ultimate result of the Red Lotus’s destabilization of Ba Sing Se was basically the exact opposite of what the group were hoping for.