10.11
Squishy. Just like roadkill.
I see what you did there with the Kill Bill reference, Bryke. I remember that toe-wiggling scene almost as vividly as Tarantino can, so on to Korra and how she starts her rampage plot to kill all her former friends to avenge her dead baby. Like that part in the movie, it represents Korra trying to get back to speed after being hurt by people claiming to help her. Zaheer was like the keeper trying to slay the wild dog, with not a peaceful death or even a warrior’s death, but through poisoning and suffocation. But even when those wounds heal, they linger in Korra’s head. One wonders how this incident stays in her thoughts longer than her fights with Amon and Unalaq, but they were people lying to ascend in their goals. Zaheer was someone who believed everything he said, with as much affection for his friends as Korra did for hers. In a way, this lingering trauma comes from Zaheer reminding her of the shadow of the Avatar, something that she’s been fighting with since the show’s beginning.
Korra’s inability to be more like Aang is something that haunts her character, with Iroh asking her to talk to Zuko to understand what Aang was like, or being told by Katara to remember what Aang went through. Even the fisherman in the middle of the episode wants her to be like Aang. This all boils down to her being tethered by the expectations of her past life. I can’t tell if the show’s for or against the comparisons though. And throughout this episode, I felt slightly troubled over the worship Aang is given while Korra’s suffering. This theme felt like it was unknowingly burdening Korra’s character with these comparisons instead of allowing her to grow in this personal episode.
Though that’s another message this week, that even help from loved ones won’t always fix what’s broken. Friends can send as many well wishes or get well letters as they want, but that alone isn’t the remedy to a near-death experience. This is something Korra has to guide herself to, but that isn’t working much either. A combination of bad spirits and stress distorts her path, never allowing Korra to regain what she had lost last season. On the other hand, this mental chaos gives a hint in that there won’t be a single way to truly heal. There are multitudes of knots that need to be smoothened out, meant to be fixed not by known means but through foreign ones.
That provides Toph’s role to Korra’s path this season. While she is a friend of the Avatar, she’s been gone for so long that her methods have possibly strayed from what Korra is used to. She’s the one who has to provide Korra an unorthodox, but new way of feeling like herself again. The untrodden path can be the best one in trying times. Traumatic moments require new tactics, and a reclusive guru can occasionally give advice that even the wisest of loved ones can’t. Maybe it’s not the best advice, but improvement means taking risks. And even if it doesn’t completely fix the problem, it gives the aided the power to overcome that vice. If Korra can’t escape Aang’s shadow, then she must make it her own.