10.25
Sleep tight, young plumbers.
Since the main cast grew up during the time skip, someone had to fill the “annoying kids on adventures” part of the show. Even the best parts of Avatar must go through something akin to Avatar Day or The Painted Lady, where hijinks are going in the middle of something important. They don’t even give you the luxury of skipping this episode, since there’s still a thread of the main arc that keeps you ignoring everything. It’s like the creators going “Oh, you could skip Avatar Day if you wanted to, but then you won’t understand why Iroh’s not in Zuko Alone.” And while this episode isn’t as bad as those outings, that feeling of plot being hindered by kids being stupid still resonates. Hence, we have the Tenzin kids’ trip to find Korra taking away our glorious Great Uniter’s screentime.
The show tries to make this less of a disconnect to the arc by harkening back to Aang’s journey, and how he was about the same age as these kids. Even the dynamic between the characters feels recognizable, where you can put the Gaang in their shoes without much difficulty. Most of Meelo’s scenes feel like they’re trying to replicate Sokka, except with those details thrown into a small child with an ego complex. That one scene where he tries to romance Tuyen resembles a callback to Sokka’s attempts to woo Suki, Yue, or whoever was relevant at the time. Ikki can manage to mediate her tensions with guards while escaping from ropes without anyone saying anything. Jinora’s acting as the older sister that can’t take anybody’s malarkey whilst having anger of her own to settle. I know Legend of Korra gets criticism for feeling too much like ATLA-lite at times, but this episode genuinely carries that status with these allusions.
I like to think that Toph’s recollections of how they beat Fire Lord Ozai or how she taught Aang to earthbend are criticisms on that connection though. Korra expects to be regaled with grand stories like nothing else, and Toph only gives her a couple sentences with as much as passion as reading off a shopping list. Perhaps this entire episode could be backlash against the reverence of the first series compared to this show, where you can just hear the writers going “Oh, you want more kids on a flying bison? Here you go! Here you fucking go!” Maybe the kids’ quest to find Korra is supposed to be annoying to remind people that the old days had their black spots, and a reminder that it’s best to live in the present than in the past. It doesn’t seem too far off to see Toph’s stories being similar to what the writers have said to fans that expect bigger tales than what actually happened.
That message to stop dwelling in the past is hammered scene after scene, with Korra’s flashbacks to previous seasons and Toph outright telling her to get over it and face the future already. Subtlety isn’t given a hand here thanks to this overbearing attack on past fixations. Though to this episode’s credit, it does feel like they’re trying to sweep away past concerns as early as possible to make way for the Zaofu siege in a few episodes. This is not an episode that helps ask or answer questions, but it feels like a meditation to clear the mind before settling those problems first-hand.
But at least we don’t have to flashback to that one shot of Zaheer again, right?