Avatar: Legend of Korra – Book 4: Balance

Going into the fourth and final season of Korra, I had high hopes. I felt that the seasons got progressively better, and I was left feeling excited about a new mini-generation after Jinora got her tattoos and Kai looked to be a something of a new hero figure. The first episodes felt like they were fulfilling that promise – after a short timeskip, there was an established Airbender Corps of sorts, helping rebuild the Earth Kingdom, a ‘great unifier’ named Kuvira who is uniting the people – but with an iron fist – and Korra herself is missing, still suffering from her fight with Zaheer. It’s a great set-up, and there’s a lot in this season that goes very well. Sadly, it all rather falls apart towards the end, and especially for the ultimate finale of the series, it’s a disappointment. And yes, I’d still rather have the Gurihiru continuations of the original series animated.

I liked Korra’s quest to find herself, especially as she found a certain cranky old-timer from the original series to be her Yoda. I loved the little shopkeeper who had a ‘Wall of Avatars’ as well! I enjoyed the way Mako and Bolin were split up and their loyalties to one another tested, and the general idea behind Kuvira’s philosophy – as well as her personality – was excellent. Of course she had to push things way too far in order to be an unambiguous antagonist, and her being badass enough to take down Korra in Avatar State – even having mental issues – was pretty damn awesome.

But the need for a big bombastic climax rather ruined this season. If Jinora, Kai and co looked to be developed this season, they had to be cast aside to give enough time to the main four characters. The moral dilemma of stopping a strong leader from uniting the Earth Kingdom gets dropped when Kuvira reveals that she not only wants to unite the established territories, but also to reclaim the land that Aang annexed to make his Republic City. This makes her a conqueror ignoring what had been established by diplomacy, and unambiguously in the wrong – which is something of a shame.

There’s already a huge problem with this as the final ending to Korra’s chronicles. After the events in the second series seemed genuinely apocalyptic, this season needed to at least have a threat to the world, or destroy the spirit realm, or someone stealing all the spiritual energy in the entire world, or a war between all spirits and all mankind...something huge and apocalyptic. I thought that’s where things were headed when the spirit vines began to become hostile. Instead...well, what we got was Kuvira deciding to retake Republic City for the Earth Kingdom. So the threat was already just one city, and some pride. And how is the ante upped? Well, with a weapon of mass destruction, naturally.

Mounted on a frickin’ giant mecha.

Sure, certain series can pull of giant robots. Evangelion, Bokurano, Gurren Lagann...but in the Avatar world? The giant drill was the biggest mistake the original series ever made! Sure, there’s been a progression of technology in this season, but really? A giant robot? Controlled by bending levers? It really doesn’t work. And taking it down is far harder than it could feasibly be, the thing staying upright when its feet are bound, Kuvira is blinded and Bolin uses his goddamn newly-acquired lava bending to trap a foot. Kuvira’s plan to sort of stomp into town and smash things up rather than, y’know, imposing trade sanctions and blockading the ports, goes badly and the whole thing ends with a whimper. To my great surprise, Korra never even learns to connect with her past lives properly, because she doesn’t need to.

It’s an ending that sadly lets down everything that went before it. There were certainly interesting places this story arc could have gone, and I don’t think it pulled any of it off with the final direction of the plot.

Then there’s the mild controversy of the implied lesbian relationship between Korra and Asami with the final scenes. I like the idea, but I think it was poorly done. It would make sense that Korra and Asami end up falling for each other and try being together. But the show would need to have built that up, developed it and made it less ambiguous. I mean, the creators had to clarify what they intended – and nobody saw it coming. The result is that it just seems like something tacked on for a fashionable statement on what can be included in a children’s show. It’s a welcome statement...but I’d much rather it were done right, and not at the last minute for its own sake.

In a way, it encapsulates why I was disappointed with this last season. The ideas were good, but the execution just didn’t work for me.

Avatar: Legend of Korra – book 3: Change

Avatar gets stronger and stronger...ironically as the focus shifts gradually away from its main characters. 

The second season was a huge improvement on the first, but the giant squiggly spirit antagonist was a bit unconvincing. This time, the threat is more earthly: when Korra opens the gates to the spirit realm, all of a sudden new Airbenders begin popping up around the world. At first, this is a time for celebration, but it also empowers a dangerous prisoner. Using his new abilities to escape, he also sets free his three old comrades, who of course are from each of the other elemental factions. This group, part of the evil hidden society the Red Lotus, set about trying to draw out the Avatar and kill her in the Avatar State – which will end the reincarnation cycle. While this is classic kill-the-innocent-main-character bad guy stuff, the fact is that they’re quite cleverly depicted as genuinely believing what they are doing is in the interest of the balance of the world, and are fleshed out quite a bit through both romantic and comedy scenes. They are fleshed out well, and if Bolin has rather descended to Sokka-level inappropriate goofiness by this season, one great thing about having him around is that he sometimes brings out a more interesting side of other characters, giving them another dimension.

What really made me happy, though, is a shift towards a younger generation, more like that of the old season. Much as I like the older teen main characters, I find them pretty dull and hard to like. On the other hand, giving Jinora more of a spotlight is very much a breath of fresh air in the show, and then there’s the introduction of Kai. Looking rather like Aang with darker skin and a Hitler Youth haircut, he has the classic introduction of annoying streetrat thieving brat who repents when he gets into hot water and falls under the positive influence of older brother figures – but beyond that he gets really likeable and is given a role that is clearly leading to a much-expanded one in Season 4. His puppy love with Jinora is also absolutely adorable. He brings the same sort of energy Aang brought to the original, and it’s extremely welcome.

Which isn’t to say I dislike the screentime given to the others. I like how Korra’s mind works in this season, suspicious of authority figures and determined to improve herself and make sure those she cares about are getting on – even prickly Lin, who gets lots more development as she is reunited with her estranged sister. Bolin and Mako also get some good development thanks to reunions – stumbling upon their extended family, including their grandmother.

Ultimately, of course, the whole thing boils down to a big scrap, and the many overpowering the few, thanks to Jinora’s quick work and leadership. It’s pretty satisfying and the stakes genuinely feel high without being on the huge scale of the season 2 finale. Perhaps it would have been good to get some indication of where the next season will lead, as things feel neatly wrapped up other than the political upheaval of the Earth Kingdom, and of course the fourth season began very quickly after the (online) airings of the last episodes of this season.

It remained a little unsettling to the end that the same animators were working on this and The Boondocks. Especially in the comedy scenes, there was often a lot of Grandpa Freeman in Korra’s expressions, and that is pretty weird and jarring. But arguably the influence is actually going in the other direction. It feels like there’s less ambition in the animation now, all looking just a little cheaper than it used to, but the art stays on-model remarkably well, and the lava effects are great.

Certainly I want more – especially more Kai and Jinora, which from watching the first episode of the next season I know I’ll be getting, with their designs really not changing much after a time skip. I’m slightly sad Jinora grows her hair back, though – she looked so cute as a bald girly-Aang!  

The Boondocks – Season 4

And so The Boondocks came to an end. I was glad there was a little more of the show, that I could watch the last episodes knowing that no more would be to come, and there were a couple of good episodes here. But this was definitely more whimper than bang. Firstly, Aaron McGruder wasn’t on board, and what he brought to the show – what this season lacked – was very obvious. He is clearly a good bit smarter than any of the remaining writing team, and knows that there needed to be an intelligent undercurrent subverting everything all the characters said for the show to work. It wasn’t there.

Secondly, the animation – which was never top-notch – has been given over to Studio Mir. Now, I suspect Studio Mir and Studio Moi have a fair bit of cross-over, but it is downright strange having Legend of Korra and the last season of The Boondocks very obviously animated by the same people. When Korra starts pulling Grandpa faces and all the comedy has the same not-quite-beat-perfect rhythm to it, and you know that the same people are animating the epic story of flying bisons and world-changing defenders of civilisation one day and intentionally offensive gay stereotypes the next, it’s a little unsettling. Plus I’m guessing Nickelodeon pay a fair bit more than Cartoon Network, because The Boondocks looks a fair bit cheaper and more rushed.

But technicalities aside, it’s important to judge The Boondocks on its writing. Some of the previous episodes of this show have been so perfectly-done that I would genuinely rate them as comedy classics. McGruder’s cutting, all-encompassing mockery of modern culture puts the show’s highlights up there with the best South Park episodes. But he’s not on-board any more, and instead the season is masterminded by a woman who wrote for Scrubs and McGruder’s former writing partner on the previous series. There’s an edge missing here – the satirical links don’t quite close, and mostly the set-up is great but the idea doesn’t get developed and stagnates. I think the writers felt like a good idea for an episode was enough to sustain the full 20 minutes. Instead, we end up with some good opening scenes leading to very boring mis-fires.

Old ideas are rehashed. Stinkmeaner comes back yet again to antagonise Robert. There’s an all-out Breaking Bad parody that raises the questions of why that show needs parodying at all. There’s a full episode tediously following Robert inadvertently joining the Freedom Riders that despite a lot of action goes nowhere and makes no point. When two of the better episodes are about Robert having an abusive relationship with Siri, and about him becoming a ‘male escort’, you know a show is on its last legs. Though the inevitable old-lady-pimp scenes were funny.

Still, of just ten episodes, three stood out as genuinely good. One was about a hair product that does wonders for afro-American hair, but is derived from Huey’s attempts to make home explosives. It unfolds in a by-the-numbers way, but its jabs at the beauty industry and the fact that even when it’s revealed the stuff is dangerous people still love it make for a clever and entertaining episode. Better than that is the very last episode, though it didn’t have the heft of a season finale. When Riley finally gets called out on saying everything is ‘gay’, it leads to a twisted sequence of events where he is extorted by a series of oppressed groups until finally he becomes ‘the poster boy for retardation’. 

It was an irreverent mix of political incorrectness and social commentary, which raised some good points: in condemning using ‘gay’ to mean ‘bad’, do we also end up censoring observations that something is an action associated with gay culture? Are the groups who garner attention and funding defending minorities actually out for the best interests of the group, or do they just use them and extort others who they can bully? Is there a kind of one-upmanship in different underprivileged groups? Sure, the South Park episode on the Special Olympics did much of this better, and the final stinger uncomfortably fell back on the ‘looking retarded is inherently funny’ concept, but with side-references to Of Mice and Men, a non-mainstream representation of the whole ‘check your privilege’ movement and some genuinely funny moments, it was a good episode.

But my favourite was ‘Freedomland’, in which the Freemans willingly sign a contract to work as entertainers in a slavery-themed amusement park. Now, it may seem like a cheap shot, The Boondocks doing modern-day slavery with the white guy using corporations instead of brute force to get exactly the same results, but it’s more subtle than that. Tom sleepwalks into the same position because he imagines it’s noble. Only Huey wants to upset the corporate system that put them in this position, at least until things escalate. Sure, it all ends in a silly kung-fu scrap, but it’s a clever bit of observational political comedy. And that’s what The Boondocks is supposed to be doing, not just ‘Hurr Grandpa is a shallow idiot and Uncle Ruckus is racist’.

The Boondocks was worth the ride. The last hoorah may have ended up being muted and unconvincing, but there were enough flashes of brilliance to remind me how good this show very nearly was.  

Avatar: Legend of Korra – Book 2: Spirits

I ended my review of the first season of Korra on a disappointed but optimistic note. I wasn’t very impressed by the new setting or characters, or the X-men-derived powered-citizens-vs-non-powered-citizens plotline. But none of my problems with the season, I said, meant that s2 couldn’t be much better.

And, indeed, that’s exactly what happened. I liked the second season of Korra far more than the first. The scope was far greater, the cast got a lot more to do and the new characters were much more interesting. Instead of having the insular, urban theme of the first episodes, we had a conflict that may have started and ended in Republic City, but spanned the entire planet with an emphasis on the poles. 

Rather than a dull, far over-prolonged subplot about a sports tournament, the other members of the new Team Avatar get interesting and highly individualised things to do – Asami has to revive her company with the help of the hyperactive, charismatic but devious Varrick, who is an utterly brilliant new character; Mako gets away from the whole sports-and-romance thing to be a serious investigating officer, a far better role for him; and Bolin becomes a star in the ‘movers’, an affectionate parody of badly-made early films, providing some genuinely very funny moments.

There’s great development for the rest of the cast as well. Tenzin’s brother Bumi (with the luck of the devil) and sister Kya (a stern waterbender played by Cuddy from House) force him to confront his issues about living up to Aang’s legacy, as well as accepting the fact that his father wasn’t as perfect as he remembers. His adorable eldest daughter Jinora also has a much-inflated role, going from sweet but rather dull eldest child to member of the family with the strongest spiritual power and absolutely crucial to the final confrontations. If the characters were lacking in development in the first season, they get a whole lot more now, and all are very much likeable.

The main plot of the season involves the long-standing tensions between the Northern and Southern Water Tribes. Korra isn’t an ordinary low-born girl, but actually the daughter of the rightful chief of the Northern Water Tribe, Tonraq. However, he lives as de facto leader of the Southern Water Tribe because he was exiled in disgrace after a disastrous episode involving upsetting forest spirits, with his younger brother Unalaq instead assuming leadership of the Northern Tribe – and as a result, the overall leader of the two tribes.

Struggling to understand the spiritual lessons Tenzin is giving her, Korra eventually ends up instead being impressed by Unalaq’s knowledge of spiritual matters and decides to study under him instead. Of course, Unalaq is up to no good and uses her to open an ancient, sealed portal to the Spirit World. The portal links the North and South Poles, but more importantly contains the Tree of Time, which imprisons the dark spirit of chaos Vaatu. 

In a vision of her past lives, Korra learns of Avatar Wan, the very first avatar. Ten thousand years earlier, Wan had been the first to leave behind the safety of human cities, when he was exiled for not returning the power to fire-bend to the giant lion-turtle on whose back the humans lived. He lived amongst spirits in the ‘Spirit Wilds’ and was given the gifts of element-bending by all the world’s different lion-turtles, but also happened upon the struggle between the great spirits of order and chaos Raava and Vaatu. Inadvertently helping the evil Vaatu, Wan puts his world in danger, but saves it by working with and eventually merging with Raava, and ends up imprisoning him in the tree of time and sealing away the entry. Korra opening the portal not only allows access to the Tree of Time, but with ‘Harmonic Convergence’ approaching, Vaatu may be able to break free and inhabit a vessel to create a ‘dark avatar’. You can probably tell how the rest will go, and just what epic confrontations might form the big climactic episodes of this season. It’s not highly original, but it is spectacular and much more satisfying than the oddly-motivated assault from the Equalists.

Instrumental to the final conflict, and very possibly the most important swinging element of the whole series, are the hilarious and brilliant twins Desna and Eska, near-identical despite being different genders and Unalaq’s children. They are machine-like and sarcastic, but the female twin Eska decides to date Bolin and the odd-couple relationship is priceless, especially when heartbreak is involved. With Varrick, and if you discount the final-epsiode cameo, Bumi, this season brings in some characters that are brilliantly capable of being hilarious most of the time but also formidable when need be.

It’s little details that make Book 2 so enjoyable. The backstory and how it feeds into the main storyline. The little dragonfly-bunny spirits and the very Ghibli-like world Wan inhabits. The moment at the final episode where Mako, Bolin, Kya and Tenzin represent the four elements. The return of Wan Shi Tong the librarian owl and the fate of General Zhao. Uncle Iroh! Perhaps things are a bit too convenient at the end and the idea of ‘balance’ is…well, pretty one-sided, but it all works satisfactorily.

What would I like to see in Book 3? Well, more about Toph’s legacy perhaps, and maybe more of Dante Basco’s newer role, Iroh. More from Studio Pierrot, as it was fun to see them animating half of this season. But if I’m totally honest, what I’d really like to see would be … well, for the comics being drawn by GuriHiru for the original universe to be animated. 

Avatar: Legend of Korra (season 1)

I’ve already said much of the background stuff about Korra, about who is animating it and why it seems very much in-touch with its fanbase, in my first impressions post. That one became long enough that for the first time I’m going to have to keep it separate from this one – which is for final impressions having watched the season finale.

My feelings about the piece are on familiar turf, having been a long-term fan of Avatar. I ended up loving the setting, really enjoying the characters and seeing huge potential…but ultimately spending the entire season swinging between like and dislike, thrills and disappointments. Just like with the original series, I suspect my immediate feelings will be mixed but slightly on the positive side, but will grow in the direction of love with a bit of hindsight.

The point of Korra rather seemed to be to do something in a different direction from that of the original, to centre it on older characters to give it a more grown-up feel, which would be in keeping with the ages of its original target audience. Travelling from place to place has been replaced by the claustrophobia of an urban setting, so often associated with grittiness in American media, especially when it comes to comic books. The original had this with Ba Sing Se, but that was the diversion – here, Republic City very much forms the heart and soul of the narrative, showing its positive and its negative sides.

And yet despite its new direction, Korra falls back on familiar ground. We quickly get ‘the new Team Avatar’ established, and around the headstrong hero who must learn to overcome weaknesses and doubt, we have a wisecracking but reliable brother figure (Bolin was slightly more likeable than Sokka but had that same horribly irritating sense of humour), the standoffish but attractive and ultimately selfless firebender (though Mako was never an antagonist) and the idiosyncratic rich girl who is introduced later than the others and is born different from the rest (though Asami’s similarities to Toph are admittedly limited to these and very superficial). If you imagine Korra as a melding of Aang and Katara, it’s essentially the same set-up. And the awesome Tenzin fills the gap of Uncle Iroh, too – both stealing every scene they’re in.

But this is no bad thing and the team had potential for great adventures. But the main problems I had with Korra were that its pacing and scale seemed totally off and that its conflict was ultimately too inconsequential and badly-conceived.

Much of the 12 episodes are given over to the pro-bending tournament, which should have taken up an episode or two but dominates all but one of the entire first half of this season. Even Wakfu’s boufball episodes didn’t go that over-the-top. They were a convenient way to have Korra make strong allies but they were excessive, got in the way of real character development despite the shortcuts they provided and ultimately felt too throwaway because the whole plot arc got abandoned.

The writers clearly remembered that what drove much of fandom in the original was shipping, so we end up thrown by episode 3 into complex love triangles and squares. It’s all too superficial, moves too fast and feels too tacked-on, especially when it’s treated as so important. It worked in season 1 because you never did quite know if the kids had feelings for one another, and Aang was believably stupid about it. Here, all the young adults are upfront, so there’s little in the way of mystery.

And finally, we come to the story of Amon, which as it was clear from his first appearance it would, soon becomes the dominant element of the season’s overall plot. My first observation was that it owes a lot to The Uncanny X-Men – totally unrelated to how much Korra in Avatar State mode looks like Storm throwing her elemental powers about. Amon is much like Graydon Creed, creating The Equalists, who much like The Friends of Humanity are against humans with advanced powers. Like Creed, he is not all he appears, and he was set on his current course by family members.

One of the best parts of the season was the flashback to tell Amon’s past. It was nothing highly original – there were hints of Naruto and HunterXHunterand, perhaps, Thor in the siblings-and-father relationship – but it was no rip-off and had enough original elements to work. I very possibly would have enjoyed a dark season about its characters more than what we got. But it was only one positive when there were too many negatives, most of them as a result of rushing. The episode where Korra discovers a trusted patron is in league with the equalists is an absurd Scooby-Doo story of peeking through keyholes and snooping, getting proven right by the villain’s stupidity. Amon himself is dealt with much too expediently, not only arbitrarily deciding to stage a full-blown invasion when his advantage was clearly working from the shadows, but giving his own game away in a panicked moment I couldn’t quite believe someone so calculating would do. And then his sad final scene just seemed tacked on for the sake of convenience, not because it hit the right emotive notes or advanced the plot.

None of this is to say Korra wasn’t excellent. It’s likely the best cartoon coming from the US right now. Its characters are solid, its setting interesting and the animation pleasant to look at. But it was also disappointing in many ways, and putting a good episode of the original series on makes me remember that it had a spark that isn’t really here. I cared much more about the gaang and their quest than I do about Korra. But that doesn’t mean I won’t keep watching, or that s2 can’t be far better!

Avatar: The Legend of Korra (First impressions)

First impressions, 22.3.12

Well, the first episode of The Legend of Korra got ‘leaked’ a few days ago, and has become widely available, albeit only as a low-quality stream or slightly cleaned-up streamrips. I resisted for a little while, wanting to wait until the series had its proper premiere and I could watch it in decent definition, but in the end I was too weak! I’m a confirmed Avatar fan these days, and I have an inkling this leak wasn’t entirely accidental, but designed to gauge fan reaction.

And I was pleasantly surprised. I’ve been on the fence about the series since designs and early plot outlines were revealed: I was very happy we were getting new Avatar at all, but I wished it could have been about the ‘gaang’. I wasn’t sure about Korra, who seemed cocksure (my least favourite character trait ever since Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles) and not very interesting. I also wasn’t sure about the 20s-New-York-n-jazz theme, with mobsters in old motorcars, and worried that the series would lose its fantasy edge.

But having watched the episode, I’m pleasantly surprised. It all works. It may never quite reach the heights Avatar did, and I’m fairly sure Korra as an emotional core will never give me the same resonance Aang did, but I suspect it will also be more mature and more consistently good, rather than swinging between good and poor as Avatar did for so long.

The Legend of Korra, as fans have known for a long time, tells the story of the next Avatar after Aang. This means that by the time of the story, Aang is dead, and likely to appear only as a ghostly adult. More or less all the other characters are dead and gone, too, thus far only old Katara making an appearance, though the children of old cast members appear. There’s something a little unsettling about thinking of Aang and Katara having children, but there is a bearded airbender with kids of his own, driving the plot – he is the only one who can teach Korra to airbend, but since Aang passed the city he founded has been in turmoil, so his son cannot take the time away from the city needed to mentor the new avatar. Toph’s child is another major player, the head of the city’s police force of earthbenders capable of bending metal, and while she’s an awesome no-nonsense character, the idea of Toph having a child makes me a little sad. It’s unusual for stories that put kids at the centre to make us think of them growing up, marrying, having kids and dying of old age – and it’s very different from the way Dragonball Z sees Goku grow up - but that’s where Korra starts.

It takes some getting used to, but I think it’s all to the good. It’s sensible to make a whole new story rather than dragging the old one on. And the things I didn’t think I’d like, it turns out I did – Korra’s one line as a small child, in a nod to Buddhist traditions of searching for reincarnated masters, made her seem bratty and tomboyish, and certainly her character flaw is that she is all aggression and action-without-thinking, but she is also identifiably young, uncertain and repentant about the mistakes she makes. She’s a lot more Aang-like than I thought she’d be – though no Aang.

At the moment, it doesn’t look like we’ll have a core of youths as in the first story – though I have to say I’m glad there’s no Sokka figure as yet, as unlike much of fandom I never liked him, and he never had a boufbowl moment to win me over. Aang’s grandkids are too young, and the adults in Korra’s life seem like mentors rather than companions. I’m sure Korra will gain friends, possibly related to Zuko (in fact, the artwork above shows them), but it had better be soon. Beyond that, the tension seems to be very much in the comic book mould: a rising faction of the non-benders in Aang’s city feel they are oppressed and a league is being formed around a mysterious figure to fight back. Well, as long as they don’t make any Sentinels, that’s fine. I like that the plot is somewhat comic book-flavoured, just the same as I liked how the city is obviously meant to put us in mind of New York – the blend of East and West is part of what makes Avatar what it is, and it’s moving on in its own way.

It’s a little complex following what happened with the Korean animations studios behind Avatar, but to wrap up I’ll give an overview of how it worked as I understand it, based mostly on image board posts, side articles and what people who actually work for the studios have said on their DAs – the original pilot was made by Tin House, who made Wonderful Days. Tin House stopped being a studio in their own right, though, and some of the key workers went over to the Korean animation powerhouse Dr Movie for a while, before forming their own new studio JM Animation to finish work on Avatar (with some work farmed out to Moi). Now, though, a ‘core’ of JM staff are working in a new, separate company called Studio Mir, who will now be credited with Korra’s animation. It’s clearly the same people, though, and while some backgrounds are different, the same elasticity, propensity to make comedy expressions with the mouth down at the bottom of the chin and nice action scenes are there in abundance. The first shot of the big city is great, though some CG cars could blend in better.

Overall, I’m pleased with how Korra looks at first, and eager for more. After the new My Little Pony, though, and maybe Lucky Star, I’ve never known a show so influenced by its fanbase – the episode with the play at the end of the original series was full of nods to online debates, and here there was an explicit reference to them too, with the line about Zuko’s mother. These nods can be very amusing, but I hope they don’t go too far with them. They can get very, very jarring.

Additional notes having seen Korra ep 2: I must say I’d prefer to see Korra actually learn humility and peace rather than levelling up under pressure of battle like a Shounen Jump character. And I hope we don’t see too much pro-bending in future eps. But here are the two main companions, very much in the Sokka and Zuko vein, and I like them. I just wonder if this will lead to being stuck in a rut. Korra needs a more immediate quest.