The Legend of Korra Book 4 Trailer

I’ve been wanting to make another posting all week, but didn’t really have anything to talk about until today. It’s been pretty exciting.

This morning I rescued a little frog from the laundry room while doing my opening duties. I just caught him in a paper cup and bowl and carried him safely outside and released him. I’ve decided he was most likely a Cuban Treefrog.

Then, while I was helping people check out, a man came up and commented on how I say “my pleasure” instead of “you’re welcome”. He said that he used to do training at the Grand Floridian and they’d always train cast members to say “my pleasure”. He said that he thought it was very cultured sounding and was a very nice man. I kind of had to laugh though, because I picked that up at my last job working for a mouse, at Chuck E. Cheese back in 2010 (maybe?) and haven’t ever really bothered to replace it. People always seem to notice it though, which I find kind of odd. But if it makes people feel like they’re getting better service, then that makes my job tons easier.

On to the bulk of this post’s decided topic.

Today the Legend of Korra Book 4 Trailer was released. I have no idea how many people who follow me, or read this blog ever, watch that show, but you should. The entire Avatar: The Last Airbender and Legend of Korra franchises are some of the most high quality programming Nickelodeon has probably ever put out. I’ve seen my fair share of cartoons too. ATLA and LOK both have great story arches, fantastic character designs and development, and beautiful animation. I love the both series, and am thrilled with one last season. I started watching back towards the end of season 2 of ATLA, and haven’t been able to stop since. Someday I’ll make an entire blog post about why I love these shows, but today I have a certain topic.

If you haven’t been following Legend of Korra, and are not completely 100% caught up through the end of book three, stop. I will be talking about some stuff that happens in book 3 and in the book 4 trailer. I don’t want to spoil things for anyone. If you want to watch, Nick.com is currently streaming all the episodes of books 1-3 on their website. There’re only about 13 episodes each season and you really won’t regret it.

Ok. I warned you.

One thing that everyone has been commenting on with the release of the new trailer and promo shots for season 4, is Korra’s haircut. I really love this new style. There’s been a lot of talk about how in Asian cultures, cutting one’s hair is a sign of shame. It’s a loss of honor. (Look back at the beginning of ATLA season 2 when Zuko and Iroh cut off their ponytails. They had totally lost any honor, according to the Fire Nation, that they once had.) More recently, cutting one’s hair is more symbolic of a rebirth, or a forgetting of the past. (Look back at earlier this year, when I cut 16 inches off.

Yeah, that’s been fun. I’m growing it out again, and it’s almost barely shoulder length. I don’t think in my situation I was necessarily trying to forget anything in the past, but I was working on a rebirth thing. It’s kind of nice to start from scratch, and with my limited budget, the red hair dye was becoming more expensive then I really felt was reasonable to handle. I’m also back to blonde now. It was a lot easier to bleach out the red with much shorter hair. Also, it was a cold afternoon, and I was pretty bored.)

I’m getting off topic. Cutting one’s hair is a sign of a change of ways. It’s giving up the old, and creating new. Not only that, but it parallels with Buddha too. The Avatar has frequently made references to Buddha and many different aspects of Buddhism. Pretty much anything wise Aang ever said was similar to quotes attributed to Buddha. Back to the hair cutting and Buddhism, Buddha was actually this chill dude named Prince Siddhartha before he was ever a nomadic monk, that’s right folks, the travelling monk was once a Prince.

So Prince Siddhartha (normally I would nickname him “Prince Sid” or something like that, but since he is a well revered figure and I would consider him a prophet-type figure, that would probably be disrespectful, and the last thing I want to do is offend anyone in this matter.) he had a pretty sweet life. By sixteen he married a princess, and was living well. I mean, he’s a prince. The guy literally lived in a castle. There’s pretty much nowhere higher to go.

Except he reached a point where he became disillusioned with this whole castle thing, probably similarly to Princess Jasmine from Aladdin, and after 4 trips around the palace, he figured out his life. The first 3 trips he found sickness, old age, and death. This kind of bummed him out. During his fourth trip though, he saw a man who had given up all he owned to help end suffering. Since ending suffering was exactly was the Prince wanted to do, he decided to become a monk.

So Prince Siddhartha gave up everything. The palace, the beautiful wife, his parents, (which, I can imagine was a rough conversation, especially since his parents had been told by some Wise Men that he’d become Buddha, and his parents didn’t want this (I don’t understand why, but whatever) so they created an environment for the Prince that would have everything he could ever want or need) and the Prince left.

Siddhartha (since he kind of renounced his kingdom) became a wandering monk and cut off all his hair and wandered from place to place, studying from all the wise, great masters. No one knew how to end suffering, and since that was Siddhartha’s main goal, he kept walking. He practiced asceticism which is an act of self discipline in avoiding all forms of indulgence. Usually done for religious reasons, asceticism is practiced in things like fasting, Lent, and abstinence. He meditated a lot too. During this process he realized that too much of a good thing was bad. Having too much of something wouldn’t make you happy, you needed balance.

Long story short, Siddhartha ends up overcoming all kinds of trails and reaches enlightenment. His name is then changed from Siddhartha to Shakyamuni Buddha (we will call him Buddha, because I will have a doozy of a time trying to spell that first part too many times.)

Throughout the series (going back to that now), Korra has been going through a lot. If you were watching the end of Book 3, you probably got super emotional for that end scene, where she is left to deal with all the consequences of the last 3 seasons. If you paid attention while the poison was setting into her body and causing the hallucinations, she still is dealing with stuff Amon said to her back in season one. Korra hasn’t had a chance to stop and process a lot of things, she’s spent 3 seasons fighting villain after villain, and she’s been personally attacked in ways she had little to no preparation for. Korra is such a fighter, and she’s such a strong character, but I need to point out, she’s in her late teens when she goes to Republic City to learn airbending. That’s really young. People criticize her against Aang so much, but Aang was raised with lots of spiritual guidance. Korra really wasn’t. Aang was 13 and had a lot to deal with, but he also spent a good amount of the series meditating and talking to spiritual leaders. The first time really that Korra has a chance to deal with the spiritual side of bending is when she moves in to the Air temple near Republic City.

As I’ve been working to be more okay and learning to handle my depression and anxiety issues I totally get how Korra is dealing. It’s really hard to learn habits once you’re older, especially when they go so against your natural order. Korra is used to being physically powerful, she’s used to being the one to win a good fight. That’s where she can handle conflict. But once her enemies started attacking her more on a personal, emotional level, she struggled. Aang’s struggles always came from whether or not what he was doing was moral. Defeating the Firelord had to happen. But was it going against everything he was ever taught? Was there a way to do it without killing him? HAd Korra been in the same position, she would’ve given no thought to the morality of the choice. Not that she’s an immoral character, she has morals, but when there is a task at hand, the end justifies the means for her. Korra’s biggest enemy was inside her. If you really listen to the taunting both Avatars’ enemies say, the one’s directed towards Aang are always more about him being weak, or too young to be able to do anything. The jeers directed towards Korra were always about whether or not she was even needed, whether or not her abilities to keep the peace and bring balance were something that actually helped anyone.

Watching Avatar: The Last Airbender, I always struggled to relate to Aang, I thought he was obnoxious, immature, and he wasn’t really willing to get his hands dirty in a fight. Also, 12 year old boys are among my least favorite age groups. As the series progressed, I liked airbenders less and less solely because I disliked Aang. Aang was the only representation of what Airbenders were like, and he was this goofy kid who couldn’t figure out how to end the Hundred year war started by the people who murdered everyone he loved. I couldn’t relate. In my mind, the murder of the Air Nomads was the perfect call for vengeance. (Although, I really liked the episodes that dealt with revenge, and how the characters handled facing people who hurt them.) He didn’t want to be this all-powerful protector, he just wanted to be a normal monk. I felt zero connection with this kid.

Korra on the other hand, was really laid back, strong, and confident to a degree of fault. I could relate to that. So when everyone complained about how she cried after facing Amon, or she blew up at Mako and Tenzin all the time, I understood. It made sense to me, and her reactions were all things I had done. Korra behaves like a girl who’s used to getting her way, and she’s used to being the best. Korra is used to having no challenge be too big. She loves being the Avatar, and she loves bending. The point in season 2 where she loses her bending is so hard for me to watch, because she falls into the lowest of lows, and gives up for a bit. I get that. I did that. It made perfect sense to me. Sure, she has her faults (I can’t think of any right now, but I’m sure there’s a fault somewhere) but she is more human to me then Aang ever was.

Needless to say, I’m excited to see the Book 4 premiere next week, and more excited to see how it all plays out. I look forward too, to any future projects Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko create in the future once Legend of Korra is all said and done.