Part 1
this took me way longer than five minutes
Lok Theories after Episode Nine
So, we saw the first images from the finale today! You can find the trailer here.
Theories about “Turning the Tides”, “Skeletons in the Closet”, “Endgame”, bloodbending, Amon, and the Avatar Spirit itself under the cut.
Theories for Episode 8
I know I said my ideas were all dried up, but OOPS. I THEORIED ANYWAYS. And it’s a big one.
First of all, I’m going to list all the information we know so far about tomorrow’s episode.
The first clip, where we learn that Team Avatar is patrolling Republic City for Equalists.
And two screenshots:
And of course, the title: “When Extremes Meet”.
headcanon: the new team avatar is patrolling the streets of republic city because they read the zombie apocalypse articles and are on the lookout for the living dead
Speculation for “The Aftermath” and beyond
Based on the events of “And the Winner Is…”, the new clip, and the TV Guide summary; as well as the six unexplained scenes left from the trailers and the Republic City game.
Given that the title of the episode is “The Aftermath”, it’s almost certain that the primary plot will concern the main characters reacting to Amon’s attack on the arena, in various ways.
Hey, people? Please stop saying Korra put Bolin in the friend zone. That term is just gross. Korra was wrong to kiss Mako when he was dating Asami, and she probably shouldn’t have led Bolin on without telling him she didn’t see him that way, but the “friend zone” is a term that has a lot of negative connotations - specifically, it embodies this idea that simply being nice to a woman means that you deserve her romantic affections and that it’s wrong for her not to offer them, which is horribly misogynistic and attempts to shame a woman for making her own romantic and sexual choices. The concept of the “friend zone” also means that women have to be wary when guys want to be friends, because we have no way of knowing if they’re just doing it to get sex and if they’ll react badly when turned down. Korra made a lot of mistakes in this episode and did a lot of things to hurt Bolin’s feelings, but “putting him in the friend zone” wasn’t one of them.
Though considering this is the same fandom with a faction that deems Asami a “slut” for asking out a guy she liked, it probably doesn’t make a difference to a lot of you.
So I think this was my least favorite episode of LOK so far?
Don’t get me wrong, it was still really, really good and much more high-quality than most of what you see on TV. I still loved it. But for those of us who aren’t shippers, it was… kind of stupid? I mean, ~love conflicts~ bore me when there isn’t anything else supporting the story. If shipping is your thing, no problem! That’s perfectly fine with me. It’s just that I felt like nothing but shipping was driving this episode, which left me feeling out-of-tune with the story.
There were definitely a lot of cute little things I loved - FLAMEO INSTANT NOODLES, Korra using healing powers, Ikki and Jinora being awesome - but there wasn’t much of a plot beyond resolving romantic conflicts, most of which only appeared this episode. I’m fairly disappointed they didn’t address any issues the Fire Ferrets had prior to this.
I guess my biggest problem with “The Spirit of Competition” is that it felt disconnected from what we’ve seen so far. I’m suspicious that Nick put pressure on the LOK team to emphasize the shipping conflicts in order to attract the Victorious/iCarly/whatever fans to a show like LOK, and that that’s how we ended up with this episode, because it fell short when compared to the high standards created by 1-4.
But even though it wasn’t as good, it was still fantastic, and I can’t wait to see episode 6. :3
I can’t wait for the next episode of LOK.
Because most of the things people were unhappy about in this one - Korra being jealous of Asami, Bolin and Mako not noticing she wasn’t okay, Mako going on a nice little taxi ride while Korra was risking her life - are going to be followed by an episode that we now know is going to be about internal conflict among the Fire Ferrets.
They aren’t a proper team yet, guys! They only just met… we’re working with completely undeveloped characters here. Bolin and Mako are not nearly as good friends to Korra as Sokka and Katara were to Aang. Not even close. Next episode, we’re going to see all three of them grow and learn as people and teammates. I have absolutely no doubt that they’re going to be stressed over a match and one of the brothers is going to yell at Korra about how she’s stopped coming to practices, causing her to snap and yell at them for not noticing what she’s going through. And they’ll work things out by the end.
It’s going to be great.
