Avatar Book 2 Finale

The season finale was everything we could have hoped for.

I was always a little wary with the new Avatar series, never sure if Korra would be able to live up to what Aang was.

This season took a direction that the other series only touched on briefly and let us into another world. Throughout the season, the events of the Water Tribe Civil War escalated out of control and into the spirit world. Korra faces some deadly trials with almost losing who she was, the grand battle between light and dark and almost losing her father as well.

In the finale, Korra is faced with one of her hardest challenges to date; she has to face off against Unalaq and Vaatu to ensure that the world does not fall into darkness. Korra does her best to try and ensure that Unalaq and Vaatu did not merge and become the Dark Avatar. As Korra is just about to trap Vaatu back in his prison when Unalaq intervenes and fuses with Vaatu. The two Avatars begin to battle for the fate of the world and Korra can simply not defend against the Dark Avatars attacks. The Dark Avatar extracts Raava from Korra and effectively separates the Avatar from her past lives, breaking the chain.

As this is all happening Bumi, Kya, and Tenzin manage to track down and save Jinora’s spirit from the Fog of Lost Souls. Watching the three of Aang’s children adventure and try and find Jinora is some of the most entertaining part of the episode, it reminded me a lot of the original gang. Tenzin also is able to release a lot of the self doubt he had about not living up to his father’s image, and that he is his own person that can choose his own path.

In the second half of the finale, Korra uses all the spiritual training to try and reconnect with her Avatar state. Korra meditates in the Tree of Time and is able to see the past lives of all the Avatars and tap in to the energy of the universe. This allows Korra to project herself into what Meelo calls “a big blue giant” and go to prevent the Dark Avatar who is now trying to destroy Republic City. Korra does her best but is not quite able to defeat the Dark Avatar on her own, Jinora comes to assist Korra by releasing Raava’s residual light back into the world. This allows Korra to extract Raava from the Dark Avatar and defeat the Dark Avatar.

Once this is all completed, Korra fuses with Raava again and makes the hard decision to keep the spirit portals open for man and spirit to live together.

In the end, this finale leaves some fairly interesting storylines that could be created with the decision to leave the spirit portals open. Will the humans and spirits be able to coexist, or will there be another human/spirit war? We also get the closure on Korra and Mako’s relationship, as well as the closure of the massive “romance” between Bolin and Eska… so no more Aubrey Plaza, how sad.

A large problem that no other Avatar has had to deal with is now present, Korra can no longer look to the past Avatars for guidance. This could prove to be a challenge to Korra’s development as the Avatar, or will this allow her to carve a new path and allow her not to repeat some of the mistakes the past Avatars have made.

This was one of the better finales we have gotten out of Avatar and I am very excited to see where the series takes it’s next steps.