Ataru Reviews - Avatar LoK - Air 5-6

Avatar: The Legend of Korra: Book 1:
Ep. 5: The Spirit of Competition & Ep. 6: And the Winner Is...

Polar bear dog: the best answer regarding who you love in a relationship.

Competition is the name of the game in 5 with the Fire Ferrets preparing to take on all comers now that they have the backing to go into the Pro-Bending tournament.  As I may or may not have mentioned, I'm not really a fan of Pro-Bending, but unfortunately with it in focus with this phase of the story, obviously its basically an opportunity to further display the new sport of this phase of the franchise and to get through the whole "thrill of victory, agony of defeat" element as the team ends up moving through the ranks to get to the finals as they probably are meant to in story terms.  But of course ignoring the events in the ring, the competition in the title also refers to...the love elements that unfortunately are bound to show up when you have such characters at such an age where this sort of thing ends up being important to them.  To briefly sum up: Korra like Mako, Mako likes Asami...but also likes Korra, Bolin likes Korra but Korra only thinks of him and a little brother like Mako does, and Asami...well mostly she's just there to make Korra have a rival for Mako's love.  Bolin really comes out the worst in this episode in that he at least is trying to make it work with all the mess even with his brother not making it any easier; and of course it isn't made any better when Mako claims that he wants both girls and Korra kisses him basically making Bolin vulnerable during a crucial semi-final match that they are able to squeak through barely.  Oh and their finals competitor includes a bishonen goth type who represent the "Wolfbat", as if they didn't need any more of this going on.

6, thankfully, scales back on the love and just gets us to the Pro-Bending final...and probably the last of Pro-Bending anything in this series.  More importantly it gets us to the Equalists plan, which basically starts with Amon broadcasting a threat to stop the finals or face the consequences like the terrorist he is.  It's tough to say whether or not it's something that the main characters want, especially with Tenzin trying to protect Korra being her teacher and guardian at this point, but Lin Beifong ends up sort of changing everyone's minds by guaranteeing nothing will happen in the final match with her security. (oh and Beifong and Tenzin had something before he met the mother of the three brats)  My guess is that Amon sort of knew he was going to win either way: either there would be no match and the city would be driven into fear, or there would be a match and he was going to get the spectacle of his next move, which of course ultimately happens.  Surprisingly, the Wolfbats actually do win the title (more due to illegal moves and bribery but they're not going to go too far into that), but what happens next...I sort of wonder.  Here's the thing: we know Amon's threat was to handle Korra only after everything was done....so if the Fire Ferrets won the title, would they have been the ones whom Amon removed the Bending of...or would he still have done the Wolfbats to make an example of their cheating or...um, being second-place Benders.  Regardless he does what he does and had his followers more or less surround the arena with Anti-Bending machinery, all while the Fire Ferrets just get tied up (again: why not at least deal with Mako and Bolin if Korra is the "last obstacle"?), saved by Pabu and we get a neat fight between Korra and the electric rod-weilding Lieutenant as Lin Beifong tries to at least gain some security in the matter despite the fact that Amon got what he wanted...but as I said, regardless of what they did, Amon would have won anyway. (since as mentioned, it was either cower in fear or allow for an attack...)  The Equalists are on the move, but the question now is can Republic City do anything against this threat?