Daily reminder that this guy called himself a "Dark Avatar"

>>77650196
It like he just said, "You know what? Fuck it. I'm not even going to pretend I think I'm doing the right thing any more. I'm a moustache-twirling bad guy and I hate all that is good."

>>77650196
>raava is a white spirit. vaatu is a black spirit.
>tried to become the embodiment of Vaatu
>"unironically"
Are you actually retarded OP?

>>77650317
But he did it right after giving a speech about how he was supposed to be the "good guy"

Aside from Yu-Gi-Oh GX, I've never seen fiction try to use darkness as a heroic trait

>>77650317
He didn't become the black avatar.

>>77650348
maybe he's a yu-gi-oh fan

he certainly looks like the sort

>>77650348
>I've never seen fiction try to use darkness as a heroic trait
Dark Souls and Digimon come to mind but they're /v/ and /a/ though.

>>77651050
I never was into either of those. I just remembered Yu-Gi-Oh GX because the villain was the embodiment of light

>>77650196
>Korra S2 was 2 years ago
>still bitching

>>77650196
so what if it's cliche? dark versions of things are cool. black repaints of transformers, dark link, it's all cool

Little known fact, Hitler called himself the "Evil President".

>>77650348
>I've never seen fiction try to use darkness as a heroic trait
Batman?

I think Vaatu was just trying to destroy the world to create his own world. If Vaatu had his way then Rava would be the evil one trying to destroy the world.

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>>77651410
Not quite the same as I said earlier

In GX light was literally evil

>>77651462
I think it would be pretty easy to flesh-out Vaatu to some degree and to give Unalaq some complexity.

What's frustrating is that the writers didn't. So, any notion of Vaatu and Unalaq being anything other than Satan and Palpatine is complete fanfiction or theory.

>>77651678
A lot of problems with Book 2 could have been solved with just a little explanation.

>>77650348
>I've never seen fiction try to use darkness as a heroic trait

Star Wars

Season two and season four should have been swapped in order.

>>77650196
Why does that trigger you so much?

TFW Amon was the best antagonist and he's unceremoniously blown up on a boat in the season one finale

>>77651475
Batman is called the "Dark Knight". I'd say it's pretty close.

Also,

>>77650348
Kid Icarus: Uprising has Dark Pit. Though it's more like he's a good guy in spite of being "dark", rather than because of it. Still, his contrast to the "light", angelic regular Pit doesn't stop him from having a good side.

And that's far from the only example. Lots of fiction have examples of dark or shadowy characters with good intentions. It's been fairly common ever since it became popular to examine literary tropes like "light is good and protective, darkness is evil and destructive" and do meta-commentary on them, which has been the case for quite a while now.

>>77653687
That would put 4 before 3 which wouldnt make sense. though I agree "dark avatar" should have been series finale.

>>77650196

What exactly was the big issue with the "Dark Avatar" again?

>>77656970
The concept is seems like it takes no creativity to make happen and the pay off was extremely low. Since all the Dark Avatar was a kaiju waterbender instead of gaining any of the four elements or starting a new cycle of Dark Avatars.

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>>77654456
>not Zaheer

>>77657070
Zaheer was better but his season was worse

>>77656970
The whole point of the Avatar, and the Avatar world's spiritualism in general, was to bring the world into harmony by balancing different forces. The Avatar represents the world as a whole, being able to bend all four elements, and acts as a medium between the human and spirit worlds.

Then it turns it it was actually a spirit of light and goodness who bonded with humans and fought and sealed away an equal and opposite dark spirit of evil. Who, despite being "the Dark Avatar", had almost none of the same powers.

>>77658423
Well, balance would include the dark/chaos spectrum of the spirits as well. Korra should have melt with Vaatu too so she would be a truely balanced avatar.

The worst fucking part of S2 was that Korra just up and goes "woops, I agree with Unalaq all along!"

>>77656970
Along with the good points raised by >>77657026
and >>77658423 , just the title "Dark Avatar" sounds like something out of a bad fanfic. And Unalaq doesn't even seem to be aware of how totally evil he's being, or worse, he is aware and he doesn't care.

It just displays an amazing lack of self-awareness from Bryke. It's a complete joke.

If they were to go with some kind of of anti avatar, it should have represented inbalance rather than all of this light and dark BS.

>>77651346
He was anything but cool.

It also blatantly flies in the face of the "balance" message the series tries to promote at the same time.

>>77654456
Can he really be called the best if he became shitty as soon as we learned a single thing about him?

>>77657184
What? Book 3 was easily the best season, and Book 1 was the second-worst.

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>>77650196

I love him, the only good thing to come out of that season. He's fabulous, darling.

>>77658937
I hadn't thought of it that way, but that actually sounds like a good idea. What if he thought that the Avatar's version of "balance" wasn't what was best for the world, because some people and groups were still being marginalized? If the Avatar only brings balance and harmony to certain people at the expense of others, then they could use their own champion to protect them. And if the Avatar spirit itself was incomplete and...

It could even explain away what >>77659253 brought up. "Dark Avatar" is a rather fitting title for someone who fills the role of a protector for those in the proverbial shadows, who are overlooked by the Avatar(s) themselves.

That would've been significantly better than "good deity versus evil deity", though it would require quite a lot of buildup to be at its most effective.

>>77659289
That wouldn't have been all that different. A dualistic system between a good spirit of balance and an evil spirit of imbalance is just a more self-contradictory version of a good spirit of light versus an evil spirit of darkness.

>>77658423
We could've had a "chaos avatar" line with Vaatu's power that runs parallel to the avatar's path. Their role would be to stir up competition and conflict as to encourage humanity to progress. Could be as simple as encouraging sportsball teams to get better or extensive as inciting uprisings against malevolent rulers or fanning the flames of war to stop aggressors. Sometimes this will put them at odds with the avatar, other times they'll work with the avatar.

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>>77657070
When they turned Zaheer into a one-dimensional cartoon villain for plot convenience it was way worse than when they did the same thing to Amon. Or Unalaq, for that matter. Or Kuvira.

>>77659289
You can't represent imbalance if you're half of a duality, just as balance can't be represented by one side. It's self-contradictory.

>>77659420
>Unalaq! You've been in league with Vaatu all along?!
>Uh-duuuuuh!

>>77659494
>>77659563
But maybe this system need not be a duality but some kind of aberration or anomaly in nature. You know like the world is experiencing a huge inbalance: nature vs technology, spirits and humans, benders and non benders. Keep in mind this would require a large overhaul of the plot. I know I'm stretching but they really could of done something interesting with the whole wuji thing in taoism.

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>>77650196
To be fair, literally everyone looked at him like he was retarded.

>>77659536
Zaheer wasn't bad. The one thing they fucked with him is that his definition of anarchy is childish and stupid. Everything else worked for a fantastic villain.

Man, Book 3 was so good, and Book 4 had such awesome concept art, trailers and the first 2 episodes were god tier. I still can't believe it nosedived that hard.

You know he was tapping that Desna/ Eska

>>77659536
He never really had more than 1 dimension to begin with.

>>77658423
>The whole point of the Avatar, and the Avatar world's spiritualism in general, was to bring the world into harmony by balancing different forces.
We all know that was just smoke and mirrors to hide that it's just the Good guys vs the Bad guys.
There never was much of a balance element, ATLA was just Rebels vs Empire.

>>77659563
>non-duality inherently creates a duality between itself and duality

>>77660220
He was sad when his girlfriend's head exploded. That's deep.

>>77659563
George Lucas seems to think so.

>>77650348
>Aside from Yu-Gi-Oh GX, I've never seen fiction try to use darkness as a heroic trait
Are you retarded?

Riku in Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories/ReCoM did EXACTLY that.

And then there's dark-thematic characters like Batman who are unquestionably good.

>>77661772
The Force works differently. The Light Side and the Dark Side aren't two equal and opposite forces like a yin-and-yang duality. They're more like opposing philosophies, which have tangible effects due to the nature of the Force. The Light Side, which represents "balance", is about protecting the well-being of lifeforms, while the Dark Side is about exploiting and harming things to serve one's own ends.

>>77661772
Anakin restored balance to the force by being responsible for the death of all Jedi and all Sith with only Luke remaining in the end.

>>77662141
>>77662217
So the shitty prequel prophecy should have said there would be a chosen one to restore order to the force, not balance, since it can be interpreted differently as Vader accomplished balance by dissolving the Jedi Order and effectively leaving the Sith in equal standing population-wise. Then Luke would come along to tie up loose ends.

Man, why do we have to hate the things we love so much?

>>77662499
Destroying the Sith=Bringing balance to the force.

The Sith were a cancer on the force obsessed with selfishly controlling the powers of life and cheating death.

>>77662683
I know, I know. I just hate that I can't have my ideal edgelord grey jedi that can give the finger to both schools of thought even though the dark side has a near 100% chance of fully corrupting someone. The most I can do is plug my ears and keep bitching about it.

>>77660167
How did a tall obviously caucasian man have two short asians for kids?

>>77650196
I think it would have been better if it were Unalaq truly believing he was doing the right thing, and be a power-hungry sociopath from the start, but starts to go back on his beliefs after he makes contact with Vaatu.

It's be like Mass Effect's Reapers using Indoctrination to sway people to their side. Vaatu could slowly but surely erode away Unalaq mind and moral compass, until Unalaq became nothing more than an extension of Vaatu's will.

>>77659363
>What? Book 3 was easily the best season
Agreed

> Book 1 was the second-worst.
Book 1 was better than 4 for many reasons, including a better villain, better character development and better resolutions to the plots.
And they weren't even that great in Book 1 they were just worse in book 4.

>>77659351
I thought he was way more interesting when it turned out he was really a bender. He knew firsthand what terrible powers benders possessed and he made it his duty to try and eradicate them.

I liked Amon because the show so rarely deals with regular people. ATLA was all about the Fire Nation subduing and imprisoning benders because of the threat they were against their regime. Bending was a cultural thing, and bending communities were targeted, communities whose whole culture was tied to whatever bending they specialized in. Non-benders living in Ba Sing Se for example took a lot of pride in Earthbenders and depended on them to make the city work, since all their transportation and infrastructure revolved around earthbending.

Then in LoK they lived in huge cities where bending became less a cultural thing and more just an advantage (Mako and Bolin are fucking brothers and they don't have the same powers), it meant less to people and when they had to live alongside bending criminals, it started to piss them off. Amon had popular support and the series itself grants that a lot of benders in Republic City are fucking assholes (the Triads, the bad-bending team they face in the tournament). He was much more multifaceted and realistic than "I'm going to unleash the embodiment of evil on the world so I can lord over a husk of a planet."

>>77659420
>only good thing about S2
>not granting that Varrick is the only character who made it watchable

>>77650348

Ancient Taoists did

Oh snap

>>77663838

Varrick was okay, but his story went nowhere special in the end.

>>77662791

Anon, sweetie, you need two people to make a babby.

>>77662826
>better character development and better resolutions to the plots
This is blatantly untrue. Book 4 had shitty character development, but Book 1 had NONE. And while Korra being able to talk Kuvira down was forced, it's a million times better than the resolution coming from sudden new powers for no reason. Book 1 Korra had no agency at all.

>>77662499
But he did bring balance: Equal Jedi and Sith.

Nobody said balance was good. I know Lucas says this isn't the correct interpretation, but it's better than his and author's intent doesn't matter.

>>77662791
They're all Not!Inuit/Native American.

>>77664157
Korra certainly develops throughout book 1, there's even an entire episode set aside to deal with her fear of Amon.

And no talking Kuvira down was not better than sudden airbending, they were both complete shit. Atleast Korra had other plot points in Book 1 that were somewhat handled or dealt with. Like the probending or the romance (even if they was bad aswell).

How was the PTSD handled? It wasn't, even though they tried to twice both times it did do anything at all. How was Kuvira handled? She wasn't, until she gave up for no reason other than they had to stop the show.

>>77664331
>Korra certainly develops throughout book 1, there's even an entire episode set aside to deal with her fear of Amon.
She doesn't develop from it at all. At the end of the Book she's the exact same person as when she started, and she never had to overcome her faults because the problems they caused were magicked away for her.

>Atleast Korra had other plot points in Book 1 that were somewhat handled or dealt with.
Hardly.

>>77660167

Goddammit why is he so handsome? Why are the pretty ones always so dumb?

>>77664377
>She doesn't develop from it at all.
She does though. In the beginning her default is to antagonize everyone she doesn't agree with, at the end she reaches out to her former opponents like Tahno. She also shows sympathy towards Amon and Tarrlok even though she disagrees with their point of view.
Ofcourse they reset her to an even more regressive state in Book2 but she did develop in book1.

>Hardly.
As i said it wasn't well done. But they did do it. Compared to the PTSD or Kuvira it looks acceptable (not good though).

>>77664491
That reaching out doesn't go anywhere.

>As i said it wasn't well done. But they did do it.
That applies exactly to the PTSD and Kuvira shit, moreso than anything in Book 1.

>>77664377
At the end of Book 1, they even take away her Avatar powers, only to literally give it all back 10 minutes later, and she still didn't learn shit.
Hell, after Book 2, whose entire concept was about the Spirit world, she still doesn't really care about the spiritual aspect of her being the Avatar.

>>77664525
>That reaching out doesn't go anywhere.
It shows that she has changed from the beginning.

>That applies exactly to the PTSD and Kuvira shit, moreso than anything in Book 1.
Sorry they did more with it in book 1 than 4. There was about 6 lines of dialogue for PTSD, and 3 for Kuvira.
The Romance in book 1 almost ruined the season same with Probending. Exactly because they spent the time on it.

And those two moments in book 4 were some of the most disapointing moments in the show. It was on the level of book 2 in terms of disapointment.

Book 1 also had enough good episodes to make people come back and watch every week and wanting to watch more, whereas Book 4 was terrible from episode 3 forward culminating in the second worst ending of LoK.

>>77651462
So from what you're saying, from his position the Avatar is actually the evil one right Anakin?

>>77650196

The shit you faggots will make a stink about. It's like you spend sleepless nights gleaming every episode to find new things to be annoyed about.

>>77664491
>at the end she reaches out to her former opponents like Tahno. She also shows sympathy towards Amon and Tarrlok even though she disagrees with their point of view.
This is limited to a few throwaway lines of dialogue that don't affect anything, and could be removed without anyone being able to tell they were originally there.

Korra's solution to the Equalist issue isn't to try and hash it out with Amon or his followers, or to use her head, but to just keep trying to punch Amon until she suddenly gets Airbending and lands a hit.

The pro-bending plot isn't resolved; it gets interrupted before it does by Amon. And the relationship "plot" is entirely "Korra and Mako hook up with Bolin and Asami, then cheat on them with each other". There's no resolution.

>>77664190
All Not!Inuits have rounder faces. Unalaak is obviously caucasian. Just saying.

It's like the art team of Avatar can't decide on who is a mongoloid and who isn't.

>>77650348
Darkness being good tends to be a thing where "muh balance" is a thing. Too much light is bad, and nobody has to explain why too much darkness is bad.
First example I can think of is Final Fantasy 3, where the backstory involved the "Warriors of Darkness" fighting back against the "Flood of Light".

>>77664613
>It shows that she has changed from the beginning.
Does it really count if it has no impact on the story at all? She's still just as aggressive, short-tempered and reliant on brute force as before. A lack of empathy was never her core problem to begin with.

At least Book 4 had Korra actually overcome the conflict. Book 1 has the problem fixed for her.

>>77664669
>Unalaak is obviously caucasian.
He looks pretty Native American to me.

>>77664662
>This is limited to a few throwaway lines of dialogue that don't affect anything, and could be removed without anyone being able to tell they were originally there.
Atleast it's there. Look im not saying book 1 was good. It's just better than Book 4.

>but to just keep trying to punch Amon until she suddenly gets Airbending and lands a hit.
She did try to oust him, allthough it was a stupid attempt since she had no proof, but even so she did attempt it. Again it wasn't the best resolution, but it was better than the Kuvira one, where Kuvira has an army that can win her the fight but she gives up just because Korra talks nonsense to her.

>There's no resolution.
While i don't like Makorra, that was the resolution to the romance plot. It showed that seemingly everyone else had moved on and they could go on with it.

Book 4 resolutions are so bad that they either does nothing (like with Toph), or shouldn't do anything (Zaheer). And ofcourse Kuvira, who has the winning hand but gives up because Korra talks to her.

>>77663924
And that was only because the story arc made a 180° turn during Wan's episodes, going from a budding free-for-all war into a generic AN ANCIENT EVIL AWAKENS plot that, in fact, only raised more questions than it gave answers. I seriously think S2 was two different seasons snipped in half and glued together because it is that incoherent.

>>77660242
Yeah, but ATLA was really good in showing that not everyone in the "Evil Empire" was totally evil. "The Headband" and "The Avatar and the Firelord" and even "The Puppetmaster" all addressed this balancing act pretty well.

>>77664778
>Atleast it's there.
Same could be said for Korra's self-confidence issues in 4, only there it actually affected the plot.

>>77664737
>Does it really count if it has no impact on the story at all?
I do think it counts, not that it was well done either. Also i find it hard to compare book 1 and 2 Korra since they obviously reset and regressed her in the beginning of Book2 so we don't really get the payoff from book 1.

>At least Book 4 had Korra actually overcome the conflict. Book 1 has the problem fixed for her.
I don't actually think she overcomes the conflict. Nothing she does in book 4 matters since it was everyone else who did the hard work, and her talk with Kuvira was so jarring that anyone could have done it and it would probably have worked better.

>>77664760
Inuits look particularly like round faced mongoloids though.

Unalaak looks like an Italian man playing an Amerindian.

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>>77664854

>>77664817
Korras antagonistic approach was a prime problem in book 1 and it had a (poor) resolution.

How was Korras self-confidence relevant to the plot? She didn't even need to get over it to deal with the villain. Since she got over it and still got her ass handed to her by a normal metal bender.

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>>77664854

He looks like Aresko's lost tanned cousin.

>>77664876
Korra getting over her feeling of vulnerability and thereby relating with Kuvira's feelings of vulnerability leading her down her path to fascism was a big part of Korra talking Kuvira down and the audience seeing Kuvira as more than just a mustache twirling villain.

>>77664926
But Kuvira was nothing more than mustache twirling villain, and their situations of vulnerability have nothing in common. Nevermind that Korra overcoming that issue came down to "don't be afraid", which she didn't use at all to talk down Kuvira. Kuvira seemd to give up more because Mako destroyed the mecha than anything Korra did or said.

>>77664331
>>77664157
We've got 2 different shades of bad character development in these 2 seasons

Season 1 had a bunch of little moments that teased a huge rush of development at the very end. It was practically all build-up to her inevitable character shift when she lost her bending - which was Deus Ex Machina'd away instead.

Season 4 had a bunch of cop-outs that led to an ending that, though stupid, at least didn't shoot itself in the foot when it came. Say what you want about how slow book 1 Korra progresses, but at least it always feels like it's moving forward - in book 4, we have to stop mid season and have Korra go through the EXACT same spiritual journey to unlock her OP powers, and that shit just kills pacing.

In conclusion, both seasons' character development suck for equal yet opposite reasons: Season one had a very slow build-up to a huge cop out, and season 4 had a disjointed build-up to a moderate cop out.

>>77664971
Forgot to add that Korra herself said it came down to her compassion, a trait she had from book 1 not book4

>>77664971
Did you actually watch the episode? She tried to kill Korra with the spirit gun. Korra had to talk her down once they both woke up.

>>77664971
>But Kuvira was nothing more than mustache twirling villain
You either weren't paying attention in the last episode or you unironically believe Hitler and Mussolini were 100% evil.

Their nations were weak, sabotaged by spineless rulers who were giving away everything their nations had to foreign powers. Through their strength and determinations they made their nations strong.

>>77664996
I did watch it. Kuvira was feeling down when they got inside the spirit world because she had lost (even though she still had an army and would win if she used it).

Korras talk amounts to "we're similar and i understand you" even though they only similar on the surface and Korra wouldn't understand Kuvira based on her PTSD experiance.

>>77664982
I agree with this except for:
> though stupid, at least didn't shoot itself in the foot when it came.
I think the mecha and abandonment issues were shooting themselves in the foot.

>You either weren't paying attention in the last episode or you unironically believe Hitler and Mussolini were 100% evil.
It's not my fault Bryke turned Kuvira into someone who was power hungry and didn't care for her nation. And then try to imply she did anway at the last second to make her seem greyish morally.

>>77665038
And then around the season's end she became a petulant girl that wanted to blow things up with her giant magical laser mecha. It's evident that Bryke wrote themselves into a corner with that, hence that rushed "let's turn the Earth Kingdom into a republic!" line in the last episode.

>>77665072
>would win if she used it
Armies have bad track records against full realized Avatars

>>77663825
>a lot of benders in Republic City are fucking assholes
That was maybe a tiny fraction of benders, and also people who would have been assholes with or without bending.

Amon's shit was fedora-tier from the beginning. His only luck was that Lin didn't have even a spark of competence regarding her job.

>>77665099
When they got out of the spirit world Kuviras army had them all surrounded and could have killed them (like Azula killed Aang), but Kuvira told them to stand down. Apparently because of Korras speech which was poorly thoughout by Bryke.

>>77665097
She was retaking the land the spineless leaders of the Earth Kingdom lost to the Fire Nation and ceded to Republic City.

>>77665175
>lost
IIRC, Republic City was a joint effort on everyone's parts. Kuvira was just being a twat about things.

>>77665456
IT RIGHTFULLY BELONGED TO THE FORMER EARTH KINGDOM! IT'S LOSS WAS JUST ANOTHER EXAMPLE OF WEAK LEADERS CAPITULATING TO FOREIGN POWERS! GERMANY- ERH- THE EARTH KINGDOM HAS THE POTENTIAL TO BE THE GREATEST NATION ON THE PLANET IF ONLY IT WEREN'T CONSTANTLY SABOTAGED FROM BOTH THE INSIDE AND OUTSIDE!

>>77664971
>But Kuvira was nothing more than mustache twirling villain
>Implying she wasn't the real hero

>>77665125
>and also people who would have been assholes with or without bending.
Yeah, but assholes with bending are a lot more dangerous.

The arguement kinda like a combination between gun rights and wealth inheritance.

>>77650196
because he is black.

>>77664996
not him, but "you have daddy issues. Stop" is hardly 'talk her down'. She might as well try to talk about the weather.