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Forum Name: Symphony of the Sword/The Order of the Rose
Topic ID: 486
Message ID: 24
#24, RE: (OOTR15) M5 Taken by Storm
Posted by Gryphon on May-30-15 at 02:09 PM
In response to message #19
>I don't thnk
>anyone ever really realized the depth of contempt those White Lotus
>members really had for the Avatar. What I'm not sure of is why they
>thought she needed to be a machine. A slave.

In Korra's lifetime, there has always been that thread in the White Lotus Society's fabric, the ones who - consciously or not - believe that she should work for them rather than the other way around. It started almost as soon as she was identified as the next Avatar, when she was four, and for the next 13 years that... well, "faction" isn't really the right word, but, that faction had the upper hand. What started out as a poorly-thought-out imperative to protect and guide the much-too-young-to-be-Avatar Avatar went wrong fairly quickly, as the difference between guidance and control (and between protection and confinement) sort of got lost in the shuffle.

The point is, there have always been those who have been convinced they know better than Korra does what she ought to be doing (and often with whom and for what reasons, as well). Not just in the White Lotus, as such - she got a bunch of that from Tenzin, too, as a teenager. He wised up eventually, and she thought the White Lotus had too. To say that she's disappointed by their recent performance is to undersell the point somewhat spectacularly. If you count the Tenneq conspiracy as a separate event, this incident marks at least the fourth time in her life that the White Lotus Society has failed her utterly and catastrophically at a critical moment.

There will be consequences.

>What -really- puzzles me
>is why they thought their White Lotus oath obligated them to -not-
>listen to Jinora! Cheong could waffle all he likes about serving the
>office rather than Korra, he still can't explain away that.

If this were a conversation that was happening at some point before the Battle of Fort Tonraq, Cheong would patiently explain to you that - while the Apsara Lama is a noble and generally wise woman - she's very old, she's out of touch with the needs and dangers of this complicated and difficult new era in which the world finds itself, and she's too attached to the Avatar personally to view the matter in a detached and rational manner. She's been letting Korra's cavalier attitude slide for her entire long and otherwise distinguished life, and it would be unrealistic to expect that to change now.

>Obviously, the White Lotus being run by an Air Nomad, the traitors
>will not be looking at capital punishment. And yet, what else fits?

They could try life imprisonment without any semblance of due process. That's always worked for the White Lotus before!*

* That has NEVER worked for the White Lotus before.

>They invited demons--literally DEMONS--to a secure compound in a
>secure pocket plane for the express purpose of capturing members of
>the Avatar's family.

In fairness, they had no way of knowing about the "demons" part and wouldn't have believed it if somebody told them. Dìqiú's modern cosmology doesn't even really have things like that. Dark spirits, sure, but demons? That's pre-War Fire Nation paganism crap, they don't even believe that in the Fire Nation any more.

Also, I don't think the "family" part really entered into Cheong's calculations either. They are, after all, manifestly not family members in a strictly definitional sense.

>What blows my mind about this is how they thought
>Korra wouldn't find out what happened after the fact, even if
>everything had gone according to plan!

If everything had gone according to plan, at least by Cheong's calculations, it wouldn't matter if Korra knew - or, rather, her knowing that the Lotus had arranged for her visitors to stop overstaying their welcome would've been part of the plan. Cheong has - or had - a great faith in the persuasive power of the fait accompli. Surely once they've gone back to wherever they came from, she'll realize what a disruptive distraction their hanging around has been and get back to proper business.

>Speaking of Oriphos, there's two presences still unaccounted for.
>Saionji has finally touched on his real purpose for being there, and
>rescuing Touga (physically and mentally) appeared to be one. Nanami, I
>assume, was another. But what's going on with Mia?

You'll find out.

>It may be silly of me, but I almost hope Leyna Tarrant ends up giving
>up her hate instead of fighting to the end. Obviously Anakin has
>contempt for her now, but I'm not sure if it's because she didn't care
>if she lived or because her hate is all out of proportion to what
>happened to her.

The reasons for Anakin's reaction are touched on briefly in that same scene. Like her, he has something that he hates with a passion that defies any sense of proportion, but in Anakin's case, it's kidnappers and slavers - what we might call "human traffickers" in modern real-world parlance. He and Saionji knew when they arrived what the real objective of the Black Rose mission was (how, we'll get into later), and he assumes that Leyna did too - which makes her complicit, which, in his eyes, makes her lower than snakeshit, QE-effin-D.

So he saves her life, because that's what you do, and then he completely shuts her off, because that's what he has to do to live with having saved someone who would be part of such a scheme. For all that various efforts have been made to impress a nuanced complexity upon him, Anakin Skywalker is really a fairly simple soul.

>Now, I can't help but think about celestial politics for a minute
>here. So far this event involved the kidnapping of Odin Winterbeard's
>great granddaughter. By demons who by their covenant shouldn't be able
>to affect the mortal world directly. From where I stand, that seems
>like two legitimate reasons Asgard can step into this matter and not
>violate the agreement.

I can't speak to this at the moment, but hang onto that, you might want it for reference later.

>Lin Beifong's presence (with a Valkyrie insignia!)

Oh good, I was hoping someone would spot that. Good old no-longer-old Lin. We'll be seeing her again next time.

>I had a crazy thought, though. Anyone ever seen the Incredibles?
>That's a gifted little girl there, she is...

If you're alluding to Jack-Jack, I'm pretty sure he's a boy. :)

--G.
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Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
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