>So, Book 4 is done.

Just to be unambiguous about this, I haven't watched it; didn't even attempt it. A few bits and pieces about it have come to my attention peripherally anyway, mostly without context, and none has been particularly encouraging, but in that way that one can't help but wonder about exes who are still with their abusive new partners sometimes, I do get curious.

I almost reconsidered once, when season 4 started unexpectedly airing (or whatever it's called for TV shows that were banished to the Island of Misfit ToysInternet streaming) so early, but three things held me back and kept me from changing my mind.

One was that it was so soon after the stab in the face that was the end of season 3.

Another was that I saw Korra's genericated new design and was not just un- but anti-impressed. What? The visual design of your protagonist is one of the things you got unreservedly right about the show, and so you decided that after taking basically everything else away from her you'd revise that to make her less distinctive too?

And the third was that the announced capsule text for episode 401 was basically, "It's been three years since Korra's friends abandoned her when she needed them most," which struck me as a deeply inauspicious way to start.

Since then, about all I've heard of any substance was that they did the "new villain wins introductory boss battle in humiliating manner" thing again (I can almost handle one-trick ponies if the one trick is good but FFS), that the whole season has been a general sort of "Korra's long road back" thing (which doesn't work for me if it's the case because it's a long road back from something that should never have happened), and that last week's had an inexplicable giant robot.

So... despite my curiosity, which sometimes borders on something like Stockholm syndrome, I've stayed clear. Nothing I've heard about the season has made me think I would want to do anything but punch somebody after seeing any of it. I mean I like giant robots, but I can't think of a single way in which one could be dropped into the canonical setting without being painfully incongruous. Even in UF's extrapolated Dìqiú it wouldn't make much sense without extensive groundwork that I'm guessing the RISD boys, being them, didn't lay.

Now, however...

>And the finale scenes. YES. SO MUCH YES. Also, as close to making
>Korra and Asami canon as they could get away with when Nickelodeon was
>being their usual selves.

With the "also", that makes two positive things (one of them almost uselessly ambiguous, admittedly) that have reached me about it. That makes me wonder if it mightn't at least be worth watching the last one... almost.

Man, I tell you what. This show has caused more trouble for me than any other I can think of, and still will be long after today. You guys have only seen a small corner of the towering edifice of angst it's caused in the studio. It's the Nemesis of source material, exacting painful retribution from me for the hubris of adapting its main character into UF.

--G.
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Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.