Ooo. I bet Korra wasn't popular in some areas for a while there. But, yeah, I can see why you'd not want to do that. It's the same reason Star Trek rarely ever states on screen something can never be done. You never know when you'll need it.

>
>>>unlike Nature Priestess - It's cute how Utena still pretends
>>>she believes that's the real reason Anthy shied away from all the
>>>technological solutions.
>>
>>The alternative is to admit to herself Anthy lied to her to have an
>>excuse to sleep with Corwin. That's...stark, and all three of them are
>>past it, but it's no less true.
>
>That's not really accurate, though, as written. She did genuinely
>want a child, and she did genuinely not want the process to
>involve a lot of Science. She may have exaggerated how much of an
>obstacle the second really part was, but even then, it wasn't
>that Anthy wanted an excuse to get some action; she was attempting to
>give Utena an excuse to get some action. ... It didn't work,
>and possibly nobody even slightly better-versed in how these things
>play out than Anthy-at-that-time would've believed that it
>would, but that's neither here nor there now. Point is, it was
>considerably more complicated than that.

Perhaps, but would Utena have parsed any of that at the time? Even if she knows intellectually that's not what Anthy was trying to do (and the best proof of that was when Anthy IIRC told Utena to try it herself), -emotionally- it still might be in the back of her mind.

>
>>This may be the first time in UF Utena has caught Anthy off guard.
>>Usually Anthy knows what Utena's going to do before Utena does.
>
>She's been catching up lately; viz. last movement, when - although she
>didn't notice what Korra was doing before Anthy did - she had
>been expecting it rather longer. "Did I get somewhere before
>you for once? Mark your calendar, Garnet, you may not see this happen
>again for years."

Some of the clever is rubbing off, aye. XD

>
>>>She's been studying ba gua; the
>>>obvious thing was for her to throw him instead.
>>
>>Well, I only disagree in that I think it's not obvious.
>
>Obvious to her, anyway. :)

And, of course, obvious to Nall. Well, at least before he got the wind knocked out of him.

>
>>>spontaneous firebending manifestations - Spontaneous bending
>>>manifestations are very rare in the third century, but they do
>>>occasionally happen. Most students of the phenomenon believe that the
>>>people they happen to have really been benders all along, but their
>>>talents have lain latent in them for various reasons, until unlocked
>>>by extraordinary stimuli, like Korra's own airbending ability.
>>
>>Were they possible before Harmonic Convergence?
>
>Probably, in the same sort of "for one reason or another you never Did
>the Thing until a lot later than most benders do" sense. People
>developing bending talents completely out of nowhere in adulthood that
>they really never had before only happened in the Convergence's
>immediate aftermath, as far as I know (and they were all airbenders,
>which is excellent evidence that the cosmos is a) sentient and b)
>fucking with people :).

You know, this makes me wonder about something. The fact that there's spirits for everything important (and maybe everything unimportant, too; very Shinto here) makes me wonder if Diqiu itself has/is a spirit. Not necessarily an anthropomorphic one, but Diqiu is self-contained; its own demiplane. Perhaps an all-encompassing, overarching consciousness would not be out of the bounds of reason. Something like the semi-sentient will of Ravenloft (though a hell of a lot less malevolent, of course).

If that's the case, let's take it one step further. What if the spontaneous birth of this sentience is the triggering event for the demiplane's creation? Perhaps it tries to manifest its will for a balanced, harmonious whole through the creation of the Avatar.

Just food for thought.

>
>>I confess I also wonder what's happening
>>with Emily. =)
>
>Oh, you'll find out...

Very much looking forward to it.

(Also, sorry for slow reply. My workplace was blocking this site for a week or so, not sure why. There's nothing questionable here. Only have limited time at home to read up, naturally.)

--------

this world created by the
hands of the gods
everything is false
everything is a LIE
the final days have come
now
let everything be destroyed

--mu