Legend of Korra Book 3 Chapters 4-5 review - In Harm's Way/The Metal Clan

It's time for Korra book 3 reviews again

Full spoilers ahead

Synopsis: Korra and co attempt to rescue the air-benders from the Dai-Li and the Earth Queen, whilst ‘combustion woman’ P’li is the next target of Zaheer’s rescue mission

Yup, we’re going straight into the spoilers, there isn’t much I can say, other than the same things again. The story is excellent, after two hit and miss books, this book has been on top form. This is the episode where the story takes over from the character stuff from the last chapter.

The only bad result of that is we don’t spend more time with Mako and Bolin’s extended family, and the one scene we get with them is basically a comic-relief scene. But a small cost given the circumstances. We find that The Earth Queen doesn’t just dislike animals, she’s allergic. Wonder what that meant for Bosco

We get a scene explaining the incredibly confusing part Jinora played in the finale of book 2, and it’s a decent explanation actually, and we get a good reference to The Last Airbender, with shots of the base under Lake Laogai, some of which I actually recognised.

The Earth Queen made for a bit of an obvious villain, and with the Dai Li well under her control, it’s safe to say we haven’t seen the last of them. Interesting how Bumi pointed out the Earth Queen was within her rights doing what she did, but rest assured, it’s not over.

We get a bit of development with Tenzin, as he actually offers the rescued citizens a choice whether or not to join air-nomads. I’m liking how Korra and Asami are getting a lot of ‘girl-time’ together this book, Asami had no real interesting developments in book 2, especially when it comes to relationships with anyone other than Mako.

The other issue I had, and these are all relatively minor complaints, is that I would’ve to have seen Korra do more in the fight scene. She’s the Avatar, and her contribution was essentially following the lead of the other rescued air-benders

On the flip-side, it’s nice to see a little character for Kai develop, how he tried to hold back on fellow air-benders, and did apologise for his earlier actions. It seems the Dai-Li may have shaped some sense into him, but only time will tell on that point. We also get a small insight into his relationship with Jinora, and Tenzin’s reaction to this news was priceless. Kai also shows himself as a decent airbender, also nice to see Bolin be given a decent fighting role, that doesn’t happen often enough.

Lastly we have the small scene where Zaheer breaks P’Li out of her prison, this was really just a straight up action scene, although it seemed odd that Zuko was so easily defeated, and why are the white lotus suddenly useless? And we have Lin entering the fold, and telling Korra about Zaheer and his group. This explains why she was cooped up, this is the third explanation we’ve had, MAKE UP YOUR MINDS! Lin also helped them break the airbenders out, which seems a little odd, given how as Bumi said, the Earth Queen is within her rights.

Animation was smooth, music used well, voice acting excellent.

Rating 8/10

Synopsis: Korra’s search for metalbenders leads her to the city Zaofu, containing a clan of metal-benders, and awakening old pains for Lin Beifong, meanwhile, trouble brews at Air-temple Island.

People who wanted more Lin Beifong can rejoice, as this episode is very much dedicated to her character, and introduces her family, and introduces the new city of Zaofu

I’ll start off by saying, I’m glad they gave us just a small scene for Naaga, one thing the last airbender did really well, was developing animal characters. Pabu is probably the only really developed animal in Korra (Naaga’s development is there, but it’s nowhere near Appa or Momo)

It’s nice to remember all the aspects Toph had such a mastery at, including truth-seeing, telling when people are lying by physical change. (We had feet-seeing and metal-bending in book 1, but…) It’s also nice that Zaofu is portrayed as being almost the complete opposite of Ba Sing Se (Ba Sing Se being the rule-oriented, everyone knows their place city, where here everyone’s encouraged to reach their potential, it’s even mentioned how the idea of having a queen is outdated – nice, perhaps unintentional, subtle jab at the UK and other countries with monarchy)

Interesting also to hear that Toph is still alive. But to the episode itself, we’re introduced to Lin’s half-sister Su Yin, her character interests me, while she seems to want to put control over her family, she seems welcoming to people like Varrick (more on him later) Su calls this place the safest city in the world (or at least the Earth Kingdom) and I suspect we’ll soon see if that’s the case

And of course, her daughter, Opel (we also meet 4 sons, but their roles are just being there really, so I won’t give much thought to them) now she’s a character that’s a genuinely nice person, and honestly that’s about all I can say about her. Korra teaching her the basics of airbending was nice, it’s good to see the student become the master. (Although Korra could’ve mentioned how she too struggled at airbending)

The focus of the episode is on Lin, in spite of this she has very little to say, it’s clear she and Su are at odds for an as of yet unexplained reason, and neither of them really want to talk about it. I’m sure we’ll see exactly what happened between them in due course (because I saw the leaked episodes)

Unfortunately an old problem rears its ugly head – ladies and gentlemen, we have a romantic subplot, and it involves Bolin – goody. I admit, I was not a fan of his relationship with Desna until the finale of book 2, and his relationship with the mover star is frankly pathetic. (“Your type is dumb mover star of psycho ice princess” isn’t all that wrong)

So, Bolin sort of falls for Opel, who had already sort of fallen for him, after a whole 2 seconds screen time together. Yup, it’s one of these sub-plots.

It’s nice to hear how Toph was as a parent. Unsurprisingly, like Aang before her, she was far from perfect, neither half-sister knew their father, and they were given free reign (which explains Su’s more reserved approach when it comes to her daughter’s freedom)

So, we also have the plot at Air-temple Island. Nice to see Milo become a teacher, honestly, Ikki needs more development as a character, she had one sub-plot in book 2 but that’s about it, and even then it was for Tenzin than herself. We also get a fight (which is the only fight in the entire episode) between Kya and Zaheer, I still want to know how Zaheer mastered airbending so quickly, I’m fine that he studied air-nomad culture, but it surely takes more than that to become as good as he seems to be.

Rating 8.5/10

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