How it shouldv'e went
- Mako: Korra, I don't know how to explain this, but every time you look at me my heart stops. I guess- I guess i love you. A lot.
- Korra: cut the crap, Mako. I'm with Asami now.
The most powerful image of Legend of Korra (Avatar: Legend of Korra) to me, the absolutely most. powerful image. Is the seemingly ordinary citizens of Republic City, watching a sporting event, and then slowly, methodically, one by one, spotted here and there in the crowd - The Equalists Reveal Themselves.
Men. Women. Young. Older. They pull up those scarfs into masks, and reach for their gloves and suddenly they’re no longer just anyone, just a face in the crowd.
Yes, I said it. Not terrorists. Revolutionaries.
The thing about struggle, is that the oppressors’ terrorists, are the oppressed’s revolutionaries/freedom fighters.
There is SO much wrong within Korra. Especially, (specifcally) how the concept of Bender privilege was absolutely shunted to the side and glossed over into a (it’s about meanness - just be ‘nice’ to everyone and things will somehow equalize) bullshit end game.
But I don’t think the writers and perhaps even the animators realized how powerful an image it was, to see the young woman you think is a sweet little fan - become a warrior. To see the older geeky fellow - become a revolutionary. To see some seemingly ordinary young guy - become a freedom fighter. [If images don’t match up, it’s because I’m not going back to look, I’m going from my emotional memory of the scene]
And then they move with precision, they take out the guards, bap bap bap. They secure the area. The Revolution is ORGANIZED.
And then right there, in that moment (despite all the bullshit misogny, rape culture, forcing Korra into the mode of damsel in distress etc… surrounding him) the Voice, and the Mask of the Revolution counters the oppressors in their sanctuary. In their place of power.
I mean, it’s a little bit of V for Vedentta right there. And a little bit of the unionized manual workers taking over the factory. And a little bit like if Take Back The Night, involved groups of women showing up in male dominanted areas (of say a college campus) with a list of sites and a few images of the porn found on their computers that was just sent to their moms with a ‘Do You Know What Your Son’s Been Doing?’ and the witnesses statements of the women they’ve harassed, molested and abused.
It’s a “This is what you’ve created. This is what you’ve let happen. This is your great civilization that can do no ACCEPTED OR NOTICED WRONG. And it’s corrupt, decripit, a hollow shell. You’ve been living in a dreamworld, Neo.”
It’s a “This is the festering wound you’ve been cowed into ignoring, or hoped you could ignore as long as you could somehow get yours too.”
And in that moment, Amon’s ‘taking away bending’ seems so utterly symbolic of (the people’s power, the power of the oppressed when organized, when active) the ability to confront and be unafraid and say I’m taking this. This unearned power. It will exist NO MORE.
Thinking about it now, I can just imagine a wailed angished cry of:
But my whiteness!
But my male privilege!
But my finacial leg up!
But my THING I BELEIVED MADE ME BETTER AT STANDING THAN YOU, THE THING I BELIEVED MADE ME MORE THAN HUMAN AND YOU A MERE ANIMAL!
And the sad thing that is sad? Is the fact that imagery was created and invoked by merging a chipped piece of this struggle here and that moment of confrontation there and this commentary and that prose againt oppression. That imagery was invoked for a ‘coolness’ factor - an almost horror factor. That image, in revealing so much about what the creators obviously didn’t understand or give a damn about? In reavealing what they think standing up against injustice is really about (which is apparently being driven to meet force with force from not being listented to being a terror on the unsuspecting innocent, vs a slap in the face of the ignorer). That image should have been EMPTY. But it wasn’t, because of where it came from, the reality (realities) it was built upon.
The more I look at it, the more I think that this look:
is almost exactly like this one:
Now, I’m just as disappointed as anybody at the fact that Bolin’s attraction to Korra was just completely skipped over in the later episodes, but judging by that look he gave her after they hugged, I’m guessing that those feelings didn’t just ‘vanish’.
Hear me out here.
While Bolin has been shown to look up to his brother, it was also stated in his bio that he feels inferior to Mako as well. This makes sense because while Mako has raised Bolin, comforted and cared for him for his entire life, he isn’t really that supportive of his brother. Mako is used to taking charge and having Bolin follow him, he’s so determined to make sure Bolin doesn’t get hurt that he doesn’t let Bolin go out on his own and make his own decisions.
So Bolin’s never had the chance to believe in his own judgement. He’s always depended on Mako to help him.This led to a certain amount of insecurities, which he seems to have originally dealt with by being outgoing and charming, soaking in the praise of ‘fangirls’ to supplement his own low self worth. It worked for a while.
But then Korra came.
Korra, who Bolin fell head over earthbending piggies for, who he loved and admired for her drive and confidence. Which are both things he lacks. It makes sense that he’d fall for her because of this. He wants what he doesn’t have, can’t have. Yet, for one dizzying moment, he had her.
That isn’t the look of someone who had just a fleeting crush. He was falling for her harder than he ever had before. Even more than any of those fangirls, because it appears that they seemed to be after Mako more than anything else. Remember when Bolin snapped at Mako to ‘leave some girls for the rest of us’?
It seems like all those fangirls whose praise and cheer that Bolin depended on to soothe his own insecurities were more interested in Mako than they were in him.
So it crushes him two-fold when Korra—the girl he fell for because she was so different from anybody he’d ever met, the girl who was ‘one of a kind’—still fell for his brother instead.
Now all those little hidden insecurities, those little doubts and fears about who he was and whether he would ever be good enough, they all came to a head when he saw Mako kissing Korra. He wasn’t good enough again. He’d messed up somehow, it had to be his fault, he must have done something wrong because everything was so wrong now when it had been perfect just moments ago.
Any other person would have been furious at Mako for kissing a girl who he knew his brother liked, and would have taken quite some time to forgive Mako for betraying him like that.
Not Bolin. He had a small moment of anger—‘You’re a bad idea’—but then it was gone. Because Mako is not only his brother, he is Bolin’s caretaker, guardian, mother, father, and best friend all rolled into one. That’s a lot of dependency.
Bolin wouldn’t have confronted Mako in any serious way. And he didn’t.
Bolin just covered everything up with smiles and optimism, the same way he had dealt with everything else in his life. He never had any closure with his crush on Korra and it never got resolved. So it sat there and it festered.
He watched Mako and Korra grow closer and closer, and didn’t say a damned word because he was trying as hard as he possibly could to make himself believe he didn’t care.
But in this scene, his strange affection comes to light yet again, but it’s changed now. That look isn’t the same content, loving look he gave to Korra during their date. It was sadder, worn down and weary from the struggle to keep everything down, to keep his feelings manageable and in check.
It didn’t work. I think he finally realized it in that one cap. It. Didn’t. Work.
Borrowing a little (a lot) from my liveblogging experience, you can just see it all from the hug he gave her.
It’s in the way he holds out his arms and waits for her to come into them, like he wanted her to to be the one who came to him this time, or like he didn’t trust himself to let go if he did it. He doesn’t even wait for her to come the entire way, he pulls her closer and just slumps down so quickly, like the strain of waiting for her was too much to bear.
And that look is not a platonic look. It’s not. He didn’t even look like that when he was hugging his own brother.
That is the look of a man that is embracing someone he cares for very, very much, but knows that this could be the last time he ever does so. Because even if she came back alive from fighting Amon, he would probably never get this close to her again. Not the way he wanted to.
And look at the way he’s hugging her. She’s giving him a simple, friendly hug, but him? He has his arm wrapped around her waist, something that was not necessary in the least. It’s almost like he was intent on pressing her as close to him as humanly possible.
And Bolin just looks sosad. Almost like he finally realized exactly how deep he was in, how impossible this situation was.
He couldn’t forget her, not like this, not by ignoring every reason why he had to. He’d messed up again, but this time it was worse because he didn’t know how to get himself out of this one. All his previous ways of dealing with his issues weren’t working anymore. He couldn’t force a smile and pretend nothing was wrong.
Because loving Korra was something he didn’t know how to stop doing.
OMG I’M CRYING!!!!
Okay. Stop it.
I love character analysis like this.
AND I THINK IT HAS MERIT.
Idon’tknowIdon’tshipanythingathtispoint but I think this is a great summary of Bolin, and only serves to highlight just. how. great. his development could’ve been.
1. Oh, look, she faints twice within 3 minutes of each other.
2. Ah, the plan was “Send Mako, that’ll HELP her reach her lowest point!”
3. No explanation as to why she couldn’t reach her spiritual side, while everyone else could?
4. I don’t think I could say “Fuck you Mako” more times if I tried. “Oh, hey, I know some really fucked up shit happened to you, but hey, what about mah man-feels for you?!? Stop wasting time being sad, aren’t you graced with the LOVE and DISHONESTY that only Mako can bring?!?”
Season 1 in summary:
A show about an ineffective female “protagonist” who accomplishes nothing by choice, action, or attempt, and everything by luck or someone else helping her out.
Azula - went from a spoiled, powerful princess with a huge rift between herself and her brother to a super villain with fully realized powers, serious familial issues, completely wrecked but bent on revenge all with the means to achieve it (but, of course, failed).
Ty Lee - went from a waifish acrobat, possessing skills to get her away from her problems without confrontation to a serious force to be reckoned with and the ability to stand up for herself, know what’s right, and all without needing to rely on anything but herself.
Mai - went from a apathetic misanthrope with nothing to lose and little to gain, and a sometimes-thing with Zuko to someone with a will to live and a drive to get there, and the knowledge the she is worth it.
Suki - smaller story arc (imo) but a kickass warrior, who learns how to trust her heart and not just her training, all while finding a partner in a fellow non-bender.
Yue - a sheltered princess of literally what 3 episodes? who finds love, questions family/tribe duty, but ultimately chooses the greater good over her own desires.
Toph - jesus where do I start with Toph? an undercover princess and pro-wrestler bender with a lot on her shoulders and something to prove. a skilled gambler and con artist, wanted criminal and Mellon Lord. a girl that was always treated as fragile because of her blindness and left with a serious fear of letting herself trust others lest she appear weak. a hero and warrior and friend and teacher and young person that still wanted to know if she was pretty. Toph… I could go on.
Katara - ugh, as if Toph wasn’t hard enough! surrogate mother to a broken family, heart of her nation and hope water tribe. a nurturer and stand-in water-god for a village in need, a bender unwilling to accept gender roles in a male dominated arena. a daughter bent on vengeance who grows up to chose what’s best for herself and her friends. a sister who never let her brother down but never let him stagnate. a friend who refused to give up her values but refused to do anything less than her best for those around her. a waterbender who didn’t just fall in love with the avatar, but trained him and lead as an equal. Katara is amazing??
Korra… don’t tell me they can’t write female characters. The writers let Korra down. She deserved better, don’t tell the fans thewriters can’t do better. Some of these characters had a literal handful of episodes all within a greater story arc, Korra had an entire 12 episode series devoted to her.
She deserved better.