Review: The Legend of Korra “Beginnings Pt. 1 & 2”

This is the episode that both The Last Airbender, as well as Legend of Korra fans have been waiting for.

 

Set some time aside, Beginnings gave us a history lesson in the world of Avatar. Read this first, then watch the perfect origin story for the Avatar.

Spoilers!

Leaving off right as “The Sting,” left off, Korra is rushed into a Fire Nation temple. A caretaker says she needs to be dipped like a teabag into some magical water to cleanse the dark energy before it kills her Avatar spirit. She has a conversation with different Avatars, ending with that she needs to go back to the beginning and talk to the first Avatar, Raava. She speaks to Wan, who says he is the first Avatar. The art direction takes a drastic turn, with the drawings like ancient Chinese paintings. I certainly dig it.

Wan is up to no good, stealing food from the Chu Brothers. Wan gets away, only to get caught. Later, Wan goes to an open call for a spirit hunt. They leave the city, and show that the city is on a huge-ass lion tiger fo-dog looking thing. It’s the guardian of the city, and able to grant the ability of using fire bending. It ends up being a rouse, so that Wan can get the power. He fakes being scared of the spirits, and is told to give the power back and go home. Of course, he doesn’t, and steals the power from the turtle.

Wan uses these powers to get food, and ends up getting caught, and banished from the city. Fortunately, he is allowed to keep his powers by the lion turtle. He encounters the Spirit Forest, and almost gets killed within minutes. However, he somehow survives until morning. After a bee attack, he finds a grove guarded by a lemur. They tell him about the other lion turtles, so he makes his way out. He sees an animal caught in a trap, and tries to rescue it, until the expedition group from earlier comes.

Wan shows his survival prowess, by getting the expedition caught in the natural traps. He gets caught, however. Luckily for him, that lemur looking spirit comes back to help him. Wan shows that he isn’t really like the other humans, and goes on to live with the spirits. As time goes on, he goes on to master what will be known as fire bending. So, Wan goes in search of the other lion turtles. There is a stampede of  spirits coming from a huge battle between two monstrous spirits. Raava is revealed to be a force of light and peace. The spirit he helped was called Vaatu, the force of chaos and the dark. She had kept the balance between chaos and peace. Wan unknowingly unleashed chaos into the world.

Raava scolds Wan like never before, and with probably good reason. She flies off in search of Vaatu. Wan, then decides to go back on his quest. He finds a bunch of humans, who have the power of air. He finds that the spirits were right. He makes it into the Air city, just in time for Vaatu to show up, and start corrupting spirits.

Raava sh0ws up, and agrees to help Wan master the power of air. The only way for Wan to use the power is for Raava to pass through him and grant him the power of air. He gets the notion of going to the other lion turtles, and having them grant their power onto him. So, they montage him getting the water and earth bending. He works to master each element, getting stronger with each time Raava passes through him.

Wan finds his friends in the wilds, cutting down trees and clearing land. Jaya has become more violent, twisting Wan’s words and actions into something different. Wan has combined all of the elements, and temporarily calmed the spirits. Raava’s power dissipates, and Wan loses his powers. He wakes up, only to find out his friends hot annihilated at the hands of the corrupted spirits. Raava is so powerless, she is able to fit into a tea pot.

Wan was able to change Raava’s opinion of humans, by displaying nobility and selflessness. Instead of Raava facing off against Vaatu at the Harmonic Convergence, Wan goes up against him. Wan is getting beat, and badly. It was only when Wan and Raava merged, that they stood any chance of defeating Vaatu. If you were a watcher of Avatar, you will see that the eclipse even plays a small part in the end. Raava and Wan bonded forever during this, and defeated Vaatu by sealing him in the Spirit World.

Korra then wakes up, and remembers everything. She walks out with the Fire Nation temple caretaker, who happens to be tending to a herd of air bison. It’s revealed that the Harmonic Convergence is a few weeks away, and there is much work to be done.

This episode is exactly what every single fan of the Avatar series has been waiting for. Who was the first Avatar? How did anyone get bending powers? What is the sudden weight of spirits to this story? What do the spirit portals have to do? Every single question of the origin of the Avatar has been answered, and then some. This was one of, if not the best, origin story I have come across.

And then there was Wan. This episode did a fantastic job using 60 minutes to do justice to the most important character in the Avatar lore. The arc of Wan; from nimble, fast troublemaker, to the champion of justice, light, and peace, was tastefully done, and the right amount of detail where it was needed. Steven Yeun did a marvelous job giving Wan emotion and character. Yes, that’s Glenn from the Walking Dead. And yes, early Wan is strikingly similar to early Glenn. When it was announced that they were going to do an episode based on the first Avatar, I had lofty expectations. They were exceeded, by far, mostly with Yeun and the lore history lesson. And then there were the spirits. The spirits are what actually make up the Avatar State. There is just so much to go over, you HAVE to watch this.

I wrote off the ending of The Sting as a cop out what could have been a great episode. I formally retract this, because I feel all three of these episodes should have been shown together. Everything about this episode blew me away, on a level that I have to rethink the entire series. The Avatar in The Last Airbender was used for such a minute reason compared to the grandiose scale that Wan helped fix or create for that world. He actually saved the world. Okay, I shouldn’t rant too much on that.