Great discussion!

Some points I want to address though (not all thoughts are mine, some of these were born on reddit in /r/thelastairbender);

The grievances with Bolin’s bird-calls plan/joke is a valid one – aaawkwaard. An interesting perspective though is that it contrasts with The Last Airbender. Back in TLA, that plan, or similar one, would have been approved. Even if it didn’t work quite right, they would have tried. But not in Legend of Korra – it’s a more serious show and for viewers it shows how far the entire series has gone from the adventures of Aang and the Gaang to the serious stakes Korra and her Krew deal with. The same goes with the humor – not out of place in TLA. In LOK, it’s weird and inappropriate.

P’li’s exact words were “Deep down I knew you’d find a way to get me out. Just like you saved me from becoming that war-lord’s killing machine when I was a little girl”. I thought that was a really weird back-story. First of all, ‘War-Lord’ implies such a person is continuously participating in actions of war and violence. She can’t be older than Aang was, so when the hell was this war happening and where? Also, her words imply she didn’t want to become a killing machine, but she’s perfectly happy blasting away for the Red Lotus’s cause. It does however shine a light on her personal problems with leaders and governments.

In the hallucinations scene, Zaheer’s face becomes Amon’s, Ghazan’s face morphs into Unalaqs’, and Ming-Hua becomes Vaatu.

Zaheer’s progression from not-flying to flying starts in the finale when we see him meditating in that room, seated firmly on the ground. He is not floating. Then P’li dies atop Laghima’s peak, he flies, then we see him doing that corny seated hover at which point Ghazan and Ming-Hua walk in. Also, we love the flying – it has been long debated what the specialty of the Airbenders would be (Water has blood and spirit bending, Fire has lightning, Earth has lava and metal). We thought it would be the bending of gravity – stemmed from the weightlessness hints – but flying is cool.

Korra’s fitness and the elaborate fights have been noted. We fans absolutely love the elaborate and unusual fights in LOK, and it all actually looks like a build-up to this finale and may possibly be a plot point in book 4. Along with Korra’s identity as the Avatar, she also identifies herself as someone very physically capable and strong (she has flexed those muscles once or twice). Her fight while being bound is a testament to her strength and fitness. Now with the mercury poisoning (the general consensus of what that substance was) she very likely is incapable of doing even simple tasks, let alone run around like she used to. We fans sincerely hope they have an arc to address this in Book 4, otherwise it’s cheating us out of a good story where she struggles through physical weakness on top of having her Avatar identity slashed to pieces and comes out of it more confident and knowing who she is.

Yeah, we also thought the ‘venom’ would be metaphorical. If it was something less than mercury, we would have thought the premise/threat was lame. Mercury poisoning is pretty brutal. One redditor pointed out that there’s a kind of psychological venom on top of the mercury poisoning that Zaheer has managed to inject into her. How true that is, is yet to be seen.

Regarding Mako vs Ming-Hua, another redditor observed that lightning seems to operate on two rules: 1. You aim where you intend to hit and shoot. Do not shoot if you can’t aim (something Azula ignored but she’s crazy.) 2. You can’t control the power output. These rules seem to be cannon based of the use of lighting in both TLA and LOK. That means that, like a gun, you can’t be careless about the use of lightning since you can’t throw a little spark or redirect it like you can normally with other elements (which is probably why it’s banned in pro-bending.) In all of the previous encounters between Mako and Ming-Hua, he had multiple people around him and the area was chaotic with fighting and objects being thrown around. He either neither had sufficient time or vision to aim properly, or had too many people around that he risks hitting one of them. Once in the cave, it was just him and Water-bending Slender Woman. We also agree it was stupid of him to go into the cave, but we wouldn’t have it any other way – scary cool!

Regarding why she didn’t just trap him with water, we think she’s a little like Azula (who shares a voice actor with Ming-Hua!). She enjoys playing with her prey.

We know something about adult-Aang. We know that adult Aang wasn’t a very good father if his own children felt like he would be disappointed in them or like Tenzin more. Toph (from what we have seen) didn’t turn out to be a very attentive mother either.

Fan theory about Kuvira is that she’s the love child of Suyin and Zaheer. Apparently there’s a photo (a very very detailed photo that is seen for two seconds) from episode 5 when Suyin mentions she was in a traveling circus. In the photo she is balanced atop a clown who bears a strange resemblance to Zaheer (hairline, nose, ears, and build). Kuvira’s eyebrows are similar to Zaheer’s too. The only problem with the photo theory is that the man in the photo is clearly quite tall, while Zaheer seems to be more normal height. I’m not a supporter/believer of the Suyin is with the Red Lotus theory, but it would be very interesting if the Circus/Love Child theory were true because it throws in an interesting complication.

And yes, Bolin is a popular character. We love Bolin (and he’s a LAVABENDER!)

One very knowledgeable and observant redditor said she is showing 4 out of five necessary signs of clinical depression, with the diagnosis being a certainty if her state continues longer. Although nightmares and flashbacks could happen, the likelihood of a PTSD diagnosis is apparently very low and not fitting what we know so far.

Fan theory about the end of the Avatar – Korra disperses/distributes the spirit of Raava across all of humanity. Some think it will be a complete sacrificial act in which Korra loses her life so that all of humanity would have a better chance of achieving balance, which would be very Jesus-esque.

I guess those ‘some points’ turned into ‘all the points’, but it was a great discussion worth commenting on! We’ll definitely be pondering over in /r/thelastairbender how genetic lines may meld and affect bending (is Tenzin, Bumi, or Kya in any way a meld of Air and Water? What do you get with Earth and Water? Earth and Air?).