All posts by Avatar Vyakara

<p>Good gods, this argument is <i>still</i> going on? I'm quite certain this particular discussion is supposed to be about whether it's possible/reasonable/right to reconnect to the past Avatars, not about Korra's relationships. There's sidetracking, and then there's moving along to conversations already had at length elsewhere. </p>

<div class="quote"><i> <p>Peter.bouchelle wrote: </p> <div class="quote"> <p>Mystic Monkey wrote: If they ever continued the series after Korra, I like to believe that sometime in the future it will be a necessity for the Avatar to reconnect with their pre-Korra lives in order for some big ex deus machinima ammount of spiritual power. </p><p>Like.. I dunno. A meteor is about to hit the planet and wipe out all life and the meteor is also Satan and the Avatar State needs to be twice as powerful to stop it or something. </p> </i></div>
<p>Agreed. </p> </div> <p>Thirded. </p>

<div class="quote"><i> <p>Lukas Exemplar wrote: </p> <div class="quote">Dean494 wrote:
In Aang case azula just electrocuted him. Korra now just remember that raava was ripped out of Korra and destroyed. See the difference change is good even if it's not what you want.</i></div>
<p>And I disagree. The change had absolutely no bearing on Korra, the world, the story. She barely ever talked to the past Avatars. Therefore, it was just irelevant. It didn't need to happen. She was also her own Avatar already, and since people are citing that as a good reason for the severing of that connection, that makes no sense for that specific reason. She didn't listen to them, she didn't use their guidance. She was her own person to begin with. It was just a nonsensical choice from a purely technical writing perspective. </p> </div> <p>But that’s kind of the problem, isn’t it? She wasn’t just Korra to begin with, she was the Avatar. She was <i>supposed</i> to listen to them, from the beginning. And there were times, even within Books 1 and 2 (not counting the flashbacks or the whole Raava thing) where they could have been of some use. Not to mention that the Avatar State during all those times was grossly underused—none of the great power that Aang had, with the voices of eternity channeling through his mortal body, just glowing eyes and at best Raava speaking over everyone. It’s like they wanted to...kill the past? </p>

<p>If it ain’t broke, don’t break it. </p>

<p>Honestly, I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again: I think the biggest problem with the ending to LoK was that there was a GIANT HOLE RIPPED OUT OF THE FABRIC OF REALITY and nobody really seems to care. Which, you have to admit, ought to really be a problem—-especially since the last couple of holes in reality were poked open by a spirit of chaos and evil. And Korra...just goes with it? Off on a vacation to the Spirit World, with a giant city to rebuild and the possibility of the collapse of the physical world imminent? (They somehow seem to be ignoring the issue in Turf Wars.) It’s not like with Aang, where there was some kind of denouement, what with the war ending and the new Fire Lord and all, it’s literally a massive set of problems waiting to be fixed, but when the world needs Korra most—-for the cleanup job—-she vanished! </p>

<p>Making Vaatu a literal nihilist, then? </p><p>Also, I'm not really sure I'd call Korra a Liberal, at least not in the sense that she's not really into accepting change as much as forcing change down people's throats when the situation goes out of hand and expecting them to adapt to it, all the while removing the earlier diversity in place of newer, basically unknown elements, as opposed to trying to balance the old and the new. (Although, to be fair, that is some people's definition of a Liberal nowadays.) </p>

<div class="quote"><i>Quamboq wrote:
<div class="quote"> <p>Avatar Vyakara wrote: </p> <div class="quote">Quamboq wrote:
<div class="quote"> <p>Um...technically, at the moment, wouldn't his host be Korra? I mean, when Raava got destroyed she reformed inside Vaatu, and Vaatu was destroyed... </p> </i></div>
Vaatu should be able to get out of Korra, the same way as Jinora got Raava out of UnaVaatu. It just needs a high amount of spiritual energy</div>Indeed...now, who wants to go digging inside the spirit of an already shell-shocked (and often rather aggressive) Avatar, rummage around for a bit, and then pull out a demonic entity who planned to shroud the earth in darkness for ten thousand years? </div>Someone like Unalaq? </div> <p>Who very fortunately is no longer with us, and Harmonic Convergence has another 9,997 years to go at this point... </p>

<div class="quote"><i>Neo Bahamut wrote:
Given Raiko's track record, I'd have to assume he'd think that's a great idea.</i></div>
<p>Gods, I hope you're wrong... </p>

<div class="quote"><i>Quamboq wrote:
<div class="quote"> <p>Um...technically, at the moment, wouldn't his host be Korra? I mean, when Raava got destroyed she reformed inside Vaatu, and Vaatu was destroyed... </p> </i></div>
Vaatu should be able to get out of Korra, the same way as Jinora got Raava out of UnaVaatu. It just needs a high amount of spiritual energy </div> <p>Indeed...now, who wants to go digging inside the spirit of an already shell-shocked (and often rather aggressive) Avatar, rummage around for a bit, and then pull out a demonic entity who planned to shroud the earth in darkness for ten thousand years? </p>

<div class="quote"><i>Kubernes wrote:
<div class="quote">Aggression25 wrote:
It may be impossible for any human to balance out the Dark Spirit Vaatu, no matter how spiritual they could be.</i></div>
Vaatu is also pretty weak after his defeat if we judge Raava's size at the end of book 2. For at least a few hundred or thousand years, he might not be able to do much in his host.
</div> <p>Um...technically, at the moment, wouldn't his host be Korra? I mean, when Raava got destroyed she reformed inside Vaatu, and Vaatu was destroyed... </p>

<p>Being honest, and I don't think I've ever changed in this regard, the relationship wasn't what ended up being the worst part of the finale. It was the fact that, with literally <i>everything having changed</i>, it was the relationship they chose to focus on. There were <i>so</i> many other features of the Avatar World–the ecological damage to the Foggy Swamp, the wholesale destruction of Republic City, the complete turnover of the whole Earth Kingdom into a series of disunited states (which it doesn't appear to have been for thousands of years), the rather dysfunctional Beifong family dynamics to sort out, and the fact that there's now a third entrance to the Spirit World that humans seem adamant not to do anything about (I mean, there are plenty of spirits in Republic City, but how many humans have moved to the Spirit World, and why on earth isn't that more of a thing?)–that could have been focused on, or cleared up, a lot better than a couple of oversimplistic statements or completely ignoring the problem. It was, to put it bluntly, selfish. The world wasn't taking a breather, it was shunted onto another path. And the Avatar, who's supposed to take care of the whole thing, just gallivants off on her own with a companion <i>literally to another dimension</i> for an unspecified period of time, instead of staying to help but explicitly just taking a small break (which I don't have any problems with). </p><p>Hey, if the forum's back online, I need not worry too much about putting in my two nickels' worth, eh? </p>

<p>The alternative I came up with for my own writing was that Vaatu's been living inside the spirit of Raava and has been blocking Korra from those lives (I mean, she can still multi-bend, which Raava got back in the day and which shouldn't have been passed down when she "died"). Exorcise Vaatu, and you return the past lives. </p>

<p>I do wonder about those animals...I'm not sure if it's ever made clear whether they're sapient or just imbued with spirit of a sort. Perhaps the descendants of spirits trapped on Earth after Wan closed the portals? Or those who passed over to the physical world afterwards, and gained the ability to reproduce in spite of being mortal... </p>

<p>As I recall, it was from Zaheer saying in the year 171 AG that Laghima had lived four thousand years before. I guess the page took him at his word... </p>

<p>Ah...I think I see what you did there. We actually used similar characters for Rakshasa (and since it's a borrowed term from Sanskrit that's okay); 'Euryale' <span style="line-height:22px;">芡實 </span>here is technically 'gorgon', however; you might want to reconsider it, depending...I mean, if you want the girl to be a little more, well, evil, then by all means call her after a hideous monster. But if you prefer a name that's a little nicer, I'd see about reworking the name as it actually was. (I have an odd feeling that you used the plant <i>Euryale ferox</i>, the gorgon nut, but I could be wrong.) </p><p>As for the matter of pronunciation...well, if it helps, I've been learning a little about the Chinese phonologies in the time since, and I may be able to provide sound guides. I'll also see about the phonetic equivalents, but it may take some time (although not, I hope, along the lines of nine months). </p>

<p>Sorry I've been away so long... </p><p>Neo Bahamut </p><p>Well, I can always recommend a meaningful translation for names...tell you what, I'll try those first, and if you don't like 'em I'll put in phonetic ones. </p><p><i>Euryale</i> <i>Rakshashi</i>: well, to start with, there's the name Euryale, which in Ancient Greek means 'open sea'. Easy enough; 外海 or Wàihâi (it's supposed to be a falling-rising tone) quite literally means "open sea," so that shouldn't prove a problem. Rakshashi, of course, is a variant of <i>rakshasa</i> or demon figure, which fortunately has its own concept in Chinese, named 罗刹 or Luōshā. So, in total, the name should be 外海罗刹, or Waihai Luosha. </p><p><i>Lilith Psyche</i>: This one was a little easier; Lilith means 'of the night', or in this case 晚 or Wân, and <i>Psyche</i>, of course, means soul; there are two words for this in Chinese, Hun and Po, but I reckon that 魂 or Hún works better. All in all, therefore, one can translate Lilith Psyche as 晚魂 or Wan Hun. </p><p><i>Thiera Psyche</i>: Thiera is difficult, but it likely is derived from a Dutch diminutive of Theresa, which in turn likely comes from the Greek for summer. I can say with some certainty, therefore, that her first name should be 夏 or Xia, which does indeed mean summer. Wan Hun's sister is thus 夏魂, or Xia Hun in Latin characters. </p><p><i>Aroma Gingiber</i>: These are more difficult than I'd thought they'd be, guess I'm a little out of practice...芳香 or Fangxiang is the obvious choice, but then it really doesn't sound quite as nice. Fong Hoeng, the Cantonese variant, might be more to your taste. Ginger is 姜 or Jiang, leaving it in Mandarin, or Goeng in Cantonese.Your Aroma Gingiber is therefore 芳香姜 or Fonghoeng Jiang (also Fonghoeng Goeng). </p><p>Also, Avatar has a tendency just to translate the subtitle portion, i.e. the season name. The book numbers generally seem to be left out, or more precisely left in English. </p><p>BcMichau </p><p>Not a problem at all! Michal is a variant of Michael, which is Hebrew for "who is like God?" (It's a rhetorical question, of course.) It's a bit difficult to fit into characters, but the meaning directly translated would be 敬虔 or godliness, transliterated as Jingqian (Jing-chee-aan if you're having difficulty pronouncing it). </p>

<p>Indeed! What should you like done? </p>

<p>Oh, dear. </p>

<p>...well, that's nice to know. Vital programming related to the backups of the history of architecture and city planning, lovingly transcribed and set for any to read at leisure and learn from, are gone, but SimCity 4's still running! Sounds great! </p>

Maybe there's some way to make a poll?