'The Legend of Korra': Airbending showdowns and watery tentacles, how Season 3 had the best bending battles
'The Legend of Korra' did a lot more with its bending battles than 'Avatar: The Last Airbender.' While the original series was still very creative in terms of what could be accomplished, it was still introducing ideas and testing out the waters of what it could do. By 'The Legend of Korra,' the makers of the show had an even better idea of what could be accomplished and additionally, introduced all new kinds of bending. Season 3 of 'The Legend of Korra' took things to the max and has the best bending battles among other seasons of the series.
In Season 3, four new villains were introduced - the Red Lotus. High profile criminals with violently revolutionary ideas, they were arrested years ago for attempting to abduct and kill Avatar Korra (Janet Varney) in her childhood. Each of these four members were so dangerous, in fact, and so uniquely powerful in their bending styles, that extra special prisons had to be built just to contain them. The only non-bender of the group was Zaheer (Henry Rollins) but all that changed when Korra reunited the physical world with the spiritual one, reintroducing the powers of airbending to the populace - Zaheer being one of them.
Each member of the Red Lotus now channeled one of the four elements in entirely unique ways. Ghazan (Peter Giles) was an earth-bender who had mastered the art of lava-bending. P'li (Kristy Wu) mastered combustion-bending - the ability to channel powerful explosions from a third eye on her forehead. Ming-Hua (Grey DeLisle-Griffin), though missing two arms, instead is able to replace them with tentacles through her mastery of water-bending, able to switch from icy sharpness to fluid water in a number of ways. As for Zaheer himself, after internalizing the teachings of an ancient air-bending master, he was able to gain the power of unassisted flight.
The series also looked at metal-bending in more depth than had ever been shown before, allowing Korra to learn some herself. With all these kinds of bending forms thrown into the mix, the battles with the Red Lotus were some of the most creative and dynamic ones ever featured on the series. The battle between Tenzin (JK Simmons) and Zaheer was especially noteworthy, as it gave the series its very first airbending battle, something that had never happened before given how few airbenders there were in the first place.
It wasn't just about power, either - cleverness was just as an important factor in these battles as raw strength was. Though Bolin (PJ Byrne) had control over neither metal nor lava, he was still able to stun P'li at a crucial moment with a tiny pebble thrown at her third eye at just the right moment. Mako (David Faustino), though initially overwhelmed by the many tentacles of Ming-Hua, was able to gain a last-second victory though the much-forgotten usage of lighting-bending. Those are just two of the examples of the brilliant innovation in fighting that is employed by the show, blending real-life martial arts with this unique form of combat.
For all its excellent writing, performances and production, 'The Legend of Korra' certainly raised the bar when it comes to bending battles and nowhere is that made more clear than in Season 3. The Red Lotus challenged all of Korra's allies in ways that we haven't seen before and that alone makes Season 3 one of the most interesting and compelling seasons of the series.
All episodes of 'The Legend of Korra' are now available to stream on Netflix.