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In this world, there is a desperate need for some light.
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And now I'm not talking about a flashlight,
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but the kind of light that casts out the darkness
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and brings about a transformation.
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And on today's episode, we'll be going over a character
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that wanted to bring the world closer to his spirituality,
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but he almost plunged it into a thousand years
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of darkness instead.
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And I'm talking about the dark avatar, Unalaq.
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Hey, what's going on guys?
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My name is Nate, and you're listening
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to the Atonko Liberation, a show where we help you
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break free from the chains that hold you back
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in your life by connecting biblical principles
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with themes from your favorite anime.
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And in this episode, I'll be going over the motive,
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methods, and the end result of Unalaq's ambition.
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And for those of you new joining in on this episode,
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the theme for this season in the Legend of Korra
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is our ambitions and how we can have the right intentions
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for them, but sometimes the way we go about it
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might not be the best way.
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And just seeing how easily we can be led astray
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by our own good ambitions.
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And so now in order to understand Unalaq's ambition,
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we're gonna look at his motive.
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And his motive was the idea of humans
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and spirits living together.
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And to better understand his idea,
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let's take a look at who Unalaq is.
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So Unalaq was the chief of the Northern Water Tribe,
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because as you know, in the world of Avatar,
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the North and South Poles have, you know,
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it was where the Water Tribe people are, right?
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And Unalaq was the chief of the North, of the North part.
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And he was, he's Korra's uncle, you know,
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the Avatar is his uncle.
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And I know he's talking about, you know, family issues,
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right, I know we all have our own type of family drama,
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but how often can you say that an uncle tried to kill you
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for spiritual power, right?
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But yeah, but anyway, so Unalaq, again,
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chief of the Northern Water Tribe and Korra's uncle.
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And during his youth, Unalaq actually dedicated
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much of his life to studying the spirits
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and understanding their ways.
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He's very spiritually enlightened,
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and he was always looking on how he can prove
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his own connection with the spirits
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and just to better understand them, right?
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And he eventually came to the conclusion
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that humans and spirits needed to live together,
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not separately.
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So to kind of give a little more context
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about what that means.
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So in the world of Avatar, the very first Avatar, Avatar One,
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after he essentially became the Avatar,
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he decided to close off the spirit portals,
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which were in the North and Southern poles,
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and force spirits to go back to their world,
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and humans have their own.
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And the reason why he did this is because
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of the evil spirit Batu and the light spirit Rava.
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So every thousand years, so those two spirits battle,
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and whoever wins is most more or less the ruler
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over the world for like a thousand years
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or something like that.
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And until the other one comes back,
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because they always come back,
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because light can exist without darkness and vice versa.
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It's because of that very battle,
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and to prevent humans from tampering with that
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is that One decided to close the spirit portal,
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because he bonded with the light spirit Rava,
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and that's essentially what birthed the Avatar spirit.
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Rava combined with the human,
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and that's the reason why the reincarnation cycles
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and all that stuff happens.
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And he imprisoned Batu in his spirit world,
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and so he closed the spirit portal
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so no humans could come in and free him.
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Long history lesson,
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but that's the reason why humans and spirits
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are living separately.
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And Unala doesn't think that's right.
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He thinks that the human and the spirit
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should be living together,
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so they can learn from each other,
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and basically put the world back to the way it was before.
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And he just really felt like the world needed to connect,
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be better connected with the spiritual side of things.
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Now, as Christians, I'm sure we can all agree
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that the world connecting back to the Lord
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and spirituality is a good thing.
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But as with the rest of these characters
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in this season, Unalaq's admirable goal
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is led astray by bad decisions, very bad decisions,
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which in his case is his lust for power.
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There's reason, as we see further on in this episode,
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the reason behind Unalaq's motives,
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the reason why he's doing all this thing
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isn't so much for the betterment of the world, as he says,
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but it's for his own lust for power.
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And it's something.
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So, anyways, that's Unalaq's motive.
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Now, the main method that Unalaq uses to achieve his goal
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is through manipulation.
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For starters, the reason why he's even the chief
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of the Northern Wall of the tribe
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is because his older brother, Conrock, Korra's father,
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was banished from the tribe by attacking some bandits
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on like the sacred spiritual ground,
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which was near nearby the Water Tribe.
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And since Conrock attacked the bandits there,
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the spirits got mad and attacked
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Northern Water Tribe in retaliation.
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And because of this, the Conrock and Unalaq's father
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banished Conrock because again,
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he just endangered everybody there.
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And come to find out many, many years later,
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the reason this is a thing, we do know how this happened,
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because Unalaq incited the bandits to attack
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and incited them to go to the spiritual grounds
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because he knew about the ramifications.
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He knew what was gonna happen.
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And he did all of that just to remove his brother
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from the position to become the next chief.
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And I'm just reading, well, reading, watching that
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and getting prepared for this episode.
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It was just like, man, how such a snake, right?
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You basically did everything but kill your own brother
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to essentially take his birthright
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because you feel like you deserved it more than he did.
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And again, again, that's a dangerous ambition, right?
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A lot of times in life, I'm guilty of it.
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And thankfully the Lord's helped me with it
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as I've grown, as I've gotten older,
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but coveting other people's gifts, right?
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The rights, they're, I'm not gonna say privileges,
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but the things that they have been blessed with
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and not realizing your own blessing, right?
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It can cause you to become all twisted up inside
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and not really be appreciative of what you have,
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but also not really see things clearly.
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In the case of Unalaq, right?
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He was like, I'm gonna be the chief no matter what.
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And rarely in these cases does it ever stop there.
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And we're gonna see that with Unalaq, it doesn't.
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And yeah, this was just the beginning.
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So in order to make his dream a complete reality,
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Unalaq needed the help from the Avatar.
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So again, his dream is to connect the physical world
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with the spiritual world, right?
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In order to do that, he needs the Avatar
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because the Avatar is the one who separated the worlds
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in the first place.
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And it just so happened that it's his niece,
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so everything is just lining up the way he needs it to, right?
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And, but the first, in order for him to achieve that,
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he needed Korra on his side.
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And it's not to say they were antagonistic
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towards each other at the beginning.
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It was just like, hey, she barely ever saw him, right?
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So in order to build that rapport with her,
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he needed to take some extreme actions.
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And he did this by releasing an evil spirit
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to attack her and her friends
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while they were in the Southern Water Tribe for a festival.
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And while the spirit was attacking them,
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he was just lying in the cut,
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just waiting for his opportunity to show Korra
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his ability to be her spiritual advisor.
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Because at this point in time,
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Korra was still struggling with the spiritual side
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of being the Avatar.
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Because we all know Korra was a natural
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at the physical side of it.
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That's why she got earth, fire, and water bending down pat.
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But air bending was more spiritual in nature.
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So that's why she couldn't even do it
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until Amon took away her other bending.
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But now that she can air bend,
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the next step is understanding the spiritual reality of it.
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Going through the spirit world,
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communicating with spirits and things like that.
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The true job of the Avatar.
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But she had a block going on
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that she couldn't really rectify under Tenzin's tutelage.
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So she was really,
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she was just jumped at the opportunity
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for Onomata to teach her.
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And that's again, right where he wants her.
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And it worked like a charm.
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And looking back, it's like,
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hmm, again, looking back,
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you can say he did help her in the long run,
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but it's still kind of weird, right?
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And so anyway, now that the Avatar was on his side,
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Unalok was able to move forward
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with the next phase of his plan,
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which was unifying the water tribes.
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And by that, he basically means taking them over.
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Taking over the Southern tribe.
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Cause again, he's the chief of the Northern tribe.
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And the Southern tribe,
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even though they are both water tribe,
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they are independent of each other.
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And remember Unalok was hungry for power
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and saw himself as the only one,
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the only one suited to lead the water tribes
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into this new world.
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And honestly, it sounds awfully similar to another villain
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in of course that had a very similar goal
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and a very similar mindset,
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but we'll talk about them in a future episode.
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So come back.
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Now let's stop for a minute.
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It is true that Unalok is a massing power for himself,
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but he's also bringing about a positive change
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for the world.
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So is he really wrong here?
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I'm asking, like is he,
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it's a weird kind of conundrum
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because he's, the things he's doing
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don't necessarily agree with,
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but the results speak for themselves, right?
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But let's look at what the Bible says about it
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in Proverbs chapter 14 verse 12,
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that there is a way that seems right to a person,
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but it's end is the way to death.
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Now, what does that mean?
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This verse highlights essentially the danger
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of following paths that may seem right to us,
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but can also lead to terrible consequences.
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And anybody who's been in faith long enough
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can attest to this that,
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hey, when we do run our own thing,
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we're like, yeah, this seems right.
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I'm going with my gut.
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How many times have you ever heard that?
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And you're going with your gut feeling, right?
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Your heart's in the right place,
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all these different things,
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all these different sands,
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but a lot of people,
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again, a lot of,
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ask any believer who's been in faith long enough to say,
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I'm in my own way
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and it just blew up in my face, right?
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It started, it might've been going good
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for a good little while,
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but then eventually it just all came crashing down.
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And yeah, like there's no other way to put it.
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Like it's, everything just blows up
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and you're back to square one or worse, right?
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You're further behind than you were before.
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And that's, you know,
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it's basically God's way of saying,
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hey, that's not what I have for you.
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That's not the way you're supposed to do it.
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And that's not to say that God is stopping you
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from progressing.
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It's just that he's not,
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he's not going to keep away the things that he would have
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if you phone the way he asked for you, right?
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And for those who aren't believers
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or who don't fully understand that,
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you know, again, hey, put it in the comments below,
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review, ask questions,
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because I'm doing all of this to help all of us.
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And for those who don't understand the gospel
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and understand what it means to trust God
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and things like that,
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I'm more than willing to be able to help, right?
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I'm not an expert.
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I'm human just like you, right?
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And I'm only like 26.
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So at the time of me doing this,
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but hey, I'm just here to help, right?
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And so, yeah, that is the basic, that's basically all it is.
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If we go our own way,
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then we're more or less doomed to fail.
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But if we do it the way God has for us,
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it's going to be better than what we could ever have imagined.
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All right, there you go.
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Episode's over.
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See you guys next week.
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No, seriously.
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But I believe this verse basically sums it up perfectly.
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Now I'm a firm believer in that the reason we do anything
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is because we get some kind of benefit out of it,
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no matter how small.
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I mean, let's be completely honest.
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How many of us do say, even if they're nice and gesture,
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even if we truly are doing this because for,
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the betterment of somebody
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or just for completely selfless reasons,
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there's still that feeling of gratification
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that you get from doing it, right?
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You mean, it's not bad, right?
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It's not the same as selfish.
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It's just how we feel.
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We do things that make us feel good, right?
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And so it's a very fine line that we have to navigate
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on the reason why we do things
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and how intensely we do all these different things, right?
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And honestly, the same happens to Unala
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despite gaining all the power he could ever want it
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and becoming the dark avatar, right?
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I mean, he merged with the spirit of Atu
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and became the dark avatar,
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someone who in theory should be able to rival the avatar,
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right?
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I mean, he was still defeated
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and ultimately killed by his niece, by Korra.
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Korra put him in the coffin and he was done.
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And all that planning and manipulation
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and nothing to show for it.
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I mean, he did all of that, again, all that power,
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did all these different things
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just to have it all taken away from him
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and have nothing to show for it.
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Or did he?
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See, again, I'm sure those of you who've heard
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the previous episodes already know how this season goes,
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but for those of you who are new,
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Unala's ambition was righteous.
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Like it was good.
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He wanted to get the world to connect back
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to his spirituality.
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Now, the way he did it was completely wrong
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and ultimately got him killed.
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But despite that, despite him doing his own thing,
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despite him going about his own way,
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it still all came back full circle.
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And so now we get to see the result of Unala's ambition
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and that is a transformed world.
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And so what do you mean by that?
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So listen, thanks to his manipulation of Korra
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into opening the spirit portals during harmonic convergence,
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which is basically how I said earlier
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when Abba and Batu would fight each other,
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it was during harmonic convergence was basically just,
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you know, like a spiritual bomb of energy just goes off
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and all the spirits are super strong.
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Unala was partially responsible
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for the shift in the world's energy.
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So again, since the spirit portals were open
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during harmonic convergence,
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all the spiritual energies came bursting
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into the physical world.
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And because of that, it caused transformation
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for some non-benders to become airbenders.
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I mean, up until this point,
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the only airbenders were Tenzin and his kids.
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So there was like what, five of them,
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later five interbenders in the entire world.
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And because of Unala's actions,
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because of his twisted desires,
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now an entire nation which was on the brink of extinction
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has been brought back.
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Now, does that justify all the things that he's done
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to get there?
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Absolutely not.
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But it kind of shows, and it kind of does show,
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it shows just the way how God, you know,
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whether you're Christian or not,
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I'm sure you've heard the saying,
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God's gonna work out all good things, right?
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All things are good for his people,
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those who believe in him, right?
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So all of our bad decisions, all of our dumb decisions,
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all of our disobeying,
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all the different things that will destroy us, ruin us,
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God can still take those things
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and work them all back for good.
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And it's this very case here.
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You know, again, Unala wanted to open up the spirit portals,
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connect the world back, really,
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just so he could rule it as a dark avatar.
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But it's still brought back an entire culture,
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an entire culture of people, because in Aang's time,
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it was just him, he was the last airbender,
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hence the name of the show, right?
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00:18:23,680 --> 00:18:27,400
And again, in the future, his son and his grandchildren
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are the only airbenders left.
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Now you've got an entire world,
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well, entire culture coming back
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because of one man's manipulative dark desires.
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And not only that, now with the spirit portals open,
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and spirits are interacting with humans again,
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Korra decided that Unala was right
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in that Avatar Wan was wrong
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for closing the spirit portals
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because the spirits needed the humans
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as much as the humans needed the spirits.
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And Korra even went so far as to say
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that the avatar was no longer needed
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as being the bridge between the two worlds.
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00:19:10,080 --> 00:19:12,600
But now she's more like a, I don't know,
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00:19:12,600 --> 00:19:14,360
the counselor, I guess.
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00:19:14,360 --> 00:19:19,240
She's working between the relationship between the two
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00:19:19,240 --> 00:19:20,360
in a different light.
404
00:19:20,360 --> 00:19:24,800
And it's something that's never been seen since Wan.
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I'm saying all of this to say,
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00:19:25,920 --> 00:19:27,480
and just to put the whole thing into perspective,
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00:19:27,480 --> 00:19:30,880
is that despite Unala's twisted methods,
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00:19:30,880 --> 00:19:33,880
his desire to be the dark avatar,
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00:19:33,880 --> 00:19:37,800
the chief of all the water tribe, all these evil things,
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00:19:37,800 --> 00:19:40,560
his dream of a world where humans and spirits,
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00:19:40,560 --> 00:19:43,200
where they can coexist, became a reality.
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And then that became the betterment for the entire world,
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00:19:47,080 --> 00:19:48,680
regardless of how it got there.
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So it really makes me think,
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00:19:53,000 --> 00:19:55,280
and I want you guys to think about it too.
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00:19:55,280 --> 00:19:56,240
What are some mistakes?
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00:19:56,240 --> 00:19:59,480
What are some bad decisions you've made?
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00:19:59,480 --> 00:20:03,360
What are some regrets that you have?
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00:20:03,360 --> 00:20:05,160
What are some things, those moments in time,
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00:20:05,160 --> 00:20:07,800
moments in your history that you can look back on?
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00:20:07,800 --> 00:20:10,640
And one, thank God for getting you through them.
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00:20:10,640 --> 00:20:14,160
I mean, I pray that we are all in a better place
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00:20:14,160 --> 00:20:19,000
than we were before, but also how can,
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00:20:19,000 --> 00:20:24,000
or how has God used that to carry you on
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00:20:24,160 --> 00:20:26,560
and propel you into the next season?
426
00:20:28,080 --> 00:20:33,080
How has he used your pain and your struggles,
427
00:20:33,480 --> 00:20:35,680
your troubles, and turned into your testimony?
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00:20:36,800 --> 00:20:38,560
I'm interested to know.
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00:20:38,560 --> 00:20:43,040
I mean, I know for me, a long time,
430
00:20:43,040 --> 00:20:45,880
it was the notion of trying to be perfect
431
00:20:45,880 --> 00:20:50,280
and just always, always in my head,
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00:20:50,280 --> 00:20:52,480
always scrapping different things,
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00:20:52,480 --> 00:20:54,520
because if I wasn't perfect,
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00:20:54,520 --> 00:20:56,560
I feel like I couldn't be good enough.
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00:20:56,560 --> 00:20:59,480
And the Lord's working, he's worked me through that.
436
00:20:59,480 --> 00:21:02,040
I still have tendencies that rear their head again,
437
00:21:02,040 --> 00:21:04,800
but I'm nowhere near how I used to be.
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00:21:04,800 --> 00:21:06,640
I thank God for that.
439
00:21:06,640 --> 00:21:11,120
But now I can use that to relate to other people
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00:21:11,120 --> 00:21:15,080
who feel the same, who feel like they need to be perfect
441
00:21:15,080 --> 00:21:17,000
and don't know why they feel like they're not,
442
00:21:17,000 --> 00:21:18,080
or how to deal with it.
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00:21:18,080 --> 00:21:21,520
So now I can help them, and it just all comes back
444
00:21:21,520 --> 00:21:22,360
full circle.
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00:21:22,360 --> 00:21:26,640
So what are some of the things that you feel like
446
00:21:26,640 --> 00:21:29,560
in your life that you can use to help somebody else
447
00:21:29,560 --> 00:21:31,680
and make the world a little bit better?
448
00:21:32,840 --> 00:21:33,880
It's a yes, right?
449
00:21:33,880 --> 00:21:37,080
Gave you guys some homework, too bad.
450
00:21:37,080 --> 00:21:39,440
So tell me, did you like this episode?
451
00:21:39,440 --> 00:21:42,600
And if you did, or if you didn't, please just let me know.
452
00:21:42,600 --> 00:21:44,840
Leave a comment or a review or anything,
453
00:21:44,840 --> 00:21:47,720
and share it with somebody who you think needs
454
00:21:47,720 --> 00:21:51,280
to hear this message, because I truly believe
455
00:21:51,280 --> 00:21:53,200
that it can help somebody someday.
456
00:21:53,200 --> 00:21:54,760
And don't forget to join me next week
457
00:21:54,760 --> 00:21:57,520
as I talk about someone who, honestly,
458
00:21:57,520 --> 00:22:01,680
is probably my favorite villain from The Legend of Korra.
459
00:22:01,680 --> 00:22:04,600
I mean, he's someone who strives to bring chaos
460
00:22:04,600 --> 00:22:08,160
to the world because he believes that is true freedom.
461
00:22:09,000 --> 00:22:10,840
I know, crazy.
462
00:22:10,840 --> 00:22:13,720
And I'm sure you know exactly who it is.
463
00:22:13,720 --> 00:22:16,600
But if you don't, or if you do, doesn't matter,
464
00:22:16,600 --> 00:22:19,200
just always remember, you are the main character
465
00:22:19,200 --> 00:22:20,920
of your story, and that story doesn't end
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00:22:20,920 --> 00:22:22,760
until he says so.
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All right, be blessed.
468
00:22:24,120 --> 00:22:39,380
Okay.
