Enter the Void

"Enter the Void" is the 12th episode of Book Three: Change of The Legend of Korra and the 38th of the overall series. It was released on Nick.com for online viewing along with "Venom of the Red Lotus" as the first of a two-part season finale on August 22, 2014, and aired on Nicktoons alongside its counterpart on October 9, 2014.
== Overview ==
Korra agrees to turn herself over to Zaheer to save the airbenders, who are being held captive by the Red Lotus. However, she and her friends are betrayed by Zaheer's group. As Ghazan tries to bring down Korra's friends, Bolin discovers he can lavabend and saves them with his new-found skill. Meanwhile, Korra and Tonraq face off with Zaheer on Laghima's Peak while the Beifong sisters attempt to bring down P'Li. Zaheer manages to push Tonraq off the cliff, much to Korra's devastation. Suyin succeeds in metalbending her armor around P'Li's head as she combustionbends; the following explosion kills P'Li instantly. With his earthly tether gone, Zaheer unlocks the ancient ability of flight and escapes, carrying the unconscious Avatar over his shoulder.
== Synopsis ==
Aboard a Zaofu airship headed for the Northern Air Temple, Team Avatar debates how they might save the captive airbenders from Zaheer. Suyin Beifong proposes an attack strategy based on an ambush from the air; Lin Beifong dismisses the idea, however, as it would leave them vulnerable to a counterattack by P'Li. She proposes instead a more covert approach from the mountainside, though Suyin in turn rejects that plan, as it would put them at risk of being doused in lava by Ghazan. Bolin suggests disguising himself as a lost hiker and distracting the Red Lotus with his bird calls, earning him strange looks from the group and an angry dismissal from Mako. Bolin angrily tells his brother that he has not heard any plans from him, but Korra interrupts the brewing argument; she tells all of them that none of their ideas will work, and that Zaheer will kill the airbenders if he suspects they are up to something. Suyin assures Korra that she is aware of what is at stake, given that Opal is one of the prisoners. Korra acknowledges the matriarch and tells her their only chance of success is if she gives herself up to Zaheer. Despite the others being against it, she insists that keeping the Air Nation alive is crucial in maintaining the balance of the world. Korra then contacts Zaheer, who is waiting in the radio room of the Northern Air Temple, and agrees to give herself up in exchange for the release of the airbenders.
Back on the airship, Bolin voices his concern over Opal's well-being, visibly tense as Pabu is not present to comfort him. He wonders how he and Naga are doing; at that moment in Zaofu, the two animals are playing tug-of-war with Mako's scarf, and being scolded by Yin for their behavior. Korra goes back to the group after contacting Zaheer, where Suyin has come up with a plan: Mako, Bolin and Asami will take the airship to the Northern Air Temple, while Tonraq and all the metalbenders will provide backup for Korra at Laghima's Peak, where she and Zaheer will meet.
At the temple, Zaheer meditates with Laghima's locket. P'Li enters the room, telling him they have secured the airbenders, and the two share a brief, emotional moment: the firebender remembers that Zaheer rescued her from a warlord, who sought to harness her extraordinary ability for his own ends. Zaheer promises her that they will have achieved their goal by tomorrow, and that their world will change forever. Zaheer adds that he loves her, and the two share a kiss.
The airship of the Metal Clan sets down below Laghima's Peak, and Lin gives Mako some final instructions to radio as soon as he sees the airbenders. Korra hugs Team Avatar goodbye before they leave for the temple, and Tonraq tells her how proud he is of her. After a final hug, Korra sets off on her glider, while the metalbenders scale the mountain with their cables and Tonraq follows them with two water tendrils. Before leaving, Korra tells her father to watch out for Zaheer, as he is not fond of world leaders.
Mako, Bolin, and Asami fly around the Northern Air Temple, astonished by the damage the building has sustained. They touch down and meet Ghazan, who leads them to a badly beaten Tenzin and what appear to be the airbenders being held hostage. At the same time, Korra touches down at Laghima's Peak, where Zaheer and P'Li are waiting for her. The airbender tells Korra to drop her glider and her radio, but she refuses at first. Mako radios Korra, informing her that they can see the airbenders, but warns her that Ghazan is with them. Korra yells at Zaheer to make the lavabender stand down, but he insists on Korra turning herself over first. Korra continues to resist, at which point Zaheer radios Ghazan to wipe out the airbenders; out of options, Korra walks forward and allows P'Li to cuff her in platnium chains. Leading the Avatar toward their airship, the combustionbender tells Korra the cuffs are made of platinum, and she does not need to bother trying to metalbend herself free.
Meanwhile, Asami and Bolin set to work freeing Tenzin, while Mako moves in to free the other airbenders. As they approach the captives, however, they are shocked to realize they have walked into a trap: the figures they assumed were the airbenders collapse, revealing they were nothing more than Ming-Hua holding up airbender clothes with waterbending. Frantic, Mako radios to Korra that they have been tricked, and Korra, despite her chains, immediately engages her captors. Mako also radios Lin to intervene and free Korra immediately, and the metalbenders quickly scale the rest of the mountain; reaching the summit, they find P'Li waiting for them. Korra, still chained and fighting alone, is no match for Zaheer, who overpowers her with relative ease. He walks her to the airship, but Tonraq intervenes, slicing the cables holding the ship to the ground and joining the fight alongside his daughter.
After a brief battle, Ghazan and Ming-Hua escape, sealing off the exit with a lake of lava and leaving Team Avatar to die. Asami manages to free Tenzin with a hairpin, and the wounded airbender reveals that he knows an alternate escape route, if Bolin can earthbend through the back wall. This leads them to an office, where a trapdoor leading down into the mountain is located. They manage to escape through the passage, but the lava follows them, flowing down the tunnel behind them, causing Bolin to block it.
Back at Laghima's Peak, the metalbenders struggle in their fight with P'Li, while Zaheer and the team of Tonraq and Korra seem evenly matched. When Tonraq leaves himself exposed for a moment, the airbender takes advantage and hurls him over the cliff, to Korra's horror. P'Li corners Lin and Suyin behind a rock, to which Lin decides to attempt to distract the combustionbender, thereby giving Suyin a chance to take her out. P'Li aims her attacks at Lin, leaving herself open to Suyin. The metalbender rushes out as Lin goes down, wrapping her armor around P'Li's head just as the bender begins her attack; the sudden blocking of the beam places the point of detonation directly in front of P'Li's head, directing its full force back into her face. The ensuing explosion kills her instantly.
Hearing the metallic explosion, Zaheer whirls around and realizes with horror that his love is dead. Korra immediately engages him again, however, and he quickly refocuses his attacks, managing to knock her out. Lifting her over his shoulder, he notices that his airship has drifted off, leaving him stranded atop the mountain. Lin and Suyin, having finally made their way to Zaheer and Korra, order him to release the Avatar. Zaheer, seemingly lost in his own musing, quotes the poem of Guru Laghima to himself: "Let go your earthly tether. Enter the void. Empty, and become wind." He then falls backward off the cliff, with Korra still over his shoulder. Shocked, the Beifong sisters rush forward to follow his fall, only to discover, to their shock, that an unharmed Zaheer is floating in midair, as though he is standing on the clouds. Lin and Suyin shoot their cables at him, but he nimbly maneuvers around them and flies toward the airship in the distance, leaving the sisters in disbelief. Zaheer rapidly flies past the airship piloted by Ghazan and Ming-Hua, his two companions are shocked as well. Meanwhile, on the side of the cliff, Tonraq, having been saved by Kuvira, watches Zaheer fly away with his daughter.
Underneath the temple, Bolin realizes that they will not be able to outrun the lava, and decides to create another path. This new path, however, opens directly onto the sheer cliff face, trapping them between a long fall and the lava behind them. Desperate, Bolin makes an effort to lavabend and is, along with his allies, shocked to succeed: the lava cools, creating a barrier of stone that saves their lives. Shortly afterward, much to Tenzin's surprise, Kai and his bison, Lefty, fly toward them. The team boards the bison, and the overburdened animal carries them to safety. Tenzin looks back as the Northern Air Temple, its foundations weakened by the lava, collapses behind them.
When they land near the peak, Tonraq and the others are waiting for them, and tell them that Korra has been taken by Zaheer. Suyin tells Tenzin that Zaheer has discovered the ability to fly, causing the airbender to realize that the stories about Guru Laghima were true. As they discuss where Korra and the airbenders might be, Kai tries several times to offer some information, but he is drowned out and ignored by the group, forcing him to shout: he knows where the airbenders are, and can lead them there. He explains that after P'Li blasted him out of the air, he woke up in a tree, and Lefty found him. He attempted to return to the temple only to spot the hostages being moved to a cave near the air temple, where they were handed off to four more Red Lotus members. Before they leave, Mako apologizes to Kai for giving him a hard time, but Kai brushes it off, saying he probably deserved it. Flying on Lefty and Oogi, the team goes to the cave, while the Zaofu security force stays at the mountain to recover.
In the caves, Ghazan and Ming-Hua approach a levitating Zaheer, who is meditating, and ask him about his new ability. Zaheer tells them he gained it by releasing his attachments to the world, gaining true freedom in the process. Ming-Hua asks where P'Li is, and Zaheer tells her that she sacrificed herself for their cause, adding that he hopes her death will not be in vain. They move to another chamber of the cave, where Korra is suspended in midair by four platinum chains. When Korra sees Zaheer, she accuses him of murdering her father and, enraged, attempts to incinerate him by breathing fire at him, but she does not have the range. Zaheer tells Korra that he has also lost a loved one that day, and can relate to the pain she feels. To Korra's horror, he assures her that her pain will soon end, and calls to two members of the Red Lotus to bring him a bowl of metallic poison.
== Credits ==
* Written by:
** Michael Dante DiMartino
* Directed by:
** Ian Graham
* Starring:
** Janet Varney - Korra
** David Faustino - Mako
** Seychelle Gabriel - Asami
** P. J. Byrne - Bolin
** J. K. Simmons - Tenzin
** Henry Rollins - Zaheer
** James Remar - Tonraq
** Mindy Sterling - Beifong
** Anne Heche - Su
** Skyler Brigmann - Kai
** Dee Bradley Baker
*** Pabu
*** Naga
*** Oogi
*** Baby bison
** Jeff Bennett - Radio broadcaster
* Also starring:
** Kristy Wu - P'Li
** Grey DeLisle-Griffin - Ming-Hua
** Peter Giles - Ghazan
** Susan Silo - Yin
** Zelda Williams - Kuvira
== Production notes ==
=== Transcript ===
=== Series continuity ===
* Zaheer telling Tonraq to give his regards to the Earth Queen is a reference to her murder in "Long Live the Queen".
=== Character revelations ===
* When she was young, P'Li was being trained by a warlord for killing purposes but was freed from the situation by Zaheer.
* Zaheer is capable of flight.
* Bolin is able to lavabend.
=== Goofs ===
* In the first shot of Tonraq hugging Korra at the base of Laghima's Peak, his skin in between his shirt and gauze on his forearm is visible, but in previous and subsequent shots he is wearing a skintight top underneath his shirt that covers his skin.
* When Mako and Bolin are fighting Ghazan and Ming-Hua, the water and clothes used to make the fake airbenders have disappeared.
* When Lin distracts P'Li, the Ba Sing Se airship can be seen again in the background, despite it floating away earlier in the fight.
* While fighting P'Li, Lin sustains several scratches in her face and on her armor, though when she confronts Zaheer, they are already gone.
* When everyone is mounting Lefty, part of the lava flow directly on the right of the opening goes nowhere and just ends halfway down the screen.
* In the first shot of Kuvira bandaging Tonraq's arm, the gauze is applied directly to the bicep. In subsequent shots, the gauze is coiled over a skintight sleeve that was not a part of Tonraq's shirt during the initial wrapping.
* When Oogi first comes into view, he does not have the saddle on him, but as soon as he lands, he does.
* When fighting Zaheer, some of Tonraq's water remains floating in the background after Zaheer deflects it. 
=== Trivia ===
* This is the first episode to show the Red Lotus' official insignia.
* The episode's name references the inscription on the back of a locket bearing Guru Laghima's image, which read, "Let go your earthly tether. Enter the void. Empty and become wind." Zaheer repeats this saying to himself just before he attains the ability to fly.
* Compared to the more colorful backgrounds in the Book Two finale, the color palette of the Northern Air Temple was intentionally greyer to complement the foreboding mood of the Book Three finale.DiMartino, Michael Dante; Konietzko, Bryan & Dos Santos, Joaquim (December 2, 2014). "Enter the Void" commentary. Book Three: Change Blu-ray.
* The action sequence where Korra fights Zaheer while her limbs are shackled emulated the choreography of action films starring Jackie Chan or Jet Li, where the sequences were built around a limitation hindering a character's ability to fight.
* Both known combustionbenders, Combustion Man and P'Li, were killed by a point-blank explosion caused by their own powers.
* When Zaheer says "I found true freedom. I'm no longer bound to this earth by worldly desires. I have entered the void", he is making a reference to the seventh chakra, the thought chakra that Aang could not unlock due to his love for Katara. After P'Li's death, Zaheer lost his only earthly attachment and unlocked the chakra.
* Zaheer meditating in a subterranean cave while levitating in midair was a callback to a piece of concept art Bryan Konietzko had drawn of Aang, similarly meditating while floating in an ice cave, during preliminary development of Avatar: The Last Airbender.
* The collapse of the temple while the airbenders are still missing is intended to foreshadow their possible elimination.The Legend of Korra—The Art of the Animated Series, Book Three: Change, page 156.
* Lin calls P'Li a "third-eyed freak", similar to how Katara called Combustion Man a third-eyed freak in "The Runaway".
* When the network objected to how a chained Korra's limbs formed an "X"-shape while she was suspended in the air, resembling a diagonal cross, Konietzko brought up how the titular character of the Nickelodeon show Spongebob Squarepants was similarly chained in one of the series' episodes.
== References ==
de:Tritt ein in die Leere
es:Entra al Vacío
fi:Enter the Void
fr:Entre dans les Ténèbres
nl:Korra:Enter the Void
pl:Wejście w pustkę
ru:Войди в пустоту
Category:A to Z
Category:Book Three: Change
Category:Episodes of The Legend of Korra
Category:Real world