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