We already had Lenin in the Avatar universe, Amon, and he was making a lot of good points. Then the writers did an asspull and made him into an evil irredeemable opportunist who didn’t actually care for his cause but just had personal gripes and obsession with revenge.
The “twist” that Amon is a water bender is a retread of the anti-communist talking points against leaders like Engels, Lenin and Castro, that they are actually rich bourgie lawyer opportunists and not poor and oppressed people. Like, class traitors exist. I think the equalists would be fine with a water bender as their leader if he was genuinely revolutionary.
The equalist plot could have been a really cool story which could have last 2 seasons but the writers were too lib and had to make Korra a cop for every season
I feel like the equalist plot brought to light a lot of issues with the worldbuilding of avatar, specifically the class based hierarchy based on bloodlines and bending. It’s telling that the writers chose to make Amon’s tragic backstory of being persecuted by fire bending criminals and aristocracy as poor farming peasants a fake one. Shit like that would be happening all the time, the non-benders would be legitimately oppressed and at the mercy of these people with no hope of social mobility.
They only have one character bring up this kind of oppression in the entire 2 shows, and it’s a cynical hypocrite and opportunist lying about it. Kind of shows the writer’s underlying worldviews that anybody who fights for the oppressed doesn’t actually believe it but is an opportunist liar.
A better ending to this plot line would have been for the spirits to somehow grant the power of bending to everyone when Korra teams up with the equalists realizing they are correct, but shouldn’t remove people’s bending.
Amon's central thesis, that benders are unjustly more powerful than nonbenders, is completely correct, but Korra never even considers it. In season 4, Toph says some shit like "Amon wanted equality" and Korra goes "damn that's crazy." In the fucking series finale, she shrugs her shoulder and says she doesn't think about politics.
There is a very obvious interesting story here that could have been told, about the most blessed, privileged, born to power, literal protagonist of the world having to deal with the fact that people in her world are born unequally and this creates oppression. But I guess the idea that the status quo is bad didn't occur to the writers
This is the show that has “good monarchs” where the kingdom prospers and “bad monarchs” where they are just evil tyrants. No investigation whatsoever into the class dynamics or feudal relations and their inherent oppression. Disney’s Lion King level of analysis about the holy right to rule.
Oh it’s just a kids show? Then why did they try to shoehorn in political lessons about fascism, anarchism, communism and anarchocapitalism lmao.
They found ample screen time to shit on a strawman of anarchism and investigate what happens after some propaganda of the deed, but I guess pointing out the monarchies are inherently oppressive was just not possible. Heckin wholesome King Boomy and Firelord Zuko :D
I do get real sick of the whitewashing and mystification that goes on around monarchism and feudalism in media. At the very least, ASoIaF correctly portrays the insane unjust system in a cold and bitter light
Yeah, both it and Airbender are very political shows, but they don't have any political thesis beyond "maintain the status quo, don't hurt people". Airbender shows that the Fire Nation indoctrinates children in schools with nationalist propaganda, but then Zuko takes over and everything is fine I guess.
Its fucking wild that the characters who are rehabilitated are Varrick, the war-profiteering capitalist who started a war for money, and in the comics, Kuvira, the fascist who apparently set up camps for waterbenders and firebenders. Zaheer, who wanted to tear down the class divides and killed the Earth Queen, was imprisoned for life, but Kuvira got house arrest with her family. That's not a joke.
Also a bit muddled because Varrick, the war profiteering capitalist, was the money backing the Equalist movement along with the industrialist Hiroshi Sato (Asami’s father).
Both of them get rehabilitated, while Amon does not. The crazy communist was evil, but his cynical capitalist backers were just confused???
Yet another bit of vintage anti-communism slipping in, it was a common line of attack by the West against the USSR that it wasn’t real socialism but was funded by the cynical rich Jewish bankers (for some inexplicable 5 head reason).
Time to plug the excellent avatar ideology video series by Kay and Skittles https://youtu.be/ModX151Ipgs (I'm on mobile and can't be assed to format the url)
We already had Lenin in the Avatar universe, Amon, and he was making a lot of good points. Then the writers did an asspull and made him into an evil irredeemable opportunist who didn’t actually care for his cause but just had personal gripes and obsession with revenge.
The “twist” that Amon is a water bender is a retread of the anti-communist talking points against leaders like Engels, Lenin and Castro, that they are actually rich bourgie lawyer opportunists and not poor and oppressed people. Like, class traitors exist. I think the equalists would be fine with a water bender as their leader if he was genuinely revolutionary.
The equalist plot could have been a really cool story which could have last 2 seasons but the writers were too lib and had to make Korra a cop for every season
I feel like the equalist plot brought to light a lot of issues with the worldbuilding of avatar, specifically the class based hierarchy based on bloodlines and bending. It’s telling that the writers chose to make Amon’s tragic backstory of being persecuted by fire bending criminals and aristocracy as poor farming peasants a fake one. Shit like that would be happening all the time, the non-benders would be legitimately oppressed and at the mercy of these people with no hope of social mobility.
They only have one character bring up this kind of oppression in the entire 2 shows, and it’s a cynical hypocrite and opportunist lying about it. Kind of shows the writer’s underlying worldviews that anybody who fights for the oppressed doesn’t actually believe it but is an opportunist liar.
A better ending to this plot line would have been for the spirits to somehow grant the power of bending to everyone when Korra teams up with the equalists realizing they are correct, but shouldn’t remove people’s bending.
Amon's central thesis, that benders are unjustly more powerful than nonbenders, is completely correct, but Korra never even considers it. In season 4, Toph says some shit like "Amon wanted equality" and Korra goes "damn that's crazy." In the fucking series finale, she shrugs her shoulder and says she doesn't think about politics.
There is a very obvious interesting story here that could have been told, about the most blessed, privileged, born to power, literal protagonist of the world having to deal with the fact that people in her world are born unequally and this creates oppression. But I guess the idea that the status quo is bad didn't occur to the writers
This is the show that has “good monarchs” where the kingdom prospers and “bad monarchs” where they are just evil tyrants. No investigation whatsoever into the class dynamics or feudal relations and their inherent oppression. Disney’s Lion King level of analysis about the holy right to rule.
Oh it’s just a kids show? Then why did they try to shoehorn in political lessons about fascism, anarchism, communism and anarchocapitalism lmao.
They found ample screen time to shit on a strawman of anarchism and investigate what happens after some propaganda of the deed, but I guess pointing out the monarchies are inherently oppressive was just not possible. Heckin wholesome King Boomy and Firelord Zuko :D
I do get real sick of the whitewashing and mystification that goes on around monarchism and feudalism in media. At the very least, ASoIaF correctly portrays the insane unjust system in a cold and bitter light
Yeah, both it and Airbender are very political shows, but they don't have any political thesis beyond "maintain the status quo, don't hurt people". Airbender shows that the Fire Nation indoctrinates children in schools with nationalist propaganda, but then Zuko takes over and everything is fine I guess.
Its fucking wild that the characters who are rehabilitated are Varrick, the war-profiteering capitalist who started a war for money, and in the comics, Kuvira, the fascist who apparently set up camps for waterbenders and firebenders. Zaheer, who wanted to tear down the class divides and killed the Earth Queen, was imprisoned for life, but Kuvira got house arrest with her family. That's not a joke.
Also a bit muddled because Varrick, the war profiteering capitalist, was the money backing the Equalist movement along with the industrialist Hiroshi Sato (Asami’s father).
Both of them get rehabilitated, while Amon does not. The crazy communist was evil, but his cynical capitalist backers were just confused???
Yet another bit of vintage anti-communism slipping in, it was a common line of attack by the West against the USSR that it wasn’t real socialism but was funded by the cynical rich Jewish bankers (for some inexplicable 5 head reason).
Apparently Nickelodeon only gave them 1 season initially, so they had to rush it.
Yeah it definitely was written in the Obama era in regards to the cop stuff.
deleted by creator
Time to plug the excellent avatar ideology video series by Kay and Skittles https://youtu.be/ModX151Ipgs (I'm on mobile and can't be assed to format the url)