11mo ago

Avatar: The Last Airbender's Colonial Problem - Why Jet Was Right.

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"You see kids, if you replace the bad king with a good king then everything will be okay."
Despite its strengths, Avatar has some very weak points in the ideological front. Decolonization is one of them as already addressed here, and in my opinion not as much as you could in the Avatar universe: Republic City, which later becomes the main setting of Korra, originates according to the comics from the oldest colonial remnants of the Fire Nation, which were never returned to the Earth Kingdom because settlers had enough time to form families there and thus that somehow makes decolonization impossible without having a negative outcome: the children of settlers were born in the lands they took, and in the eyes of the writers, that is enough to justify never being returned to its original peoples (extrapolate that message to Palestine, the USA, Canada and so on and you will soon see how this is not good).
But this sentence I referenced at the beginning is also another point where the Avatar universe fails big time. In the first season of Korra there is a clear reference to a popular movement where, instead of class struggle, you have a movement of non-benders dissatisfied with the societal inequality between benders and non-benders. The way the show has of acknowledging this problem without altering the status quo? Elect a non-bender for president. And when Obama became president, racism was no more.
But to be fair, Korra is a terrible show overall.
- I enjoyed Korra a lot, but my trick was reframing the entire show in my mind as Korra being an accidental villain who blocked any chance for social change because she was too ignorant and bullheaded to understand the situation.
  Like it's some kind of Bad Ending where the avatar reincarnates as a gamer.
  
  Finally somebody who managed to put my "vibes" from watching that show into a succinct statement.
  Aang didn't want to be the hero but it was forced on him. Korra was chomping at the bit to be the Avatar, right? Finally gets it, and is overwhelmed by suddenly being solely responsible for fixing things that are way beyond her control and understanding. Then Forrest Gumps her way through mistake after mistake for the rest of the series...
  
  I wanted to like Korra, I really did. But seeing Aang turned into the Statue of Liberty in front of a colonized settlement turned international territory, the spirit lore transformed into oriental-themed christianity and Toph of all people talking about the antagonists having good points but being too radical was too much doodoo from the trashcan of ideology for me to handle.
  
  The season antagonists in Korra were all pretty much right. Amon tried to empower an oppressed underclass, Unalaq was ostensibly fighting to end segregation (his ulterior motive ultimately undermines this), Zahir tried to disrupt a literal secret cabal of world controlling elites, and Kuvira tried to end hereditary monarchy and decolonize stolen land. The show briefly touches on this, though unfortunately it's only S2 (the worst season) where Korra learns from her antagonist, rejects the status quo, and changes the world for the better at personal cost. The show missed an opportunity to build on that and have Korra deal with the fact that she was raised as a child soldier/WMD by the white lotus to secure the Fire Nation-led "united forces" control over colonized land.
  By contrast, Ozai was basically a one dimensional obstacle to be overcome. With the lion-turtle ex machina, Aang didn't even have to sacrifice anything to overcome that obstacle. I'm conceptually fine with Aang staying true to his principles and finding a non-lethal solution to Ozai on his own, but having it passively handed to him at the last minute by magic without him needing to change, learn, or grow was one of the show's biggest missteps.
  "You have to sacrifice your earthly attachments to master the Avatar state to defeat the firelord."
  "No."
  "Oh, ok then, nevermind. But really though, you have to sacrifice your principles and kill this guy in order to save the entire world."
  "Also no."
  "All right then, here's some never before established magic to resolve this extremely specific problem. Also here's the girl that rejected your advances as a reward. Enjoy getting everything you ever wanted!"
- They also never actually showed this social inequality, if anything it just came off as jealousy. Funny enough if it actually were class conflict then you wouldn't have seen the rift between benders and non-benders, with most of them sticking together
  
  I may or not remember a couple of scenes in that season of benders overpowering and bullying non-benders for petty reasons as the only portrayal of that inequality. Correct me if I am wrong though: my brain sometimes erases things for my own sake (such as most of Korra).
  Class conflict doesn't exist in fantasy settings written by liberals of course, only in the mind of radical looneys. At most you will only have things that can be solved with enough Burny Sandals social democracy. Have you ever heard of Norway?
  
  Nah you're right, they showed some small scenes but nothing definitive like "this certainly shows the difference between the two". It's why I felt Amon was such a corny villain...you take away all the bending in the city and now all forms of oppression are over?

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