The Politics of Korra

Hey, Sup Forums, I realize after watching TLoK for the first time that the Equalists have a point. Allow me to explain...

1. No non-benders serve on the Republic City council.
2. Though there are some exceptions, Sato, Cabbage guy, most non-genders live in the slums.
3. Only benders (earth/metal) may serve as police officers. There are several cases of abuse, too.
4. The government subsidies the lavish living of Airbenders on Air Temple Island.
5. Non-benders only means of advancement is marrying benders.
6. Almost all high profile private occupations are made up entirely of benders.

What does Sup Forums think?

This is pointed out in the last season. Extremists can have good ideas, they just take them too far.

So before Korra goes off to Lesbian Spirit Land?

Yes.

People with higher potential should be treated differentely.

Would be pretty stupid and downright negligent to recruit normal people as police officers just to fill some quota when benders are just far more efficient at doing that job.

SIEG HEIL

what you just realized this?

people realized this shit after watching fucking episode 1 season 1

although honestly some of your points are wrong, for example you don't have to be a bender to be on the council, Sokka used to be the councilman from the Southern Water Tribe after all

Does the government pay for Tenzin? I assumed he did that based off a mix of donations to charity, likely started by his father and a high government salary

There are positions in the police where a non-bender would be just as qualified. Namely all the positions that are largely investigative or administrative. If Lt. Columbo can be a cop while barely being able to walk or see properly, there's no reason a non-bender can't be a cop in a world of benders.

Actually Mako is part the police force so they allow Firebenders too.

I think Air Temple is owned by Tenzin. Its like having a lavish estate in middle the metroplex, due to the fact your dad built the city & carved out large chunk for himself.

Non-Benders had most wealth. Cabbage Corps, Saito Corp, the crazy dude who was littlefinger light. Meanwhile most the folks in slums were benders or criminals who were benders.

he's a cop in season two, I think there are suppose to have been governmental reforms between season 1 and 2 to address some of the issues equalists had, which is why there was suddenly a president instead of a council

The detailed, intricate, well-developed political mess of season 1 gets completely swept under the rug by the first chapter of season 2.
We stopped grieving for the missed opportunities a long time ago, just shut up and appreciate the progressive lesbians.

Mud horses can't walk on clouds. Ban clouds.

what did he mean by this?

Amon was right about everything, but because he is the antagonist and a bender he was wrong about everything and so was the Equalists.

Et Tu Amon

The more pressing issue was that the Gaang apparently never accounted for, y'know, native RC population growth and the expectation of autonomy that follows; the United Republic was ruled by representatives from foreign nations.

He was a communist who was against meritocracy. People aren't born equal, so instead of allowing everyone to realize their own potential, Amon wanted to bring everyone else down to the lowest common denominator.

>1. No non-benders serve on the Republic City council.

Just during the timeframe of the show, on Aang's time Sokka was the leader of the council, as well as some air acolyte.

>2. Though there are some exceptions, Sato, Cabbage guy, most non-genders live in the slums.

False, bending is so common that there are still plenty of benders in proverty because its not that special when 1/3 of the population can do that. They had an episode on the first season showing it when they hide among the poor. Hell, if anything, the show showed that its more common for NON BENDERS to be the most rich and powerful: Beifong on Aang's time, Cabbage corp, both Earth King and Queem, Sato, Varrik and so.... but this isn't any "non bender" conspiration, just luck most of the time; after all, any rich non bender can have a bender child, and any poor non bender can also have a bender child too.

>3. Only benders (earth/metal) may serve as police officers. There are several cases of abuse, too.

Agree, but seeing that Mako joined the force, it started changing, which shows that there are better ways to deal with it than "overtrhow the governament, destroy bending!"

>4. The government subsidies the lavish living of Airbenders on Air Temple Island.

They are basicaly an endangered specie, and nothing says that the governament subsidies them, even so, Tenzin is part of the council.

>5. Non-benders only means of advancement is marrying benders.

Never stated anywhere, and contradict the show.

>6. Almost all high profile private occupations are made up entirely of benders.

Actualy, seems like the opposite, most benders are on some sort of manual larbor.

Anyway, Equalism is like fighting against gravity, its stupid because you will never really get rid of bending. Among would probably take years to do that on RC alone, much less the world (and benders would likely still born). After 3 or so months, other nations would likely have destroyed Equalists after they conquered RC.

>Amon was against meriotcracy
What? He promoted people based on their skill and talent why do you think Lieutenant usually curb stomped people or the Equalist that followed him were stronger the normal ones?

>People aren't born equal.
This is false. EVERY HUMAN was originally a Non-Bender (Equal) until Vaatu fucked everything up and invaded for no reason.

By removing bending from the world, Amon was restoring humanity to its natural state and bringing balance to the world. The Avatar for some reason doesn't want humanity to go back to its natural state even though Non-Benders made all the technological advancements and proved when they have dominance over things they are better than Benders.

If bending ceased to exist, people still won't be born equal. What's Amon's next move? Break everyone's legs if they are faster runners than average? Hit everyone with an above average IQ over the head a few times?

He would create a glorious non-bending empire that will eternally hunt down the hiding benders of the world who will be a constant threat to the regime. He would also advance technology and people would be living comfy from the threat of benders.

If any wars were to be started it would be bender vs. non-benders.

Yeah, those things are totally comparable to being able to shoot lightning or cause a tidal wave.

>This is false. EVERY HUMAN was originally a Non-Bender (Equal) until Vaatu fucked everything up and invaded for no reason.

Amon doesn't know any of that. No one does except for the viewer. For all the people in the ATLA universe know, bending has been a part of humanity since the dawn of time and it's perfectly natural considering benders just born without anyone doing anything special. The unnatural thing clearly is to use a highly specific form of bending to destroy the natural bending ability people received at birth.

To people who don't possess those traits, they certainly are.

He is the only one who can use bloodbending to destroy the bending of others. If he dies, his regime would die with him and benders would easily wipe the floor with his followers.His plan was very short-sighted. Hell, he can't even prevent new benders from being born even if he takes away the bending of the potential parents. There are millions of people in the world accross different nations and only 1 person who can manually, by hand, remove bending. He and his followers were utterly retarded if you really think about it.

Just because people don't know doesn't mean he still isn't right.

All he needed to do was create his regime and create an eternal shame culture on the benders who would be genocided or go into hiding post-death.

Not too mention all he has to do is create a new Amon to take on his mantle as an eternal leader as he never revealed his face (Even though nobody knew who he was in the first place or ever seen his face.)

>I realize after watching TLoK for the first time that the Equalists have a point. Allow me to explain
No need, no explanation required.

It means he can't claim he is doing it to restore balance and the natural way of things, because he too has no fucking clue that bending hasn't been a part of humanity since forever.

really people who lived in a non-industrial society were unable to guess or understand the consequences of the industrial revolution? who would have guessed that

How could he possibly create a regime that spans the entire world, you dimwit? Benders aren't rare, they are like 1/3rd of the population. Why would benders thousands of miles across the globe let themselves be shamed and hunted down if they can fuck up those who hunt them without breaking a sweat?

Could it possibly be common sense? The IR hardly has anything to do with the basic premise of autonomy. The population growth is only a backdrop. Why should a population made up primarily of Earth Kingdom natives and Fire Nation immigrants be partially ruled over by not just one but TWO Water Tribe members?

False equivalence. People who are intelligent or are fast runners do not have abilities that allow them to radically impact their environment and those around them in an almost instantaneous manner.

>1. No non-benders serve on the Republic City council.
At the moment. The flashback to Yakone's trial showed that Sokka and some random Air Acolyte used to be on the council. It's a coincidence that they're all benders, not oppression.

>2. Though there are some exceptions, Sato, Cabbage guy, most non-genders live in the slums.
Mako and Bolin were basically homeless. Being rich or poor has nothing to do with bending.

>3. Only benders (earth/metal) may serve as police officers. There are several cases of abuse, too.
Mako becomes a cop. The metal benders are just a specialized division within the police force, like a S.W.A.T. Team.

>4. The government subsidies the lavish living of Airbenders on Air Temple Island.
I don't remember this. In season one, Tenzin was a government official, so I assume he got paid. And I still don't know what Air Acolytes do when they're not trying to suck an airbenders cock, perhaps they make money somehow?

>5. Non-benders only means of advancement is marrying benders.
Sato, Varrick and the Cabbage Guy are some of the richest people in the entire world. Again, being rich or poor has nothing to do with bending.

>6. Almost all high profile private occupations are made up entirely of benders.
What?

do you have immigration numbers? because while I don't its very clearly implied that Republic City is basically suppose to be New York with large immigrant populations from all over the world

they literally have Water Tribe only gangs in the city, its not like they are an irrelevant minority, at the very least they are a sizable minority

Intelligent people have the ability to invent all sorts of weaponry that can. So wouldn't the solution to this whole problem be to just invent guns?

The same way the US does. Having the strongest military and industry. Remember how the Equalist literally BTFO if the Republic Military. He could easily curb stomp the Earth Kingdom which has majority of Non-bender and collect their resources to fuel his war machine.

>How could he possibly create a regime that spans the entire world, you dimwit?
Why are you arguing with them? The fact that the OP says "the Equalists have a point" and then supporters in the thread say "create a regime" flies in the face of having a point. You don't have a point and then take over the world and continue to have others take over in your stead. A democracy is the closest we can get to equality and democracy doesn't have you put your disciple and your disciple's disciple in "control." That is just replacing the messed up system of Republic City for another messed up system. Plus only Republic City and the URN have this issue since nonbender vs. bender wasn't a thing in the 4 Nations as they were their own people with a shared identity through a culture.

The OP's points do not make hold as others up above have already explained. Just let these threads die like the show should have long time ago.

Why did they never address the fact that, despite there being an alleged "genocide" of airbenders, there seem to be quite a lot of them flying around. Seems kind of fishy to me

They did. There was only Tenzin and then Tenzin's kids. If the Earth Queen was holding airbenders to build an army then she's just as bad as the Fire Nation's war machine of dominance.

>Avatar after Korra has to start dealing with Airbender Holocaust Deniers

great just what that world needed

It's implied that the RC population is based on immigration, not that it's dependent on it.

The Fire Nation was liberating the Earth Kingdom from the tyranny of the Dai Li regime in Ba Sing Se. Princess Azula herself brought about the coup and freed the people, but after the war they fell back into their corrupt and oppressive ways

There's no evidence that a genocide ever took place, just the word of some religious zealot who thinks he's better than everyone else because he can bend 4 elements because a spirit is using him like a puppet to enforce its will on the world

I want the White Lotus to leave this thread right now

>Remember how the Equalist literally BTFO if the Republic Military.

Surprise attack with planes. Once Iroh infiltrated, he destroyed all of Amon's airforce.

Producing and using that weaponry still requires time, resources, infrastructure and the cooperation of multiple people. Again, these things just aren't comparable to bending abilities.

The whole point of every season of korra is that they're all right but take it too far

Unalaq isn't right at all, there's not really a more moderate version of "become the dark avatar and plunge the world into a thousand years of darkness"

and you know like 100 years of records from a war where they were all killed

well documented and detailed plans about how Sozin planned and carried out his plan to wipe them out on Comet Day

Red Lotus GTFO, at least Zaheer didn't believe in dumbass conspiracies, you anarchist trash

I mean something something reopen the bridge between the worlds

but that really didn't make any sense to me, all it seemed to do was cause a bunch of problems for Korra and the rest of humanity

All White Lotus fabrications. You'd have to be a fucking earthbender to believe such silly tales. The truth of the matter is, there are airbenders now, and a majority of them *aren't* related to Avatar Aang, which can only mean that airbenders were never killed off. Harmonic Convergence is complete bullshit and has no basis in scientific fact

the fucking spirit energy cannon has no basis in scientific fact either but that didn't stop one from leveling Republic City

The spirit cannon was an invention powered using natural resources, much like atomic weapons. A magic spell randomly turning people into airbenders is nonsense. It's all lies to keep the Fire Nation weak and under the control of the Avatar and White Lotus

>Surprise attack
There was no surprise when you could see them dominate the air of Republic City once the coup happened.

Stop sucking bender cock.

atomic what now?

don't tell you buy that atomic theory crap? If matter and energy is all the same thing then why can't I earth bend a cloud or your blood?

You can't bend my blood because it's illegal to do so, not because you physically can't

Did the Avatar steal your punctuation, too?

>muh six gorrilion Airbenders!
>The Boy in the Iceberg
>Iceberg
>berg
Pure coincidence.

Extremist don't take anything too far, they take ideas to their logical conclusion, Extremist are only bad when they have bad ideas.

What exactly did Amon do wrong? He didn't kill anyone, he took their bending and then released them? Why is it wrong to take someone bending. He's not even taking away someone's bending, all he is doing is either creating a mental block in the brain to prevebt benders from triggeeing their bending or blocking all their chi points at once.

>What exactly did Amon do wrong?
Read the above posts that want Amon to set up a regime, recall the various threads that already talked about it, and think about how the Avatar world stands based on what you know from AtLA.

>Hey, Sup Forums, I realize after watching TLoK for the first time that the Equalists have a point. Allow me to explain...

The funny thing about TLoK is that while the aesthetics are East Asian, the politics are American. TLA engaged in parallelism with Imperial Japan and Y7-rated colonialism, but TloK... oh boy...

Here we have an East Asian flavored 1920s fantasy, with East Asian jazz music and all that... but there's no labor movement. There's no unions or strikes. Everything revolves about a fantasy stand-in for race: bending.

I mean, the Equalists are supposed to be for equality. It's literally in their name. But to them, class is totally irrelevant. Horisho Sato is a plutocrat riding a platnum-plated death machine against Mako and Bolin, two orphaned street punks who are barely squeaking by on money they earn in a sport so corrupt that the owners feel fine letting the Wolfbats cheat right in front of the eyes of the chief of police and Councilman Tenzin.

Wait, hold on. Mako does earn some money to buy Bolin that pastry that one time. How? By doing a day's work at the power plant. There's no union or anything. He can just walk up to the plant and get a job there, because lightning-benders are so interchangeable they don't need a regular workforce to power the city.

And let's not forget that Hiroshi manages to build a goddamn WAR FACTORY under the nose of the city, the local government doesn't monitor the import/export of raw materials or the number of hours that workers do. Now Hiroshi isn't just a pudgy parody of Batman, beating up poor people with his fancy toys, he's also living in a libertarian nightmare/paradise with no government oversight of the economy.

Do the Equalist want to change any of that? Nope. They just want to liquidate the benders, even the pacifist monks, while apparently leaving the rest of the minimally regulated capitalistic system intact.

Don't forget that time in Book 2 when Korra and Asami were all in for saving Asami's company by war-profiteering.

Iroh was literally for some Tonkin Gulf bullshit and he's meant to be a good guy.

The more I think about. The Earth Kingdom + Fire Nation + Water Tribe North are 1000 year old regimes. They lasted a long time and continue to last.

Amon's regime would be based on technological advancement for non-benders.

Don't forget that Mako wanted to do that too. You know, the by the book cop that was more by the book than Lin who wasn't by the book anyway.

Explain Donald Trump, Neil Tyson and Jake Paul

That makes the most sense.

>At the moment. The flashback to Yakone's trial showed that Sokka and some random Air Acolyte used to be on the council. It's a coincidence that they're all benders, not oppression.

That's not a given. After all, Sokka and the air acolytes both enjoyed the patronage of Aang, the apex bender. Would non-benders without those connections have the same opportunity? No smoke without fire, as they say.

No, Mako told the President after being reminded of his job. He only knew because Bolin let it slip. It's why Korra PMS'd hard in the office and tore shit up when he broke up with her.

Ugh. S2 Korra is Worst Korra.

They never quite managed to walk back her being a Quisling. They just sorta ignored it and pretended it didn't happen.

>Republic City
>not a republic

>his job.
Which included him working with the Triads afterward and helping Asami secure her war-profiteering materials in that sting operation of his own doing and choosing.

>Would non-benders without those connections have the same opportunity?
We don't know since without the connector of Aang being there the Fire Nation would have scorched the planet with their progress.

your literally not even trying to make a coherent argument anymore, just spouting a few buzzwords together and hoping it might seem like a point

Kid radd had an excelent way of putting it:
Good view of the issue
Awful view of the solution.

>Good view.
>There is inequality among us, it's those people over there doing it.
>Unalaq wants to bring back spirits.
>No one else does except suddenly Korra and Tenzin and Jinora.
>Zaheer wants humans to dismantle all forms of governments and authority.
>Kills those in government and authority because no one will ever take their place.
>Kuvira wants to help the Earth Kingdom move forward.
>Is stuck in the past with her parental issues and land distribution which have her pick a fight with the world despite wanting to only help her people which she wasn't a part of anyway since she lived in an isolated self-sustained state.
They all had terrible views of the issues and awful solutions.

You forgot how the crimminals (benders) have the nonbenders as their main target. However i think that's not the most important point.

benders are, after all, dangerous. Every war on the planet happened because of them. Most crimes happens because of benders abusing their power. It's like giving assault rifles and rocked launchers to random people without any kind of check.

Fuck off, everyone knows airbenders race-mixed into the population.

Here's the fire pill for you:
>Earth nation has basically 70% of the planet to themselves
>they don't even use it, but somehow they declared all that land belongs to them
>FN, the most developed nation on the planet, is forced to live in two goddamn islands with active volcanos
>literal God on the fire nation doesn't let the fire nation develop, until he finally dies because of one of the motherfucking volcanos
>Sozin decides that is not fair, take some land no one was using on the earth nation
>they start the war
>you know that the Literal God on the air nation is going to try to stop you
>attack the air nation to get that God before he gets you
>air kikes run away before you do anything
>can't find the avatar, goes to the savages up north and down south
>tries to make some deals, but they will have none of that bullshit because "muh 6 million air kikes" propaganda
>no other option but attack
>losing men on all fronts, decides to ban gay marriage to have more people in your army
Tell me ONE thing the fire nation did wrong.

>non-genders

Did you miss the part where people were able to go toe to toe with benders after some training and getting their tazer gloves?

seriously who was the shitty writer who came up with the whole Sozin banned gay marriage stuff?

Its so dumb I'm not sure if its funny or sad

Guys, guys. You're all looking at this the wrong way. Instead of making everyone equal by removing bending, we should make everyone equal by giving them guns.

Even the avatar in their OP state can be killed by a shot in the back.

Fuck, man, guns would solve all the problems any series has where some humans have a magical mystical moxie that the rest of the plebs don't have.

The artist who is adding blacks and arabs to Republic City for literal "Why not?"

As a black I am offended by her doing this.

Chi blocking.

She didn't come up with the marriage stuff as she is not the writer (Mike, the co-creator of Avatar is,) she's just the artist and has no input on the story. But even she said she didn't get the backtracking to the past when they should be focusing on the present in her post on the matter.

Should, but that's not how reality works.

1. The CURRENT iteration of the council is made entirely of benders, during Yakone's trial flashback we see that Sokka and an unnamed Air Acolyte are part of the council. So it's entirely possible for non-benders to make it into the council.
2. We're only shown two big industrialists (three counting Varrik in season 2) and they're all non-benders, and benders are shown working menial jobs (supplying power to the power plant) and joining gangs because they need the money and nobody will take them.|
3. It makes perfect sense that the police force, the people meant to keep the peace and enforce the law, be made up entirely of the most powerful individuals you can get. Don't forget that Republic City's police double as it's military if it's ever attacked by a nation.
4. For all we know Tenzin pays for that himself. Never mind them being the last Air benders in the world, the last remnant of the Air Nomad way of life, and that the island is tiny and only has one tower on it. Even if it was subsidized by Republic City, it's a negligible amount.
5. ??? Unless non-benders in republic city don't have voting rights unless they're associated with a bender this doesn't make sense. Also, non benders are shown to occupy the middle class upward, judging by their clothes.
6. In a world were people can throw fire from their hands would you hire someone who can do something similar to protect you? Same as the police force.

The whole thing made no sense. We were shown thousands of people going to equalists rallies, but no trouble on the streets. One part of the population (non benders) very vocally attacking the other (benders) but no conflict coming of this.
And we're never given a sense of how the population is divided, how many benders are there in republic city?

The whole equalist movement falls apart under a closer look, it has/had potential to be good, but it didn't make it.

BENDER IS BETTER.
NON BENDERS CAN GO GET BENT.
FUCK AMON
LONG LIVE THE AVATAR.

user, a city leveling laser didn't even kill the avatar, nor any of her friends.
In fact it only managed to kill the non bender factory owner.

...

>Here's the fire pill for you:

kek.

>This is false. EVERY HUMAN was originally a Non-Bender (Equal) until Vaatu fucked everything up and invaded for no reason.

Didn't Lion Turtles give out bending to humans who adventured out into spirit wilds?

Did you see the design of that thing? It's a wonder they could aim at all. One sniper or a guy with a submachine gun and the element of surprise could easily kill the avatar.

Plot armor not withstanding, of course.

It's called a caste system dumb ass.

Gay themes and non-Asians weren't considered or intended back when they were world building. In an attempt to have always been a progressive ally, they're backtracking, and awkwardly adding new elements. That's why the changes feel shoehorned and disingenuous.

Non fire nationfags on suicide watch

bump

They didn't drill the artic for oil after conquering it.

I mean, if you're already there and wasted all these resources to kill the locals, what the fuck are you even doing as a nation when you don't plunder a land's only resource besides ice cubes?

>bump
Expecting actual discussion from Sup Forums on the many problems of the successor to Airbender instead of just focusing on Korra and how the "villains" did nothing wrong, even those in AtLA, is unwise.

You are the people The equalists wanted gone.

Everyone knows Sozin only banned gay marriage because his boyfriend Roku broke up with him and if he couldn't get gay married, no one else could either.