I don’t have all the links I had saved on reddit anymore so I’m trying to get ahead of the next struggle session and I think it would be beneficial for everybody if we planned it out ahead of time. We should at least figure out what it will be about and when it should start. Any ideas? I was thinking we should do something a little bit different than the usual.
The message of overcoming trauma and accepting responsibility for your actions? TLA’s message is literally “even imperialist dictators with superpowers actively committing genocide shouldn’t be killed”.
I mean just because Aang was staying true to his pacifist roots doesn’t mean that the show universe or its characters wholly agreed with him. That part of the show was less “defeating fascism through the power of friendship” and more Aang confronting the cognitive dissonance of his wishes to remain a pacifist despite knowing that killing Ozai was the right thing to do, which even the show acknowledges is dumb and frustrating in the face of defeating fascism. Not only did the entire Gaang, including Zuko, think the firelord should die (despite their appreciation for pacifistic intention) but Avatar Kyoshi straight up tells Aang to gank Ozai when he was looking for guidance on the Lion Turtle.
Maybe my nostalgia for the show and personal bias might be getting in the way but remember that Aang is 12 years old, and a 12 year old being morally complex with panic and doubt about being told he has to murder someone doesn’t mean the show itself is awash in liberal bullshit IMO.
Yeah, I don’t necessarily think TLA is ultra liberal or anything. But I don’t see how LoK is more liberal, which is the claim here.
Well LOK is more explicit and pointed in its political issues, and specifically I find that having Zaheer and the Red Lotus be anarchists who just want chaos for the sake of chaos (I think they even go so far as to say that “chaos should be the natural order of things”) is a pretty ridiculous straw man of Anarchism as an ideology that serves a liberal agenda– the idea that “Yeah ok maybe our leaders might be kinda bad but at least you don’t have to live in complete lawlessness! At least we have rules!”
I also think that the show is just a liiiiittle bit too cozy with cops/law enforcement and capitalism in general. Lin Beifong is a cop (extremely funny considering Toph’s origins, which is also funny because she became a fuckin police chief too), Mako is a detective, Asami is literally an industrial capitalist who inherited a fortune and whose father was only bad because he worked with Da Bad Guys™ and not because he’s, you know… Super exploitative in his practices or anything. It seems like the only thing they’re kind of right on in this regard is that Kuvira, who is a psycho power tripping cop, attempts to become a fascist dictator and Bolin naively joins her conquest thinking that she’s just “uniting the Earth Kingdom”. That depiction of a quick descent into fascism from unchecked authority is pretty good, but even then deigns to discuss why that might happen and just criticizes the fact that it happened at all instead.
With that being said I think you’re totally right that the show does do a really good job at exploring trauma and personal responsibility. There’s definitely a lot that LOK gets right and on a more personal and individual level it’s way more open about that sort of thing than ATLA ever was. However it’s tough to reconcile just how stupid some of the show’s political angles can be when the show is largely about politics in a new age.
