#lok crit

[comradekatara]

yesterday I was explaining the intricacies of lok to my friend who has only seen atla, and he (like the rest of us) just couldn’t get over the fact that they made toph a cop. he was trying to figure out what about toph’s personality (you know, considering that it’s entirely antithetical to becoming someone who acts as an agent of the state to enforce systemic violence) would lead the writers to this conclusion. and it occurred to me that I do think many people, even those who vehemently denounce toph’s copness, do sort of assume that toph loves violence for the sake of violence. she is introduced as saying “I love fighting, and im really really good at it,” and she is shown committing various acts of violence against others (including her friends) with a grin on her face. but I still wouldn’t characterize toph as someone who employs violence for violence’s sake.

toph is, externally, defined by her limits. she is small, she is blind, she is young, she is a girl; she was raised to be soft and delicate and helpless. toph’s first true expression of freedom is when she learns to use her disability as a boon and uses her earthbending not as a weapon, but as an extension of herself. to toph, earthbending is a form of self-expression. it is an artform. I think people tend to forget that when toph says that she loves fighting, she’s not just saying that she loves the thrill of beating arrogant, gigantic, muscled men thrice her size (although of course there is also that), but she’s also saying that she loves practicing a martial art for artistry’s sake.

unlike the boulder, who only listens to his big muscles, toph waits, listens, innovates, creates, hones her craft. and while her earthbending is indeed a martial art, it is also a site of innovation, a visual art, and most importantly, a disability aid. the earth is an extension of herself; it is her artistic medium. yes, of course toph does love being able to exert power over others as a ragefilled tiny twelve year old blind girl who has been denied agency her entire life, but power is not her primary motivation when honing her earthbending. she cares about craft, about innovation, about being one with the earth. unlike all the other earth rumblers and dai li agents and earth kingdom soldiers, toph is a deliberate, thoughtful, considerate earthbender. fighting is an art, and toph is an artist.

#people really love reducing toph which is kind of ironic considering that toph’s entire struggle is not to not be reduced and limited #alas. #toph #analysis #she’s a genius <3333333 #lok crit #(technically) #hang on im gonna make another post abt asami later as well

[shrinkthisviolet]

I thought the only two who were bad parents were aang and toph.

The thing about raising kids is that ideally (and certainly for Kataang), it’s a team effort. If one of you is a bad parent, you both are. So since Aang is, so is Katara 🤷‍♀️ plus both Aang and Katara, canonically, didn’t emphasize to their kids that they are mixed, that their bending doesn’t define who they are. Tenzin literally tells Bumi “you are now [part of the Air Nation]” after Bumi gets his airbending…as if he wasn’t before??

Sokka and Suki aren’t parents, so they aren’t counted in this. And as stated, Zuko is a great dad canonically, but that’s in large part because he was mostly on the sidelines.

So anon, you’re half right

#lok crit

[teratocore]

The more time goes on the more beef I have with LoK gonna be honest.

I think my basic crits of the series is that it lacks the nuance and maturity of the original series and it goes out of its way to demystify the original series for stupid battles and kaiju nonsense. Like it has some interesting ideas but it puts shock value over actual worldbuilding and characters. Whatever though bc revolutionary representation moment or something.

#personal #atla #avatar the last airbender #legend of korra #lok #idk what the crit/anti tag is for this #lok critical #I guess??? #I don’t even hate korrasami most of my issues about it are far beyond shipping nonsense #it as in the show as a whole. not gonna rewrite the last tag

[felucians]

why did i go on the legends of korra tag and people are comparing the air nation and water tribes to Celtic nations such as Ireland and Wales.

yes they are a colonised group, but the differences between the Irish/Welsh and the Tibetan people and Inuk are vastly different.

It's also incredibly insensitive to compare cultures of color to white nations which whether people like to admit it or not have a system of racism in place and participated within colonisation.

you have every other media to see yourself in and yet you choose the media that only has poc?

#and my yt side is celtic so yeah i know what im talking about #lok #legend of korra #meta #crit #poc #white #fandom racism #please don't white wash PoC in media!!!!

[maschotch]

The wig makes Emily look older than grey hair would have

literally!!! when they stopped dying rossi’s hair and it immediately turned completely white…. we always knew he was dying his hair, but skipping the transition made it seem like such a stark contrast. let them have some grey streaks!!! they would all look so much better

#the pitch black of the dye/wig just makes it more obvious that they dont look like that anymore lok #it washes them out?? makes them seem more faded #asks #char crit

[korras-fingerguns]

question do lok antis know how to use tags or

#like the 3rd post within the past two days #if it is an anti tag it belongs there #just there #i dont have the anti/crit tag blocked for fear of actual harmful content being pointed out or somethign #but seriously if someone who likes the show wouldnt like to see it dont tag it there #TLOK #lok #the legend of korra #yknow what #anti lok #lok critical #im so petty but yall are frustrating

[sunandmoongobrrr]

Korra and her Brutalization: A Legend of Korra Meta

In honor of International Womens’ Day, I want to talk a little bit about Legend of Korra and the treatment of Korra (and to a small extent other women) throughout the show. Content warning: there's some disturbing scenes that I show here, but if you've watched all of LoK, you should be fine.

Korra starts off confident; she is a young avatar who is eager to learn and feels suffocated from the isolation she is kept in from a very young age. But that doesn’t stop her, and like the headstrong girl she is, she moves to Republic City to make a difference and step into her role as the avatar.

Korra immediately starts to doubt herself; she becomes unsure of her abilities and frustrated with herself, and through that she learns to become emotionally vulnerable with Tenzin. To me, this was really great. It showed that you can be confident and vulnerable, and that the two aren’t necessarily independent of each other.

(I’m going to be honest, the 2nd season I didn’t really remember much of, so I’m just going to skip over that. Because what I really want to talk about is season 3.)

In season three, Korra faces the Red Lotus, an “anarchist” group that essentially wants to kill her. And they get pretty close. First, I want to talk about how Tenzin is beaten by the Red Lotus. This has been brought up in Lily Orchard’s (in?)famous LOK video, and while I disagree with her on many many topics of the show, I really think she has a point here. When Tenzin is being brutalized by the Red Lotus, the camera pans away. It is SO painful to see him like this, and the directors know it. It’s TOO painful to see it, so they don’t show you it, and the episode ends before we can see him be defeated.

Contrast that with Korra. They show you every detail of this. And I mean every detail.

It’s disgusting, and they refuse to treat her with any sort of decency or respect like they do Tenzin. It’s almost like they want us to enjoy her torturing. It’s genuinely gross.

People will often refute this by saying “LoK is just a darker show! Look at what they did to the Earth Queen!” And while yes, it is marketed towards an older audience, there’s still no point in brutalizing Korra this way. The main difference between Korra and the Earth Queen is that… well, Korra’s the protagonist. We’re supposed to be rooting for her, and while the Earth Queen being suffocated was definitely dark, it wasn’t unprecedented. The audience was never supposed to like the Earth Queen—she exploited and kidnapped her own people, so of course we wouldn’t care THAT much if she died. But we’ve been with Korra since the beginning. We’re supposed to want her to be happy, and why on earth would we want her to be tortured brutally in such a disgusting way that gives her absolutely no dignity? If we want her to succeed?

(here Zaheer uses the same technique used on the Earth Queen to suffocate here on Korra. for some reason)

In Season 4, the main focus is on Korra and her healing from the brutal things the Red Lotus did to her. She is clearly still struggling, and it could have been another great way to show how being physically strong and confident doesn’t mean you can’t be vulnerable. But they make a lot of bad choices in this season.

One of my main gripes is that in order to heal, she has to return to her abuser, Zaheer, and HE has to teach her how to feel better.

I don’t want to compare LoK to ATLA, although it’s very important to mention that a show that’s a direct sequel, uses its old characters, and banks off of references, should be able to be compared to its predecessor. But I think it’s important to compare Korra’s arc here to Zuko. This doesn’t come out of nowhere; Korra has a lot of similarities to Zuko. The chopping of her hair is a significant turning point in her arc, and there’s an episode called “Korra Alone” (which is clearly a direct callback; shown below).

The difference between Zuko and Katara is that, a. Zuko never had to accept his abuser, and b. Zuko started off as a villain.

One of Zuko’s major points is when he confronts his father—his abuser. He does not bow to him and give in, saying that maybe he had a few good points or his heart was in the right place, but he directly says that Ozai was wrong for what he did. This isn’t the case with Korra. For some reason, Korra has to learn to trust her abuser. The person who did this to her:

And she has to hear him out.

This leads me to my second point, and what’s basically the complaint I have; despite being a protagonist, the show treats Korra like a villain. It frames her torture scenes as if we’re supposed to be excited that she’s being brutalized, as if we’re supposed to think she deserves it. And it’s not even handled properly as one of the villains we know so well—Zuko, who was able to overcome his abuse and become a protagonist who we root for. Again, Zuko and Korra aren’t directly the same characters, but there are parallels between the two and the show encourages their comparison. When it comes to Korra, however, we’re supposed to believe that she deserves everything that comes to her; the brutal scenes and the lack of dignity, even if she is a protagonist.

And in the end, that’s what we’re meant to believe; that Korra deserved what happened to her. In the finale, Korra says, “I finally understand why I had to go through all that. I needed to understand what true suffering was, so I could become more compassionate to others.”

This is, to put it short, ridiculous. I hate this so much I can’t even begin to say how much I hate it. No, Korra did not have to go through the torture she went through. She did not have to go through the mercury poisoning. She did not have to go through every hardship she did. This “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” is so harmful because Korra’s healing revolved around accepting her abuser and thanking him for the awful things he did to her. Korra wasn’t even that cocky by the end of the first season, so what it’s essentially indirectly teaching girls is that if you’re confident, you’ll pay. It’s disgusting.

Zuko got a banishment to the Earth Kingdom, got to have his ideas and practices challenged, but he never got physically tortured. I truly, truly believe that one of the main reasons why Korra is quite literally villainized by the show is because she was a confident, brown teenage girl. None of the male characters are treated with such disrespect and we never get told that they need to be “humbled” by abuse.

This is not completely resolved to LoK; there are some aspects in ATLA that I think could’ve been fixed had there been more women in the room. I tag her a lot (bc her metas are awesome), but I really recommend you read @araeph 's Katara: Consumed by Destiny series. I also have a meta here about how Katara is treated in ATLA, specifically in “The Fortuneteller.” (I want to emphasize that while I am anti-Kataang, I don’t believe that Katara’s treatment had to do with the ship itself or that kataang is inherently anti-Katara. It’s just a note about how her character is treated in this episode and beyond.)

I’ve heard a lot of people say that they’re ‘glad’ that LoK didn’t feature Suki or Mai or Ty Lee, because they can’t imagine how poorly they’d be represented. And honestly, I can’t blame them.

This isn’t to say that we need to stop watching LOK or even ATLA. I think the internet has this weird problem where we’ve been told that the way to get rid of problematic media is to just stop consuming anything even remotely problematic altogether. But certain aspects of media will always be relatively problematic, since as content creators we sometimes input our biases into the things we create. The solution, then, is not to banish anyone who puts any harmful stereotypes into their content from society, but to actively and healthily criticize it. Bryke are not God, but they’re also not demons put on the earth to suppress woc. They’re white guys that have implicit biases that have worked their way into the content they produce. I think the lesson learned here, is to have women, especially BIWOC, in writing rooms, to prevent atrocious acts from happening to future Korra's.

Happy International Women’s Day, y’all.

#anti lok #lok critical #lok crit #lok criticsm #anti legend of korra #legend of korra critical #legend of korra crit #legend of korra criticism #anti bryke #bryke crit #bryke critical #atla salt #atla crit #atla critical #avatar salt #avatar crit #avatar critical #pro korra #pro katara #korra #katara #zutara #anti kataang #pro zutara #just for reach lmfao #international women's day #woot woot #atla meta #lok meta #legend of korra meta

[transtenzin]

@bryankonietzko @bryankonietzko2 @michaeldantedimartino 

you guys want to tell me why katara and aang’s kid with the most screen time and development is pale as hell and has super white features... idk i think it’s just the colorism and racism, but there is an extra layer of anti-native sentiment with making tenzin, a mixed indigenous man, look white and then taking away all of his connections to water tribe culture because he isn’t indigenous enough (doesn’t have the “right skin tone” or bending type) for it. idk, it really is just one thing after the other with tenzin, not even touching on how inaccurate the portrayal of mixed people is 🤷🏽‍♀️

#lok crit #my crit #idk i have finally decided to @ them #doubt they will see this though #i just want an acknowledgement or something??? literally just anything saying 'we did bad and we're sorry' #mae dot txt #op #lok #the legend of korra #tenzin

[aroace-mako]

The writers allow Kuvira (a character with light skin) to be cocky and asshole and not Korra (a character with dark skin) they made her go through torture to change her personality to a "civilized" and calm one, they use Korra ptsd to make her inferior to Kuvira in the fight so Kuvira can looks like a good fighter.(I don't know about you but this seems like racism to me) Kuvira behaves in an arrogant way, everyone loves her and when Korra behaved like that in the book 1-3 everyone hates her and they call her annoying

^^

#korra #anti kuvira #lok crit #colorism tw #swearing tw #torture tw

[army-of-mai-lovers]

tbh I think watching lok b1 fucked up my brain permanently because it’s been months since I finished the show and yet every night before I go to sleep I start thinking about these very plot-relevant questions like “are nonbenders in Republic City systemically oppressed? how so? were they able to vote in local elections? it seems like they weren’t able to because there are no nonbenders on the Council. but wait, Sokka was on the Council, and he was a nonbender. so between Sokka’s death and the start of lok, did nonbenders lose their right to vote? or did they always not have the right to vote, but benders just voted for Sokka in the Council elections because they liked him? why would a nonbender not be allowed to vote but then be able to run for office? was Sokka given special treatment because he was friends with the Avatar and the Firelord? did Sokka further the systemic oppression of nonbenders? but why would he do that? how would he do that? what did systemic oppression of nonbenders look like prior to the start of lok? clearly, Tarrlok rounding up nonbenders was supposed to parallel instances of authoritarians scapegoating racial and ethnic minorities in the real world, but there had to have been some kind of buildup to that, probably in the form of legal and social disenfranchisement of nonbenders by the government. but we, the audience, never actually see the  effects of that disenfranchisement. Both Asami’s mom and Mako and Bolin’s parents are killed by benders (specifically Firebenders) and there’s that scene in the beginning where the Triple Threats are antagonizing local businesses, but do any of these actually indicate systemic oppression of nonbenders? those are definitely evidence of certain individuals using their power to hurt other individuals, but you can’t really chalk that up to a coherent system of discrimination, especially since none of those people were connected to a government body. and yeah we see the government antagonize nonbenders in lok b1, but it’s after Amon’s already risen to power, and so one would assume that the government has already antagonized nonbenders enough that they’re willing to follow essentially a cult leader because of their dissatisfaction with their station in life, allowing tensions to grow to the point that Tarrlok can use nonbenders as a scapegoat without much pushback. but, while there aren’t actually very many nonbender characters in lok, those who are in the narrative are all immensely successful people (Hiroshi Sato and Varrick are both wealthy industrialists, Bumi is a military leader, etc). but this is probably just a symptom of lok’s obsession with rich and powerful people at the expense of the everyman, so I probably shouldn’t assume that the status of these nonbenders reflects the status of every nonbender in Republic City. but if we look at atla, benders were never treated as better than nonbenders on a systemic level, except maybe in the Fire Nation, and actually we have evidence of benders being treated worse than their nonbending counterparts as a result of Fire Nation imperialism in both the Earth Kingdom and the Water Tribes (not to mention the decimation of the Air Nomads, who according to canon are all benders.) so is bender supremacy a result of Fire Nation colonialism? but then why are Earthbenders and Waterbenders treated well under this system? further, wouldn’t Asami’s family have some kind of privilege as Fire Nationals, despite their status as nonbenders? is that why they were able to get rich in a world that’s hostile towards nonbenders? plus, Amon is one of the villains of this season, but if he’s trying to fight for a group that’s been systemically oppressed in Republic City, wouldn’t he be a good guy? but taking away people’s bending is wrong, plus he bloodbended Korra, so obviously we’re meant to interpret him as a villain. he didn’t even get a redemption arc like Kuvira did, so I guess he must have been really bad. so was it just that people didn’t like his methods, or did they genuinely not believe in his cause of fighting against bender supremacy? if they just didn’t like his methods, did anybody start working on some plans to address disparities between benders and nonbenders after they defeated Amon? did President Raiko solve the issue of bender supremacy? how did he do that so quickly? if bender supremacy was such an issue on an individual and systemic level, why did they never talk about it again? were nonbenders allowed to vote in that election? was this just a Romeo and Juliet situation where both sides had equal power and hated each other for no reason? but no, if that were the case then nonbenders would have had enough institutional power in Republic City to not be rounded up when Tarrlok decided they were a threat, and there probably would have been at least one nonbender Council member in Korra’s time. did they ever talk about the fact that a government body rounded up all the nonbenders in the city? were there reparations? did Korra and the rest of the krew assist in giving out the reparations? was there nonbender housing discrimination?” and before you know it I’m screaming and tearing my hair out demanding bryke let me see the Republic City constitution because why didn’t anyone sue the government what the fuck is this plot--

#there's honestly so much more but this post was getting really long #longpost #(derogatory) #like honestly i don't even overanalyze the other three seasons of lok but i want to understand b1 so badly #and i never can #and this isn't even bringing in the secret brothers twist #secret brothers twist (derogatory) #this is hell #i've been cursed to overthink the lok b1 storyline for all eternity haven't i #swearing tw #lok crit #lok confusion and dismay #somebody explain this to me blease i want this to end #and don't just say 'ugh you're overthinking it' 'ugh it's just plotholes stop worrying about it' bc like #if they didn't make it such an obvious analogy to racism i don't think i would care so much #but if white folks want to write shiity analogies for racism then they gotta deal with me picking it the fuck apart bc #it does not make sense! none of it makes sense! #and like if lok was a true standalone show and not a sequel series i could maybe let it slide but it's an atla sequel and they remind you of #that fact constantly. if you want your three iroh cameos you're going to have to contend with me remembering all the times non-FN benders #were screwed over by FN imperialism! bc it's not like 'oh new marginalization just dropped' like these things have causes and effects and- #ok. ok arthur breathe #let it go #just let it go #i can't let it go y'all i can't #gklsdjfkjsklfjklsjdfkjdksjljdks gosh why did i watch this fucking show make it stop make it stop #arthur deals with the lasting impact of having watched lok #imperialism

[zukkacore]

Whitewashing in AtlaLok: the Western & Christian Influence on s2 of LoK

Ok, so i’m not a big brained expert on all things indigenous or even all things asian but I do think bryke's christian & western worldview seeps so far into season 2 of LoK that i think out of every season it’s by far the most unsalvageable out of everything they’ve ever done in the Atlaverse and is a very insidious kind of whitewashing. I know that sounds hefty but here’s what I mean

For the record, I’m a mixed filipino person & while there is religious diversity among filipinos, more than i think ppl realize or that the catholic majority is willing to let on, when we were colonized a large percent of the population was indeed forced to convert to catholicism so that’s my background, & i don’t know everything about taoism or the what the tai chi symbol represents but the way Bryke westernize the concept of Yin and Yang is honestly… kinda bewildering. They get so many details about yin & yang wrong?? & Yes, it’s possible they could’ve been trying to create their own lore that differentiates itself from the traditional depictions of Yin & Yang, but in the end i think it doesn’t matter b/c the lore they invent is a very obviously western interpretation of the concept of “balance”.

The most important and honestly worst change they make is that concepts of “light” and “dark” are completely oversimplified and flattened to represent basically “good” and “evil” (which, the light and dark side are a bit more complex than representing just “peace/order vs. Chaos” like the show might imply but we don’t even have time for that, but is funny how they get the genders wrong. Like. Traditionally, light is usually coded masculine and dark is usually coded feminine, but never mind that, that’s just a tangent). This really simplifies the nuance of the s2 conflict and makes it a lot less interesting, not to mention just—misrepresents a very real religious philosophy?

And for the record, a piece of media going out of its way to do "the show, don’t tell" thing of stating in the text that “oh, light and dark are not the same thing as good vs. evil” without actually displaying that difference through the writing is just lip service, and its poor writing. A lot of pieces of media do this, but i think s2 of LoK is particularly egregious. The point of this philosophy of balance is that you aren’t supposed to moralize about which side is “good” or “bad”, or even really which one is “better” or “worse”. Even if the show states the concepts are not interchangeable, if the media in question continually frames one side (and almost always its “chaos/darkness”) as the “evil” side, then the supposed distinction between “light vs. dark” and “good vs. evil” is made moot. And besides the occasional offhand remark that implies more nuance without actually delivering, Vaatu is basically stock evil incarnate.

This depiction of conflict as “defeating a singular representation of total evil” isn’t solely christian, but it is definitely present in christian beliefs. And I think those kinds of stories can be done well, but in this case, in a world filled entirely of asian, Pacific Islander & inuit poc, to me it feels like a form of subtle whitewashing? B/c you’re taking characters that probably wouldn’t have christian beliefs, and imposing a christian worldview onto them. Not to mention removes what could have been an interesting conflict of any nuance and intrigue… and honestly, sucks, because I do think s2 has the bones of an interesting idea, mostly b/c there are potential themes that could’ve been explored—I know this b/c they were already explored in a movie that exists, and it’s name is Princess Mononoke! It has a lot of the same elements—tension between spirits and humanity, destruction of nature in the face of rapid industrialization, moral ambiguity where there are no easy or fast answers and both sides have sympathetic and understandable points of view. (Unsurprising b/c Miyazaki is Japanese & Japanese culture has a lot of influence from Buddhism, Taoism, Shintoism, etc)

Bryke’s western & christian worldview also totally seeps into the characterization of Unalaq, the antagonist of the season which is a real problem. I’m in the middle of rewatching s2 right now and what struck me is that….. Unalaq comes across kinda ecofash AND fundamentalist which is 1) seems like an odd combination but maybe it really isn’t? 2) i think is a really tacky choice considering that the water tribes take the majority of its inspiration from inuit and polynesian indigenous cultures.

I honestly forgot abt this but Unalaq gives this whole lame speech abt how the SWT & humans as a whole suck b/c of their lack of spiritual connection & it was really eerie to me b/c "humans are morally bankrupt and they must be wiped out/punished for their destruction of the environment" is total ecofash logic bc it blames all of humanity for damage caused by those in power—be they capitalists or whoever. It’s a worldview that blames the poor and powerless for something they have no say in, and has real eugenics undertones bc with every implication of culling, there has to be someone who appoints themself the job of culling—of who is and isn’t worthy of death.

This belief also struck me as......... kinda christian in it's logic as well which is WEIRD b/c once again........ their cultural inspirations are DEFINITELY not christian...... The whole "man is inherently evil and must spend their whole lifetime repenting/must face punishment for it’s wickedness" thing and the way that christianity treats humanity as born with original sin or inherently corrupt—as well as above or separate from nature are really stronger undertones in Unalaqs worldview....... which isn't really an indigenous way or thinking.

I'm generalizing of course but from what I have seen from the indigenous people who speak on this is that (feel free to point out or correct me if i’m mostly generalizing abt Native Americans and not other indigenous cultures & there are some differences here) is that while native tribes are not monolithic and do vary wildly, there are a lot of common threads and that reverence and respect toward nature and your surroundings is an important tenant of indigenous beliefs. (I specifically remember the hosts on All My Relations saying essentially that we humans are a part of nature, we are not separate from it, and humans are not superior to animals—I’m paraphrasing but that is the gist of it)

So, yeah, I think it’s just really distasteful to write an indigenous character who is characterized in a way that’s way more in line with a christian fundamentalist & wants to bring about a ragnarok style apocalypse end of the world when that isn’t really a tenant of our beliefs? (btw, the way the end of the world is framed is also kinda fucked up? If i were being charitable, I could say that maybe s2’s storyline is a corruption of the hindu depiction of the end of the world, but even that sounds mildly insulting for reasons I won’t get into b/c i am Not The Expert On Hinduism. I will say that once again, the framing of the concept is all wrong, the show views the idea of apocalypse through a very western lense)

To wrap this up, I think the depiction of Unalaq could *maybe* work b/c he is the antagonist, so someone who strays from the NWT cultural tradition in a way that makes his view of morality more black and white wouldn’t be a *horrible* idea for the bad guy of the season. Especially because the introduction of capitalism to the A:TLA universe could probably cause a substantial shifts to… idk, everything i guess, b/c capitalism is so corrosive. Like. Sometimes people are just traitors. I do think it would be interesting to portray the way capitalism manifests in a society without white christians. Like… I do think there are a lot of ways secular christianity and capitalism are interlinked. But Unalaq is not portrayed as an outsider, he’s portrayed as hyper-traditionalist in a way that’s vilified? I guess rightly so, he does suck, but it’s just hard to conceptualize how a person like Unalaq comes to exist in the first place. In the end, I don’t really think it makes sense, in a world without white people, I don’t really know where this introduction of black and white christian morality would even come from in the avatar world?

TL;DR, Bryke applying western christian morality & world views to non-white characters in a world where white people have NEVER existed to affect our beliefs is a subtle form of white-washing. It imposes simplified “good vs. evil” world-views & cultural beliefs onto its characters. Any attempt to represent or even just integrate our actual beliefs into the A:tla lore are twisted and misrepresented is a way that is disrespectful and saps out any nuance or intrigue from the story, and alienates the people its supposed to represent from recognizing themselves within the final product. And Finally, on a more superficial story level, these writing choices clashe with the already existing world of ATLA--and is honestly just poor world-building.

#shut up Janelle #lok #Atla #lok crit #legend of korra

[comradekatara]

no but it really is crazy that lok all but states that the fire nation succeeded in their imperialist project in every way that mattered, but because the avatar was allied with the firelord and helped facilitate the maintaining of their colonial outposts in the name of global unity, and because said firelord is nice now, it’s fine actually. and the only people who point out this contradiction are power-hungry bloodthirsty autocrats who are being unreasonable and greedy when they point out that the “united republic of nations” is earth kingdom land that was colonized by the fire nation, and in every way but in name, still is.

#this is why you don’t let teenagers handle world affairs i guess #lok crit #just realized I used the phrase ‘pointed out’ twice in one sentence but I’m 500 notes in and can’t change it now. fuck

[shrinkthisviolet]

Did you hear about the new animated Avatar film Avatar Studios is making? They announced yesterday that it’s going to focus on the Adult Gaang!

I saw that! To be honest, given the comics (the Promise, most notably), and also given the way a lot of the Gaang were painted as bad parents in LoK (with the exception of Zuko, and even then, only because he had brief appearances)...I'm not sure how I feel about this. Hopefully it's good, but I'm keeping my expectations low

#lok crit #atla comics crit #avatar studios #if you're excited then good for you! i'm glad the news is exciting for people :D #personally i'm excited for the kyoshi and korra movies!

[bloodbenderz]

humaniterations (dot) net/2014/10/13/an-anarchist-perspective-on-the-red-lotus/ this article from oct 2014 is very dense — truly, a lot to unpack here, but I feel like you would find this piece interesting. I would love it if you shared your thoughts on the points that stood out to you, whether you agree or disagree. you obv don’t have to respond to it tho, but I’m sending it as an ask jic you feel like penning (and sharing) a magnificent essay, as is your wont 💕

article

i know this took me forever 2 answer SORRY but i just checked off all the things on my to do list for the first time in days today so. Essay incoming ladies!

ok im SO glad u sent me this bc it’s so so good. it’s a genuinely thoughtful criticism of the politics in legend of korra (altho i think its sometimes a little mean to korra unnecessarily like there’s no reason to call her a “petulant brat” or say that she throws tantrums but i do understand their point about her being an immature and reactionary hero, which i’ll get back to) and i think the author has a good balance between acknowledging like Yeah the lok writers were american liberals and wrote their show accordingly and Also writing a thorough analysis of lok’s politics that felt relevant and interesting without throwing their hands up and saying this is all useless liberal bullshit (which i will admit that i tend to do).

this article essentially argues that the red lotus antagonists of s3 were right. And that’s not an uncommon opinion i think but this gives it serious weight. Like, everything that zaheer’s gang did was, in context, fully understandable. of course the red lotus would be invested in making sure that the physically and spiritually and politically most powerful person in the world ISNT raised by world leaders and a secret society of elites that’s completely unaccountable to the people! of course the red lotus wants to bring down tyrannical governments and allow communities to form and self govern organically! and the writers dismiss all of that out of hand by 1. consistently framing the red lotus as insane and murderous (korra never actually gives zaheer’s ideas a chance or truly considers integrating them into her own approach) 2. representing the death of the earth queen as not just something that’s not necessarily popular (what was with mako’s bootlicker grandma, i’d love to know) but as something that causes unbelievable violence and chaos in ba sing se (which, like, a lot of history and research will tell you that people in disasters tend towards prosocial behaviors). so the way the story frames each of these characters and ideologies is fascinating because like. if you wanted to write season 3 of legend of korra with zaheer as the protagonist and korra as the antagonist, you wouldn’t actually have to change the sequence of events at all, really. these writers in particular and liberal writers in general LOVE writing morally-gray-but-ultimately-sympathetic characters (like, almost EVERY SINGLE fire nation character in the first series, who were full on violent colonizers but all to a degree were rehabilitated in the eyes of the viewer) but instead of framing the red lotus as good people who are devoted to justice and freedom and sometimes behave cruelly to get where theyre trying to go, they frame them as psychopaths and murderers who have good intentions don’t really understand how to make the world a better place.

and the interesting thing about all this, about the fact that the red lotus acted in most cases exactly as it should have in context and the only reason its relegated to villain status is bc the show is written by liberals, is that the red lotus actually points out really glaring sociopolitical issues in universe! like, watching the show, u think well why the fuck HASN’T korra done anything about the earth queen oppressing her subjects? why DOESN’T korra do anything about the worse than useless republic president? why the hell are so many people living in poverty while our mains live cushy well fed lives? how come earth kingdom land only seems to belong to various monarchs and settler colonists, instead of the people who are actually indigenous to it? the show does not want to answer these questions, because american liberal capitalism literally survives on the reality of oppressive governments and worse than useless presidents and people living in poverty while the middle/upper class eats and indigenous land being stolen. if the show were to answer these questions honestly, the answer would be that the status quo in real life (and the one on the show that mirrors real life) Has To Change.

So they avoid answering these questions honestly in order for the thesis statement to be that the status quo is good. and the only way for the show to escape answering these questions is for them to individualize all these broad social problems down into Good people and Bad people. so while we have obvious bad ones like the earth queen we also have all these capitalists and monarchs and politicians who are actually very nice and lovely people who would never hurt anyone! which is just such an absurd take and it’s liberal propaganda at its best. holding a position of incredible political/economic power in an unjust society is inherently unethical and maintaining that position of power requires violence against the people you have power over. which is literally social justice 101. but there’s literally no normal, average, not-politically-powerful person on the show. so when leftist anarchism is presented and says that destroying systems that enforce extreme power differentials is the only way to bring peace and freedom to all, the show has already set us up to think, hey, fuck you, top cop lin beifong and ford motor ceo asami sato are good people and good people like them exist! and all we have to do to move forward and progress as a society is to make sure we have enough good individuals in enough powerful positions (like zuko as the fire lord ending the war, or wu as the earth king ending the monarchy)! which is of course complete fiction. liberal reform doesn’t work. but by pretending that it could work by saying that the SYSTEM isnt rotten it’s just that the people running it suck and we just need to replace those people, it automatically delegitimizes any radical movements that actually seek to change things.

and that’s the most interesting thing about this article to me is that it posits that the avatar...might actually be a negative presence in the world. the avatar is the exact same thing: it’s a position of immense political and physical power bestowed completely randomly, and depending on the moral character and various actions of who fills that position at any given time, millions of people will or won’t suffer. like kyoshi, who created the fascist dai li, like roku, who refused to remove a genocidal dictator from power, like aang, who facilitated the establishment of a settler colonial state on earth kingdom land. like korra! she’s an incredibly immature avatar and a generally reactionary lead. i’ve talked about this at length before but she never actually gets in touch with the needs of the people. she’s constantly running in elite circles, exposed only to the needs and squabbles of the upper class! how the hell is she supposed to understand the complexities of oppression and privilege when she was raised by a chess club with inordinate amounts of power and associates almost exclusively with politicians and billionaires?? from day 1 we see that she tends to see things in very black and white ways which is FINE if you’re a privileged 17 yr old girl seeing the world for the first time but NOT FINE if you’re the single most powerful person in the world! Yeah, korra thinks the world is probably mostly fine and just needs a little whipping into shape every couple years, because all she has ever known is a mostly fine world! in s1 when mako mentions that he as a homeless impoverished teenager worked for a gang (which is. Not weird. Impoverished people of every background are ALWAYS more likely to resort to socially unacceptable ways of making money) korra is like “you guys are criminals?????!!!!!” she was raised in perfect luxury by a conservative institution and just never developed beyond that. So sure, if the red lotus raised her anarchist, probably a lot would’ve been different/better, but....they didn’t. and korra ended up being a reactionary and conservative avatar who protected monarchs and colonialist politicians. The avatar as a position is completely subject to the whims of whoever is currently the avatar. and not only does that suck for everyone who is not the avatar, not only is it totally unfair to whatever kid who grows up knowing the fate of the world is squarely on their shoulders, but it as a concept is a highly individualist product of the authors’ own western liberal ideas of progress! the idea that one good leader can fix the world (or should even try) based on their own inherent superiority to everyone else is unbelievably flawed and ignores the fact that all real progress is brought about as a result of COMMUNITY work, as a result of normal people working for themselves and their neighbors!

the broader analysis of bending was really interesting to me too, but im honestly not sure i Totally agree with it. the article pretty much accepts the show’s assertion that bending is a privilege (and frankly backs it up much better than the original show did, but whatever), and i don’t think that’s NECESSARILY untrue since it is, like, a physical advantage (the author compares it to, for example, the fact that some people are born athletically gifted and others are born with extreme physical limitations), but i DO think that it discounts the in universe racialization of bending. in any sequel to atla that made sense, bending as a race making fact would have been explored ALONGSIDE the physical advantages it bestows on people. colonialism and its aftermath is generally ignored in this article which is its major weakness i think, especially in conjunction with bending. you can bring up the ideas the author did about individual vs community oriented progress in the avatar universe while safely ignoring the colonialism, but you can’t not bring up race and colonialism when you discuss bending. especially once you get to thinking about how water/earth/airbenders were imprisoned and killed specifically because bending was a physical advantage, and that physical advantage was something that would have given colonized populations a means of resistance and that the fire nation wanted to keep to itself.

i think that’s the best lens thru which to analyze bending tbh! like in the avatar universe bending is a tool that different ethnic groups tend to use in different ways. at its best, bending actually doesn’t represent social power differences (despite representing a physical power difference) because it’s used to represent/maintain community solidarity. like, take the water tribe. katara being the last waterbender, in some way, makes her the last of a part of swt CULTURE. the implication is that when there were a lot of waterbenders in the south, they dedicated their talents to building community and helping their neighbors, because this was something incredibly culturally important and important to the water tribe as a community. the swt as a COLLECTIVE values bending for what it can do for the entire tribe, which counts for basically every other talent a person can have (strength, creativity, etc). the fire nation, by contrast, distorts the community value of bending by racializing it: anyone who bends an element that isn’t fire is inherently NOT fire nation (and therefore inherently inferior) and, because of the physical power that bending confers, anyone who bends an element that isn’t fire is a threat to fire nation hegemony. and in THAT framework of bending, it’s something that intrinsically assigns worth and reifies race in a way that’s conveniently beneficial to the oppressor.

it IS worth talking about how using Element as a way to categorize people reifies nations, borders, and race in a way that is VERY characteristic of white american liberals. i tried to be conscious of that (and the way that elements/bending can act in DIFFERENT ways, depending on cultural context) but i think it’s pretty clear that the writers did intend for element to unequivocally signify nation (and, by extension, race), which is part of why they screwed up mixed families so bad in lok. when they’ve locked themselves into this idea that element=nation=race, they end up with sets of siblings like mako and bolin or kya tenzin and bumi, who all “take” after only one parent based on the element that they bend. which is just completely stupid but very indicative of how the writers actually INTENDED element/bending to be a race making process. and its both fucked up and interesting that the writers display the same framework of race analysis that the canonical antagonists of atla do.

anyway that’s a few thoughts! thank u again for sending the article i really loved it and i had a lot of fun writing this <3

#this is 2.1k words LMFAOO #asks #analysis #do i have an analysis tag? #crit #lok crit

[sakiye]

Dear atla/lok fans of color, how would you change atla/lok to be less racist and culturally appropriative (idk if that is a word. Now it is)

#atla #lok #atla crit #lok crit

[listless-brainrot]

people are really like ‘oh atla isn’t political it doesn’t have the creator’s beliefs and shows all sides equally’ and then sit and watch as they kill/murder the communists and anarchists of both its original series and its subsequent sequel. and consistently only the communists and anarchists

#i haven’t seen lok but they kill so many of the red lotus guys on screen #like dude uhhhh kinda quirky kinda funny to kill them and pretend to advocate for centrism in a show with a very clear oppressor #does this. does this not Not sit well with anyone else but me. #avatar the last airbender #atla #atla crit #legend of korra #tlok #lok crit #fandom crit #original