[ FS Anon Meme ]

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F!S Anon Meme (the ??th)

Secrets, rants, opinions, anything you want to say about your fandom or a fandom or fandom in general, do it here! Anonymously, of course. Get it all off your chest.

Some ground rules:
1. Going anon is encouraged but not absolutely required (for those who struggle with recaptchas and stuff).
2. No autoplaying/autolooping embeds, or embeds that cover/stretch the screen.
3. No dropping personal info or IRL contact info, etc.

That's about it, though!

(Today's post is below.)

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

i'm sorry anon i had to go out to dinner and this reply is super tl;dr.

basically, the two points you bring up concerning the politicians and the police force being benders was never actually brought up in the show. amon never said, "it's a problem that the council is made entirely up of benders". he never said, "it's a problem that the non-benders on the police force are reduced to park duty". what he said was, "we need to get rid of benders". that was an incredibly fucked up solution, considering, like you said we know there are good benders. but it's also pretty troubling that no other equalist went against this. none of them said, "well hey wait a minute something about this sounds fishy". why didn't hiroshi with all of his money try to work with the police force? i'm sure the non-bending police sure would have liked those electric gloves and nets and whatnot.

anyway we know from the flashback non-benders are allowed on the council. there was literally no indication that this had changed between then and now, so i'm actually going to say it hasn't. if it had tenzin, the only fucking benders on the council who stood against tarrlok's bill, sure as hell would've brought it up. if the government favored benders over non-benders it would've been mentioned by someone IN the show. and not to be a smart alec, but we don't actually know if the representatives from the swt and the ek are benders. if they were, then you know it was probably a really shitty coincidence that happened to have timed with amon's uprising. regardless, amon made it clear during his attack on the probending arena (in which non-benders were in the audience and being threatened by equalists) that the equalists didn't give a shit if you were a bender or a non-bender: if you stood in their way, they would get rid of you. the equalists weren't exactly oozing sympathy. the representatives are also chosen in their respective home countries, which imo is a lot more messed up than them all being benders. the council itself is a pretty flawed concept that probably worked a lot better in the city's earlier days, now that i think about it.

concerning the police, imo the structure of the force is incredibly vague, because there are only thirty metalbenders tops so i can't see what they would need that hugeass building for. is lin chief of the metalbending police or the entire force? because tarrlok had a task force of what could only be waterbending cops, mako is a firebender and a cop, and again there was our park cop who wasn't a bender. i'll partially concede this point on the grounds that we don't know enough about the police force to say whether or not it favors benders over non-benders. the show focusing on the metalbenders so much probably had more to do with them being run by toph's daughter than it had to do with oppression.

like, anyone can tell you benders using their powers to oppress other is bad. korra fights triads members in the first episode, and she fights tarrlok later on when HE abuses his power. tenzin fights against him (verbally) in the council meeting. an entire race of benders was nearly wiped out at one time, waterbenders were nearly extinct in the south pole, earthbenders were round up and sent to prison camps. i'm not saying this to try and prove that benders are the actual oppressed, but to point out the idea that society in avatar favors benders is ridiculous. but when your criminal class is mostly composed of a certain people, you shouldn't be thinking, "well gee i guess we better get rid of benders", you should be asking, "why are so many benders in the triads? what has made them resort to a life of crime?". now i cannot speak for every triad member, buuut mako and bolin were both in the gang and they're dirt poor. i really don't think that's a coincidence, i think it's bryke trying to send a message.

the imbalance in rc, imo, was actually between the classes and not the benders and non-benders. the satos were rich as fuck and they couldn't bend. mako and bolin have had a shitty life since their parents died and they're benders. there was a group of homeless benders and non-benders in the last episodes, people like to think that was bryke's way of glazing over the imbalance but it was more like their way of saying no, here is your real inequality. here is your real problem. the equalists were people angry with the economy and wanted answers, amon who had his own personal agenda took advantage of that anger and twisted it into something ugly. i'm not saying that every single equalist was just some angry loser who had no reason to distrust benders, i would have actually loved a sympathetic equalist who becomes disgusted with the movement and leaves it, but the closest we got to that was asami. point is, no matter what the reason was it doesn't justify wiping out benders.

i agree lok had a LOT of flaws and i really wish some things had played out differently, and yeah the equalists could have had a more solid ending (did they all just give up and go home? what was it like in rc those couple of days after amon was revealed to be a sham? were the united forces able to bounce back and take the city if morale was at an all time low? since hiroshi is in season 2, is it possible that there's still a movement that's retreated underground?) but when it came down to it the equalists' in the end were more akin to a terrorist cell than a group of revolutionary heroes.

[(Anonymous)]

this is a really good post, very well thought out, and you raise a lot of good points i hadn't considered

thank you, anon!

[(Anonymous)]

yw!

like i said lok had a lot of flaws! it's by no means a perfect show and i would have loved a more in depth look at the equalist movement/the economic situation in rc. bryke are amazing idea guys but i really do wish someone had been there to tell them maybe they need to cut back/rethink on some things.

[(Anonymous)]

Excellent point about the class imbalance being the underlying problem. It would fit, too, considering the time period the show takes place in, and the shift towards industry we see.