Completed LoK last week. Just thinking about all villian philosophy.

  • DragonTypeWyvern@midwest.social
    42·
    11 days ago

    Yeah LoK is a bit of a centrist liberal backpatting session, political philosophy wise, including the corrupt billionaire apologia.

    And then kids-show Hitler, so fair enough.

  • piyuv@lemmy.world
    29·
    11 days ago

    Yes but also no, earth kingdom had despot monarchies for so long kuvira had enough, only to become one herself

    • blaue_Fledermaus@mstdn.io
      30·
      11 days ago

      One thing that has always bothered me is that the first series clearly showed that the Earth Kingdom was decentralized enough to survive years, if not decades, with minimal help from the “capital”, and even other cities had other kings. It makes no sense that the kingdom would fall into such chaos after the assassination of the monarch in the “capital”.

      • piyuv@lemmy.world
        11·
        11 days ago

        Perhaps we can think that advanced technology, alongside advanced communication, brought more centralized rule?

        • blaue_Fledermaus@mstdn.io
          8·
          11 days ago

          I can imagine that realistically many provinces would try to become independent after the war, and centralization could come from crushing those rebellions, but that is not what the story shows.

      • blackbelt352@lemmy.world
        11·
        11 days ago

        Those smaller satellite cities might be relatively autonomous but if the big guy in charge just got taken out, now it’s fair game to take power for yourself.

  • qarbone@lemmy.worldEnglish
    26·
    10 days ago

    Wasn’t Amon an Bloodbending gangster using a populist ideology to foment a rebellion? I don’t think he was really “all about equality”.

    • kusttra@lemmy.world
      12·
      10 days ago

      I’m hoping the op was purely going for comedic effect, cuz saying all three wanted “freedom and equality” is pretty far off the mark

      Amon was hiding behind a message of “freedom and equality” in a blatant power grab, trying to establish himself as the only bender remaining, and thus nigh invincible

      Unalaq didn’t want “freedom and equality” - he was like the people who think we should fix global warming by killing all humans. His only redemption is that his extreme perspective was potentially heavily influenced by Vaatu, but that seems a bit of a stretch…

      And while you could argue that Zaheer and the red lotus were for “freedom and equality”, it was by equally murdering anyone they didn’t like. Much like Kuvira, it was “I know better than everyone else, and thus must force my opinion on the rest of the world through rank violence.”

      And while I agree that Kuvira was an awful dictator and despot, comparing her to Hitler is overdoing it. Could she have gotten there if unchecked and given the correct pressures? Maybe. I highly doubt Hitler would ever have acknowledged his wrongdoing and tried to atone, though.

    • Count Regal Inkwell@pawb.social
      7·
      10 days ago

      Yeah arguably the former three villains all sucked.

      Amon was a criminal exploiting social unrest for his personal gain, and didn’t really care about the cause.

      Unalaq was the wuxia fantasy equivalent of an Ecofascist. “We are the virus” type shit

      And Zaheer as an anarchist didn’t really have a project or care about uniting the people, he just killed some powerful assholes and considered himself a hero for it, not even caring that killing a powerful asshole and fucking off basically just opens the door for other powerful assholes to do powerful asshole things. – Which they did.

      The telling part, to me, however, is that only Kuvira got a last minute redemption, where the other three fucking died. Because ultimately neoliberalism considers “violent warmongering and conquest (aka mostly it’s the poors dying)” to be less destructive than social unrest, violent environmentalism, or anarchist movements that target the powerful.

  • Count Regal Inkwell@pawb.social
    4·
    10 days ago

    Korra is basically a neoliberalist propaganda piece in a cartoon’s clothing.

    It shows us a world that is chafing as technological advancement and social change causes conflict with long-standing traditions – Which is a great premise, actually – And ultimately arrives at the answer of “replace all traditions with Capitalism. That will fix literally everything”.

    A billionaire known to be a crook is depicted as a dashing rogue who is an ally of the heroes. Of the three villains, only the fascist-adjacent one gets a redemption arc. Our protagonist deletes all previous incarnations of the Avatar and doesn’t even get a slap in the wrist for it.

    My hottest take? Korra would have been an awesome show if instead of trying to one-up TLA’s stakes (and failing) – It instead embraced being a low-stakes thing and became all about the Fire Ferrets’ professional bending career. Just four seasons of wrestling-esque shenanigans at the ring.