All you need to know about Legend of Korra is that r/neoliberal recommended it as “a good show about the dangers of populism”
the dangers of populism
“AMERICA SPREADS FREEDOM AND DEMOCRACY. THAT IS WHY THOSE UNRULY MASSES MUST BE CONTAINED AND SUPPRESSED.”
They really do be thinking that USA is some philosopher king of the world, don’t they?
One of the more moments for me as a nascent leftist was realizing that the quasi-deified Founding Fathers™ were almost entirely just 1700s equivalent of today’s creepy techbros, including sus sex predator stuff.
Not surprised they liked it. One of the characters is a billionaire weapons dealer who worked with terrorists to sell more weapons, push a strategy of tension, and ignited a bloody war. He’s also the good guy, married his secretary, and is rewarded with a state award
Dude is just Charlie Wilson and NATO, the character
also he literally has a pablo escobar style luxury prison constructed so that when he is inevitably imprisoned for his corruption, he ends up in what is essentially a cozy hotel room. This would seem like a satire of capitalism, but it is played off like he is a clever and sympathetic character for doing this
Dont forget the comics where they decided that instead of returning the fire nation colonies back to the earth kingdom they should instead form a new nation out of stolen land
Also in the comics:
Earth Kingdom peasants rise up against the king for better conditions. The king asks Kyoshi, the avatar before Aang, to suppress them. Kyoshi won’t serve the king at first, but then some windows get broken or something and she goes full cop and suppresses them, then further goes on to establish the Dai Li secret police to prevent further protests.
The “wisdom” being that the avatar answers to no king, but destroying private property is even worse, so some weird centrism is the best . In general, the Avatar is a disgusting centrist neoliberal corruption of the original Indian concept of a hero incarnated to deliver divine justice for the oppressed
Korra had so much potential with this sort of stuff, the third season with the anarchist villains in particular. People actively challenging the idea of the avatar because they just defend the status quo and the rich and powerful could’ve been a fantastic series that actively challenges neoliberal ideas of power. Sadly we got the “pro-neoliberalism” avatar sequel.
The Airbenders went from a nation of peaceful nomads to being reborn as international cops without borders.
It’s funny that there’s been so much discourse on Hexbear about Avatar lately when I just started binging the show a couple of months ago, slightly over halfway through Korra now and yeah it’s pretty lib
The original series gets by on being very well written, but it’s still an essentially liberal story. Look at the handling of Jet. The freedom fighters are kids, yeah, but they’re also written as intelligent and empathetic characters. And their plan to rid the valley of Fire Nation is to… kill at the locals and make the village uninhabitable?
I understand the story deals a lot with obsession and doing things without consideration for the cost. But these characters were an incredible chance at the kind of nuanced storytelling that Avatar managed to sneak into a kids show and it always rubbed me the wrong way that Jet was kinda one-note in this way.
Or, in sokka’s case, a sword
