Fanart - The Four Elements Specialized

by Ctreuse109 [x] [x] [x] [x]

Interesting how the first three elements exclusively feature specialized benders (you can even see Zuko in the background for the Lightningbending art, since we only ever knew him to redirect lightning not conjure it) while only three of the five in the Airbender set have displayed any enhanced spiritual powers akin to Jinora’s explicit specialization of Airbending, spirit projection. Aang has done something similar many times during his journey, and Tenzin was able to project his inner enlightenment out into the Fog of Lost Souls in order to dissipate it and save his family.

The many faces of Prince Zuko.

(…) But I keep coming back to how The Legend of Korra takes this opportunity to imagine a future without European and American colonisation and imperialism and give us nothing but that.

And that leaves a very foul aftertaste. To suggest that Americana is the inevitable future of all worlds. That is no other possibility for modernity and progress. That westernisation is inevitable even in fantasy worlds without a “West.”

The Southern Water Tribe’s aggressive industrialisation, exploitation of their environment and creating pollution is very much part of this “inevitability of progress” theme. It’s very uncomfortable given how the Water Tribe is based on indigenous cultures (especially the Inuit-Yupik culture). In the real world these are very much the people resisting imperialism, especially ecological imperialism (which they do in The Last Airbender), and thus to cast them as the polluting villains implies that given the opportunity these cultures would be “as bad” as the West, that this is how “everyone” is.

It universalises something that just isn’t universal.

At the same time, there is no lasting legacy of Fire Nation imperialism and colonialism from the age of Last Airbender. Despite being primarily set in the United Republic, which was a Fire Nation colony that didn’t want to simply be transferred back to Earth Kingdom rule after the war (having developed something of a hybrid cultural identity in the hundred years). This is all told in the comics and only passingly referenced in the show itself, but none of the characters carry old grudges. There is no obvious disparity in power within the city that is explored or articulated. When it comes to conflict within the city, it’s all about the Equalists, who want all benders to be done away with, not just fire benders.

And that just doesn’t ring true to me. The whole arc of Republic City rejecting Earth Kingdom rule after a hundred years of being a Fire Nation colony sounds very familiar to me, as someone from Hong Kong. Colonialism shapes a place very fundamentally. The legacy of that doesn’t just go away in seventy years.

I know seventy years sounds like a long time, but it is as far away as WWII is to us now. The scars of the occupation are still very present in east asian communities. Every other east asian person I know has a parent or grandparent who has not forgotten about the war. My father refuses to buy anything Japanese made. If nothing else, you would think there might be a memorial to those who have been lost in those wars.

Also Aang saved her baby brother

See, audiences are obsessed with justice and fairness in stories. They want the characters they like (the protagonists, usually) to win and for the villain to get their comeuppance. Stories get more complicated and really interesting when they question what justice actually is and what it means for characters to get what they deserve. Should the characters get what they want? Or what they need? If the characters haven’t “earned” it, should they get anything at all? If, at the end of a story, a character has gotten neither what they wanted or what they needed, why not? 

A:TLA covers justice a lot, in many different ways. There’s Hei Bai’s forest, Jet and the Freedom Fighters, Monk Gyatso’s skeleton, Avatar Kyoshi and Conqueror Chin, the Ocean Spirit’s revenge on Zhao, what happened to Katara and Sokka’s mother, Hama of the Southern Water Tribe, Iroh’s past as the Dragon of the West, Zuko’s suffering versus his sins, Iroh and Zuko’s rejection of the Fire Nation’s war and their efforts towards peace, and so on. 

A:TLA’s finale is especially well done because traditional story justice expects Aang to kill Ozai for everything the Fire Nation has done. The characters in the story expect Aang to kill Ozai. It would be long-awaited justice for the world. Ozai is responsible for the deaths and suffering of thousands of people in his time as Fire Lord; it can’t be argued that he doesn’t have a lot coming for him. 

But Aang doesn’t kill Ozai. 

And it still works, because at that point in the story, it’s not about what Ozai deserves, it’s about what Aang deserves. Aang is a 12-year-old boy who has the fate of the world on his shoulders, the last member of a pacifist culture that’s been essentially wiped from the face of the planet, and he doesn’t want to kill anyone. It’s justice for Aang, the last airbender, not to have to kill Ozai.