The Great Fire Nation Debate: Part 2, The Culture Shift
Otherwise known as “The Quickest Way to Get Asian ATLA Fans to Argue with You”.
Before I discuss the possible reasons why the Fire Nation’s aesthetic was changed to be primarily Chinese, I’d like to provide some links to examples of the Fire Nation’s canon Chinese-ness (and Thai-ness).
A:TLA Annotated has done a better job than I ever could at documenting the nuanced depictions of Chinese culture in the Fire Nation:
https://atla-annotated.tumblr.com/tagged/fire-nation/chrono
kkachi95 has also done a great job of visually documenting the cultural influences of the Fire Nation:
https://kkachi95.tumblr.com/post/185875001917/haha-i-cant-believe-they-made-fire-nation-into-a
For some visual intrigue, here’s a simple example of how the Fire Nation utilizes Chinese & Thai imagery:
Anyways, as I mention in the previous post, Bryke never actually gave a reason why the FN’s culture was changed to be more Chinese. However, I can think of three pretty solid reasons why the Avatar staff would choose make this change:
1) Too close to home. Imperial Japan’s actions during WW2 are still fresh in the collective memory of many East and Southeast Asian countries. There are people living today who experienced Japan’s war crimes firsthand and even more were alive when Avatar was first airing in the mid-2000s. Depicting a fantasy Japanese-esque empire invading other fantasy Asian-esque nations in a children’s cartoon could be seen as making light of those events.
2) Fair representation. As much as the individuals of the Fire Nation get humanized in the show, the country’s military still attempted genocide on all three of its neighbors. That’s a lot of fictional war crime to associate with a real-life culture. However, since the writing system and cool magic system are steeped in Chinese culture and the Earth Kingdom is also heavily Chinese-inspired, depicting the villains as also being Chinese-esque feels more neutral and balanced. Depicting the Fire Nation as unambiguously Japanese could be seen as portraying Japanese culture in an exclusively negative light.
3) International broadcasting. As I mentioned earlier, alluding to Imperial Japan in any media can be a pretty touchy subject for many East and Southeast Asian people. For example, in the Korean release of Soul Calibur, the samurai character (Mitsurugi) is replaced with a British character (Arthur). Had the Fire Nation remained Japanese-esque, Avatar may not have been able to air on Nickelodeon’s various Asian offshoot channels.
The cynic in me leans towards 3 being their primary motivation, but I’d like to think that Bryke also took 1 & 2 into consideration, as well.