not to mention there is no proof that nonbending oppression even exists.
Tarrlok only rounded them up because he needed a common enemy that he could seem like a hero for defeating, and he wanted to one-up Amon and be bigger and badder than his dad. He also arrested Mako and Bolin that night, proving that he doesn’t care about bending supremacy so much as he was just on a power trip. He probably decided that, well, since Amon is fighting for non-benders he’ll fight against them, stick it to his big brother. Both benders and nonbenders were caught up in what was essentially a personal conflict between a terrorist and a corrupt politician.
Amon wasn’t even a nonbender.
Hiroshi was motivated by a very specific and personal incidence.
Bending gangs are not a sign of privilege, they are a sign that many benders are dirt poor. Poverty/crime do not = privilege. They aren’t a group like the KKK who target specifically non-benders, they’re a group that’ll violently take money from anyone.
When Korra threatened that protestor, a cop, possibly a non-bender considering he wasn’t in metalbending uniform, came to his aid. This would rarely happen in the real world to an activist for a marginalized group.
Amon’s revolution has some parallels to Mao’s, something that’s been confirmed by Bryan (the propaganda posters) Mao was a manipulative douchebag that made China a worse place to be once he came to power.
Benders were systematically killed/arrested in ATLA. People don’t randomly get privilege, it builds up after years of persecuting a certain group. How in the world would benders rise to power in 70 years in a city that was specifically built so ‘benders and non-benders could live together in harmony’. How would they randomly start persecuting non-benders when there is no history of them doing so before? There were non-bending guards in Hama’s prison you know.
While obviously one or two people can’t represent an entire group, in a TV show, all the characters serve a purpose and represent something. Our rep for the RC non-benders are the Satos, rich, powerful, beloved until Hiroshi decides to be a terrorist.
Our rep for the benders of RC are Tenzin and co. who are airbenders, a race made entirely of benders that was completely wiped out, and Mako and Bolin, two street kids who even get extorted by the probending dude.
So then why would non-benders even join Amon’s revolution? idk, maybe because when you live in a world where a minority (and I’m p sure benders were confirmed to be a minority in bryke’s commentary, maybe not, seeing as this is just what I heard from around) has super powers, you are naturally going to feel threatened. This is a natural emotion that has nothing to do with man made oppression or privilege.
Aang’s non-bending son is a high-ranking, well respected general. Sokka was hgihly influential in RC.
Basically every villain in this show was motivated by very personal reasons. Nothing is suggestive of systematic privilege or oppression.
Just because a sketchy, charismatic, talented speaker says that a group is oppressed doesn’t mean said group is actually oppressed. In fact, Amon is fond of ‘cleansing benders of their impurity’ which doesn’t sound like something someone who cares about civil rights would say.
He tied up the last few members of a dead race, the majority of which are under twelve, on a stage to be humiliated and have something that feels as essential to them as a limb and which is a unique and important part of their culture ripped away from them. He also bombed the city indiscriminately, obviously not giving a shit about equality.
I’m not opposed to social justice allegories, and I think a privilege/oppression sort of thing would have made for an interesting plot, but as it is, I see no correlation between the equalists and the marginalized groups of the real world.
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