Literary Carrot Muncher

When I was younger, I just passed through s2, thinking it was a bit boring with some good bits (love me some Varrick backstabbing).

In a lot of scifi and fantasy, some people are Special, but also mundane. Ie. they are just a part of everyday life in the world. It might be amazing to people in the world, but you know, it's also kinda just a thing that is. It might be an inherent quality, like a kind of magic or mutation, or it might be acquired, like cybernetic implants.

And what I often wonder is: how do people who don't have the Special fit in the world?

If the story isn't specifically about this, I find a lot of writers just forget that. Especially if the Special is the Cool Thing of the world.

Example: Avatar: the Last Airbender and the Legend of Korra.

Short explanation of the mundane Special: Bending is an ability where someone can exert power over one of the elements, Air, Water, Earth and Fire. You are born a bender, you can't learn or become one (except that one time).

Let's put aside that all benders are bristling with destructive potential and could go on a murder spree any time they want to. Let's also forget for now the ways one can combat that. No, let's talk about what kind of jobs benders and non-benders can do.

Throughout the two series, we see a lot of jobs that only benders can do and the society relies on that. Earthbenders can move rock containers around, waterbenders can heal, firebenders can conjure electricity from thin air to use in power plants.

Non-benders can do a bunch of jobs as well. You don't need to shoot fire and lightning if you're an office worker and there's plenty of labour that can be done by hand. Or you can just own a big company that has benders and non-benders working under you. Capitalism!

But benders can do all that too.

Benders are just normal people, but with the Special. They can still be office workers, do non-bending labour, AND do a capitalism.

What are the other consequences of this? What does that mean for the job market? Do people rather hire benders or non-benders? Are bender jobs better payed? Is there a bending pay gap in jobs that don't even require bending?

And let's go further. Do people rather want bender children so that they got a better chance of getting a job? How does this affect the dating market? How does it affect politics? What is the difference between the wants of the bending and non-bending voting cohorts? Which one are the politicians going to cater to more?

So on and so on.

The first season of the Legend of Korra is practically famous for how it sort of kind of alludes to an inkling of this, but doesn't do anything with it. It doesn't so much drop the ball as looks at the ball and decides to skip PE. The whole franchise is about the Special so it doesn't have time to look at what is not the Special in detail.

Also, you know, kids' series.

A lot of worlds where the Special is the Cool Thing do their world building by asking: "how can I show off the Special?" There's sports, there's special jobs. But there's very little "what about the not Special?"

It's my 13 year anniversary on Tumblr 🥳

So turns out, despite rampaging ADHD and generally bad real life stat checks, I have become wiser along the years.

I recently got my roommate (@eerieflavour) into ATLA (he loves it) and we just got to the end of season 2. Around there, we got to the part where a guru teaches Aang how to control the Avatar state by cleansing his chakras. Except Aang can't do the last one: he'd have to let go of his love for Katara. Oh no!

When I was younger, the choice was obvious. "You can't let go of love! Love is like oxygen, love lifts us where we belong." (Guess what my favourite movie was as a kid.) But now, I'm an adult, and not even the jaded, mean sort of adult who hates love and naïvete. I just know better.

The way I now take "letting go of earthly attachments" or whatever the guru says is that you should be aware that your relationships can end. And sometimes they do. And when they do or don't, you will still be there. It might hurt but you can move on.