#anti fire nation

[survivalove]

Seriously gonna need certain people in the atla fandom to stop talking about colonialism with this singular definition of going somewhere, planting a flag and living there when there are so many different measures colonizers used (and still use tbh) to subdue and erase a people’s culture before “officially claiming” a country as their own, not even gonna get into those shady official means.

The 2 most common ways western media depict settler colonialism:

1. ethnic cleansing - wiping out the inhabitants and their culture by any means necessary: violence, disease, forced migration etc.

2. disrupting cultural traditions and economic advancement - imposing your way of life on the inhabitants making it impossible for them to survive on their own.

[P.S. This isn’t meant to be an all inclusive definition of colonialism as I’m sure there’s a lot of different ways you can talk about this that I’m probably leaving out from what I was taught growing up in a newly former colony myself.]

Frankly, I’m just tired of this fandom acting like the South Pole was not directly and indirectly affected by the Fire Nation’s colonial practices when:

1. ethnic cleansing:

Hama: They came again and again, each time rounding up more of our waterbenders and taking them captive. The Puppetmaster, Avatar the Last Airbender.

The Fire Nation literally tried to wipe them out continuously. They came back over and over until every single waterbender was captured and if another one was born (Katara) they came immediately back to keep the Southerners in their place.

As said by Katara and Sokka, waterbending was not just a means of fighting but an “ancient art unique to their culture”. The Fire Nation didn’t just physically subdue the South by taking away all their benders but literally wiped out an integral part of their culture which so much of functioning water tribe society depends on, which will be expanded on in part 2.

The Fire Nation also did this in the Earth Kingdom colonies as seen in Imprisoned, the only difference being the soldiers actually stayed in these places, but this did not stop the Fire Nation from coming back to the South and enforcing the same colonial practices they used in the Earth Kingdom over and over.

2. cultural and economic disruption:

I don’t know how much clearer the difference in the South Pole before and after the Fire Nation raids could have been made. The fact that they make it explicitly clear by including this frame in Hama’s story is just another example of how the raids affected the South’s overall development. With the genocide, they lost a huge part of their population to build, hunt and most importantly defend themselves. Like we see in the North Pole, the South had their own ice structures obviously built by waterbenders that people lived in, now living mostly in tents with the village being a much smaller size in general. Katara and Sokka are left to find food for their whole tribe with their benders (and other warriors) gone, and of course when the Fire Nation shows up yet again, they are extremely defenseless and would have been burnt to a crisp if Aang wasn’t there.

Of course, the war meant they also couldn’t celebrate a lot of their cultural and spiritual traditions with their warriors being gone, more an indirect consequence of Fire Nation colonialism since Hakoda made the choice to take the men to fight on his own. The consequences of this are first highlighted in the Bato episode and brought up again in Legend of Korra season 2 by Unalaq.

After 100 years of war, the Fire Nation literally managed to turn the South Pole into a colony in everything but name where they could go and enforce their will on the inhabitants any time they wanted, without having to physically live there in the cold which was least optimal for their living conditions anyway.

I’m tired of people acting as if the Fire Nation couldn’t go and “plant a flag” in the South if they wanted to, when in fact, they didn’t want to and they didn’t have to. They literally already subdued the South by removing them as a threat and was trying to do the same to the North in the Book 1 finale.

Anyways, I’m not an expert on colonialism and I’m not claiming these to be the only ways to define colonialism in real life or atla. This is just a rant based on my personal understanding of settler colonialism and just… my annoyance at how this fandom constantly downplays the already watered down depiction of colonialism in the show.

[haytsun]

How do you think the Gaang would react if Iroh was forced to face a tribunal for his actions during the war, particularly his actions during the Siege of Ba Sing Se?

gonna see who is handling the tribunal, if it was the gaang:

since canon showing like they have knew what iroh did, i think they would help iroh to defends because he had suffer and doing good things this and that, and he have zuko the best “son” the fire lord helping him, some thing like kuvira‘s ending, which saying the iroh redemption last piece is done

but for me i wish iroh suffer the hate from those family who lost their son from the bbs war to broke the hypocrisy-ego he had build form his son death, the gaang have no right saying anything to help iroh when those family speech the pain and hate, even zuko the fire lord cant help with that, because the people still not even happy the traitor being fire lord even the backstab fire nation for a good reason, and the rest of the gaang idk what to think, they might just stand up for zuko, bcuz people are to many, the rage they cant stop, what they can do is using their title to deter at the meantime, they deley iroh tribunal until they think something out, azula in the alyssum just laugh around what they have done

personally i wish the gaang be like iroh should paid what he have done, its not their right to help people forgive him, zuko being my uncle had done everything, he help restore the peace blahblabla, its gonna be a huge argue, because zuko knew if he not defends his uncle his own hypocrisy-ego also hard to handle being a “good” person

[queen-morgana91]

Avatar the Last Airbender beautifully told the story of how imperialists lie and have to be called on it and yet somehow certain people missed that message and turned into fire nation apologists

[survivalove]

!!! it’s because their hatred for iroh comes from a place of him betraying the fire nation and holding their faves accountable so they try to overcorrect by pointing out all his moral failings lmaoooo

this is the same tactic people use to hate on aang for how he defeated the firelord by calling him a hypocrite for killing a bee when the truth is they hate his pacifist nature in the first place

meanwhile EYE hate iroh for being an old perv who is loved by dudebros and didn’t deserve a happy ending but hey c’est la vie

i was thinking about how a lot of the AtLA fandom that is specifically a fandom of the Fire Nation (often of Azula specifically, but also tend to be Zuko fans that dont really engage about how his redemption arc IS a redemption arc and that him having Always Been Good is missing the point of his story) go to some lengths to argue that the Fire Nation is not fascist or a colonizing imperialist nation

its kind of fascinating and an example of how a fandom may come to view a faction or group that serves an antagonistic role be seen as fashionable, powerful and so on, and these parts of fandom gradually go to lengths to downplay their negative traits until by a game of telephone you wind up with people genuinely insisting that 'the nation that's all about conquering and imposing their ways of life on the rest of the world isn't REALLY an imperial nation'

and its a very strange take that's completely divorced from its role in the story of AtLA, because this kind of fandom response has people going 'oh the FN isn't actually an imperialist nation based on real life supremacist ideology, you're grasping at straws to make them look bad' and its usually associated with, say, people trying to argue their fave in the series isn't actually a supremacist or at least a classist despite the character never saying anything to the contrary

and my point is that this is kind of ridiculous because quite literally one of the first things we SEE of the Fire Nation in the series near the beginning of the series that characterizes their actual philosophy in any detail is a Nazi-inspired rally where military officers listen to a speech from Zhao (who comes off as being TYPICAL of FN leadership) about how 'FIRE IS THE SUPERIOR ELEMENT'

supremacist ideology runs deep in the Fire Nation, to the point where the self-serving philsophies they came up with to justify what they do is clearly modeled after the Victorian concept of White Man's Burden (to conquer and, to that mindset, bring enlightenment to others through force) in all its grotesque and condescending feelings of superiority.

Its baked into the Fire Nation's concept during the events of AtLA; pretending that it isn't so you can tout your fave as a Badass Girl Power/Cool Royal Person thing or whatever is so divorced from the series I have to wonder why you even bother caring about the series when the basic premise is 'defeat the Fire Nation because they're evil'

there's also something to say about how Iroh is widely disliked or even outright villified by the parts of fandom most famous for this kind of behavior. Regardless of how much he bought into that ideology, its also very much in the past and he is moving past it for a more cooperation between all nations and righting the wrongs of his ancestors (an act made rather literal when he burns the Fire Nation flag over occupeid Ba Sing Se, revealing the Earth Kingdom insignia it tried to supplant), and its strange how his negative aspects are highlighted by Those fandom people while they treat the Fire Nation loyalists in terms of moral grayness despite... well, them SUPPORTING the supremacist ideology all about conquering the world/burning it to ashes to murder their concept of hope so they can conquer the world

the FN is not morally gray in the slightest. The show is not subtle about it and this fandom gets so fucking WEIRD sometimes

[burst-of-iridescent]

antis will hate on zutara for being a colonizer/colonized ship and then turn around and ship zuko with mai — the girl who was at best indifferent to her country’s imperialism while enjoying the privileges of being a high-ranking member of the colonizing state, and at worst actively complicit in said colonization, without ever undergoing any growth or showing any signs of disagreement with the ruling regime, even till the very end — and expect people to take them seriously lmfaooo

[marinette-buginette]

Kiyi is not a Princess - A Look At the Fire Nation's Line of Succession

It's not even that much about Kiyi. But the creators seemingly got so lost in the sauce that their ideas about how absolutist monarchies work are as good as taken out of Disney movies now. So, let's set the record straight.

The Fire Nation line of succession

When it comes to royal lines, there were multiple elements that went into setting the line of succession: descent, sex, legitimacy, religion etc. For the Fire Nation, the ones we have 100% confirmed are descent and legitimacy (this last one seen with the Camellia-Peony War, where Chaejin was excluded from the succession because he was born out of wedlock). I would have gone on a whim to say sex counts as well, however, it is a bit foggy. In the Reckoning of Roku, it is mentioned that Firelord Taiso believed Zeisan (Sozin's younger sister) would have been a more competent ruler but could never become Fire Lord due to being a nonbender (I didn't actually read the book, so if someone who did wants to pitch in with the exact wording, please feel free to). This implies that being a Firebender is a requirement, but being a woman isn't. However, it also implies that Taiso would have been fine with ignoring the descent part (Sozin was older) if he deemed fit. Skipping the firstborn in favour of the second one isn't unheard of when it comes to succession so sure. And he is the absolute monarch, if he wants to pass papers to change the line of succession, he can. It is unclear to me if there is any power in place to veto or block a Fire Lord's ruling on any matter so for all we know, if he wanted, he could have. Plus, the fact that Ozai got crowned over Iroh because it was 'Azulon's dying wish'. For the religion part, it seems like the Fire Sages have to perform the coronation and acknowledge the monarch.

So to make it more digestible, the line of succession (while Azulon was still alive) is: Iroh → Lu Ten (firstborn of the heir) → Ozai → Zuko → Azula. With Lu Ten dead, Iroh MIA (at the time) then we have Ozai → Zuko → Azula. When Iroh came back, he gets added at the end of this line of succession. I am a bit unclear on Iroh in current times because it looks to me like he rescinded his role in the line of succession altogether with deciding to live in Ba Sing Se and letting politically inexperienced Zuko rule instead of taking over for a few years to create some stability.

Right now, we have Fire Lord Zuko and his heir presumptive (aka an heir that can be displaced if the monarch has children) Azula. Unless he wrote a decree to take her out of the line of succession — which would require a lot more brain cells than the writers are willing to give Zuko, not that he had a lot of them when it came to politics to begin with —then she's next in line. It doesn't matter how much anyone wants it or not, if Zuko drops dead tomorrow, Azula gets the throne.

Now, onto the other matter.

How does one become a Princess?

Option 1: You marry into the royal family. For example, Ursa was styled as a Princess, as she married Prince Ozai.

Option 2: You're born in a royal line. For example, Azula is a Princess because her father is a Prince, her grandfather, at the time of her birth, was the ruling monarch of the Fire Nation etc.

Bonus Option it's complicated: Royals had a habit of having children out of wedlock sometimes. Said children, if acknowledged, could be granted titles (Count of X, Dutchess of Y etc.) . Getting acknowledged and a title does not automatically put you in the line of succession, though. For example, Firelord Chaeryu was forced to acknowledge Chaejin and avoid dishonoring his noble mother and her house, but he excluded Chaejin from the royal family.

So Kiyi is not a Princess. Simple as that. Neither of her parents are of the royal line.

Could she become a Princess?

Well, this gets interesting.

Let's start with the fact that Kiyi got a pretty bad deal in a class-based monarchical society.

First thing, while her mother is a noble, her father is a commoner. Even if Ursa's family became destitute after Roku's death because of political reasons, it does not change the fact that she is still nobility unless Sozin revoked Rina's title, which I am not 100% sure he did. We don't know anything about Jinzuk besides the fact that he was the magistrate of Hira'a. While magistrates do not have to be part of the nobility, they can be. He could have been a second/third/fourth son of a small noble family with limited power/resources, given the position he was given was in a place like Hira'a, which is what I am inclining towards. He could have also been just some guy, but someone appointed him, and as a rule of thumb, you don't just go into the street and pick a random person to appoint to an administrative and leadership role, even if it's a small town. Given that Azulon was set on Ozai marrying Ursa because she was Roku's granddaughter, whether or not Jinzuk was a noble, it doesn't matter all that much in the grand scheme of things. However, in Kiyi's case, it does if Zuko wants to give her a title. It's more stigma than anything because people can be given nobility titles for specific services to the crown etc. But this is not her only issue. Which leads me to...

Second thing, Kiyi is a bastard. Which, in my opinion, would hold even more stigma than her father not being a noble. Ursa never divorced Ozai. As far as we know, polygamist marriages aren't a thing in the Fire Nation, so her marriage to Ikem/Noren is invalid. Could she be granted a divorce retroactively by the Fire Sages? Actually, yeah. Because Zuko named Shyu as High Sage, which was like the one sound political move he ever did tbh. We don't see what the Fire Nation's stance on divorce is, but given that Shyu is a Zuko loyalist, he'd probably grant Ursa retroactive divorce from Ozai. I am not a legal expert, however, as far as I know, retroactive decisions tend to be reserved for correcting a mistake or omission in the written record. She was still married to Ozai when she went and married Ikem. Though technically, she married him under a fake identity (and so did he), which might make the marriage void regardless in the eyes of the law. Idk how Spirit involvement affects legal matters in the world of Avatar, but as things stand right now, unless we pretzel-twist ourselves to make excuses, Kiyi is born outside of legitimate wedlock.

Now, Zuko might not care. In fact, he probably doesn't. He could still give Kiyi a title, including that of Princess. It was not uncommon for illegitimate relatives of rulers to be offered roles/titles once acknowledged. The real question is if he would put her in the line of succession. Kiyi has no business being there because she does not have royal blood.

Could Zuko do whatever he wants, give her the title of Princess and shove her in the line of succession while taking Azula out of it for good measure? Sure, he can. He'd probably love that, in fact. But that leaves two things open.

One, nobility would not take kindly to a bastard child of a commoner with no royal blood being in the line of succession. If we also add the angle of taking Azula out of it, it would just increase their ire. There is already a long list of why the nobility is probably angry at Zuko (and should attempt to assassinate him a lot more than they do), but I think this one in particular has other implications. There might be nobles who are neutral about Zuko. Shamelessly discarding societal norms on a whim might make their perspective swing towards negative. It could make him lose goodwill he might have or potential allies.

Two, it will make the commoners wonder. If this random girl, raised as a peasant, with a commoner father, born out of wedlock, can be put in the line of succession just like that — while discarding a princess of the blood if we are at it — then… is the royal line not that special? The whole premise of a monarchy is that the monarch and their descendants have the divine right to rule. Being part of that bloodline gives you the right to rule. So if that can be discarded, if that bloodline is not all that important… should Zuko be Firelord? And most importantly, does the Fire Nation really need a monarch at all?

Kiyi is not a princess, and for the well-being of Zuko's reign — which is already barely holding together — he better not make her one.

[the-genius-az]

I want Azula to have a father or mother figure who truly loves her, who screams for her dad or mom when she's in danger, who cries and is comforted by her parents, who is protected by them.

I don't know! It saddens me to know that she had to fend for herself, that no one cared enough to know if she was okay or not.

Shit, even her older brother tried to kill her, the person who should protect you and be there for you against the world, doesn't give a shit about you or prefers to blame you for all his problems.

They don't deserve Azula, and Azula deserves so much better.

And no, I'm not saying this because I'm a fan of hers, I'm saying this because she's a traumatized fourteen-year-old girl, groomed to be a child soldier.

[survivalove]

this is why i don’t want a *szeto or roku book lol

yeah the yangchen book is definetley an improvement of the water tribes as despicted in the kyoshi books. i think on the kyoshi blooks FC Yee just hyperfocused too much on making the fire nation look good by making everyone look just so much more poor and corrupt to make them look cooler IG. I think we just need to step away a bit from Fire Nation favoritism in general tbh. I think Korra made the right step in not featuring it at all.

Honestly i take focusing primarily on the Fire Nation as a red flag. I don't think any of it comes from a place of outward, self-aware malice, but it so often it reveals some deeply racist shit. Like the amount of tags i'd have to block because i was so disenheartened with how many people clearly didn't see people like me as a human being or their cultural equal and it was seriously affecting my mental health and manifesting as those stomachaches you get when other kids point at you and laugh in elementary school, it's ridiculous.

There's something about fixating on the Fire Nation and characters from it that just brings that shit to the forefront and discourages any deeper analysis in why they make these assumptions. I don't care for it.

[corgoship]

Fandoms vs. The inconceivable goodness of fictional cultures

It's strange and a bit worrying how (often adult) fans look at fictional marginalized cultures (in kids media) that are by default written to be virtuous, and they twist themselves into knots to try to prove how they were horrible people all along, and I'm left wondering: Why? Not to mention it's often coupled with apologism for the actual, textual bad guys, who are often straight up fascists.

This is mostly about the Jedi (Star Wars) and Air Nomads (Avatar: The Last Airbender) but feel free to add more if you know any.

My analysis and observations are under cut! Fair warning, this is a long post, and I'm writing this on the fly, so please forgive me if this isn't as coherent as it was in my head.

(Sidenote: It appears as though both of these cultures were inspired by Buddhism to certain extents, way more blatantly in atla. However, I would argue that the some of the philosophical conflict regarding attachment in atla was pretty heavily influenced by Star Wars: the season 2 finale is emotionally almost the exact same thing as the climax of Empire Strikes Back! But that's a story for another post...)

In a nutshell

Both of these cultures are described as wise and peaceful. They both put a lot of emphasis on meditation and enlightement. The Air Nomads are pacifists and vegetarians. The Jedi preach love and compassion, as per Anakin in Attack of the Clones. Both of them value love, but are discouraging of attachment - which a lot of people wrongly conflate with love in these texts, I believe. It is not specified whether or not Air Nomads could marry, but they lived in monasteries separated by gender, and the Jedi were not allowed to marry. Both of these cultures were victims of genocide by a fascist regime. And both the stories of Avatar and the original Star Wars trilogy are about an individual, who can be considered the last of their extinct kind, and the resurgence of their forgotten beliefs of kindness bringing peace to a war-torn world.

(Sidenote no. 2: they both have Mark Hamill. On the actual opposing sides of the spectrum, too. He went from being the hero electrocuted by the Emperor to... Being the Emperor electrocuting the hero. Which is kind of funny to me.)

With all that said, it will always boggle my mind how people will say these fictional cultures were conservative, arrogant, harmful towards children, dogmatic in their religion, and worst of all, DESERVING of being murdered. This is something I will NEVER understand or agree with.

The many crimes of the elemental monks and the space wizards

Let's dig into the criticisms they often receive, shall we?

To rapid fire list off a few: being too isolated from the rest of the world, indoctrinating children, having strict rules that restrict freedoms, deeming feelings to be inconsequential and a bad thing, considering themselves to be superior, and being too arrogant to notice their coming demise, which some consider to be justified by the aggressor.

Now, I will say not all of it is without merit, and some of these things could be taken as real flaws that were intended by the creators of the respective stories. The Air Nomad elders are dismissive of Aang's fears and that fear is what essentially forces him to run away at twelve years old. The Jedi Council tells nine years old Anakin that his fear for his slave mother could potentially lead him to the Dark Side and make him evil. Both cultures teach their children from a very young age, and the children are raised communally - which isn't in itself a bad thing, but I can see how some people mind find that uncomfortable, especially with the Jedi, who take in children from various cultures. Both Luke and Aang are advised to not only forego attachment towards the people they love, but they are actively asked to stand by and potentially let their loved ones be hurt or killed. (Take this last point with a grain of salt because neither Aang or Luke were ready to do what they did, and they both paid for it dearly, so the advice does have real merit, despite what some people might tell you.)

This is about the extent of the textual flaws I could find. So what do fandoms do? They take these flaws and completely blow them out of proportion. I have seen takes that claim both the AN and Jedi steal children from their families. That they are dogmatic in their religious beliefs, ostracize those who don't conform (or don't have their special powers), and they are condescending to other cultures, even considering themselves to be superior to others. That their ideologies were harmful and that they deserved to be eradicated for it.

How do you make a leap like that? In a story made for children, no less? We are presented with these cultures as being good, and the text never urges us to question their goodness. And this is by design - because again, these are stories for children, so there isn't much moral ambiguity when it comes to the murdered peaceful pacifists and the evil imperial super power threatening the world. So why do people still twist the narrative in spite of this?

Grey morality only gets a story so far

My best guess is that they DO want that moral ambiguity to be present, even if there is none, because that's "more realistic" and "better storytelling". I can agree with both of those statements to a point, but realistic doesn't automatically equal better. Sure, added nuance can often enrich stories and prompt more philosophical questions and more interesting conflict within the story itself, but is it always necessary? Does it always enhance the themes the story is trying to tell?

We are told to take the fact that the AN/Jedi are are a force of good at face value. And why wouldn't we? What is it that makes people question this, despite there existing little canonical information to disprove the innate goodness of these cultures built on love and compassion? Again, I believe that people - mostly adults - crave for things to not be black and white. Real life usually isn't. But stories aren't real life. There isn't some hidden secret that proves these bad-faith right. There are some flaws present at worst, but that is enough to spin headcanons and straight up lies that further the idea that there is no such thing as a paragon of goodness. Because of such a thing not existing in reality, it cannot exist in fiction either.

To love or not to love

The biggest issue people take with these two cultures, as far as I have noticed, is their view on love and attachment.

And then there is the most extreme version of this - the people who claim these cultures were the true evil all along, and that they were deserving of being victims to genocide by the imperial power. This is more rampant in atla fan spaces, and the agenda there is a bit more spite-motivated, because while the Air Nomads didn't hurt anybody (unlike the Jedi who could be seen as hurting Anakin, as far-fetched as that claim is), Aang is an Air Nomad, and a certain part of the atla fandom really doesn't like him (not gonna beat about the bush: it's certain zutara shippers). By painting his dead culture - which Aang loves and holds in high regard - as bad, they either make him supportive of harmful beliefs, or naive and ignorant, unwilling to take criticism, therefore stubborn and bigoted.

This is of course connected to his romantic relationship with Katara, which a lot of people claim is a bad thing. I will not get into the specifics here, but a large chunk of the fandom doesn't understand what the act of "letting go of your attachment" means, and that Aang achieves this in the s2 finale (which is what allows him to enter the avatar state on command), and that he's not, in fact, unhealthily obsessing over Katara. A different shade of this criticism is that in being the Avatar (similarly in Star Wars, a Jedi), Aang cannot love Katara in a full, meaningful way, because he is held back by his duties, and he must put the world over her.

Much like in Avatar, in Star Wars, attachment IS an obsessive form of love that impacts people negatively and should be avoided. In the more extreme cases, such as the case of Anakin, it leads to ruin, and it is his inability to let go of his feelings and think rationally that creates problems. In the case of Luke (and Aang in s2) and his love for his friends, he gets punished by the narrative for indulging his fear - he gets mutilated as a direct result of choosing his friends over taking the time to become stronger and have a better chance against his enemies.

Now look me in the eye and tell me where do either of these stories state that love is bad. You can't, because that's not what the stories are claiming at all (there is a reason why Aang ends up with Katara, and why Luke redeems his father through his love), and some people are incapable of drawing that distinction. They would rather claim that the AN/Jedi are dismissive of love and feelings as a whole, than to admit that the sort of love THEY personally value might be unhealthy.

Because I do honestly the believe that most of these detractors are the type to find "i would burn the whole world down for you" to be the truest form of love and devotion... When that, is in fact, the exact thing these stories caution about, and by pointing that out, they're not claiming that love is bad, but that it has the potential to grow into obsession, which we can all agree, is objectively bad.

Lastly, let's look at the other side of the equation...

Long live the empire!

The evil Fire Nation and the evil Galactic Empire are just that - point blank evil. This has never been put in question by either piece of media. There is nuance to be found, sure, with the Headband episode in atla and Zuko as a character, and... I actually can't think of a single not-blatantly-bad thing about the Empire/Sith in the original trilogy + prequels, lol. Maybe that the separatists had a point, and that the republic was collapsing in on itself under bureaucracy and corruption - but that's still no brownie point for the Empire nor Palpatine, lol.

Palpatine's derision and disdain for the Jedi is used to manipulate Anakin to... Become evil. And while his words may have a grain of truth in them, they are deliberately twisting the Jedi ideology and making the Dark Side look not only palatable, but necessary for Anakin to save Padmé, something the Jedi had failed him in (as far as Anakin himself believes). Why would people readily believe the bad guy, who has been lying and deceiving everyone, about the things he deliberately said to manipulate Anakin? Because it makes Anakin's turn seem more... Justifiable that way? It sure did in his eyes, but we as the viewers are supposed to see past that, since we have all the context, and he doesn't.

Atla takes a bit of a different approach and tackles the anti-Air Nomad propaganda head on. In the afforementioned episode The Headband, we go inside a Fire Nation school, and we see how they are being taught lies in order to justify the FN's attack on them (claiming they had an army, etc.). And yet there are still people who claim otherwise, that the FN was indeed right to do what they did, despite canon making it very clear that they are lying about what happened! (Also, let's just throw away the entirity of s1 episode 3 where Aang comes across the charred bones of his people and his mentor... Let's just not touch that, I guess. Don't worry about it.).

In both cases, the common thread is that the FASCIST bad guys are given grace, while the marginalized minorities are demonized. They are excused for their crimes time and time again, because what? Their aesthetic is cool? Their weapons/fighting style are cool? They're badass? You can appreciate these things for what they are, sure, but when does liking how something looks swing over into condoning the very bad things these people are guilty of? Probably when you start preaching how they, in fact, "did nothing wrong", and how the resistance are terrorists, and that people are inclined to be on their side only because the narrative paints them as the good guys... Yeah. You've lost the plot.

Or... Maybe you just like the person committing the atrocities...

It's not my fault my blorbo is a fascist warmonger!

This is the last point I will go over, I swear. There certainly is an overlap between fans who hate said marginalized cultures, and fans who love a certain character... Who happens to be a part of the fascist regime. Respectively for these fandoms, it's Zuko and Iroh in atla, and Anakin/Vader in Star Wars. Now, I am not saying Zuko is a bad person by the end of atla, don't get me wrong, but he spends the majority of the show flaunting the fact that he's a prince, and he's actively oppressing and terrorizing people in the first season. A huge part of his growth is recognising how the Fire Nation is crushing the world in an iron fist and reigning terror - Zuko says as much in his conversation with Ozai before he defects. I feel like the vast majority of people recognise that his words ring true, and that he's become a better person by confronting his father and his evil regime. But there are still some, who will bend over backwards to make the Fire Nation look better, so that Zuko and/or Iroh are absolved of their earlier crimes. Because god forbid my favourite character did bad things in the past, right? It's blatantly clear when people do this, and why they do this. An extended version of this is when they make the FN seem less evil so that Zuko can be shipped with Katara without any hang ups about her becoming the Fire Lady or similar common tropes in the zutara fandom.

And then we have Anakin. To keep it short, a lot of people view Anakin and Vader as two different people (Anakin didn't murder the younglings. Vader did!) and believe that he's not responsible for his actions after falling to the Dark Side. How to deal with his actions pre-fall, you ask? Well, he was justified, because the Jedi were holding him back, because they lied to him and belittled him, and refused to help him. All of Anakin's actions up to that point are the Jedi's fault, of course! I'm not saying their treatment of him was inconsequential to how things turned out, but he was very much in control of his actions and chose to do the things he did. The Empire wasn't going to magically fix the problems of the republic (and by extension, the Jedi) and I have no idea why certain people would think so.

Just kidding, I know why...

So... Where do we go from here?

I don't know man, I don't have a conclusion drafted. I just think this phenomenon is quite sad to see - people are refusing to see past their own biases, and they would rather twist the story to their liking than engage with the text in a more meaningful, constructive way.

I do think this needs to be called out when you see it, because it's a very relevant issue today. Fascism isn't cool just because the people doing it are someone you identify with in some way. Genocide isn't cool because the people affected are someone you disagree with.

It's just fiction, but these problems are present in the real world, too. People are very quick to forgive someone they support, and very eager to stone anyone they disagree with. They are not past creating and spreading misinformation about those they hate, just to get more people to agree with them.

It's quite worrying to me, especially since in these fandoms in particular, it boils down to the same thing - if people can't understand right and wrong when it is being spoonfed to them by a story crafted to be understood by children... Then how will they act in the real world, when met with more complicated matters?

Thanks for coming to my ted talk.

[emrys-merlin]

I just not vibe with people in atla fandom, sorry

Reading some posts and.... it looks like you wanted Aang to be punished for being an air nomad, a good kid and a pacifist. Like some of you are acting like if this kid who did lose everything and everyone didn't suffer enough. You all are acting like he had it easy, that he didn't have trauma because he had the audacity to have fun (pretending to be experts of trauma, like shut up people), that he didn't have survivor's guilt, that he didn't have any conflict....

Y'all are acting as if the genocide survivor of the series was "rewarded by the narrative" and that’s disgusting

It's just so...weird

[survivalove]

i’ve finally realized why people think saying that the southern water tribe wasn’t actually colonized (true) is a good defense against saying that the fire nation x water tribe is a colonizer-colonized ship (also true) and yes obviously i’m talking about a certain ship involving a certain character born in a certain family of a certain time. pls don’t bring up korrasami or whatever the like let’s not be obtuse

it has a lot to do with semantics and tropes

yes, the southern water tribe was never officially made a colony by the fire nation at any point in time. that doesn’t change the fact that the fire nation:

invaded the swt continuously

stripped them of their resources

reduced them to a shell of their culture, making them unable to be self-sufficient

enforced the same order on a foreign body like they did with their actual earth kingdom colonies. like i really think y’all like playing dumb

and that when people talk about a trope, they’re talking about a certain dynamic as it is portrayed in the show. the canonical power dynamic between the fire nation and the southern water tribe. the canonical history between the two nations. the canonical consequences of the fire nation waging war on the world, specifically the southern water tribe.

and the fact is, this all is akin to a colonizer x colonized ship

and my thing is, y’all know that too yet continue to play semantics to defend your ship. i mean should we start calling it genocider x genocided? is that better? again, stop being obtuse because you know exactly what people mean

[zuko-always-lies]

Azula was already going to break the cycle of abuse (and Zuko maybe won't?)

The Fire Nation royal family has a massive problem with generation after generation abusing its children. Playing favorites to an insane degree is normalized and perpetuated. Azulon blatantly favored Iroh over Ozai, Iroh blatantly favored Zuko over Azula, Ursa blatantly favored Zuko over Azula, and Ozai blatantly favored Azula over Zuko. One child is treated as useful and important, the other rejected and neglected.

Azula grew up in an abusive environment where all of this was normalized. She was only 14, and had never known anything else other than this style of parenting which served to turn one child against the other.. She literally ordered to fight her brother by her father.

Yet, despite all of this, Azula realized that this wasn't right. That she and Zuko should not be at each other's throats. That there was something very wrong with the favoritism. The entire "bring Zuko back with honor" idea was premised on the idea that there didn't need to be a favorite and a scapegoat, that Zuko and her could share Ozai's favor as equals, that Ozai had been wrong to disfavor and discard Zuko like he did.

Azula was obviously a bad person, a deeply flawed person. But if there's one thing she already learned in her heart of hearts in canon, it's that Ozai and Iroh and Ursa and Azulon's style of parental favoritism was deeply, deeply wrong. This is not something she has to learn post-canon, it's something she learned in canon.

I don't think Azula, on the track she was in canon, would ever grow into a great parent, but I am sure that she would never favor one of her children over the other the way that her elders did, that she would ever favor one of her nieces or nephews in that way. She knows better. She's already on track to break the cycle of favoritism.

By contrast, Zuko never learned that this sort of parental favoritism is bad. His problem with Ozai is not that Ozai played favorites, it's that Ozai's favorite was Azula and not him. He never even recognized that violently fighting with Azula was something bad, much less recognized that parental favoritism inevitably turns siblings against each other.

Thus, unless Zuko undergoes more growth post-canon, I think it's extremely likely that he'll fall into the same sort of abusive favoritism toward his children that his forefathers practiced. After all, that's even how his "true father" Iroh acted.

As much as we would like to act otherwise, the cycle of abusive has not been ended. Zuko needs to learn and acknowledge that what all the adults was doing was deeply wrong before he can personally break the cycle.

[queen-morgana91]

Mind you, Aang is a genocide survivor because of the fire nation AND Zuko royal family

Mind you, Aang is not "privileged" compared to a member of the fire nation royal family

Mind you, Zuko was trying to capture Aang and he sent an assassin to kill him. Yes, he should be grateful that Aang, a genocide survivor, he’s still a pacifist, he saved his life twice and forgave him.

Never change, fire nation stans 🤦‍♂️

[kidcaroline]

Aang being simultaneously universally loved and heavily despised by certain demographics just like in canon is so iconic like he’s so king

[longing-for-rain]

I’ve been thinking about The Promise again, and it’s really interesting to me how the narrative tries to frame Zuko as the “dark” character once again, despite the fact that Aang was the one considering banning interracial relationships and supporting the Earth Kingdom in invading Yu Dao (which most of the people living there did not want).

In canon, Aang only changed his stance on interracial relationships after realizing it would affect him personally. But consider this—what if Katara wasn’t interested in Aang at that point. What if she was with someone else?

It would be interesting to explore how that would change the plot.

[waywardbananawolf]

According to fandom, the Fire Nation must love Zuko because... he an awkward turtle duck? But really, why would the Fire Nation love Zuko? In the first place, when I refer to the Fire Nation, I mean to everyone, from the civilian population to the nobility, why would the nobility want Zuko? Most of the power connections that the nobility would have would be between Ozai's government and therefore his heir Azula, in addition to losing business and benefits from the colonies, why would the army support Zuko? If we consider that Zuko's honor is totally stained thanks to the fact that he betrays his father and therefore his Nation and organizes and carries out an overthrow with foreign forces stepping on Fire Nation territory, why would they trust someone who practically made them lose a war won by making the death of thousands of soldiers worthless?, why would the civilian classes support Zuko if he is just a name known mostly for his cowardice and betrayal?, why would they support Zuko if he caused a mass exodus of migrants from the colonies expelled from lands that had belonged to them for 100 years?, why all classes would be happy to pay compensation to other nations if we consider that the economy would be in ruins since it was adapted to permanent war and the extraction of resources of the colonies?, in addition to a refugee crisis and the return of hundreds of thousands of soldiers who could not enter the labor market due to overpopulation and limited resources.

and they only tell me that there was a small and stupid organization that wanted him out when if we look at it critically there could be at least 5 organizations against Zuko's government