#worldbuidling ideas

[redd956]

Worldbuilding questions to get the creative juices flowing 21

Theme: Sicknesses, viruses, & diseases

How common/rare is the ailment? Is it currently spreading? What is an approximant amount of people/entities it effects? How does this size of the effect it’s reception?

How scared are people of the ailment? Are there any measures being taken? If so what? And are these measures effective or harmful?

What does the ailment do? Is it fatal? Is it temporary or permanent? Does it leave anything behind even if cured?

What is the basic knowledge known about the ailment? What is the unknown knowledge about it?

Does it affect certain demographics more than others? Does it even effect people? Is any demographic immune to it and why?

How does the ailment enter its host? How does cause sickness? What type of ailment is it? (genetic, bacteria, viruses, parasite, curse, whatever)

Can the affected built immunity? Is there a cure? Are cures even possible? If there is no cure are people working on it? If there is a cure how was it discovered, and is it effective?

What happens if the ailment is never treated? Does it naturally go away or get significantly worse?

What are the symptoms? Is there a contagious period? How is it spread?

This is another topic I suggest throwing in lots of rabbit holes and research, because there is a lot more to diseases, viruses, and sicknesses than what meets the eye in our own world. Also get super creative, literally as worldbuilders, sicknesses have no limits.

[bookwyrminspiration]

Do you think Mermaids exist in KOTLC?

They do exist and are mentioned in canon! When Sophie is searching through Edaline's trunks in Everblaze looking for Jolie's stuff, she comes across some of her journals and says:

"A quick flip through the pages told Sophie there were probably some interesting stories in there--the words 'monitoring the mermaid migration' particularly caught her attention" (p. 264).

So they exist, but appear to be more animalistic than humanoid. Like she does with selkies and banshees and dragons, adapting them into her own creatures. Hope that helps!

[danceswithswords]

At the beginning of TotK hype so many people were huffing *obscene* amounts of copium with Rauru’s Arm “OH MY GOD IT’S TWILI MARKINGS TWILI CONFIRMED!” I think even the most staunch believers in that knew it was a pipe dream, but now having completed the game, this really would have been great to reintroduce the Twili as the denizens of the depths. Rauru showing that the Zonai who’s original domain was the sky would make the shadow people amazing foils for the Zonai. Imagine going down and discovering a scattered/barely surviving race barely surviving giant Froxs and Lynel what have you, having to deal with Gloom every day. They  would be the ones to explain more cryptically what was going on since they would have been the absolute first to encounter gloom and its effects and also if they were foils to the Zonai would have been ancient and more clear on their roles in ancient times. Since not a lot grows down there I imagine they could have been the ones to trade Zoanite to the Zonai for food and other advanced technology.  It would do so much more to flesh out the Zonai as well as bring back a long-forgotten Zelda race that could really do with some fleshing out. I also like the idea of their society outlasting the Zonai making them more resourceful and less overconfident.

[frillsand]

☆ Adding a Star to the pile!

Honestly, it was a long time coming. Your actor AU is one of my all time fav AU's I've personally come across, and I always adore seeing what new stuff you've put up on your blog when you can. Whether it be text or images, I love seeing and reading them. You put a lot into it, and I enjoy seeing what you whip up in your art as well. It is a very nice and cute style to me.

I just, enjoy seeing your world building and thought you put into it, through the ask and illustrations you add. In fact, I even watched The Happy Time Murders (admittingly not great in story and way to immature humor for my normal taste, but has its upsides in puppetry and world building) just to get more background and ideas of how you were making this, and boy, are you scratching the worldbuidling itch that was left with me after watching it.

Aside from that, I also relate to some of the stuff you talk about, like your confidence in your art. It is nice to be reminded that we all have those doubts, even when subjectively the art is very nice. It just might be an artist thing, whether you're a professional or a hobbiest, to see how good everyone else's work is but your own at times.

Sorry if I'm a bit wordy, but I just like to gush sometime. I have been learning that I can tend to be a bit quiet on stuff I adore and enjoy, so giving my fave blogs a reminder that there are those like me who enjoy stuff kinda silently feels nice.

I’ve stared at your words for a while and even now as I try, the words still escape my mind. I can’t help but find your comment very comforting and reassuring to hear that my effort is visible, even if it’s only a hobby. I don’t usually have people looking my way so this is very weird to me, and I know there’s many AU’s to choose from, I’m just glad people spend the time to look through mine.

I might not respond to everyone but be assured that I look at every single comment and will continue to do so until the content stops and we all slowly part ways

[scarlet--wiccan]

I don't know whether to laugh at or worry about some of the Wanda fandom on Twitter - they're calling for Leah Williams to take over writing Wanda from Orlando 🤣

I mean, I'll keep saying it, these people are fucking idiots. Say what you want about Orlando's writing over the last two years, he has a deep knowledge and understanding of Wanda's history and a very clear vision for her character and trajectory. Leah Williams, by her own admission, was less familiar with Wanda when she wrote Trial of Magneto, and I think she demonstrated a clear disregard for character integrity. And I think her worldbuidling ideas were stupid!

If people enjoyed Trial of Magneto more than Scarlet Witch because it was more dramatic, had higher stakes and greater impact, or just had better god damn "feats," that's fine. That's a matter of taste, and I can certainly see how Trial feels like a more satisfying and meaningful chapter in Wanda's history than Scarlet Witch. But I will maintain that Orlando's character treatment is superior and has contributed more, in the long run, to Wanda as a ongoing protagonist in the Marvel world. Williams and the rest of the X-Men writers of the Krakoan era treated Wanda like baggage that needed to be resolved, and they made a number of unfair historical revisions and ableist, racist choices to get there.

WHICH IS THE OTHER THING ABOUT LEAH WILLIAMS is that there is well-recognized pattern of racist choices in many of her books, including the finale of X-Factor, which led directly into Trial itself. I would have grave misgivings about that woman writing a Scarlet Witch solo series.

[flock-from-the-void]

This Chance's poll reminded me that I have no idea what to post here as well. So em. Here's the poll, please reblog so more people can see it

[thetownsendsw]

Kinda veered off in the middle here where it talks about slave-raiding, thinking about the whole “Roman slavery as a civilizing method” bit. Often temporary and they come out of it with the language and a trade. So what if we lean a little Lilith’s Brood into it?

Evil galactic empire captures slaves, puts them to all the harsh work their society needs done. Their lives are so much shorter and less meaningful than the imperials’ own, so what does their struggle or death matter to the luxury of eternity? Naturally as part of that enslavement they have to learn the language, become immersed in the culture, but it also comes with the medicine. All that the imperials have learned to get to the point of immortality. Different biologies, it doesn’t work the same, but what eternity without an intellectual challenge? So the imperials, at their own plodding pace, set about extending the lives of their favored slaves…the ones who survive anyway.

It may take a few generations, perhaps millennia of slowly lengthening generations. Everyone starts out at that same level of menial tasks, but once the science around a particular species gets to the point of them living a handful of centuries, we’ll there’s perhaps one or two imperials a bit younger than that, let’s move them to an administrative roll as their forms begin to fail.

Eventually—and ‘eventually’ can be a word with great meaning here—the upper limit on a race’s lifespan…breaks. The last cancer has been cured, the last failing fixed. You needn’t breed so fast any more, young ones, we’re not running out of you. Aren’t you grateful? We’ve given you forever! Your youngest (well, the favored among them at least) won’t be doing labor anymore. Unsuitable for those who know the culture, who speak Language (thanks to our modifications), and who, most importantly, have eternity ahead of them.

Rejoice! You are imperials after all. Wouldn’t you like to study the newest batch of slaves? Their lives are so brief, it will be fascinating to watch them evolve into the culture

Idea I got tangential to a discussion on a socialist humanity Mass Effect AU premise on SV, copying and pasting from my relevant posts there:

Point: if you get rid of aging and most disease, the main thing that kills people will be accidents, suicides, and murders, and there's probably a lot that can be done to make accidental death less likely that we don't bother with because old age usually kills us long before an accident can.

One of I'm sure many examples: we have subway stations with rails in open roughly person-height depressions that people can just fall into, our society considers this risk acceptable, but I expect in a society of unaging people there'd be some kind of partition with doors separating the passenger platform and the track (much like our elevators usually have a door on the elevator compartment itself and doors on the access points of the elevator shaft).

Similarly, I expect a society of unaging people would become much more scrupulous than us about removing trip hazards, making vehicles as safe as possible, etc.. I expect they'd also automate dangerous jobs like construction pretty much as much as possible, much more than we do.

Really, if you're going to go with a dystopian angle for the Asari, I think the one I'd go with is having them rely heavily on aliens for dangerous jobs, on the logic that if an Asari construction worker falls off a scaffold and splats like a bug on a windshield on the ground 500 meters below, they've lost centuries or millennia of life and a shot at living to see the stars burn out, but if it happens to a human, oh well, the congenital terminal degenerative disease they were born with (aging/senescence) will probably kill them within 50 years anyway, so they lose much less. A wealthy society with an unaging citizen class surrounded by societies of people who age might look a bit like those Gulf petro-states where much of the actual work-force is a subaltern class of foreign migrant laborers.

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Aside following a tangent from the last paragraph of my previous post: "they're unaging and see their own lives as much more valuable than the lives of aliens with limited lifespans because they lose so much more if they die" would make a much more interesting rationale for Batarians being chauvinistic slavers than "they're just kind of generic evil nationalists."

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Edit: I think a species like that would probably have a vibe less like canon Batarians and more like stereotypical fantasy Elves at their worst or Skeksis. E.g. they'd be reclusive and hikikomori-ish cause their whole lives are structured around reducing risk to themselves, meeting one face to face would be a special event because they rely heavily on mercenaries and janissaries and robots to do their fighting for them and on Mouth of Sauron type minions and remote communication for diplomacy. And they might contemptuously refer to shorter-lived races as "mortals" like Dracula or some asshole fantasy Elf would.

I really like this as an idea for an "evil empire" faction in a space opera setting! Much more original villain motivation than the millionth variation on generic tyranny or religion of evil or whatever! And it's a rationale for slavery and imperialism that stands up at least a bit better to the "raw materials would probably be super-abundant for a society with interstellar travel" and "a society with interstellar travel would probably have pretty good automation" objections.

More ideas for a faction like this:

So, I'm thinking give them something a little like the canon Batarian kind of pathetic Space North Korea vibe, but different, and also adjust it for a setting that's less heavy on the human-wank, so make them a faction that could credibly get trashed in a conflict that's more like the setting's equivalent of the 1895-96 Italian-Ethiopian War.

So I'm thinking lean heavily on the Skeksis parallel here. As part of that, give them a vibe a little like "what if Panem from The Hunger Games invented warp drive and met advanced aliens?"

These aliens are naturally long-lived and slow-breeding, and their risk-aversion compounds this (reproduction may be risky to them like it is to female humans, and even if it isn't reproduction is risky in that it introduces a new and potentially unpredictable player to the social landscape), so their population is very small. Their territory basically consists of their homeworld plus maybe some asteroid mines and other space infrastructure in their home solar system. Almost all of their population is on their homeworld; they may even have a thing like Known Space Puppeteers where members of their species who take the risk of leaving their homeworld are literally considered insane (but usefully so) by most of the species. Even their homeworld has a very small population, maybe a few hundred million tops, plausibly only tens of millions, and most of those are the "mortal" slaves who make up most of the actual population. It's basically ocean and wasteland, a bunch of giant sprawling estates, a single capital city, and a minimalistic and heavily automated infrastructure to support that.

Obviously, these people have no reason to fight aliens for resources or living room. Rather, what they're short of is labor. To this end, they sometimes send out ships to capture slaves though raiding and piracy. Maybe they also buy slaves from some of the shittier empires they have contacts with too.

Possibly there's some shorter-lived indigenous sapient species on their planet that they co-evolved with or enslaved early in the history of their civilization, and their slave-raiding is just their attempt at folding aliens into that system, mostly an attempt at acquiring captives with valuable knowledge and skills (in which case captives will probably get less chains and whips slavery and more subtler forms of coercion). Or maybe their present social system is a reaction to contact with "mortal" sapient species and the "mortal" slaves on their planet are all captives or the descendants of captives (probably mostly the latter, though I think they'd carefully control reproduction among their slaves and keep their slave population either stable or growing only very slowly - they'd be scared of the possibility of their much faster-breeding slaves becoming too numerous to easily control, and being unaging they'd have very long planning horizons).

The slave-masters have a very small population and are a highly privileged class. Each one lives like a feudal lord, tended and pampered and protected by robots and slaves. They rarely do any physical labor: that's much too dangerous! They live in a floating world of luxury and status games; their society has kind of a Heian court vibe. They often scheme and intrigue against each other, flex and dunk on each other, and seek to sideline and disempower each other, but these struggles are mostly relatively non-violent because they have a sense that the life of one of their own is precious and a solidarity based on that which transcends whether they like each other as people. This obviously fits with their ideology, but it's also instinctive, reflecting an evolutionary history as a long-lived slow-breeding species for whom every viable offspring was precious; quite likely they embraced the ideology because it resonates with their instincts. The idea of killing or even injuring one of their own is viscerally horrifying and repellent to them and they would resort to such measures only in the most extreme circumstances; they've probably executed, like, a single digit number of their own kind in the last few millennia, and each one of those is remembered as an infamous traitor whose depraved betrayals of their own kind are overshadowed only by the mind-searing horror of the punishment meted out to them.

I think one of them would make a good video game antagonist cause they'd lend themselves well to meeting one of them being a boss fight. Like I said, for an outsider meeting one face-to-face would be a rare special event because they'd be very reluctant to expose themselves to the risk of close proximity to an outsider, but 1) if they did, it'd be with the best protection their society could arrange, 2) very long lifespans and slow breeding is only likely to be selected for if there's little risk of dying by accident or predation, so it would be most likely to happen in a species where mature individuals were pretty hard to kill. So an individual of this species would likely be very reclusive and hikikomori-like but very formidable if they actually showed up for a fight. In a Mass Effect context, think maybe a giant being comparable in dimensions to an elephant or T-Rex which also is a very powerful biotic, is packing the best weapons and protected by the best protective suit its society can produce with no expense spared, controls a personal squad of combat robots and elite janissaries (themselves dangerous opponents!), and has thousands of years of experience. If you manage to kill it the others of its kind will spend millennia mourning it and hating you for the unimaginable crime of destroying a mind that was already vast and ancient when the capstone was laid on the Great Pyramid at Giza.

One thing I like about this idea is, like... Somebody said in that discussion that the point of species like Batarians, Dilgar, etc. is to basically be a super-evil version of Spain for a war that is to humans what the Spanish-American War was to the USA, and I think with this idea it'd be obvious that it's really more like the First Italian-Ethiopian War or the time Idi Amin got his ass kicked by Tanzania. Like I said, one of these unaging slaver aliens would be a very formidable opponent at the small scale, but if you zoom out to what sort of threat they'd be on the galactic scale it'd be kind of obvious that humans bragging about beating up on them just shows how pathetic Earth still is compared to the setting's great powers; their tiny population makes the idea that they could be any kind of existential threat to the real big players a joke, they'd be basically the setting's equivalent of, like, if Somali pirates were somehow controlled by North Korea, and really, the idea that they'd be any kind of threat to Earth is kind of seriously embarrassing for anyone pushing a "HUMANS STRONK" line, they probably have less people than Bangladesh and that's doing the equivalent of counting the helots with the Spartans.

[theminecraftbee]

yo I dunno if you've talked about the like idea and inspiration for carrows is yet, but if not please do? I'm so curious :o

also I absolutely loved carrows!! excellent worldbuidling and magic system :]

i think i've talked some before! it's got a number of inspirations. some of the inspiration is directly from the fact that the mtg set new capenna came out. there's this tiktok that periodically goes around tumblr about a haunted printer and that is exceptionally atsign agency. i was inspired in general by various similar concepts of "supernatural private eye agency" (i have not read the dresden files but it is almost certainly related to the tradition those books have created, for example.)

i was also aiming for a general noir inspiration! hence the setup of the story - there's a very corrupt government that our protagonists work in the shadows of, they're approached by a mysterious rich woman with a mysterious past, they have their own checkered past, and they have to make their own choices. that being said, i don't think it's a straight noir (thematically it's too happy to be noir if you'll believe that; the ending, despite it's ambiguity, is probably a little too good, joe and cleo are too much of good people, and it's a bit too goofy in general to really fall in that genre).

generally though, it's just... whatever melting pot of urban fantasy influences already existed in my head, getting thrown into the setting and plot! the original concept behind the au was always just "joe and cleo supernatural agency that gets in over their head" and everything else was built around that.

i'm glad you liked it!

[theaistired]

What is your favorite wip to work on ?

Thank you for the ask, @wyked-ao3!

For The Human In Us I have a lot of fun with the worldbuidling because I have a chance to put some weirdness into the real world and have a little giggle with it.

But I'd be lying if I said that I don't have a favourite brainchild and it's Galidean.

It's a WIP that's been with me for 12 years now and I love seeing how much or how little things have changed over the years. Since the stories of Galidean span across several continents and centuries I really get to dig deep with the worldbuidling. I'm also really fond of the characters. And working on this WIP is just really therapeutic for me. I think that because the idea for it has been with me for so long there's something in Galidean that is a part of me that isn't as present in other WIPs. Galidean as a WIP has changed with me over the years so it's really dear to me.

So, overall Galidean but if I need a giggle, it would be The Human In Us.

Thanks again for the ask! Wishing you the best!

~Thea

[planet4546b]

for the oc asks- for birddog: sparkle, pizza, and clover? (i dont want to mess up my recent emojis page sjdjfhf i am very particular about it)

✨- How did you come up with the OC’s name?

one of the earliest things i knew about birddog was that she was a scout unit, and i wanted the name for her to be a colloquial, tongue in cheek type way of referring to these units (their official designation is saint-hail), so something related to a hunting dog ended up being a fun choice!! i also like that its two parts - is the saint or the hail the bird or the dog? her chosen name, cory, is related to the scientific name of a species of dragonfly, i knew i wanted her to be linked to dragonflies from the start

🍕 - What is their favorite food?

i don’t have a great idea about what food culture looks like in the syzygy (esp with the exegesis specifically, cause they’re mostly inorganic) but birdie would LOVE a little street food snackie. whatever that looks like in this world

🍀 - What originally inspired the OC?

she is Just my destiny oc reskinned and with a new wip around her akdjjdjf. when i hadn’t been engaging with destiny as much i got upset that my poor baby june was trapped in there and i didn’t have as many excuses to think of her (she’s an all time fave oc) so i started going ‘hey, what are the important parts of her character and how can i use them in my own work?’. seeing as i love sci fi worldbuilding and my only other sci fi wip is…..a weirdo that i don’t work on often, it worked out great to be able to build a little world for her. and sci fi worldbuidling is fun!!

ty!!!

[drchenquill]

Writer Questions Tag~

Thank you @paeliae-occasionally and @theink-stainedfolk for the tag!

• What is your absolute all-time favourite idea you’ve ever had?

My own vampire lore! I usually don't have that much worldbuidling because I'm a big "create as I go" writer, but this time I surprised myself with this.

• Is there a question you’ve been asked in the past that really stands out to you, and you still think about sometimes?

My memory fails me, so I have no clue.

• What is your favorite part of being a writer? What parts could you take or leave?

I love creating, so I guess I love evertyhing about it. Creating stories, characters, worlds, everthing about it is great!

• What is your greatest motivation to write/create?

Wanting to share it. I want to share my creations with the world, watching people like my OCs, hearing their opinions on them, reading comments about it. I just want to share!

• What is the best piece of advice you’ve ever read or been given as a writer?

Write however you want. You write for yourself first.

• What do you wish you knew when you were first starting out writing?

That not every writer writes the same. It's okay that I have my own style, which is simpler compared to others. It doesn't mean I'm not as good.

• What is your favorite story you’ve written to completion? Link it if you’d like and can!

Well, it's in German. I'm slowly translating it, but the original is still the original. If anyone knows German and is interested, here "Das Monterosa Anwesen."

• Which of your characters would you say has the most controversial mindset? Why do you say so, and how do you personally feel about their ideals?

Azul. Hands down. He has no morals, he is an asshole and I think he's an awful individual

• If you, when you first started writing, met you now, what would younger you think?

She would be so confused because writing was never on the list of things I wanted to try out, but here we are~

~~~~

Tagging with no pressure @the-golden-comet , @leahnardo-da-veggie , @fablesandfragments , @satohqbanana and open tag~

[spritebloom]

It's the New Year! So have all the blogs that helped me (somewhat) with my spec evo project, as well as cool blogs in general! I also made a similar post on @octahedral-chaos and @octastims.

@charseraph : Awesome worldbuidling and creature design. Also the crowns are adorable.

@jayrockin : Awesome worldbuilding, spec evo AND character design! Love the centaurs!

@alexriesart : Very, VERY in-depth worldbuilding and spec evo stuff. Birrins are very cool.

@extrajigs : Really cool creature design and thought out worldbuilding. Love the chimeras' design.

@delta-hexagon : Very cool art and alien designs. Also very rad In general.

@iamthekaijuking : Awesome at biology AND spec evo stuff! Love the ask-thingies about random biology stuff.

@wbqotd : Worldbuilding stuff! Very useful for getting ideas for your project, but don't know which part to focus on.

@mbari-blog/ @montereybayaquarium : Deep sea stuff! Absolutely awesome and you guys should support them... plus the "Into The Deep" exhibits look awesome.

@nasa : Space stuff! Pretty good for figuring out the actual planet AND star system your alien story/ project thing is taking place on.

[worldofnaffia]

Sketches from 2014. I was obsessed with owls and bird stuff, I wanted them to be a part of this worldbuidling. Well its still an idea but it will be different now. Bird like creatures and such?

[izaxthegunbold]

Izax ref sheet (as of 2023)

Updated my ref sheet. Now with some lore that i'm gonna use for worldbuidling in the future! Took me nearly a month to make it cause of a few distractions but i can say i'm quite proud of it. Hope y'all looking forward to what i'm gonna do with it in the future! I have some other characters ideas that i'm gonna use for it too.

[your-local-uwu-artist]

little smurf update!

so this project may be bigger than I initally planned: at first I just wanted to make some silly headcanons and theories and draw some silly doodles

but after just doing the surface level of research I feel as though there is so much I'd love to talk about and share so I have a NEW idea

instead of doing one little silly video I think I'd like to make a multi part series, one video to discuss out of universe stuff (history, development of the series, folktale and fairtales it's reminscent of, political controversies, and mushroom science facts cause i can) another to dicsuss in universe stuff (lore, worldbuidling, characters, the different story continuities)

than I think it'd be fun to do a like easier filler video, I've really enjoyed everyones answers on the google form esspecially those that shared tidbits of childhood nostalgia,so I think it'd be cool to open up another google form or go hunting for smurf related anecdotes and share everyoens smurfy stories, childhood memories and nostalgia, or silly little thoughts. :3

next I'll do my original plan, sense at this point in my journey i''ll feel i have properly examined these little guys under a microscope and can now take everything apart to put back together like legos or mrs potato head for funsies. aka the orignal plan: draw characters share story ideas and headcanons and play around with the original story and lore

and if I'm reallllly feeling up to it what if I make celebration video of attempting to make smurtsune miku plushie after all is said and done

I'm sure if You've followed me for a while, I have a habit of maing grand youtuber video ideas that I never follow through on. and I say this everytime but i feel confident about this one! idk, it's silly and fun and despite being a big idea it doesn't feel as imposing as my other ideas. idk man, but I aleady have lists and paragraphs of writing and also new smurtsune miku art will drop tommorwo probably lmao

anyway: I think ima go through my posts and tag stuff like this with 'yuwutube' so that we can all have an organized means of reviewing my silly little ideas dnfajkdnfak my 'boycringe'(opposite of girlboss) moments of you will fdnasjkf

[deafmangoes]

Why Legend of Korra Breaks Avatar's Worldbuilding

Part 3: Politics

The last in my three-part rant about Legend of Korra. This one is the most excuseable because who really wants to put complex international relations into a kid's show, right?

(Look, I was one of the kids who enjoyed the trade dispute arc in Star Wars, sue me)

Avatar's worldbuidling as applies to politics is... pretty simple. There are basically only two "nationstates" as we'd understand them, in TLA, and a handful of "nations" who are not states, as well as some local and indepedent territories.

LoK expands that to three nationstates but gets a bit muddy about the rest.

"Anarchy Bad"

This is more a generic look at the way the series treats politics. It makes it look complex on the surface but it's really very shallow. Again, kids' show, fine.

Season 1 and Season 3's antagonists are both anarchists of a sort. Amon is, on the surface (before he's revealed as a fraud), a sort of socialist who decries the (actual, displayed) inequality shown towards people who can't bend elements. He's the bad guy, of course, because this is an American TV show so we can't have any of that.

Season 3's Zaheer is explicitly an anarchist of the very stereotypical "no gods, no masters" type. Unfortunately there's a lot of mixed messaging going on, because the writers go out of their way to show three nations with incompetent leaders (the Republic City President, who only cares about ratings; the Earth Queen, who exploits her people as property; and more subtly Suyin Beifong in the semi-independent city of Zaofu who is shown to be a bit out of touch with the common folk and running a bit of a dystopia.

Despite these examples, Amon and Zaheer are still definitely shown to be "wrong"... even when their core grievances are upheld as legitimate. The writers don't really seem to know what to do there.

How is this related to the worldbuilding, you ask? Because it shows there isn't much, under the surface. The Earth Queen is assassinated and Ba Sing Se is explicitly stated to fall into utter chaos immediately. Apparently the Dai Li can't do jack shit. The greater Earth Kingdom is also stated to be in a bad state, which could be chalked up to generations of mismanagement from the kingdom's government and warfare with the Fire Nation, but this isn't really discussed or displayed either except for mention of "bandits" in Season 4. Instead we're fed this idea that although the Earth Queen is objectively a bad ruler, without her in place everything falls apart. Don't eat the rich, kids, just... I dunno, go blog about it.

Obviously this isn't how things work IRL. Yes, we have the narrative idea that once you overthrow a dictator things go to shit (see: any war in the last forty years), but this is an overly simplistic look at things. Infrastructure and statehood are complex, messy things that don't flip like a binary switch.

In 'reality', Ba Sing Se may have been a bit loopy for a few days but the Earth Queen's successor would have taken over, the Dai Li would have kept order (like they had been for a century already), and most of the kindgom's bureaucracy would keep ticking over without issue.

Prince Wu

A bit of a basebreaker character, Prince Wu of Season 4 is the Earth Queen's nephew and designated heir to the throne (selected and supported by the Republic City President, the Fire Lord, and Tenzin... which shouldn't be how that works, either, and smacks of other political corruption). He's shown at first to be a whining, pampered, buffoonish dandy but grows over the season to become more connected with the people to the point where he indicates he wants to dissolve the monarch entirely and replace with a federal democracy.

So... wait, last season overthrowing the monarchy was bad and led to complete chaos, followed by three years of a military dictatorship, and now it's all good actually don't worry about it. Again with the mixed messages; also the implication that the people of the Earth Kingom can't do anything unless the God-King allows it, as if they're simple peasant morons who need careful shepherding and guidance.

All in all, it leaves the worldbuilding feeling very insubstantial and empty.

The World Leaders

On that note, it seems that every major decision is delegated to a council of five people: The Fire Lord, the Republic City President, Master Tenzin representing the Air Nomads, the Earth Monarch, and Korra's Dad.

In Season 1, Republic City was more complicated and run by a council that had a representative from each bending nation and a token non-bender. We see in the comics/novels that Aang and Zuko set this up to resolve the issue of Fire Nation colonies in Earth Kingdom territory, and it's overall a pretty okay way of doing things. Very early democratic experiments, I guess.

It gets replaced with a singular President later because... Honestly I don't really remember, but it smacks of "this is too nuanced, make it simpler".

These five people - of whom only one is an elected representative, it's worth adding - meet a few times in Seasons 3 and 4 and are hinted to form a sort of "united nations" analogue. After the Earth Queen's assassination, they seem to be the ones who 'decide' on Prince Wu as her successor... rather than, you know, her government? Or the pre-established line of succession?

It's not really surprising that Kuvira decides to go do her own thing.

How Does the Earth Kingdom Work, Anyway?

Firstly it should be noted that, looking at the world map, it's implied the Earth Kingdom is the size of Eurasia. It doesn't take a lot of knowledge about history to know that this isn't very realistic and is generally considered a big "no-no" in worldbuilding.

From what we can glean from the show, it seems to be a sort of feudal monarchy, with the Earth Monarch ruling from Ba Sing Se (as a city-state) and accepting the vassalage of the rulers of other states - Season 4 shows us briefly the 'Great State of Yi', as well as Zaofu, which is nominally part of the Kingdom but seems to do whatever the hell it likes. Suyin said she "purchased the land" - from who? The King, I guess? Never really cleared up.

From TLA, we know that Avatar Kyoshi previously protected a peninsula - later Kyoshi Island - from becoming part of such a kingdom, so we can infer from this that there are fully autonomus and independent groups around. The Great Desert and the Sandbenders seem to bow to no one's authority, and the Swampbenders are the same.

So really, it looks like the Earth Kingdom is more like a very loose grouping of states who all pay nominal lip-service to Ba Sing Se. This definitely shouldn't lead to the "full anarchy" that supported Kuvira's rise to power.

So... maybe that's actually an in-universe lie, or Republic City scaremongering. Certainly it looks like Kuvira just spent three years going around each of the states in turn and subduing them into her Empire, but apart from the one display of bandits attacking Yi, we have no knowledge of how well or badly the others were faring.

The "Air Nation"

Just as a side note, I love that Tenzin gets an equal seat on this whole world leader council thing when his entire 'nation' is about thirty airbenders and a couple of hundred fanboys.

The Water Tribes

Finally I just want to highlight that in TLA, there are two water tribes - one at the north pole, one at the south, which makes sense because they're literally a world apart from eachother. in LoK we see them "reunited" and Korra's Dad is in charge, but like... There's still the geographical distance, dudes. It's not easy to run a nation as one thing when both halves are separated by the entire planet.

Anyway... That's probably enough of all that. Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.