The Legend of Korra and Political Power

The Legend of Korra demonstrates the political thinking that I’m worried will lead to war.

A quick note before we begin: I don’t like such a hyperbolic style. In the early days of this blog, I did a lot more social criticism. I wanted to be a reviewer, so I tried to write like one. When I think like a reviewer, I become caustic. Flaws are all I can see. I pull out problems, and then declare that therefore the whole structure has fallen apart, even when there’s some pretty good or even very good work left in what I’ve condemned for collapse. I get it into my head that a book or piece of music means something very specific - usually bad - for the entire world, and I need to plant myself like a tree and refuse to move. That wasn’t productive. My writing needed work, and it failed to capture how I truly interact with the world. There are undoubtedly things I critique in my day to day life, but most of the time I’m interacting with and appreciating things that I truly enjoy. I made a decision to move away from pure criticism. Instead I try to simply explain why I love the things I love. I’ve gotten better at holding contradictory ideas about things. There are parts of books that I really enjoy, even if overall it’s disappointing. Writing, sitting down, and trying ( and sometimes failing), to put my thoughts on paper has helped me realize that it’s hard to communicate clearly let alone write what people enjoy reading. Now that I’m hopefully a little wiser, I’m back to grand theories, even if it is a little hyperbolic.

Avatar: the Legend of Korra isn’t going to be what leads to war, and this single article about it won’t stop it. I wish my effort to explain what I love in life could change the world. I hope everyone who reads anything I write will come away from it with a new attitude, looking for things to appreciate and considering why they like the things they like. While I hope that’s true for individual readers, I don’t think that any piece of writing or media is really going to change everything. Would I love to write something as good as War and Peace? Of course, but lots of people don’t know who Tolstoy is, and far fewer have actually read what many consider to be the greatest novel ever written. So, no, I don’t think that Korra is really going to lead America to civil war, but I do think it reflects a political and moral mindset that establishes violence as the only option for change.

I really like the premise for Korra. Decades after the events of Avatar: the Last Airbender, Korra, a headstrong young woman from the Southern Water Tribe, is the new Avatar, the human chosen to bring balance to the world and be the bridge between the physical and spiritual realms. For Aang, the previous incarnation of the Avatar, it was easy to know how to bring balance. The Fire Nation had wiped out all of the Airbenders and was seeking to conquer and subjugate the other two nations, Earth and Water. To begin to bring balance to the world Aang needed to stop Firelord Ozai’s mission of global dominion. Balance for Korra is more complex. After defeating Ozai, Aang and the new Firelord, Zuko, unite the four nations and establish peace between them. Within this general peace, Korra’s task is to balance legitimate interests that come into conflict. At least conceptually. Practically, issues that seem gray almost immediately break down into the black and white conflict of ATLA.

In season 1, a party of non-benders, people that do not have the power to control Earth, Water, Air, or Fire, called the “Equalists” and their leader Amon advocate for a world where non-benders are not subject to the whims of benders. Both Korra and the Equalists have legitimate reasons and motivations. Korra is literally divinely appointed to use her mastery of the four elements to bring balance to the world. The role of bending is essential. However, the majority of power is held by benders, and non-benders often hold second class status. The dramatic question of season 1 should be how can Korra perform her necessary spiritual role while also meeting the legitimate grievances of the non-benders. What actually happens is that Amon, the leader of the equalists, is secretly a bender who’s using the Equalists as a tool to avenge his father by destroying the society built by Avatar Aang. Now the conflict is simple. Amon just wants power, and Korra needs to punch him good.

Season 2 similarly simplifies legitimate conflict. The Northern Water Tribe is concerned that the Southern Water Tribe has lost its traditional spirituality in a glut of consumerism. But instead of being a story about balancing the role of trade and wealth generation with spiritual and traditional concerns, Unalaq, the leader of the Northern Water Tribe, is just using his concerns for the spiritual health of the Southern Water Tribe as a front to consolidate power over both Tribes, and on top of that become a dark Avatar and remake the world in chaos and destruction. Korra pretends to be about balancing competing interests, but seems to be about how ideology is merely a tool for seizing power.

I see this kind of thinking everywhere in our own politics. There was an episode of the Daily, a podcast produced by the New York Times, about opposition to transgender rights. One of the hosts asked why Republicans oppose those rights, and the the answer they gave was that Republicans can use transgender rights as wedge issue in 2022. Opposing those rights gives Republicans an issue that unites their party while dividing the opposing party. This is true, trans rights are a wedge issue, but saying that this is the primary reason for opposing trans rights warps politics into merely the struggle for power. Ask people why they oppose trans rights, and you will get a lot of answers, but only political strategists will say it because trans rights are an issue that breaks up the Democratic coalition. I know that seeing politics and ideology as merely a power struggle is a popular thought (academically as Critical Theory and popularly in Korra), but it assumes that all motivation is for power. Anyone who claims they are arguing for concerns other than power, like the spiritual health of the Southern Water Tribe, or the fundamental equality of benders and non-benders, is immediately suspect. Whatever they say is ultimately a front. Amon doesn’t really care about the equality of benders and non-benders. He cares about power. Unalaq doesn’t really care about the spiritual health of the world. He cares about power. Democrats don’t really care about helping immigrants and the poor, or the equality of all people. They care about building a constituency of people indebted to the government so they can hold power indefinitely. Republican’s don’t really care about the lives of the unborn or the spiritual health of the nation. They care about holding power over people’s bodies and forever entrenching their own power. 

Unfortunately, there are people who really are only seeking their own power and are using issues and ideology that people care about as tools to achieve their own ends. There are people like Amon and Unalaq in our world, but most people have legitimate reasons for holding the position that they do. Assuming that ideology is merely a front for power ignores and rejects the agency and lived experience of a huge number of people. I worry that Korra enforces our worst tendencies to see people with whom we disagree as not being genuine and only seeking illegitimate power. In Korra issues that seem complex really aren’t. Someone is evil and they must be defeated with force. In our own world, too many people believe the same thing. Complex issues only appear that way because people with power are dishonest about what they believe and are looking to hold power at all costs. And if people are only using beliefs and ideology as tools for the accumulation and maintenance of their own power, then persuasion is pointless. No one really believes anything anyway. Positions are held for power, and people won’t give the power they possess. Violence and oppression are the only ways to change things. And you can see evidence of that in the polling of people who increasingly accept political violence as legitimate and necessary.

I enjoy watching Korra, but I wish it didn’t reduce the real and complex issues that Avatar Korra should be balancing into binaries with evil, power-hungry villains on one side and virtuous defenders of the world on the other. ATLA dealt with a simple conflict in complex ways. Korra makes complex conflict simplistic. America is out of balance, and we cannot afford to assume that the multifaceted issues that we face are simplistic confrontations of good and evil. Because when they are reduced in that way, when people’s motivations and beliefs are dismissed as disingenuous facades masking an insatiable lust for power, the only option is war.

Sincerity will save the world. Or sincerity might save the world - the assumption of sincerity might save the world. I grew up in a time of peak irony. People dressed in fashions they weren’t in to and secreted away the things they loved. I was always deeply secretive of my love of Pokemon, but somehow it happened that we organized a Pokemon league in my marching band and I still remember it fondly to this day (even if I’d never tell anyone outside of band). I know people, and have been a person, where you couldn’t tell if they were serious or not, or if they really believed what they said. I want to get past that. It takes courage to be sincere, because sincerity contains a necessary vulnerability. But we need that courage. We doubt everything. I often don’t believe what people tell me to my face that they believe. And It’s easy to be a negative reviewer. It doesn’t take a lot of work to find flaws in something because a person made it, and people aren’t perfect. It’s hard to be an editor. That’s something I’ve learned in the course of writing. It’s easy to see when something is lacking. The real challenge is to see that lacking work or person or idea with both the love to see what it is at its heart and the insight to help it along to its fulfilment. 

I have family members that span the political gauntlet from Q-anon to anarcho-communist. I don’t think any of them are evil. Perhaps I’m blind, and I certainly disagree with some (if not most) of them, but I think they’re trying to do what they think is right. Even if I think what they’re saying is shaped by history and unstated assumptions and, quite frankly, misunderstandings, I’m going to try to take them at their word, because what they tell me is how they think of themselves. People don’t think of themselves as trying to accumulate and maintain power. Most of the time, they think they’re trying to do right by their family, or help the needy, or some other good thing. Power can only be met with power. I can work with good intentions. The assumption of sincerity makes the space for persuasion instead of violence.