Geek Tragedy Podnotes

So I’ve been watching Avatar: Legend of Korra lately, and I have to say, this is some pretty reactionary television.

What I mean is, it takes place in an alternate early 20th century, where a bunch of revolutionaries who claim to be bringing equality, but who are really just a bunch of violent thugs whose complaint about the current system is very questionable, whose cause is rather crazy, and who would repress the people they claim to be liberating themselves from just as badly as they claim to be repressed by them. They rebel against a system that has traces of monarchy, oligarchy, and democracy to it, along with a combination spiritual/political figure (the Avatar) who acts as a kind of protector and societal figurehead. This society was, in fact, founded by a monarchical prince and the last incarnation of this very spiritual/political leader, and saw a vastly improved standard of living made possible in a very short time by the efforts of industrial capitalists. Among the current Avatar’s allies are two self-made young men who rose from poverty based on their own merit and hard work and are advancing themselves by excelling in private competition, and a female industrialist/capitalist, and she lives in what amounts to a monastery where she is guided and advised by a benevolent, fatherly monk, who himself serves as one of that society’s leaders.

So basically, monks, priests, kings, princes, oligarchs, capitalists, industrialists, self-made men, and (small “r”) republicans are the good guys, and the villains are a bunch of egalitarians who want to make everyone “equal” simply by taking away from the “haves” in their society in a way that won’t even really benefit the “have nots” they claim to be liberating. In other words, they’re going to make people “equal” not by helping or building up the underprivileged, but simply by tearing down the privileged out of sheer hatred and jealousy. They aren’t going to make anything better, they’re just going to destroy the capacity of people who have unique talents and abilities to achieve things.

So basically, the whole thing has a kind of obvious (once you think about it) anti-Communist and pro-monarchy/oligarchy/democracy/religion/ capitalism thing going on. It really is, in a sense, wonderfully reactionary, and, aside from some prominently foregrounded feminism, really pretty traditionalist.

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