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Thank you for this video. Totally tired of people choosing to be reductive about Zaheer's philosophy.

I think one can make a comparison between Kurvira and the Kuomintang under Chiang Kai-Sheck. -Both fought against warlordism in a large country that fell into chaos. -Both have strong and somewhat justifiable distaste of foreign influence over their country. In the case of China it's the diplomatic corps, the legations and the century of humiliation; in the case of the Earth Empire, it's the United Republic and a century of colonialism and a war against extermination. It's not one to one, of course, not even close, but I'd think the KMT could have been an inspiration for Kuvira, but mixed with Nazi stupidity with the unsustainability.

Kay and Skittles created a fantastic video about this several years ago AND the other antagonists of the Korra series. I can't wait to crack this open and give it a watch, too.

Honestly, I saw her more as an authoritarian leftist in the same vein as Stalin.

Being a Burgler is not a poor people crime.

I honestly don’t think it’s to show that petty crime is cool and fun, but instead used to show survival needs, induce comedy, show character traits, and make you think about the grey space.

Palestine wasn’t Israeled,it was the opposite

I'm here for the Bolin slander

Someone told me that Kuvira is what would happen if Hitler and Margaret Thatcher had a daughter.

Kuvira was a Bourgeois revolutionary who brought an end to the feudal imperial backed earth kingdom and tried to destroy the United Republic settler colony.

Here me out, Amon is a gun-grabbing liberal, and in season 1 of Korra, bending is a metaphor for the ties between violence and culture, including within martial arts.

great video but hearing she/her be used for lake just feels wrong even though that's technically what's in the show lmao. them being coded as trans/enby should be reflected in the pronouns used for them imo

Good video, but I kind of disagree that Iroh is romanticizing being poor as much as he is trying to get Zuko to not take unnecessary risks for the sake of pride. 1. Being practical about thrm not getting caught by causing trouble. Rich people are powerful and can cuase toruble (and there is the fact that not everyone Zuko steals from is exactly Richy Rich). 2. Zuko grew up incredibly privileged, and from what we see they aren't exactly starving. They have managed to survive and Iroh has ways to get money and items with hurting others even they are humiliating and inefficient. Zuko doesn't steal because he believes they have too as much as he wants to gain control over his life and act out on those he views as deserving it (like that one guy who made Iroh dance). Zuko is doing this out of his shame. TLDR, the lesson is that Zuko should take pride in who is currently despite his circumstances, and that is being poor but able to get by. The reason Zuko leaves is that deep down he knows that Iroh is right, but he also thinks that he cannot do what needs to be done with Iroh and that Iroh will be better off without him too. Zuko wants and needs to grow on apart from Iroh and learn. Zuko was right there, and we agree on that. I also disagree that Iroh wanted something akin to 'eugenics' Like what? Its not about him wanting superior genes for Zuko, its about him wanting and sweing the potential within Zuko to be better than Azula and Iroh himself. Plus, and I also only have agree with Iroh wanting Zuko to seem to do to his own pride about what Zuko should be wanting for himself. But, and this links back to the poverty thing, Iroh wanted Zuko to just do the practical thing that was good for him rather than just what he wanted. It also goes even deeper this time, since Zuko is literally changing from his previous view of the world where he had to prove to himself that he had to fulfill what his father and Nation wanted of him and that nothing else was worth pursuing. He was trying, as he said, to get Zuko to consider other options. I don't view. So, overall, I agree Iroh is flawed, but he I do think he helped Zuko out more than you seem (although Zuko obviously did most of the change himself) and I think that most of his actions towards Zuko where more focused on gaining independence by being humble and practical.

i honestly never liked iroh all that much, like i always appreciated his wisdom and love for zuko and whatnot esp as a kid, but in recent times it was hard to ignore all of the shitty things he did, most namely his creepiness with june and THE FACT HE WAS A PROUD GENERAL FOR AN IMPERIALIST NATION 🥴 whenever i am in atla fan spaces and people prop up iroh as if hes perfect im always flabbergasted

youre so goated

I'm afraid Bolin was hanged at the Earth Kingdom Nuremberg trials

I love infinity train so much, and that's what makes me just want to write so much more into this analogy, even if I disagree a little on each role in it You say that all of Oneone's choices are just how the system is, that denizens exist only in purpose to make the passengers become better people and that's what it was made for from the beginning. But that's not true, that's Oneones interpretation of the system. By saying that the "system" doesn't accept Lake, if we compare the analogy correctly, it's as if the universe itself is fighting Lake, but that simple choice of words is too hard on my heart to bear, so I decided to write this whole thing. Oneone believes the train was meant to help passengers, and that the denizens are the passenger's tool to become better people, A mindset not even most of the the denizens believe in, they simply live on the train, forced into Oneone's rules, if they did believe this then you'd see them do whatever they can to help the passengers, even sacrifice themselves to them, or even become tools or toys of The Apex in the hope their number goes down, rather than avoid or be afraid of them. I think the idea Oneone isn't more than a simple governing body in this train, is highlighted even more in the turtle car in season one, where Oneone decided that the car is broken and isn't right, but it's never an issue to anyone but Oneone, not to Amelia, the denizens, or anyone else that visits the car. I see the train (the system) itself and Oneone as two separate things, and when you called Oneone the highest governing body, I felt the need to separate them. The truth of the matter is that this train doesn't actually need Oneone, it worked fine without him for many years. The train lets someone on, and ends it there. Like a person beginning life anew, and from here on their choices are their own, and whether that person wants to let their number go down, or just stay on the train forever and die in it, that's on them from that point on. The train never implied that the point is to make the number go down at the end of the day, that's what Oneone said. And Oneone as a being with so much the power, is the government in this situation, the person currently in control of the train, which is the world in this analogy. And he's doing what he think is right because of it's the only thing he knows. Passengers go on train with big number, leave train when number reaches 0. So he built an idea into his head that denizens only exist to make passengers numbers go down and can't leave the train and doesn't let go of it no matter what, this is how it's always been in this "world" he sees, and how it will always be... Except they can, its completely possible for them to leave, it was almost arbitrary to let her get off the train, she just needed Oneone to accept her, and she was willing to do whatever was necessary until he did. But it was never something hardwired into the system, into life itself, that she can't, that she isn't, that she'll always have to choose the world given to her on the train. Physics, Science, Biology, Psychology, they were never against us, just... arbitrary laws and decisions made by people who haven't changed their views in too long. If only it was as simple to get trans/non binary rights as a Oneone's "Yeah sure whatever" in real life. Also Not that I say that Amelia or the Apex were right because Oneone is the one that decided the point of the train is to lower your numbers... but at the end of the day, just because Oneone has a seat as the conductor, doesn't mean he's the most fit to lead the train to be the best place it could be. His reasoning he is the true conductor is just that.... he is, he always was. And what he decided is correct because it's how it's always been done. Quite a monarch Oneone has become. But I feel like I rambled enough, I'm not even sure how coherent this comment even is, and I haven't even talked about how Simon and his journey on the train ties into this analogy. I really enjoyed this video, I'd love to see your next ones, especially if one of them is on season 3

Great points. I agree that we shouldn’t be so quick to overlook Iroh’s past or hedonistic faults in favour of idolizing him. However, I want to add some thoughts on how this is more a failing of the audience than the show, which never really minimizes Iroh’s imperialist past. He actively and joyfully participated in the siege, we see how zhao and the fire nation prison guards mock him for falling so far from the great military general he once was, and we know how skilled (and able to do damage) he is. Like with the air nation genocide, everything is there for us to infer the gravity of what Iroh has done off screen, even if the graphic imagery isn’t shown to us. And I think when he refuses the throne and says Zuko is the one with unquestioning honour, it’s an acknowledgement that although he may be redeemed to us - who see him through Zuko’s eyes as someone unconditionally loving and crucial to his redemption arc - his past makes him unfit to be the figurehead leading the fire nation into the new post-war world. Despite how much he has changed, he does not have unquestionable honour. But we trust him personally as much as zuko, they both hail from the same Royal lineage (nobody really knows about his avatar grandfather), and would both have to claim the throne against their younger sibling, so the real difference must be their past. Zuko doesn’t get a chance to do harm as a Royal like Iroh did, because he speaks out against sacrificing soldiers at his very first military meeting. The worst harm he does after that is largely to the gaang (might not have been true if he was driven by cruelty or ambition over the strict desire to get his honour back, and for example had refused to leave the South Pole alone when aang offered himself up) which means that his personal repentance to and later self-sacrifice for the gaang (especially katara) is enough to redeem him. I think the reason Iroh is unfit for the throne has less to do with it being the killing of one brother by another for power (again, Zuko goes into the Agni Kai anticipating he will have to do the same to Azula for the throne) and more to do with the fact that Zuko’s mistakes are not nearly as great. Iroh can join the white lotus and help reclaim the city he laid siege to, but we don’t know the extent of the harm he did before his son died. And it’s great the show doesn’t ever put us in a position where we do have to minimize Iroh’s past to make him more forgivable and justify his worthiness to be Fire Lord. They don’t pretend he never did anything morally repugnant in his past in order to make him more palatable and ensure the audience liked him (like was done in Schindler’s list). But they still offer an earnest example of someone doing better once they know better (including the humiliations and difficulties that he suffers as a result) and that even if you may never be able to achieve “unquestionable honour” for yourself, the good you may be able to accomplish in the world and through others is worth doing it anyways.

best parts of the show! also by any means necessary-ing. the scam episodeeeeee

this is so interesting! idk if i wanna slough thru this show and get mad lmao the devil and bisexuality are raging inside me 😭

great point at the end. no need for forgiveness and that's others' prerogative. how can anyone make up for their systematically entrenched past? it's hard to sever that. the best thing about iroh and zuko is those constant failures in their pursuit of the Other. i think the loss of his son is insanely important because you must lose something here. you have to lose either your life or one you love, limb, capacity. anti-colonialism has revenge, it is potent and understandable, and in resistance there is a want of pain or non existence whether we agree with it or not. and the loss and revenge are so miniscule in comparison to what they did to others but big to the person that it happened to (because that is part of why they are doing what they are doing). so loss as a metaphor of leaving behind because you faced direct consequences of your horrendous actions at a critical moment is a compelling way to start on a journey of personal change though not universal forgiveness...a lot of things being said that i have had trouble articulating lol thx

she was so exhausting to watch for me but i think bc i knew what ppl thought of her just by seeing how ppl discuss ppl the way you explain. i agree with you so much. and i hate hate hate that we have to think about age with regards to her being "flawed" and those flaws being the same as being extremely annoying as a neglected fucked up teen. but look at what we think of settlers so. it's so weird that i love this show a lot but it's so fucking frustrating to think of stuff like this and people's reception of it and how it shapes how they talk about it. which makes me really sad that we have been so lulled into neutralization. paying attn to palestine has colored my view even more. a great show that set up a really confusing world based on a shoddy understanding of what these things rly mean. thanks for ur vids!!! also: what do the people she has dominated and harmed want from her? that's the deeper question and with better understanding it would probably be a tribunal, revenge, and deep loss. if left alive a removal of bending. their decision and it's removed.

a bit long but i wanted to point sth out but first wow this passed rly quickly! came here from kay and skittles' (?) videos on tlok. havent watched tlok but did watch atla for the first time a while ago. as an ancom atla itself created a lot of contradictions and i see that now-esp what's happening in palestine and the newfound changes in political ideology, interacting with deeper activism-and struggle with those contradictions. however i couldn't watch it when it came out though i was the demographic. now, in my 30s with my ideologies and beliefs i can see why i struggle with it so much. that being said, there are absolutely things one could do in a kids show to make it clearer. without touching the issues with the concept of avatar first and how it fits into our [manufactured consent] worldview, the unambiguity of the fire nation you mentioned makes you see how flat their analyses of imperial colonialism works. i kept asking myself: well what does that /mean/ though? what are the investments put in beyond "they do it because they want power" and seeing the analyses for tlok i can see that the writers genuinely believe that people just /want power/ and simply for no reason at all than wanting power. when they want power they enact the damages of imperial colonialism et al. without questioning what that power means and how we got there and what it will do. when ozai says he will be "ruler of the world" it was hard for me because on one hand i understand this is a kid's show but on the other the understanding of imperial colonialism is just "ruler of the world" or, as i have unfortunately heard from elsewhere, "might makes right" lol so tracking from atla and seeing the outcome for tlok you see that ideology evolved. atla being made in 2005 while america was continuing invasions, post 9/11; then tlok being made for that same audience but we are teens now seeing OWS and radical tendencies. but most of us didn't understand those radical tendencies, those involved were a bit older or had completely different life experiences than those who would watch tlok. it's also the issue that the writers thought that what happened in atla was some future past time so all the very good ideas and things they do can make sense. the painted lady episode is one of my favorites because it takes seriously "by any means necessary" and it makes me so happy that they went through with it. all the great things in avatar are clearly because the writers think they are possible in that specific world but, as you said, still cannot imagine a world without empire. this could be forgiven i guess because it is the aftermath of all this shit that happened but the logical conclusion of that to tlok seems to be "hmmmm things are still not good". but why? why aren't they? how would allowing empire to continue even under new people not change anything? and importantly: why aren't we seeing what the oppressed would do with their self-determination. but the idea of avatar isn't to do that necessarily and it seems as a neoliberal order got more entrenched and we unfortunately got obama or whatever and probably as the creators made more money they make it even more untenable to imagine a world where people dictate and want ORDER instead of just wanting power. cops are necessary (to them lmao) and not because they come from a racial capitalist way of protecting private property and that is their function but they want order, balance, and that has nothing to do with wanting power or what would lead to their understanding of that order and balance. also want to say tho that with the show's explanations, zaheer is not an anarchist and the different strands (ancap. blech) doesn't mean that they are legitimate. what the creators and other losers BELIEVE is anarchism is not (and their severing of it from communism but demonstrating that both are bad). zaheer may say that he is but it doesn't mean it is true. i also think, and correct me if i'm wrong, they say they want /anarchy/ and that is tied down to anarchism itself. anarchy as a negative chaotic connotation and not a legitimate political ideology. as you pointed out though, in this show, the creators' belief of toppling of oppressors is still bad anyway and that "by any means necessary" does not and cannot involve violence in the new world-which is where i disagree with you on the "violence" point. it would be cool if they read fanon but maybe they did since zionists who parade as anti zionists manipulate it all the time. and to the previous pt: that's the insidiousness. just because it calls itself that does not mean it is. these people do not understand the major ideologies that talk to each other (and argue. all the time) that many of us find hybridity in; anarcho communism is the biggest strand. nothing can be done. you can't resist, you can't say things, you can't get angry, you can't read, you can't personally change. you have to find balance which is nameless and ultimately not dictated by you and your community. interesting video! thank you!

Kuvira had a good point until the camps and the invasion of republic city

Season 2 was a masterpiece!

Yeah like in real life people arent redeemable. Henry kissinger was not someone who could be redeemed. There is not enough good acts child molesters could do to redeem themselves. Frankly the reason i hate the star wars prequels is because like yeah vader was bad but the only people we actually see him kill is obiwon, other imperials and the emperor. So we can imagine his redemption. Once we learned he was a genocidal toxic manipulator before he was even vader then he turns into a guy who kills children and beats his pregnant wife to death Somehow that just seems worse than anything i would have imagined vader doing.

I would have completely sided with Kuivera of she didn't have the camps, and try to invade places like RC

Zaheer is a Reddit edgelord larping as the unabomber

Zaheer is clearly Anarco primitivist

great video! such a fun lens to reexamine episodes through

THIS IS SOSOSO AWSOME AND SO UNDERRATED. COMPARINT JESSIE TO A MIRROR PARALLELING LAKE TO JESSIE WAS SUCH A COOL THING TO DO AND SMT I NEVER THOUGHT OF.

Why you didnt make video something like this-"I hate Azula, etc". Would eazy to skip it. if your read fantasy books, or any other you would see how poeple can change but speed of that process is not same for everyone. Azula make bayb step for her change so let her be.

Kuvira had legitimate points about the Earth Kingdom, how its ruling monarchs had consistently led it to disaster and ruin and how it did need someone to step up, take control and enforce law and order but she ultimately ended up taking it into extremism territory. Marching her army into the United Republic was just going way too far, as it was legally no longer part of the Earth Kingdom, and was the line in the sand that needed to be drawn.

Kuvira was a hero I won't elaborate

15:32 To me, I never saw Water Tribe food as disgusting, I just thought it was repulsive to Aang cause he’s a vegetarian & Water Tribe food is heavily meat based (like a lot of Inuit cultures)

Iroh to me had always been a morally grey character, as yes - he DID let his nephew terrorise innocents while searching for Aang. But his loyalty wasn’t to morality, just those he held dear. Once he tried to steer Zuko away from Avatar hunting in Book 2 & allies with Team Avatar by the end of said book, I think his shift in perspective also continued here - it didn’t just happen offscreen after he lost his son.

22:08 And I gotta say, I also think Katara was also someone who defined herself by her bending & would’ve reacted in a very similar manner to Korra (if she hadn’t been an old lady tucked away in the South Pole by this point).

19:39 One exception in LOK is Mako & Bolin being born benders while having (as far as we know) non-bender parents. We don’t even see if any of their extended paternal family in Ba Sing Se are benders (though given the sheer number of people within said family it would make sense that some earthbenders would be mixed in, even if we don’t get time to see them). And as far as we know, Tenzin’s youngest, Rohan is a non-bender like his mum Pema (which she wanted) though since he only grows to 4 years old by the show’s end, we don’t see how he reacts to growing up with 3 airbending siblings & if he would feel as left out & as ostracised from Air Nomad culture as Kya & Bumi were.

2:10 The cause of conflict in the ‘Imbalance’ comic.

13:19 Lion Turtles may have been what granted the power of bending but people watching the techniques of how Flying Bison, Badgermoles, Dragons & the Moon bended each element could still have refined bending into the art forms each element became (though I agree that just cutting the Lion Turtles out of this concept would’ve been better)

Ozai is a compelling character because it shows how Azula IS BECOMING more like him and how Zuko COULDVE been like him

This was beautiful

Damn man this was an amazing watch

your channel is highly underrated. thank you for your hard work, comrade.

If you haven't seen infinity train, was my introduction easy to follow? The premise is a bit complex so want feedback on that. If you have seen infinity train, what do you think i should cover next?

Now we need a video on book 3

Sure facist is bad. But when people that are presenting themselfs as an "anti-facists" are responsible for causing riots, taking away free speach from thier critics, and are trying to manipulate the elections in thier favour, while claiming that certain political figures are facist while they are not facist, you to would had doubts about that.

i am trans. i was crying so hard during the whole season. lake deserved their happy ending. lake is the best also 1312

Great video. As a non-binary person myself, I really related to Lake’s experience. After the first ep of s2, I had a small hope that Lake might come out as trans/enby before the end of the season. That didn’t happen but I still think her story strongly reflects (ha) the trans experience. For anyone who hasn’t seen it, the YT channel OmgitsKavi made a video called “Your Fave is Trans: Lake from Infinity Train” also talking about this subject. Kavi is trans so he is able to bring his own perspective/experience to this discussion.

Nice one zag! keep doing what you're doing i'm loving it