Talk:Anti-bending Revolution/@comment-4662143-20120422215817/@comment-67.133.79.125-20120430143456

While I do think the protester was probably exaggerating a little bit as far as benders making up the upper class, despite the fact that this is a far more modernized society, it's clear that it's still a society that relies heavily on bending. Bending produces power, bending protects the streets, bending probably act as the fire department. At least half of the city council, if not more, are benders: Tenzin and Torrlok (or whatever his name is) clearly are, and the Fire Nation lady firebendings in the interactive game thing. We don't know about the Southern Water Tribe or Earth Kingdom councilmen, but it's highly likely.

Which leads to another issue. The individual councilmen represent their places of origin (Fire Nation, Earth Kingdom, etc.) or their family and acolytes (Air Acolytes/Airbenders). While we seem to see Tenzin having the city's best interests at heart, how many of the others consider Republic City's best interests over those of the countries they're representing? Another thing is we don't know how these councilmen are put in their posts. Are they elected? If so, who by?

I don't think anyone's saying that non-benders CAN'T do anything, but that they are prohibited from doing many things because of their status as non-benders, which inevitably leads to low-paying or less important jobs. Most of the government jobs appear to be heavily reliant on bending, which makes it difficult or impossible to for non-benders to get jobs in the public sector, and if they could, those jobs are probably menial. And the bending triads and gangs make it dangerous for non-benders to work in the private sector.

We'll probably see more evidence of problems and legitimate explainations for the bender/non-bender friction later. It's only been four episodes after all, and we haven't exactly gotten the story from the most rational or neutral mouths.