Talk:Anti-bending Revolution/@comment-4662143-20120422215817/@comment-4662143-20120506060205

The society may rely heavily on benders, but that doesn't necessarily make them powerful. The Southern United States once relied heavily on slavery, but the slaves had no power. Groups of small, privileged populations have, throughout history, been able to subjugated larger, theoretically more powerful populations. I doubt that benders are only elites; so far, we've seen that society in both ATLA and LoK seems to have large populations of both benders and nonbenders fairly evenly dispersed.We've seen plenty of poor benders. Mako and Bolin are front and center, but, again, as I mentioned, all of the thugs we have seen are benders. The councilmen are probably descended from benders from a specific nation, but are the descendents of those who immigrated to the city; I doubt the people of the city would accept benders from other nations ruling over them. The fact that City Hall has rows and rows of benches seems to indicate that it has a legislature that simply wasn't in session when we saw the council meeting. I'm guessing that they elect the council members (sort of like how countries that have a British Parliamentary system elect a Prime Minister) or at least have some influence over it (like how the U.S. Congress influences the President). Plus, who's saying that the councilmen are biased towards benders? In a one man, one vote system, they'd have to take their nonbending voters into account. However, I do see your point that Benders are in positions of importance and influence, and that the city depends on benders for electricity and internal law and order etc, something that naturally result in Benders having more money and political influence. Excellent points!