Talk:Equalists/@comment-68.36.104.132-20120413171332

I hope that in this I am able to provide a proper historical/political context concerning the Equalists and how it will ultimately affect the show as a whole.

For one thing I would like to make clear that anyone who thinks they're being clever by comparing the equalists to Nazis, Fascists, KKK, death eaters or whatever, you are right in the sense that those are all examples of radical groups however you're looking in the wrong direction when it comes to the ideology of the said groups. As we have seen, the equalists are people who feel as if they've been placed in a significant disadvantage for no reason other than genetics, ie. they feel like second class citizens because they don't have the ability to bend the elements. What the equalists seek to do is to make everything equal. They want to get rid of bending because they feel like the benders are abusing the power that they have over the rest of the general population. The scope of this though is still to be seen. This ideology is more comparable to the Marxist or Communist movements (which were actually present during the 20s) in the sense that they involve the disadvantaged seeking equality with the advantaged. The Nazis, Fascists, and Deatheaters were the other way around because they felt that due to their advantages that they were superior and therefore entitled to either reap the benefits through opressing those they felt beneath them or through simply wiping them out. An example of a fascist movement in the context of Avatar would be if a radical bending group sought to eliminate or further opress those who couldn't bend.

What I think(or hope anyway) this series is going to do is that they will paint the Equalists as a sympathetic villain. From what we've seen, they do have some legitimate grievances, but they've simply chosen the wrong methods to combat them. For one thing, benders do appear to have significant advantages in this new sort of society which is Republic City. The kind of close familial, community values that we saw consistantly through Aang's story just aren't there anymore which has led to the kind of poverty and crime evident in the first episode which nonbenders are going to be way more susceptible to than benders. What isn't good about this group though is the violent means in which they plan to go about it. It reminds me of a lot of how Jet acted in the first series, the whole kind of "you're either with us or against us" attitude.

Now the writers have said that they intend for Korra's story to be the opposite of Aang's. In Aang's story, he was very good mediating a situation, and solving it through nonviolent means, but he needed to learn to various fighting abilities so as to protect people. Korra however is already a very talented fighter, but she's extremely stubborn and aggressive and needs to learn to listen to both sides of a situation and solve it through peace instead of force.