Decolonization In The Atla Comics

decolonization in the atla comics

right well i know nobody cares but i think i figured out why i dislike the avatar comics so much. like i already thought that they justified colonialism a hell of a lot (in direct contrast to the themes of atla itself which makes me CRAZY grrrr) but i was finally able to pin down why, exactly, i think that. in this i’m gonna be focusing specifically on the promise and north and south because i hate both of those with a passion!

i think that the way both north and south and the promise handle the process of decolonization and reckoning with a colonial legacy is inherently flawed. in the promise, zuko withdraws his support of the harmony restoration movement because of the new earth/fire national culture that has been created in yu dao. he thinks it would be wrong to take these people away from livelihoods that they’ve created. he also says that economically, they are better off now than they were 100 years ago. 

so like, that’s already yikes. economic justifications of colonialism are the worst ones. always. also, it doesn’t help that as zuko says that, there’s a panel showing a fire nation man getting his shoes shined by an earth national as katara says “it doesn’t look like that wealth was shared equally” or something of that sentiment.

and i know zuko says one of his other reasons for withdrawing from the harmony restoration movement is because the people don’t want to be given back to earth kingdom rule…but uh…which people, exactly, don’t want to be given back to the earth kingdom? who benefited the most from colonial rule in the colonies themselves? (i’ll give you a hint: it wasn’t the earth nationals.)

so although yu dao is now an incredibly wealthy and prosperous place as a direct result of its colonization, the wealth is not spread equally. also, economic prosperity doesn’t mean that yu dao should remain a colony? nor does it mean that the fire nation government should continue to meddle in its affairs by instituting a coalition government and then creating the united republic of nations? they should’ve just given them complete self autonomy and called it a day! but whatever.

in the promise, the process of decolonization (ie giving earth kingdom land back to the earth kingdom itself and repatriating the fire nation citizens) is kind of equated to a direct impediment of Progress™, particularly economic and social Progress™. this is seen again in north and south, when the northern water tribe tries to establish the oil refinery on southern water tribe land. in north and south, many southern water tribe members (and katara herself) take issue with this northern interference, citing that they are just turning the south into a cheap copy of the north in the name of…you guessed it…Progress™. katara and other members of the southern tribe are seen as extremists for wanting to preserve their heritage after one hundred years of war. the oil refinery and other northern interferences are portrayed as a solely good thing, even though they come at the expense of other important traditions. 

and so therein lies my biggest problem with these two atla comics: they assume that decolonization = anti progress, when it very much does not. this is something that’s seen in the real world, time and time again. like, i’m from hawai’i (not native hawaiian tho, which is an important distinction to make!) and the whole struggle to halt the construction of the thirty meter telescope on mauna kea is a good real life example. mauna kea is sacred land to native hawaiians, and construction of the telescope would completely desecrate the land, both culturally and environmentally. yet for some reason, native hawaiians are portrayed as “backwards” and “anti-science” for not wanting the TMT to be built, which isn’t true at all! but they shouldn’t have to sacrifice what they believe in the name of progress defined by someone else’s metric. 

in the atla comics (and legend of korra), Modern Westernization™ is the default. returning yu dao’s land to the earth kingdom and removing fire nation involvement is seen as anti-progress. refusing to build an oil refinery and trying to preserve important cultural practices and traditions is seen as anti-progress. anything that doesn’t lead to…cómo se dice…complete industrialization and what is essentially capitalism is seen as anti-progress. and this is such a western mindset that it hurts, because that’s not what decolonization is. decolonization is supposed to revive, humanize, and modernize important indigenous and traditional aspects of cultures. decolonization, unlike how it’s portrayed in the promise and in north and south, does not mean that we go backwards. instead, we actively reconstruct our perspectives and stop measuring previously aforementioned Progress™ by a western capitalist mindset! that’s why it’s important, and that’s why these comics fall short, because they had an opportunity to build a world that wasn’t modeled after the patterns of the west…and they just didn’t.

all valid points!! wish I could see a fanfic of this

I don't like "The Runaway" episode. Imho this is a very strange plot, pulled out of thin air. And most importantly, it ignores Toph's really interesting conflict that could have developed her character.

The episode begins with Toph and Katara fighting over their differences. The most disgusting thing here is not even that their quarrel was taken out of nowhere, but a flashback to previous episodes. The authors based the series on the misunderstandings between Toph and Katara at the beginning of their relationship, completely ignoring their subsequent beautiful friendship. Not only did they throw out Katara's concern for Toph in the desert and their time together in Ba Sing Se, but they also pretended that this particular episode resolved all the misunderstandings, which means it was important. This is ugh.

Do you know what I would do instead of this unnecessary quarrel? I would finally resolve the misunderstanding with Aang that has been going on since the episode “The Desert”.

Remember when Aang blamed Toph for getting Appa stolen? Why not resolve this obvious and hanging misunderstanding? I mean, Aang and Toph don't talk alone at all after that episode, and that's bad.

A dedicated episode about their relationship would have filled that gap nicely and would have also strengthened the characters' bond.

Also, it's in this episode that I would show how Toph learns sandbending. Imagine the conflict that could have arisen: after losing Appa in the desert, Toph realized that she isn't such a great earthbender, because there are things that are beyond her control. She hates feeling inferior, especially when that deficiency caused her to lose a friend.

The sand is too loose, she loses its sight as soon as she lets it go. And the only one she can turn to for help is Aang.

Think about it, why are the dunes in the desert so mobile? What spreads sand and makes it so unstable? The answer is the air. To bend the sand, Toph will have to turn to the opposite element and to the one with whom there was no time to resolve the issue: Aang. And all this is connected not only with her desire to get rid of the imperfections of her bending, but also with the goal of never losing friends again and always being able to help them. And also finally make peace with Aang, her very first friend.

Imagine how Aang would teach her to feel the sand in the air. How, for example, she could see the currents of the wind... How the grains of sand would become her guides into the gaping void above her head that Toph had never seen before.

What wonderful emotions we would witness. The blind girl finally saw what was unattainable even with earthbending. I'm sure it would greatly impact Toph's personality and expand her understanding of things, and I want to experience it with her.

If there is a fanfic about this, I'd like to read it. Because the canon, alas, has lost all possibility of implementing something like this. After all, Toph learned sandbending off-screen, as if there was no emotion associated with it

With regards to Mai

Yknow how sometimes you like one (1) image on social media and suddenly that's All it's gonna show you now? Yh that was me with atla--im not complaining, I love the series

It's just that it somehow managed to make me wanna make people love Mai too lol. For no other reasons than that I love her

So here are some tumblr posts I found like some excited maniacal racoon scrounging old newspapers from a trashcan and jsut being super excited with its findings, thumbtacking them on the alley wall for all to see

Behold these patchworks of tumblr screenshots of one of my favourite underrated sometimes i also think hated character

This one's from the comic, spoiler alert. And uhh it's not their children just so you know. They're their respective younger siblings iirc

Oh happier times. I still headcanon that they're married and Izumi is their daughter btw heh. I love this ship. You don't have to like them. I do tho.

The Blue Spirit and A Kyoshi Warrior 💙

You can ship whoever you want to ship but deliberately ignoring that the Fire Nation DID oppress the SWT just to push your own agenda (and all in the name of some Wattpad-esque palace fantasy romance drama of your ship) is so tone deaf.

Did we not watch the same show?? Did the FN not wipe out almost all of the SWT benders?? Did Katara NOT see a Fire Nation soldier burst into their home and kill take her mother??

Anyway. GET 'EM, f1reladymai!!

I think it needs to be reiterated: The Water Tribes weren’t colonized. Katara does not have “colonial trauma”, as one post suggests. The Water Tribes were never claimed by anyone else and were left completely alone besides The Fire Nation enacting genocide. If we are going to discuss “zutara colonization discourse”, then please do it right. Especially if y’all are gonna write long essays about it, given that all that time writing would end being partially for nothing since the thing you’re focusing on isn’t relevant to what anyone is saying.

god i love fallible characters, but specifically zuko in the catacombs. choosing his sister over his uncle just to get to sleep in his childhood bed again. earning katara's kindness and empathy and stripping it all away in minutes because he ached for the familiar. fighting on the wrong side of history just to see his father smile with pride. knowing he could have done the right thing, but what is being good when you could be terrible but loved.