Tumblr crosspost (25 September 2020)

[anghraine]

sqbr responded to this post:

I don’t remember Zaheer’s plot very well, but wouldn’t the middling-evil version of Amon just be a Very Flawed Activist Leader?

Not the sort who suddenly turns into a supervillain just…while he does achieve SOME good things, he refuses to acknowledge any marginalisations other than his pet Issue exist, is kind of cult-leader-ish, accuses any non-bender who disagrees with him of being Part of the System, any groups with slightly different approaches of being Evil and Wrong etc.

You could have him act like the Rachel Dolezai’s of this world, who decide they can run a civil rights organisation best despite being a member of the relevantly privileged class, and thus are 100% justified in painting their face to mimic an made-up angsty marginalised backstory. (Not that being a non-bender is the same as being black, but she’s the best known example I can think of) Or you could have him be open about being a non-bender from the start, and the fact he talks over and silences actual non-benders who disagree with is him one of his obvious issues during the season.

And then at the end you’ve got all these other actual-non-bender activists who over the show have been shown to have idealogical and practical conflicts with Amon, and so are in a position to continue the work less terribly once he’s gone. Like a less simplisticly Good Marginalised Folk Support The Status Quo version of Magneto vs Professor X in Xmen. Have one of them be a major secondary character working with Korra, so it’s less benders vs civil rights group and more benders-and-non-benders vs this ONE civil rights group.

I replied:

Hmm, that makes sense! I was thinking of middling Amon as a little darker—still carrying off the Amon persona to some extent, and trying to figure out how he could manage that without going full villain. But yeah, I think “he refuses to acknowledge any marginalisations other than his pet Issue exist, is kind of cult-leader-ish, accuses any non-bender who disagrees with him of being Part of the System, any groups with slightly different approaches of being Evil and Wrong etc” have got to be pretty essential to how he operates.