Nonbenders Deserve Better and Amon was Right about Benders in Avatar!

by far one of the most alluring aspects of fictional stories in their associated worlds would have to be a sense of escapism the ability to provide momentary distancing from one's own reality is a highly coveted commodity that only continues to become more and more lucrative as time goes on hey how are you slice of otaku and for me the more fleshed out and intricate a world and its lore may be the better no matter how fantastical or bizarre a story may be so long as there are a few constants for the audience to latch onto and grasp even if only on the surface level the doors to escapism are then opened and with that the age-old question of who you would be and what you would do in insert fictional world here presents itself and if you've ever seen avatar the last airbender i'm willing to bet that you've wondered just that and right away i'd also imagine that most people start off by thinking about what their bending element would be water earth fire and air they are the cornerstones of the avatar world as their influence is fundamental to the world as we know it the nations are divided by them cultures are founded upon them even the color of people's clothing is based upon them yet lest we forget benders are the minority of their world benders do not breed true as despite a potential biological disposition there still remains a spiritual aspect to consider which is far less straightforward and so if we're all being honest with ourselves most of us would more than likely end up being non-benders in the avatar world and it's for this reason that i want to express to you all why non-benders deserve better and why amman was right so first things first why are benders despite only making up a fragment of their respective societies at the forefront of just about everything well it's pretty obvious isn't it they have powers if we're to relate them to our modern world they're the rich one percent in 20 years or so the majority of the united states population is predicted to be made up of today's collective minority but even still today's majority being white people are still expected to hold the most power in a primitive world however darwinian theory certainly holds true it all comes down to survival of the fittest and benders possess an innate physical advantage over their non-bending kin in the beginning the first human wielders of the elements were granted their power as a means of braving the wilderness and combating the dangers that might face them and so when elemental possession became permanent with the formal separation of the human and spirit worlds and the lion turtles evicted their human residents those familiar with braving the wild would no doubt be made to lead their respective people groups what was one simply an aspect of hunter-gatherer roles was now that of leaders and ambitious warlords now interestingly enough prior to genocide all members of the air nation were air benders it would seem that they all wielded the power of air freely as they didn't outright combat these spirits as other cultures did and instead sought to co-exist with them and so with no cultural stigma against the wilderness and a greater sense of egalitarianism amongst them the airbenders of the world were far more inclined towards a nomadic lifestyle exploring all across the world and being led by a collective rather than singular leaders and despite their homes being scattered in all directions of the world they still manage to maintain a unified culture but even still with all this in mind we mustn't forget that there persists a singular figure with the capability of influencing the entire world this figure of course being the avatar now the avatar is also of course a bender which subsequently results in somewhat of a bias protectorate the avatar may always relate to the plights and experiences of other benders as they would have been a bender of each element several times over with hundreds of lives to draw knowledge from yet something an avatar would never be able to be is a non-bender that's right people the avatar is far too privileged to ever be able to truly understand the maintenance of worldly balance is the avatar's primary purpose and comically enough those that often threaten said balance tend to be benders however with book one of the legend of korra we were presented with the prospect of a non-bender lead antagonist in the form of the ever elusive amman and back when korra was first airing the idea of this was amazing to me sure his claim to fame may have initially been rooted in spiritual anointment that allowed for the removal of one's bending but what was even more fascinating to me was the equalist movement that he had created the rise of a non-bender cult that sought to overthrow an otherwise oppressive vendor establishment is a really cool concept now ultimately ahmad was a fraud and in the end only sought to manipulate the downtrodden populace but even still his rise to power was based on very real issues throughout human history revolutions have been waged by those at the bottom of a social structure and although it may be somewhat pragmatic contrary to common teachings no revolution succeeds with peace alone the reason such idealistic buck kiss tends to be associated with the act of successful rebellion would be because for the oppressor it is usually the favorable outcome of the two when faced with potential destruction and or substantial damage the powers that be are more likely to opt towards discussions of non-aggression and or compromise to which they may manipulate and control the narrative having things seemingly settle for a time before the issue inevitably boils over once more however unfortunately for us although violence was readily presented with this depiction a parallel push for peace was not at least not from those that really mattered as like we established before the avatar cannot truly ever relate to non-bender existence certainly not avatar korra who was more than likely bending before she could read and write one of my favorite lines from this depiction is a simple one that comes from a non-bender woman who clutches onto her children as the predominantly bender-based rcpd uses force to herd them like cattle under the false pretense of riot-based aggression just before this she pleads with avatar korra to intervene adding that she is their avatar too and with all this in mind what began as a somewhat complicated and conflicting ideological bout between benders and non-benders ended in yet another fight between benders and with those already in seats of power emerging victorious they were then able to set the terms to come and so the supposed solution to all this was the dissolution of the united republic council and the election of republic city's first president reiko who was a non-vendor a cosmetic fix that neither ensured quality nor progression i mean towards the end of his term the man became so hell-bent on re-election that he almost entirely neglected the safeties of the citizens he swore to protect non-bender or otherwise it's honestly a shame that aman wasn't genuine because if he was it would honestly be so much harder to quell such a movement sure you could potentially dispatch or remove him but then he'd end up just being a martyr which is why the avatar's claim of him being a bender was something he calculated and prepared against as sowing seeds of doubt against one's character at the forefront of such a collective is far more dangerous than any application of force or bending and with that there have been some pretty amazing non-bender characters throughout the series the most popular of which we receive next to nothing from during the legend of korra but nevertheless nobody does it like saka i mean let's just hype this man up a bit shall we it is hard enough for a non-bender to keep up with benders whether they be friend or foe but this man saka was really and truly running around with some of the most capable benders in the world tough the self-proclaimed and later recognized greatest earthbender of all time his sister katara a water-bending prodigy who'd ascended to mastery in her early teens and would later be known as the greatest healer in the world prince zuko who just so happened to be fire bender royalty and finally avatar aang himself who you know besides being the avatar was during his time the youngest airbending master in history at the age of just 12. yet even still saka remained indispensable to this all-star lineup now why was this what allowed saka to contribute to such a valuable degree well if you guess his trusty boomerang funny enough you'd be right that which allows for non-benders to survive in such a bender-ruled world is technology the martial arts and crafting of weaponry existed long before the existence of proper bending bending on its own is the potential for great power that may be fully realized with great dedication and training yet even without such supernatural talents we've seen a number of incredibly capable non-benders arise one of my favorites being ty lee an exceptional acrobat and master chi blocker qi blocking being a once guarded secret technique that consists of precisely applying calculated jabs in rapid succession along a target's pressure points effectively numbing their bodies and hindering their ability to bend this is an actual anti-bending fighting style that has gotten the better of some of the world's greatest combatants the spread of which may be later seen amongst the kyoshi warriors the disciples of thaad featured in the north and south comic series and even the equalist goons for whatever reason and if we're talking about ty lee we should probably talk about mei a bit too her expertise with throwing weapons is certainly nothing to scoff at and honestly if the avatar series was more keen on blood and death like the netflix adaptation is gearing up to be she would probably be a whole lot more fearsome now storytelling wise azula's primary companions both being non-benders was almost certainly done as to allow for her to stand out more but in canon it to me just goes to show just how capable they were sure azula had known them almost all her life but we're talking about princess azula here to her the world is for the strong and results are all that matter i doubt she'd ever even let a weakling breathe in her presence and in revisiting the presence of the avatar when it comes to this whole thing although they may never be able to truly relate to the plight of the downtrodden that certainly doesn't stop them from being a proper ally the great avatar kiyoshi being a wonderful example of this in seeing the disparaging state of women's rights in the earth kingdom she chose to teach them how to properly defend themselves effectively even without the usage of bending and if the state of the world during the legend of korra is anything to go by technology has certainly lessened the divide between vendors and non-vendors by a large margin honestly as a viewer i kinda hate it because it's certainly not as exciting or personal as two people going head-to-head with their unique fighting styles or approaches to combat but it is what it is with our last video covering lava bending you guys really showed up and made our comeback glorious so thank you all so much for that and i hope you keep that same energy going with this one and everyone to come let me know what you guys think about non-benders based on what we discussed in this one and feel free to let me know what else you'd like to see from me and of course you can always hit me up on my various socials as well right now we are super close to hitting 300 000 subscribers over here so if you've yet to join in on the fun i certainly hope you do because there is plenty more where this one came from and with that thank you all so much for watching and have an awesome day i love you [Music] you

Channel: SliceofOtaku

Views: 148,549

Keywords: avatar, avatar the last airbender, avatar the legend of korra, the legend of korra, nonbenders, non benders, nonbenders avatar, non benders avatar, non benders vs benders, equalists avatar, amon korra, amon avatar, sokka avatar, asami legend of korra, asami sato, avatar explained, sliceofotaku, sliceofotaku avatar, slice of otaku, slice of otaku avatar, last airbender, bending explained, non-benders, non benders in avatar, non-benders in avatar, non-bender, nonbender

Id: CTYx5cSmwTE

Length: 13min 28sec (808 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 29 2020