Why Dictators Ban Books | Avatar: The Last Airbender

episode 10 season 2 of avatar The Last deand is called the library but it has a different title in German this EST marked or knowledge is power and we do not talk about this episode enough the aesthetic of the episode leans into this idea wholeheartedly we hear tales of the Mystique and wonder about what Secrets this Library might hold and when they find it they must descend into the Earth like an ancient tomb inside it's this cathedrall likee structure with a domed roof golden stucco our characters dwarfed by the sheer Nority of this place that seems to stretch infinitely into the Earth ancient and deep this is a place of power written into its very architecture tread carefully we take over a third of the episode just to find it there is a religious reverence to this place and its Guardian feels Godlike Wong is intimidating in every way he can be his size his voice the way he moves more like a living Shadow than a bird stretching and contorting in silence he who knows 10,000 Things the greatest gatekeeper of all gatekeeping Librarians even the pale patches on the back of his head to give us the impression of an allseeing all knowing god in this place knowledge is power and he is knowledge this is not just any building but the domain the Temple of an ancient Spirit invested and they are the manifestation of its power we are trespassing on Ancient sacred and Dangerous Ground because after all if knowledge is power then knowledge is dangerous and that's the thing libraries are places of power in society and Librarians are people of power you might just not realize how much in the episode Wong is not just a librarian he is a curator he decides which pieces of knowledge should be stored in his Library which knowledge deserves to be preserved which is valuable which knowledge should be publicly available he sends his foxy knowledge Keepers out into the world to search for valuable knowledge and entry to the library requires contribution to it and Librarians in the real world do the same thing if you go to them and ask for a book there's a decent chance they either have it or can get it for you completely free on your part by curating their collection Librarians decide what is freely available what information should be protected and which stories deserve to be heard unlike a bookstore who often only curates the best sellers they might make money on a library's duty is broader and deeper trying to be the best reflection of our society's knowledge and stories they can meaning you'll often find stories which aren't otherwise available including as we've seen books which others consider dangerous objectionable Librarians often view it as their responsibility to make sure those books are available most of all this is why so many battles are fought these days on local councils over which books should be allowed in libraries public and school and that battle is intensifying today with Librarians on the front lines in Chicago alone in 2023 4,200 books were challenged for censorship up from 2500 in 2022 stories like I kid you not the handmaid's tale a story ironically about a dystopia where women are banned from reading or 1984 of old books or of course books about queer people right now the library at hul Hall holds the only surviving first edition copy of a religious work by bendito de monova and Mar Antonio flamino from 1543 it sold over 40,000 copies in the 1540s until in 1549 it was banned by the Catholic Church dangerous objectionable erased but preserved in a library there are thousands of stories not unlike this denying people access to education and knowledge has been a common tactic of Oppression historically and today and like libraries are a point of resistance W Tong's library is a shining symbol of all of this the central story of the episode focuses on it being the last Bastion of lost knowledge a final effort to preserve knowledge the fation would have burned and destroyed it is an island of Enlightenment free from the oppressive bureaucracy of bar singi where a single mention of the war is met with imprisonment that too is dangerous knowledge secret libraries have long been points of resistance under oppressive regimes people risking their lives to protect books to protect knowledge and stories because they represent so much more than paper and ink even inside the darkest times and places perhaps especially so today this stands a memorial to the Nazi book burnings in Berlin called The Empty Library the image of an empty shelf itself an evocative reminder of the book burnings but for me it's also a reminder of the times people hid these books away at risk of life and limb that we must remember the power those books had such that people sought to destroy them in this way libraries are fortresses of Freedom you might not know but the academic articles which cost an arm and a leg are usually free at your local library they have access they also often have resources like free Wi-Fi video chat Photoshop or my local one has a recording studio tools which would otherwise be financially unavailable to people if you have that stuff you don't realize the Val they provide but in a world where knowledge is increasingly privatized and people are priced out of learning libraries are a key tool for social Mobility for Freedom libraries have long been a way for people to gain access to stories and information which are otherwise kept from them and more than that libraries are places where people in vulnerable situations can safely gain knowledge from an outside world libraries give people access to forbidden knowledge that is their power they are a refuge it is why they are targeted but with all of this in mind we can see how onei Tong's library is also a place of preservation it is an island in a desert of Decay and hidden inside is lost Knowledge from across the world The Last Remnant were told of an ancient civilization libraries preserve knowledge which might otherwise be lost or forgotten the British Library requires a copy of everything published in the UK from books to advertising pamphlets to be given to them for the historic record making it this invaluable Vault of human expression including copies which have otherwise now been lost to history in an increasingly online world where more and more information is digitized and subject to just being deleted like these YouTube videos libraries often go out of their way to make paper copy say physical way of ensuring their preservation and in the series W Tong's library is primarily defined as a place where lost knowledge can be found again but you must deal with it delicately and I love how even if indirectly the episode captures a lot of this and yet the threat to our libraries only increases each year funding has been declining in many places for some time too often many of the most important battles for censorship are not fought on the national stage in the eyes of many but in the back room of a local city council barely anyone votes in in the show Wong sinks his Library down back into the spirit world dramatically sick of people abusing his knowledge but in our world the main threat to libraries is not someone burning the building to the ground in a fit of rage it's people who fear the power Li have stripping them for parts or to cut costs and apathetic voters doing nothing to protect them if they do sink into the Earth and vanish from this world it will be our doing the gang and especially soccer seek out this ancient library in hopes of finding some secret weapon or information to help them defeat the Fire Nation to soccer knowledge is power because it is a tool to an end something to be exploited valuable in its utility and sure enough they find a weakness the solar eclipse which might disable all firebending at once knowledge is power and the library is an Arsenal but this finds them at the mercy of w shiong who hates the idea of people using his library to Violent ends from the beginning you intended to misuse this knowledge for evil purposes you don't understand if anyone's evil it's the Fire Nation you saw what they did to your library they're destructive and dangerous you think you're the first person to believe their war was justified countless others before you have come here seeking weapons or weaknesses or battle strategies he compares zaka to Xiao the moon Slayer Xiao the Invincible who also sought out knowledge of the Moon spirit's true form in this very library and after all the gang here discovers another Celestial spiritual event which disables an entire nation's bending the parallels are uncanny to Wong knowledge is power but knowledge is also a sacred beautiful thing corrupted by human ambition this is especially relevant given the Fire Nation is the country of innovation they are in the midst of an industrial revolution with steam power and tanks and hydraulics and the most modern technology while the rest of the world is largely medieval and the thing is Wong isn't entirely wrong here our pursuit of knowledge is to off tied in our world to violence and oppression digital surveillance is both a technological Marvel and an Unstoppable Leviathan engineers make jokes about hating weapons manufacturers until they see the salary on offer human ambition and laziness and lack of foresight does corrupt the knowledge we pursue it changes the information we fund that we preserve that we teach in our schools and a library should be more than an Arsenal but it's also never as simple as that W Tong's righteous indignation might seem like a kind of pacifism on the surface a way of staying out of the circles of violence of human Wars but it's not it's easy for him to say oh sakur and xia were just the same locked away in his Ivory Tower in fact the first image we get of the library is that of a gigantic lone Tower but Wong feels few ramifications of the war as an immortal Spirit he doesn't see the suffering of mortal people on a daily basis an action can allow other evils to fester and most of You could argue knowledge inherently exists in a moral context researching nuclear power doesn't exist in a vacuum right it intrinsically exists inside the likelihood of how that knowledge will be used for power or for weapons Wong holding on to katara's water bending scroll means that part of her culture can always be preserved even when they were nearly genocided qara is the last of her people in a way the library simply by existing has moral value in the stories it protects and prioritizes likewise the knowledge our public school and libraries make available which stories they preserve and which they don't inherently says something about our values if we allow the handmaid's tale to be forgotten it says something about us and the series goes out of its way to show how violence is not the only route forward forgiveness and understanding are even more important especially if you want to stop the cycle of violence and that's the thing libraries are important for that as well reading helps us be more empathetic stories expose us to the realities of others their lives their concerns they let us see others with complex internal realities just like ourselves more fully meaning it's no wonder some people want to censor stories which do just that you might miss it but there's actually a question hidden in this episode why do we learn Wong tests them on arrival why are you here asks on the one hand Professor Z seeks knowledge for knowledge's sake for the betterment of oneself because knowledge is cool right while Saker sees it as a form of power Z might seem naive he's kind of played a little bit for a joke his knowledge might seem useless but it's valuable to him and a sub story in this episode is him fulfilling a lifelong Pursuit there's a Wonder a joy there a rich and deeply human sense of fulfillment and looking at say it brought me back to an ongoing debate in public policy circles around what the point of education is for a child yes I'm going there talking about public policy you know what kind of Channel this is should we emphasize education which prepares a child for their place in the economy in the workforce that sets them up for a good life right or should it be about helping the child realize themselves discover their own interests and become a more well-rounded person should we emphasized stem over the Arts because that's what Society needs economically this debate has been going on long enough that I remember doing a speech about this at school 11 years ago God I'm old the answer is well both of course but the debate affects the funding schools get and the shape our libraries take what they curate what opportunities we give ourselves and our children there's the sense that knowledge which doesn't get you a job or earn you money is useless and therefore should not be part of the school curriculum or not funded as well at least but there's a bit of a deception going on here what kind of knowledge is truly useless the knowledge which makes a person more fulfilled which opens their mind to other opportunities to new passions which encourages their creativity that Fosters Innovation at some point the knowledge we choose to preserve and curate and fund and teach shapes the kind of people we can be a Freer Society is one where we can all discover our inner Professor Z and that's the thing it was Z's love of knowledge which led G to the library they needed in the first place passion and practicality are not separate spheres knowledge is power libraries are fortresses but fortresses must still be defended use them vote for them protect them my love of libraries goes back years and I actually wrote a story recently which starts out at the library of Asher barol thousands of years ago one of the oldest libraries in human history this Bastion of knowledge is falling apart it's buried under sand at this point and this almost deathlike figure comes to hold a funeral for all the dying Scrolls and books which will be forgotten it's a story about the importance of Stories the power they hold and the libraries that hold them how we value these books how we frame them and what we do with them and this death figure watches Humanities rise and fall over thousands of years through this lens it's called the funeral lists or hate in five parts and I would love you to read it it's in my book a catalog for the end of humanity which has a ton of sci-fi and fantasy and Other Stories in it thousands of people have already picked it up and really enjoyed it and make sure to leave a review when you do as it massively helps and if you believe knowledge is power well then you need to pick up my books on writing and World building volumes 1 to 3 in ebook or paperback or audio book all available down below I have been trying to empower you as a writer and World Builder for years now these books are the culmination of that taking everything we've learned and discussed making it better with tons of extra notes examples and adding depth to the discussions every book is completely separate and if you only want to get one I say get volume three but get the book which covers the topics you want to learn about all right from worldbuilding fantasy worlds to writing great dialogue because knowledge is power links down below audio books ebooks paperbacks all of that linked below you guys are amazing uh it is a privilege for me to be able to share this with you stay nerdy and I will see you in the future for for

Channel: Hello Future Me

Views: 79,260

Keywords: explained, theory, lore, analysis, how to, avatar, tlab, tla, korra, atla, aang, katara, library, wan shi tong, spirits, zuko, toph, earthbending, airbending, waterbending, firebending

Id: J7-W3LYqeYg

Length: 17min 40sec (1060 seconds)

Published: Sat Jul 06 2024