Reasons I Love Avatar 4: Politics (Part 2 of 3)

[ljlee]

Part 1 of this essay on Avatar as a political story talked mainly about the Earth Kingdom and its political attempts to end the war, and the root causes of that failure. Here in Part 2 I will discuss another effort to end the war unilaterally from the outside, specifically the coalition invasion in "The Day of Black Sun." Then I will discuss the

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[ljlee]

Oh, I recommend everything Amy's written, though The Ground on Which I Stand is particularly good even among her stories. If you like a good exploration into Azula's psyche and don't mind explicit slash I also recommend her Azula/Toph story, You Don't Stop Running 'Til You're Dead. Her whole archive is worth going through, really, though You Don't Stop... isn't in her regular archive.

As for Dragon King, ha, I'm always hesitant about reccing that one because it's so freaking long. If you want to read I'd be very pleased, and you may find the political and personal interplay between Zuko and Azula interesting. Azula doesn't really come into her own, I think, until the late Part 2 chapters which I have written but have not yet posted. But Part 1 was the groundwork for Part 2, so I think it had to happen that way.

I like your interpretation of the Colonies! I definitely think the issue of their rising independence will be an issue that both the FN and EK will have to deal with. With a much more reasonable Firelord on the throne, the FN may well have to deal with a kind of centrifugal force as demand for independence and power rises. This may in turn give rise to calls for a stronger Firelord.

On Yon Rha, I agree that his plight isn't so much tied to the imploding rural communities as class exploitation and mistreatment of veterans. I think that garden is a hobby, not his living, and his main income is probably a meager pension that's getting less sufficient all the time due to inflation triggered by the war. And it's funny that you mention the industrial revolution, because that was very much on my mind as I wrote the relevant scenes in Dragon King.

As for the relative productivity of FN proper and the Colonies, I agree FN probably enjoys a high degree of agricultural productivity due to climate, soil, and technology. That was probably the impetus behind their prosperity and military might. However, I also think they were ultimately limited due to their mountainous terrain, which limits the amount of arable land and raises the cost of production. Also, no matter how good the technology soil ultimately gets depleted, and if we assume that better agriculture and technology caused rapid population growth that could really have put pressure on the domestic economy. And then there's the fact that an industrialized economy requires an expanding market to absorb mechanized production.

That's why I believe the Colonies were the reason for the war, because like other industrialized countries the FN needed new territory and markets for an expanding domestic industry. Sozin may have thought he was making the world into a better place, but I think that was self-serving rhetoric in the end and he was relieving internal pressures through colonialism. Of course, as you point out the Colonies also became the fuel that kept the war going, so there's definitely a feedback relationship there.