the-alexandrian-alchemist: nesterov81:the-alexandrian-alchemist:nesterov81:sskuvira:fanwrigh
the-alexandrian-alchemist: nesterov81: the-alexandrian-alchemist: nesterov81: sskuvira: fanwright: pabster: A piece I did for avatarfanzine - Children of the Earth zine, which if you pre-ordered it, should be getting it real soon. I wished Kuvira would’ve had a longer season to shine a lot more. She genuinely saw herself as the hero of the people. Kuvira always reminded me of Chiang Kai-shek for some reason. I think Prince Wu is meant to be more Chiang Kai- Shek and Kuvira is meant to be more of a Mao Zedong. not exactly in all regards, but they pulled a lot of influences from the Chinese revolution (the hanging portraits, the great leap forward, personality cults, etc) and that time period. Among other things, we have the exiled Wu hiding out in Republic City ( Taiwan) and recognized as the endorsed ruler of the KIngdom (China) by the other world leaders at the beginning of Book 4. I’ve always been very reluctant to equate Kuvira to either Chaing or Mao. Part of the problem is that if you start looking for 1:1 historical analogies in fantasy worlds you end up developing tunnel vision you miss out on what the writer is actually trying to do with their setting. The other issue is that Bryke never really made it clear what Kuvira’s beliefs and ideology were beyond a few speeches and a handful of background details that don’t entirely fit together. Back when B4 was airing the revelation of the Earth Empire’s internment camps caused a stir in the fandom (at least among the Kuvira fans), since there was literally nothing in Kuvira’s backstory or behavior to explain why she would be an ethnic chauvinist.This old blog post took an interesting tack by discussing Kuvira’s context in the world history of Avatar and suggesting that she might be closer to Kemal Atatürk than any figure from modern Chinese history. (There’s also some neat discussion of the personal and political relationship between Kuvira and Suyin too!) I agree with the above statements. The general consensus amongst some fans seem to point to her ideology being some form of fascism, due to her emphasis on order, control and purity rather than having any exact real life counterpart. The more Germanic appearance of her army does point to more 1930s era Guomindang influences n addition to the Nazis. If I were to bring in references to history, her campaigns of unification seem to be heavily inspired by the GMD’s (and briefly the CCP’s) campaigns against the various warlords who emerged and carved up petty kingdoms for themselves following the 1911 Revolution and the various failures to centralize the new Republic of China. If Wu resembles anyone, it would be the old Imperial system as represented by Puyi, albeit more interested in some form of restoration. The show used the Equalists as their stand-in for extreme communism already (though Amon is not exactly a Mao stand in. At all. Not even close). Also, now that you mention it, I can see some Ataturk in Kuvira, especially in her rise to power. Good to see this post making the rounds again. I forgot to include that link in my first response, so here it is again for good measure. It digs a bit more into the matter and makes a point that Kuvira may be more of an modernizing authoritarian than an out-and-out fascist. (A very fine point, yes, but an important one to keep in mind.)Come to think of it, I’ve been wondering for the longest time if Amon may have been the actual Nazi. Certainly when you look at Book 1 of Korra as a whole, it’s not hard to make a case that for all the talk of equality and the downtrodden nonbender, Amon’s ultimate goal was the elimination or expulsion of all benders from the United Republic, and his first act upon seizing control of Republic City was to round up the benders and strip them of their powers by force. While I don’t know the correct word to describe benders as a subset of all humans in the universe of Avatar, I don’t think anyone could disagree that Amon’s plan for all benders was essentially ethnic cleansing. @nesterov81, on reading your appraisal I firmly agree with you now. Kuvira is definitely more of a modernizing-mind than a fascist. And I also agree the writers dropped the ball with her character in many ways. I really liked her first episodes because she legitimately seemed like she wanted to do good but was going too far. She really reminded me of someone more like Qin Shi Huangdi, wanting to bring order to an area dominated by chaos but wanting that order to be focused on themself. And yeah, that is a good point. While one could say he was making the non-benders and benders into a form of proletariat and bourgeoise, he also called for what was essentially genocide. And yeah, bending does seem to be something biological so it would be ethnic cleansing. That is terrifying to consider. I dont often log on or post here anymore, but so glad I caught such good and informative thread about Kuvira and the Legend of Korra series in general, happening under my image. -- source link
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