Discussion ComicBook / TheLegendOfKorraTurfWars

I am the second editor you mentioned.

I disagree wholeheartedly. Saying that Sozin is a even a "character" that has been "shown" is, in my view, an exaggeration. He was discussed in a few lines of dialogue. No other homophobic characters have appeared. Thus, discussing this as a "conflict", much less one of the story's central ones, is blowing a relatively minor element way out of proportion.

Also, just to address the point made in the last edit before this thread began, which positioned the criminalization of homosexuality as an extreme step. I live in a state in which homosexuality was not decriminalized until 1998 (and then only when the federal government forced us to), and many countries around the world (not just "backwards" ones but several of the U.S.'s partners in the hallowed liberal project) still criminalize and actively persecute homosexuals.

And now, a personal note. This might get me dismissed as a PC whiner, so remember that even if you disagree with this part the rest of my arguments still stand. I'm also not casting aspersions on the original editor, I make no claims to knowing what they believe in their heart. That said, the critical tone of this entry concerns me. I very clearly implies that the way that the comic handles homophobia is "wrong" and that the implicit "right" way to handle it would be to represent homophobes who have reasonable reasons for believing what they do. I disagree. I'm suspicious that any piece of media, especially one aimed at least partially at children, should deliver the message that "bigots can be good people and have good reasons for believing as they do". I don't think this comparable to Hiroshi and benders because 1.) benders were the ones with greater social power, and it is easier to make a member of an oppressed class who hates his oppressors sympathetic than the other way around and 2.) that was, as mentioned, Fantastic Racism, and applying the same style of characterization to an actual widespread real world prejudice probably isn't the best idea. We would probably side-eye a work with a white character who is uncomfortable around black people, but has sympathetic reasons for it, and is presented sympathetically by the narrative. Depiction someone who is bigoted without giving them a clear reason for isn't necessarily lazy or bad writing. It's accurate to a lot of people in real life.

OK. I can see where you're coming from, too. Looking at this, I think we really have two issues: first, whether this is a case of Black-and-White Morality, and second, whether that's a bad thing.

Taking the first for the first, the page for Black-and-White Morality describes one variant of this as embodied in character motivations:

• Motivation: The villains never have a sympathetic motivation for their actions. There aren't any Well-Intentioned Extremists, and The Mole will show his true colors once he's unmasked. Rather, their intentions are entirely for the sake of Evil (and may involve taking over or destroying the world). Likewise, the forces of good never have any evil, ulterior motives for their deeds, as they do good because it's The Right Thing To Do.

This would seem to fit very well with how Sozin is presented: he is not given any sympathetic (or even intelligible) motive for his anti-homosexuality legislation, which is presented as Obviously Evil (the infamous "Gestapo" imagery, which I've actually seen reviewers complain about for being Anvilicious). Likewise, Korra is never given any philosophical or ethical justification for opposing anti-homosexual bigotry; it's just assumed a priori that she is right—which we might perhaps agree she is, but the issue is never carefully considered or discussed in any way.

You're quite right, IMO, that the pro-/anti-homosexuality issue isn't the major conflict in the Turf Wars miniseries, but it's certainly a major element in the first volume at least. And the revelation/Retcon that most of the setting overtly embraces anti-homosexual attitudes in varying degrees is a very relevant and far-reaching bit of worldbuilding. As such, I think the disputed entry would deserve to be mentioned as one sub-example among the others of how the comic is more "black and white" than the original Korra series.

For the second argument, whether Black-and-White Morality is something bad, the page description notes:

• While it shows up in stories of all kinds, Black And White Morality seems to occur frequently in media marketed for kids. (...) Of course, usage of Black and White morality in stories won't always end up sparkling white: this moral alignment is often associated with clichéd writing and propaganda.

This would seem to cover aspects of what both you and the editor who made the entry have alluded to (though of course, I won't presume to speak for either him or you). On the one hand, one might think simplifying the moral issues and presenting them without nuance cheapens the story. On the other hand, one might also not want nuance, or presenting an ideological enemy (anti-gay people, in this particular case) as in any way sympathetic or reasonable—especially when writing for children, as you emphasize in your last paragraph.

I can sort of agree, in part, with both sides. Obviously, a comic for children shouldn't actually promote anti-social attitudes and behaviors. But at the same time, I think one should be careful with oversimplifying, too. Beyond this usually being to the detriment of a given story in purely artistic terms, it also essentializes and "otherizes" (if you'll pardon a PC turn of phrase) the "enemy" in a way that I think is unfortunate. Real-life bigots are not incomprehensible monsters; they don't try to be "evil" like cartoon villains, they're just people with different beliefs and values than you or I. I think this is something that is important to understand, even as many people (by no means only children) fail to do so. And this can even have dangerous consequences in real life—for example, if a teenager raised on Netflix and Marvel Comics runs into a real fascist and is totally unprepared for the realization that he isn't a cartoon, but an eloquent social critic with good arguments (or seemingly "good" arguments) for his politics. I'd think then it's better to say that, well, bigots are human beings, too; we might think they're wrong, but they're not (usually, at least) mustache-twirling villains tying women to rails.

In real life, conservatives, right-wingers and even real fascists and Nazis (the actual Sieg-Heilers, not just libertarians and Pat Buchanan types) think they're on the good side, and you are the villain. And the smart ones, at least, can and will explain intelligently why they think so. If we want to confront them effectively, we have to take this into account. IMO, this was something Korra did really well (again, for a children's cartoon) with the Equalists, showing some of their side of the story while still not compromising on them being the villains. It's a balancing act, obviously, but I think they did it more successfully than the comic has with its social conflicts, at least so far.

Ultimately, though, I think this might be a side issue here. Even if we think Black-and-White Morality is a symptom of bad writing (and I'd say, at least it often is, though not always or necessarily), the criterion for inclusion on the page is whether the trope is present, not whether it's good (as you also pointed out). Given what the comic has shown so far, and how the relevant tropes are described, I would, on the balance, still say it is.

These sort of Morality tropes are meant to cover the moral schema of the work as a whole, or at least of one particular conflict in it. I'm not sure Sozin, being such an extremely minor figure in the book, even merits an entry. It's wrong, in my view, to even call this a "conflict" with "sides". Hell, I'd argue the opposite, that the Avatarverse's homophobia comes off as an Informed Attribute.

I'm not going to get into a discussion about the nature of bigotry (though I disagree with how you characterize it), but it seems a weak complaint that a dead character who was mentioned in a few lines of dialogue didn't get their personal philosophy explained in detail.

Even if we keep the entry, we should modify it so it reads as less overwhelming negative. I think Tv T has a problem with fetishizing "moral ambiguity", to the point of obscuring all moral stances into a sludge of "both sides have a point", and condemning any work that dares to take a stand on anything.

The thing is that the homosexuality angle, and how it's treated, is obviously a big point with this comic (Korrasami is basically why anyone but us diehard Korra fans knows about it at all in the first place). So how that theme is approached is not unimportant IMO, even if it's not the main plot. And for better or worse, Sozin is the guy whose face the writers decided to use to personify the "anti-" side.

I agree the language could be modified though.

Obviously my writings above aren't meant to be a complete psychology of bigotry, and they're written in part as a conscious response to your post, emphasizing different things. I hope it doesn't come across as too sympathetic to those concerned, but I do think political polarization and demonization is growing to be a dangerous thing these days. Demonizing someone is different from just showing that he's wrong. It also runs the risk of backfiring, when the image on TV doesn't match how he appears in real life. (Please don't take this as criticism of you personally; I'm thinking more of the general spirit of our times here.) Look at how the political climate has changed just these last few years. I'd say what we need in public life is less name-calling and trench warfare and more constructive dialogue. That necessarily means showing some openness to and understanding for the opposing point of view, even if we (emphatically) don't have to agree with it.

These are, of course, much bigger issues overall than the tangent we're on here. Sorry for pontificating. And looking at the size of my mini-essays, sorry for that, too. I didn't really mean to take over the conversation like that. I hope I'm not scaring other tropers away with my walls of text!

Haven't read the work, but given the latter half of the example is describing characters as either gray or blacks masquerading as whites (... wow. That got weird, fast), it seems like there's more nuance than just Good v. Evil there. The issues raised in the first post in this discussion seem more about how poorly it was presented, not that there's just good and just evil.

I don’t think what’s described above is the same thing as moral grayness, as that implies a genuine question of who to root for (this is why V for Vendetta, for example, isn’t Grey-and-Gray Morality, because, while the fascists are well developed as characters, their actions make sympathy impossible).

Bigoted ideologies frequently sound reasonable. But they aren’t, they’re nonsense post-facto justifications for exploitation and abuse. A narrative that exposes them as such could not conceivably be morally grey. A narrative that attempts to do so is how you get dogshit like Bioshock Infinite.

I stand by my point that treating this as central conflict in the book is inaccurate and misleading. Not every coming out story needs to address the roots of homophobia and demanding that this series do so is odd.

Ok, I'm the OP who wrote the line in the first place and put it back in both times because the reasons for removing it are wrong and I'll be happy to elaborate/defend it, again because I want it back there again and to stay there because it is accurate.

For starters, Word of God outright stated (and it's on Wikipedia with the source for the interview) that he had no plans for adding nuance to the issue of homophobia in Turf Wars and (as stated before on this site,) each nation's view of the issue is based purely on the elemental mentality rather than based established history/canon that would make it complex in the usual worldbuilding sense the franchise is known for that would make the issue as white and grey as LOK has been about the issues of Bender/Non-Bender, Man/Spirits and forms of government. The fact that Sozin, one of the most one-dimensionally, unambiguously evil characters in the franchise, (which reminds me of how long I've put off calling Windleopard on his(?) "arguments" excusing Sozin and Hou-Ting to shit on Korra in the forums,) is the only named person persecuting queer people and having no other reason beyond "I'm an evil prick" for doing so the way Korra's villains have an understandable point should make this a no-brainer that "homophobia is bad," and that there's no understandable but NOT excusable reason(s) for being one compared to "A firebender killed my wife so I blame all benders." Everyone Bryke wants us to like/sympathize with so far has been either super-supportive or at worst, indifferent with zero valid questions (i.e. When I found out from both a rumor and the rainbow flag in her room that a girl I knew since she was 5 was bisexual and had a girlfriend, I had a number of polite questions that she expected coming and politely answered) while again, the only named bigot was the same guy that's been 100% detestable villain since '06.

Also just because sexism in the original series was a sub-issue compared to saving the world didn't mean that Katara's fight for gender-equality was any less valid and an example of balance with Pakku's sexism being inexcusable even when that had reason of also being cultural but not justified in Pakku feeling culturally entitled to have Kanna just because he carved a necklace. Unless Tokuga turns out to be a gay runaway lashing out at the world because of bigoted parents and/or a dead lover, the point'll still stand that he's just as straight-forward a villain as the past Fire Lords instead of another Zaheer or Amon no matter how much he rivals them in cool.

Also-Also I noticed that nobody questioned/messed with my other points even though I (also accurately) stated that Raiko had been simplified from a more complex Reasonable Authority Figure to a typical Sleazy Politician to make Zhu Li's campaign against him look easier.

Second, Sozin is a character. He doesn't have to be seen in the books when his name is still dropped as why the Fire Nation, like everything else it was known for being until he came along, went full-blown homophobe when it was stated to have been as previously queer-friendly as the Air Nation just as it was anti-dragon and Agni Kais went from casual sparring to serious duels, so they are definitely his policies shaping the nation as it did by the time Aang thawed out. Kya is not an Unreliable Narrator, she's a(n awkward means) of exposition that queer people were getting rounded up for being queer with even less of a cover than "the Earth Kingdom was too stubbornly militant to accept queer people even though their own legendary Avatar was a bisexual badass."

The selling point was Korrasami and the Verse's views on it, period. Yes, there's an interest in the aftermath, but come. on, the books didn't fly off the shelves with excited customers posting pics on Tumblr of themselves with their copies because they were interested in Tokuga and nobody was linking/sharing leaked pics of his mutated form. Hell, Part 1 is more about them coming out/exposition than it is about Raiko or the bad guys.

Now to clarify TL;DR my points besides what on the YMMV page:

• As a Black man fucking tired of Gran Torino-type Noble Bigots and repenting White Saviors (Do. Not. get me started on Defiance), I'm not looking for easy excuses, I'm looking for understanding, depth and complexity in this world's characters whether they just realized their best friend/ex-girlfriend/student/child/etc. isn't straight, why/how society feels that way beyond elemental mentality, and what can be done about it. Di-Martino (tired of using the punctuation thing for his name) never thought that far to the extent there's yet to be terms like "lesbian," "bisexual", etc. stated in the books or even analogues like "Kiyoshians/Followers of Kiyoshi," "bends both ways" or "Unagi Boys" the same way they used to call meteorites "space earth".
• I want that if this world has been a collection of Fantasy Counterpart Cultures and this world has similar degrees of homophobia that something like the Earth Kingdom's bigotry be deeper than "We hate queers because we're militaristic" and more like "Our warlords used to practice Wakashudo, so we associate same-sex couples with scheming barbarians and a CEO with The Avatar triggers those old fears."
• I want to know/see that Kiyoshi Island is the Fire Island/Lesbos of their world with Korra reading about with Jinora during Part 2 and talking about one day visiting with Asami where Ty Lee was their equivalent of a gay icon like Cher or Judy Garland.
• I want to know/see Fire Islanders that before and/or after Sozin practiced Laotong so they'd be biphobic in the sense that they see Korra/Asami as perfectly valid/normal but see either previously dating Mako as "a phase" in a reverse of "Gay Until Graduation" with everyone having to argue, "No, we were genuinely attracted to Mako and it was his behavior that made us break up with him."
• I want that if there's bigoted villains we don't excuse their bigotry, but we do understand where they're coming from in that mindset as we've done with Korra's past villains where having genuine friends and lovers didn't change the facts that Zaheer was a terrorist, Kuvira was a tyrant and both were responsible obscene body counts. So far it's just been simplified to Sozin "because reasons" (which by the way had even Irene Koh rolling her eyes about.)
• Hell, I even want an Aresia-type Shadow Archetype of Korra's who was a queer woman from the past that lost her Asami and became a vengeful spirit that Korra understands but still has to defeat, but also tackle the prejudices of the present to help placate her.
• Martino wants us to still like the same characters, but at the same time wants a conflict to relate to the LGBT audience, so you end us with the mess that is Korra's storming out of her parents' house like they disowned her despite them warning of other people being bigoted with the resolution held off for Part 3 despite Asami helping her understand in Part 1.

Does that help get my points across? And can we please put my statement back up and leave it alone for good?

Most of what you just wrote is irrelevant. What matters here is how it either is or is not a valid example, not your personal opinion of how it is presented. To elaborate:

I'm just gonna start out with this being poorly written. The first sentence is a run on and is hard to follow, and the punctuation is misplaced in the parentheses.

Next, the work does not present it as black and white. Yes, it does simplify the arguments for the sake of storytelling, but it's a comic, not a novel. Certain parties hold more conservative/progressive views and the goal trends toward acceptance, but not every party is treated as wholly unsympathetic. That alone disqualifies it.

Nice to hear from the original editor. Since we now have the viewpoints of both of the people in the original dispute, as well as opinions from others, I think we're making progress. What we will now perhaps need to do is to isolate personal opinion from objective fact (insofar as troping is ever "objective"). I'll be returning to this.

While I'm perhaps not quite so vehement in my stance, I mostly agree with what I take to be the main points you make. Contrary to what has been argued before, the theme of homosexuality in the Avatar-verse is important to the comic; it can't simply be dismissed as a minor background issue when Korrasami puts it front and center. For the same reason, Sozin (the face we're given of the anti-gay side) can't be ignored. Further, you phrase it quite well when you write:

• "I want that if there's bigoted villains we don't excuse their bigotry, but we do understand where they're coming from in that mindset as we've done with Korra's past villains"

I too would have liked this, especially since (as noted repeatedly) Korra has previously been careful not to dumb down its villains to this cartoonish level (if you'll pardon this contextually ironic turn of phrase). The creators would give them somewhat well thought out philosophies, and reasons for espousing them. Amon and Hiroshi Sato were (for a cartoon) believable Nazis; Zaheer was a believable nihilist; and Kuvira was a believable fascist. Unalaq was perhaps the least successfully executed villain, and even he came across as a sort-of believable religious fanatic. None of these characters had aims we're supposed to agree with, but we could in some way understand where they were coming from. In Turf War, this aspect is absent. I think that's a shame.

Now, of course it's perfectly all right if others don't agree with that. Perhaps you like Black-and-White Morality; once in a while it can be nice to be free of realistic nuance. Fiction is escapism after all, and even I won't pretend Korra is deep psychological drama like Crime and Punishment. It is, when all is said and done, mass-produced children's entertainment. But I think the best cartoons are those that manage to touch on mature themes without alienating the target audience. For example, Batman TAS was a thing when I was a kid, and it has remained with me precisely because it was very good at that. Way back, it made me think. I think Korra has worked similarly for a younger generation—just like the original Avatar did before.

Addressing further the last reply before mine: As for the original example, I would tend to agree it could be rephrased to be more effective. If we just look at how the issue is presented, though, where is the nuance that renders it anything but black and white? I'm not trying to be difficult or perverse, I'm just not seeing it.

• It's said the peaceful and friendly Fire Nation was traditionally accepting of homosexual expression before the evil Sozin (genocidal dictator, imperialist, etc) came along and outlawed it. No reason is given for why he would do so, or why people supported it. What the story (effectively) says is, "Anti-gay sentiment is due only to Magic Hitler who created it for no reason because he was evil." That's literally less nuanced writing than you'll find in many genuine Silver Age comics.

• It's said also the Earth Kingdom is against homosexuality, because it is "militaristically repressive" and generally conservative. This is really no explanation at all, and it certainly doesn't humanize anyone. The Water Tribes have a Don't-Ask-Don't-Tell system, again not explored in any detail, but apparently accepted as a matter of course.

• Despite every extant major national culture in the setting thus having been established as having significant institutionalized prejudice against homosexuality, every single sympathetic character we see, from every cultural background, is immediately and unquestioningly supportive of Korrasami. Korra's parents aren't sad that they'll never have grandchildren or anything; none of their old friends so much as questions something that should, by the established rules, look pretty weird to them. The only possible exception is Mako, and even he is tolerant of it.

In sum, while the comic hints at a bigger and more complex context, the impression we get from the story itself is very black and white. The sides seem very clearly defined. Korrasami is Good, anti-gay sentiment is Bad, and the anti-gay side (personified by a genocidal dictator) is not given any sort of argument at all for their actions—not even implicitly, nor even a bad one. And there are (so far) no doubters or ambiguity of any kind on either side.

Note that here, I'm not arguing about whether this is good or bad. As we've already seen from the previous discussion here, people can have different opinions on that. And that's fine, of course. But the way the comic presents the issue certainly looks like Black-and-White Morality to me.

I think if they had made any sympathetic character from the show not 100% supportive, we’d be having this exact conversation about whether or not that was Character Derailment.

I still don’t view this as a conflict. If anything, that’s the problem, and the Avatarverse’s homophobia should fall under Informed Attribute. The fact that so much of this conversation revolves around Sozin, a character that does not actually appear in the comic, is demonstrative of that.

I disagree with the definition of "morally gray" that seems to be being used here. Katara v. Pakku is not grey morality, not even White and Gray, it's Black and White, just with Black having some understandable, as distinct from sympathetic, motivations. Amon is a perfect example of a failed attempt to make a morally gray character, where his motives and even his ideology were muddled to the point that Word of God had to clarify that he wasn't an outright charlatan or a Windmill Crusader. Hiroshi, for all his motives, is written as a raving lunatic by the end of Book One. And of course there's Unalaq and Vaatu, who were never anything but pure Black. Only the last two seasons of Korra really suceed at the White and Gray Morality they were aiming for.

Can we all at least agree that the originally entry needs to be heavily rewritten?

A character can have a major impact on a story without playing a major part in terms of spoken lines. Sauron never appears in person in The Lord of the Rings, for example, but surely we shouldn't say he is totally unimportant or not a significant villain? That goes double when the work is only part of a greater constructed universe. In terms of the greater Avatar setting, Sozin is probably the most important political leader of the last couple of centuries, except maybe Zuko. In the end, he does matter quite a bit no matter how you look at it, whether from a Watsonian or a Doylist perspective.

As for other moral conflicts, I'm wondering if you aren't using a slightly different definition of black (as opposed to gray) than TV Tropes is. From what the page says, Black-and-White Morality is not about whether the cause of the villain (or Hero Antagonist, in the case Katara v. Pakku) is something you or I personally agree with, but how the presentation is done—if there are no nuances, no real motives, no complexity.

So, for example, if you have a hypothetical World War II movie, it's not automatically Black-and-White Morality just because the hero is an American and the villain is a Nazi ("good" and "evil" sides in the bigger picture). If the Nazi antagonist is a baby-eating lunatic who slaughters innocent people For the Evulz, it becomes that. Otherwise, it can be anything from Gray And White Morality (both guys are pretty decent, Nazi guy is an old-school Officer and a Gentleman who is just loyal to his country and not a war criminal/etc) to Black-and-Gray Morality or even Evil vs. Evil (both American guy and Nazi guy are utterly horrible people, à la Inglourious Basterds). The difference is mainly in the motives and actions of the characters, and how the author presents them, not their philosophies.

If we use the Avatar universe instead, we can contrast, say, Fire Lord Ozai to Kuvira. Ozai (as depicted in the original series, at least) has no sympathetic motives, being a villain purely out of lust for power; moreover, he is also personally unsympathetic and sadistic, torturing Zuko and doing various other bits of Kick the Dog. He is also, generally speaking, an expansionist, fascistoid dictator. And his opponent is Aang. Whereas Kuvira in Korra is also a fascist who wants a racially pure Earth Kingdom, puts waterbenders like Ahnah in concentration camps and wages wars of aggression against other peoples, but she has some justification for her fascist ideology—i.e., Earth Kingdom got screwed over really bad by foreigners and left-wing extremists, so now (Kuvira thinks that) they need a fascist dictatorship so this won't happen again. Also, she's humanized because we see there are people she cares about, too. And her enemy is Korra. This emphatically doesn't mean that Kuvira is right, or that her philosophy is—to people like Ahnah, her Earth Empire probably looks just as bad as the Fire Nation did to the people in Haru's village back in Season 1 Avatar—but to the viewers, she is presented in a very different light than Ozai.

As I keep coming back to, this was something I really liked with Korra, that the writers could make their villains somewhat comprehensible and human even as they unapologetically championed bad ideologies like anarchism (Zaheer), fascism (Kuvira) or even Nazism (Amon and Sato). (I don't think Sato was such a train wreck as you imply by the end. He was anguished, obviously, but who wouldn't be if you had to fight your own daughter in a civil war? I know I wouldn't take that very well.) Unalaq I agree wasn't done as well as the others, but, hey, no writer will ace it every time.

Concerning your last paragraph, I certainly agree that the entry could be rewritten to be more effective. Perhaps we could make it something like:

• The issue of same-sex relations is presented in a simplistic "good/bad" manner. Everyone intended as sympathetic is written as Exceptionally Tolerant and immediately supportive of Asami and Korra in spite of the setting's widespread prejudice against homosexuality, while anti-gay sentiments are personified in the caprice of the genocidal dictator Sozin (who outlawed homosexuality in the previously tolerant Fire Nation for no apparent reason). This is all the more remarkable since the original Korra series did not shy away from dealing with bigotry in a more sensitive fashion, as shown with such villains as Amon and Hiroshi Sato.

—? Just a first draft of a possible suggestion, of course. Other opinions are obviously very welcome, especially that of the original editor.

Not terribly relevant, but the Equalists are very clearly a stand in for communists, not Nazis, as that would make the narrative's acknowledgement that their concerns are valid extremely uncomfortable.

Yes, it is possible to have a character who puts in few appearances and has major impact, but Sozin has zero impact on the plot. The lines discussing him could be cut completely and change nothing about the story.

The definition of Black-and-White Morality is ambiguous, but having some degree of motivation doesn’t automatically negate it.

The edited version of the entry does correct some of the factual inaccuracies of the original, it fails to address a lot of concerns.

Also, Inglorious Basterds isn’t Evil vs. Evil, it’s Grey and Black.

Sozin is the character the writers chose to personify anti-Korrasamism in their setting. (Rightly or wrongly as we may choose to believe; personally I think the way they did it, at least, was lazy writing, but they still did it.) He's the face and voice of anti-homosexual bigotry in the 'verse, both to the readers and to Korra herself in the story. At that level, he is not just a character anymore, but an archetype and symbol, but that certainly doesn't make him unimportant.

The way I understand it from reading the pages, the only real difference between Black-and-Gray Morality and Evil vs. Evil is whether the narrative calls one side good or not, despite both being bastards, or agrees that both are evil. With the movie, the impression I personally got was that the Basterds were at least as bad as the Nazis (what with pointlessly and sadistically torturing and disfiguring helpless Germans, etc—they got a lot of Kick the Dog). But you can read it both ways, I suppose, I don't recall the narrative taking a crystal-clear stance.

As for the Equalists, I think they resemble Nazis more than Communists, given how big a part of their ideology is based on resentment against benders (who are a biological entity, a group of people, not a class in any Marxian sense). The obvious analogy is X-Men, where the human supremacist villains fight against the superpowered mutants. I sort of can see your point too, though. We probably shouldn't take the similarities too literally, since the Avatar world is (obviously) very different from our own. The idea of equality as we usually imagine it sort of breaks down quickly in fantasy settings where some subset of the population is superpowered or otherwise very clearly innately superior in some obvious way, like the benders are in Korra. If a Villain Has a Point in that world, that doesn't mean he necessarily would in real life.

On the entry, what more precisely is it that you're unhappy with in the suggested first draft?

I mean, you're just... wrong about them resembling Nazis more than Communists. They're not non-bender supremacists, just bender opposers. They're a perceived underclass rising up against their rulers. Hell, look at their name.

Also, I question what you mean by "championed." Because of those characters, it never "championed" any of those ideals that they had. At best, it portrayed them as a decent person with a bad ideology, and their redemption ended with them, well, essentially renouncing said ideology.

Look at the name of the Nazi Party: The National Socialist Workers' Party of Germany. The real Nazis actually talked a lot about equality in their propaganda, and how the German people were being oppressed by the powerful International Jewish Conspiracy. In fact, just look at real life right wing populists today. Do they claim to be "white supremacists" or anything like that? I've literally never seen a real right winger, even online, who calls himself that. They all claim to be oppressed underdogs who are just trying to defend themselves against powerful and malevolent oppressors (which they might call anything from the "Deep State" to the "Zionist Occupation Government," depending on how explicit they want to be).

Real life is not so simple as the "bad guys" campaigning as the Oppression and Tyranny Caucus. Just as real life communists don't call themselves the Starvation Party, real fascists and Nazis don't call themselves the Supremacist Party. Instead, they'll say they're the champions of the little guy—Just like the Equalists, who are villains with good writing. As I've said, this is one thing I like very much about Korra: the series doesn't dumb things down (compared to most other cartoons), it gives us bad guys with realistic talking points and motivations, rather than having the villains playing Eviler than Thou like Skeletor or Cobra Commander.

(That said, there are clear overtones of racial bigotry to Amon's rhetoric. When he talks about cleansing the benders of their impurity, this doesn't sound very much like Marxism to me, for example.)

For your second paragraph, from what I wrote I very obviously meant that it was the villains who "championed" their respective ideologies, not the writers, if that was in any way unclear. As I've emphasized repeatedly, the show never treats them as anything but villains, it just treats them as vaguely realistic villains with reasonably nuanced personalities and plausible motives. Though I don't think any of the main Korra villains ever actually renounced his or her ideology. Hiroshi Sato would be closest, with him and Asami just not ever mentioning the Equalist issue in their talks in Book 4, so we have no idea how much of his old convictions he still stands by. If I remember correctly, Amon, Unalaq, Zaheer and Kuvira never repented of their philosophies.

As was cautioned before, though, we may be getting off topic. The issue as such isn't exactly irrelevant, but I don't think it should be the main focus of our discussion here. I'm sorry if I'm distracting from the chief point; that wasn't really my intention at all when I first mentioned Korra's relative moral complexity. I just wanted to illustrate an aspect of the show's writing compared to which (IMO) the comics so far fall short.

Like I said, it's not really relevant, but I'm still uncomfortable with that reading, because the narrative goes out of its way do demonstrate that benders really do have institutional power over non-benders, which is really fucked up if read as a Nazi allegory. It also quickly breaks down if you look at how they come to power and the rhetoric they use (the appropriation of the word "socialist" aside, equality was not a central aspect of Nazi propaganda, they much more heavily favored appeals to nostalgia and patriotism) and their tactics (no fascist government has ever come to power through revolution) and it becomes clear that the intent was as stand-ins for communists. The Nazi elements are probably a result of so much of our visual vocabulary for "evil" being defined by Nazism, but stating they are primarily a Nazi allegory is categorically false.

Anyway, you're right that this is off topic.

You're certainly right on the last one. I'll drop the Equalist tangent now, and let whoever wants to get in the last word. The point I originally wanted to make was made long ago.

Let's get back to the main issue. It seems we're mostly agreeing now that Black-and-White Morality is in play in Turf Wars, and it's the details we haven't as yet settled on. Let's try to hammer out a way to phrase the example that everyone can live with. I offered a suggestion so we'd have something to work from, but that's just a starting point, please feel free to add your own ideas to the discussion.

(And if the original writer wants to weigh in again, that'd still be very nice. We want to hear from everyone who got involved in this.)

I'm amenable to that. I would just like to request that the entry note the extremely minor role played by Sozin in the comic, and the relatively (compared to the other two conflicts listed) minor plot significance of this conflict in general.

Also, if I could float another idea, does anyone else think the Avatarverse's homophobia might fall under Informed Attribute? I'm thinking we should wait until the third volume comes out, but the number of times we're told that Korra and Asami will face a degree of social rejection makes the fact that they never actually do seem weird. Though I think this is a no-win scenario for the creators, as making an established sympathetic character homophobic (especially if it was Mako) would have drawn massive cries of Character Derailment.

Right, it's been a week. New version of the draft, attempting to incorporate recent suggestions. Comments, criticism and alternative angles are still very welcome, and we'd still love to hear from the original editor again.

• While only a subplot, albeit a thematically important one, the issue of same-sex relations is presented in a simplistic "good/bad" manner. Everyone intended as sympathetic is written as Exceptionally Tolerant and immediately supportive of Asami and Korra in spite of the setting's widespread prejudice against homosexuality, while anti-gay sentiments are personified in the caprice of the genocidal dictator Sozin (who outlawed homosexuality in the previously tolerant Fire Nation for no apparent reason).^note Though as an "historical" character, Sozin makes no actual appearance in the comic. This is all the more remarkable since the original Korra series did not shy away from treating bigotry in a more sensitive and realistic fashion, as shown with such villains as Amon and Hiroshi Sato.

As for Informed Attribute, I could see it. We should probably bear in mind that they haven't told all that many people yet, so there's some room for further developments, but the way things stand at the moment, I agree there is an apparent discrepancy between the stated attitudes of the setting and the demonstrated ones of the Bat Family. And yes, RL concerns probably weighed in on the writing there.

I'd cut the last sentence and listing Sozin as a Greater-Scope Villain, as he doesn't fill that narrative role. I don't feel the comparison to the Equalists is germane or necessary. Otherwise, this is good.

I think you could argue Sozin sort of fits the role as a Greater-Scope Villain, since his legacy is responsible for a lot of the bigotry that is still in the setting. But that's not an important point, so if no one else minds, I'm fine with cutting that link.

I'm more reluctant to delete the Equalist comparison, because it serves a more integral role illustrating how (relatively) maturely the franchise could treat bigotry at its best, and why fans feel the more cartoonish morality in the comics is a major break from that. IMO, it brings out that contrast quite well. Also, this was a point the creator of the original entry clearly wanted to make, or at least it looks that way to me from our discussion so far. I think we should try to respect his wishes, too, even if he hasn't been around for a while.

Can you live with it if we keep the last sentence? I'd say it adds useful context, and even if you don't think it's strictly necessary, surely it does no harm.

I genuinely have no idea where you got the idea that Sozin is responsible for any of the settings current issues, that’s never even vaguely implied in the comic.

My problem is that I consider the Equalists to be a terrible allegory for bigotry (my not reading them as one is in part to give the writers the benefit of the doubt), and, as this thread has demonstrated, reading them as one is at least not universal. Barring that, the context isn’t actually necessary and reads as complaining.

Kya said all the anti-homosexuality bigotry in the Fire Nation was because of him. Even if we assume she simplified the setting's history in her speech, for it to make any sense at all he must have been at least a major driving force behind it. Though as already noted, that's not a major point, so I'm not going to argue about it. Unless anyone else speaks up for it, I'm happy to cut that link.

On the Equalists, I had understood it that you too read them as bigots. Just class-based Marxist-like bigots rather than race- or ethnicity-based Nazi-like bigots. But whatever we interpret their bigotry to resemble in real life terms, clearly they are written as bigoted against the fictional group that is benders.

If the line as it is reads like it's complaining, we could change the wording a bit. How about something like this, instead:

• (...) By way of comparison, the original Korra series generally treated bigotry in a more nuanced fashion, as shown with such villains as Amon and Hiroshi Sato.

—? That's pretty much all factual statement, with no value judgment of any kind in it.

I don't view Marxists as bigots, as I'm quite sympathetic to Marxism. I think we need more people here, or this is just going to be us talking in circles forever. Is their any way we can get some more voices in this thread?

It wasn't in any way my intention to imply that all Marxists are necessarily bigoted. There are and have been, however, some who indubitably are, and unreasoningly hate people on the basis of ideology, class identity and such things, just as fascists and others on the right have hated ideological and other enemies. Since you equated the Equalists in Korra (who are certainly presented as bigots) to communists before, I simply assumed you thought they were Marxist-like bigots of this type. I'm sorry if I've offended you by making that assumption.

While I'd likewise welcome more participants in the thread, as I've also said before, I'd not yet despair of a resolution or think we're doomed to any such interminable exchange. Rather, we've made great progress so far as it is, with really only one minor disagreement left to address, namely on the matter of how to phrase the last sentence.

How do you feel about the latest suggested revision? I think it gets rid of any complaining or biased tone the previous versions might still have had, and cuts things down to the bare information, sans opinion of any flavor.

I would change the link on Amon's name from Internalized Categorism to You Are What You Hate. "Internalized" implies that the person has come to agree with dominant societal conceptions of their group, and the dominant attitude in society does not see bending as evil, quite the opposite, hence the need for an Equalist revolution in the first place. You Are What You Hate covers a more general situation of hating a group you yourself belong to.

I would object to calling the hatred of the under-class for the upper-class bigotry, and certainly deeply object to equating it with racial prejudice, but I feel that debate would take this discussion to a place best left for actual academic discourse.

Would like to hear some final input from the original poster before proceeding.

I think Equalism in Korra is at least to some degree a class phenomenon, in that it seems more prevalent among the workers and petty bourgeoisie; reasonably so, since they are (in Marxian terms) the disprivileged classes in that setting. It seems that in those circles, Equalism (or at least fellow-travelling) is actually quite widespread and perhaps even the dominant attitude, if Amon's huge rally and the public spectacles during the revolution are any guide. So in his own social and class context, Amon arguably adheres to the normative social values, even if the hegemonic discourse in the greater society he inhabits is much different.

That said, I'd have no problem with it if we changed the link as suggested. Unless anyone else objects, that's fine with me.

To me, the label "bigotry" encompasses all sorts of unreasonable hatred of persons for their mere identity as part of a designated category (ethnic, religious, politicial, social, class, any of a number of other things), as opposed to their specific character and contribution to society. So, for example, a Marxist who hates an inoffensive petty-bourgeois shopkeeper (or whatever) only because he belongs to a theoretically oppressive class is a bigot in my book. Of course, there are also such hatreds that can be more or less understandable, in various degrees, as depends on the context and the degree of actual oppression by one group of another. Though strictly personally, I'd prefer a world where there were no great hatreds of this kind at all—but of course, that seems likely only in distant utopian futures (if at all).

It'd be really great if we could hear from the original creator of the entry again, though unfortunately he seems to have dropped out of the discussion for the moment. Let's wait around a bit and see if he comes back.

OK, so it's been a good long while now, and still no sign of the original writer. It's regrettable, but right now at least it doesn't look like he'll be around for the time being. Maybe we should just move ahead? If he comes back later and wants to make changes to our compromise, we can always restart the thread.

Since Turf Wars has its own specialized subpages for YMMV, Tear Jerker and the rest, I'd say it goes here. Either on the main page, or a Radar subpage if you have enough examples for one.

It does in the sense that her sexuality was never brought up until now. It technically fulfills the criteria for the trope.

And like Kya being a lesbian, it wasn't relevant to bring up from an internal/Watsonian perspective and obviously against S&P during A:tLA.

You know what, after checking out the Suddenly Sexuality page for details, the fact that they couldn't because of S&P and neither woman displayed behavior contradictory to Word of God (i.e. Kya never showed any interest in anyone let alone men, during the cartoon) means this doesn't apply so I'm gonna delete it.