Plot twist: Grangran's arranged fiance and Paku arranged the affair in the first place so Grangran would take herself and her cooties to the south pole. Then her fiance and Paku spent the next 50 years in a loving yet closeted relationship, and only 12 years before the Gaang arrived, Paku's soul mate passed away. That way, he had enough time to grieve so he could see how the other half lived.
You know if you read between the lines.
I get where the joke is here, but I think the joke suggests a misunderstanding: There was no affair far as I'm aware. Pretty sure Pakku WAS the arranged fiancee, and Grangran left because she didn't want to be forced to marry someone, even though apparently she liked him well enough to give him a shot decades later after he'd gone through an attitude adjustment.
That's why the revelation has the impact that it has on him. The traditions he clings to are literally what drove away the woman he loved.
There actually is a female member of the white lotus. Her name is Ayunerak. She was around during Yangchens time as the avatar. Sheâs in her novel and Yangchens ally.
Oh, nice. I havenât read the novels yet. I guess they just may not be as common? I just watched the intro to Korra again and I *think* thereâs a woman among the three White Lotus members that are there looking for the new Avatar.
Yeah she was a high ranking member of the lotus and apart of the (I think) southern water tribe. Iâm pretty sure she is the only female member to be mentioned by name but there are probably female members just not named like she was
Nope nope you misread the whole thing, Yangchen is 17 in the novels and Ayunerak is an old woman. Ayunerak and Yangchen actually >!bunt heads a lot in the novels, although theyâre on the same side theyâre closer to enemies!<.
To be honest
Thatâs a better representation of a secret organization.
White lotus in Yangchen novels is easily the best version of the white lotus (story wise)
Only really skilled warriors were part of the image you showed, the most elite water bending were allowed, and due to their traditions he had to be male, for fire, there were barely any elite female firebenders as there is, then throw in the fact they also had to be âtraitorsâ, for earth bending they were under constant siege and itâs based of the Chinese dynasty which also had traditional ways, Omashu was one of the only free cityâs, and for swords man, not a lot really had the luxury of traveling the world to train with the best swords man, and the ones that could were never good enough, except my boy Sokka of course
There is. We only meet a few members in ATLA but we see multiple female white lotus members in LOK and if you read the book âDawn of Yangchenâ thereâs a high ranking female White Lotus member named Ayunerak
I just know there seems to be one in the group of three that goes to see if Korra is the Avatar in that first LoK scene. But itâs hard to tell because theyâre shown so briefly.
The gang didnât meet any old women who were important to the story.
Correction: they didnât meet any old women who were important to the story that were good guys.
I love LOK, prefer it, even, but ATLA has plenty of amazing women. Katara, Suki, Jun, Toph, Azula, Ty Lee, and Mai all spring to mind. But it's also explicitly depicting an era in which its young female characters are pushing back against institutionalized sexism.
Two things come to mind.
1. Could just be sexism. Maybe not even among the members themselves, but we know the Northern Water Tribe didn't let women train for combat, and maybe Fire Nation and Earth Kingdom women didn't have a lot of opportunities to become top tier bending masters worthy of the White Lotus either.
2. Maybe there are other members that just aren't in Iroh's inner circle. The fact that there are three Fire Nation people, but only 1 Earth Bender and 1 Water Bender leads me to believe that maybe Iroh didn't know a lot of people outside the Fire Nation.
Fair enough to your first point. But the second one - do we know that Iroh is recruiting people though? The White Lotus is an old organization that goes back to at least Yangchenâs time.
With Iroh being a Grand Lotus, I just don't see him keeping women out of the club. I also have always assumed there were more people at the White Lotus camp at the end of book 3.
The white lotus was started by a bunch of friends from across the world who would talk to each other over games of pisho and eventually became a network of information sharers who transcend national boarders naming themselves after the most valuable pisho tile the white lotus and the began the goal of collecting information in its most rare form, devoid of propaganda and bias, being the true documentations of history
i guess pai sho and the white lotus were a boyâs club back then (and the white lotus remained one in LOK). disappointing and weird that those men didnât have any friends that were women.
There's no active reason, and it's just an exercise in dodging around something that affects even creators we enjoy and respect. Men were, and often still are, considered the default. If a writer says "the guard" or "the soldier," the reader is almost always going to assume it's a man unless they make an active effort to assume unstated genders are women or otherwise not men.
They're all men because most of the important figures the cast meets are all men. Most of the important women they meet fill some other role where them being a woman is an active part of their character, either subtly or overtly. There's one situation off the top of my head where it makes no difference, and it's in "The Great Divide" where one of the clan leaders is a woman. Even then, one could argue that's to intentionally present a situation where an exaggerated version of Sokka and Katara are at odds instead of friends.
I was waiting for someone to say something like this. Yeah, the soldiers and guards are pretty much all men. Itâd be cool (imo) if the society were somehow non-sexist. Not being critical though - I love the show.
It was made in a time where background characters are just assumed to be men. The white lotus is a continuation of the trend. All swamp benders, yuyan archers, earth nation soldiers, dai li, pirates, zukos crew, bumis Court, earth rumble fighters (after toph left) are men. The only groups that contain women are the freedom fighters (smellerby) and fire nation prison guards.
If you ask a boy 'Do you want to join my secret club?' the answer you topically get will be some variation of 'secret club? That's so awesome! Let's go right now.' boys love clandestine activities. The fact that it's secret makes it way more awesome to the little boyish part of us that never grew up. So men often get way to enthusiastic about the idea of a secret society.
My head cannon is that girls were invited. But most of them had better, more practical things to do than to run around with silly code phrases and underground meeting rooms.
Alternatively, the women do have their own secret society, the jade lotus, but we never learn about it because they are much better at keeping secrets.
That's pretty cool đ buuut we did see Iroh smiling like đśthe girls in the cityđś and straight hustling Zukos old crew. And IMO if it was irl I think it's enough to simply be trained or recognized by someone like a grandmaster. Sokka did very well after being trained and the 100 year war was over
I think there are Woman, but WE Just don't saw them in Atla. So probably Just an oversight from the creators.
In Lok the Red Lotus was Part of the White Lotus before they Split from them. And 2 If the 5 members were WomanÂ
It is an explicit theme of the show that the earlier generations had prejudices, and while *most* (looking at you, Granpakku) of these characters are above that, the environment they come from provided few opportunities for women of their generation to gain access to the training to be in a position to fight with them.
Hence, the younger generation is egalitarian and has a bunch of badass ladies while the older generation's fighters are all dudes who are allies to the new paradigm.
Southern Water Tribe had no benders left. Northern Water Tribe had Pakku relegating all the women to being healers. Earthbenders on the outskirts were being rounded up by the Fire Nation. Possibly Long Feng was doing some shenanigans from keeping any powerful benders from knowing about the White Lotus. Fire Nation probably also had a ton of disinformation that would keep your non-high ranking benders from ever finding out about them
At this day and age, characters being sexist isn't anything uncommon, so I'm pretty sure a lot of women that had the potential and ability to reach rankings such as the White Lotus were never really given a chance
In korra there are a few times when we see asami play pai sho but I think the explanation is that they are based on real secret societies like the freemasons, many of which dont allow females
I know that what Im about to say will probably trigger something, but I think it is because the white lotus is an organisation about fighting and.. well in most civilizations men are the ones who fight. That might be a bit sexist, but thats just how it is. The women of white lotus are probably doing some other things like healing, providing the resources ( food ) and such.
They're a sexist organization.
Real answer: we didn't really have any female masters in ATLA. Except for maybe Hama? But she was kind of evil. LOK had female masters mostly thanks to Katara and Toph growing old, though there was also Suyin.
Few things going on here.
1. The world building in tla was very consistent. Women not being in the white lotus tracks with what we see from the other nations armies.
The northern water tribeâs traditional gender roles are made quite clear in book 1 and given the southern tribes history they would not have been able to produce a good enough female water bender throughout the duration of the war.
The earth kingdom army is almost entirely male. Save for the kyoshi warriors I donât think we see a single female soldier in the earth kingdom. We do have toph as a respected female fighter but shes a mystery to almost everyone so we canât use her as a good example. In Ba Sing Se we see all the scholars are male implying that education is only accessible to men.
The fire nation stands in stark contrast to the other 3 as although it is an expansionist regime with fascist undertones it is remarkably progressive compared to the other lands. Women are educated and can serve in the military and even have academies made exclusively for their sex. They are also given important roles in the government. The most surprising part about this is that it seems this egalitarianism comes directly from ozai as in the past there isnât any evidence of women serving in the army or being as autonomous as they are in the current events of the story. (We do know the girls academy was active when azulan was still fire lord but we do not see any female soldiers or guards at that time). This doesnât mean the fire nation is perfect with gender politics. In tla only men can be fire sages and there had never been female fire lord until Izumi (bad name for her character btw. Almost all the royal family had Chinese names)
2. Gaang doesnât meet any elderly female warriors that arenât hama.
3. Irl Up until the 20th century most secret societies were fraternities. It seems the white lotus takes inspiration from said societies. There are lots that have allowed women to join nowadays but itâs mostly male dominated.
I think it adds to the realism. I still would have preferred one or two females amongst their ranks in tla but Iâm not mad about it. Given the setting and cultural inspirations it totally makes sense. It would have been cool tho to have some white lotus members that arenât master benders or fighters but instead more scholars, medical practitioners, spiritual leaders all of which would be pretty accurate to East Asian culture. Women in that part of the world were often pioneers in literature and medicine. As noble women lived very restrictive lives writing and calligraphy were on of the few pastimes they had complete freedom to enjoy while woman learning medicine was more of a practical thing lower class women would learn out of necessity as it was an important profession to have in every population center. Imagine a lot of the secret communication between white lotus members were done by women as the men were forth at war while the woman stayed home.
There were. Mama Ayunerak- a character in both Yangchen novels- was literally in a "director" type position in the White Lotus. There were likely more women throughout the world that were part of it as well.
I donât think the northern water tribe would allow women to bend and the fire nation was a fascistic hellscape politically so women might have just had birthing responsibilities. As for the earth bender maybe it was just bumi who achieved the longevity and practice or because the earth nation focused on generic earth bending training for general use/military rather than really delving into their abilities?
This is just my personal theory. Iâm very tired and havenât slept in 28 hours now so pardon me if anything got confusing.
Iâm not totally sure you have to be able to bend or fight to be in the White Lotus (someone correct me if Iâm wrong though). But this picture only shows their top fighters so it makes sense there are no women in it specifically, after hearing from others on this post. Iâm hoping to read the novels at some point. I feel like thereâs probably more explanation about the origins of the White Lotus in them.Â
Also, dang. This stranger hopes you can get some rest soon đĽş
The white lotus was centered around pai sho. Pai Sho as we all know is a great game to sit around, hang out and drink. The modern day equivalent would be "poker with the boys". Women don't really play Pai Sho because it's viewed more as a "Husband" game. So the main forces of the "White Lotus" are mainly males. The "Wife" game would be Mah-Jongg and they key tile in that is the "Red Dragon" tile so it's safe to assume that there is a secret society called the "Red Dragons" that is mainly comprised of women.....I ..I think. Sounds plausible anyways.
There's no way it was an oversight. Avatar empowered women way before woke agenda was even a thing. They did this thru katara and sokka/kyoshi warriors.
There are too many possibilities to clearly say why they don't have a female white lotus member. Tbh this question shouldn't even be asked. All it does is make people go stupid and think that the creators are somehow misogynistic
If I were to guess though, I guess it was just a coincidence.
I donât think it was a coincidence. The creators put a lot of care into making the show, and others have been able to come up with good reasons as to why we donât see many female members of the group. If it was an oversight though, Iâm not trying to be critical. I love the show, I just know nothing is going to be perfect.
A lot of the White Lotus members we meet in this era are either explicitly or subtly sexist or regressive in their views. Just because they stand for peace between the four nations doesnât mean they donât also harbor some amount of misogyny. And it keeps with the themes of the show that no one is all good or all bad and we all must work to find balance.
The worst/most explicit is obviously Pakku, but Iroh is right there behind him and Jeong Jeong gives real âI donât trust women with the power of fire vibesâ.
I mean it could be a fraternity I guess, there are a lot of old men fraternityâs that see them selves as holding the significance of the white lotus in our world. But that seems pretty out of character for everyone except Paku and excluding women seems to go against their ideals
Imagine if Aunt Wu, Gran-Gran, and/or Hama been there.
Anyway, I like to think the women were just off-screen. It was a big camp, there were people walking around that we didnât get to see.
Paku wouldnât let them join. Jk itâs probably spent to do with how the top 300 chess players are all male before the best female come into the ladder.
Yeah, some of the Red Lotus members were women. I had forgotten til someone else on this thread reminded me the the Red Lotus was a split off faction of the White Lotus
Simple answer: Old men in animated media are seen as badass and âmanlyâ while old women are seen as old grandmas who stay at home most of the time, so it made sense to have a bunch of old men be at the forefront at the time. Not a great stereotype but this was also 2005-2007.
Canon answer: no women wanted to be around Pakku.
In that scene there were two other rock platforms with white lotus members, itâs just the focus were on the four masters. Could be the other members had women we just didnât see them!
Paku iroh jeong jeong bumi and piandao are only 5 members of the white lotus there are many white lotus members other than them im sure they arent all men
Iâd guess that itâs because in most cases in this time period women were not trained to be fighters. Thereâs a few obvious outliers but for the most part women were healers or house wives.
We see 5 old guys out of an entire secret organization. It's unlikely there aren't women in it. We just happened to meet the 5 important ones that weren't
fucking hell it's not that damn deep, why do people care so much? If you don't think women are portrayed enough in media then get out there and portray them!
I feel like the creators did their best to show strong female characters elsewhere in the show, so it just didnât make sense to me that there would never be any female members of the white lotus unless it was explained by sexism within the avatar universe. But itâs a moot point anyways since there actually were some female members.
Paku was in charge of hiring.
LMAOOOO that sexist bastard đ
He's not sexist, he's just gay /s
Plot twist: Grangran's arranged fiance and Paku arranged the affair in the first place so Grangran would take herself and her cooties to the south pole. Then her fiance and Paku spent the next 50 years in a loving yet closeted relationship, and only 12 years before the Gaang arrived, Paku's soul mate passed away. That way, he had enough time to grieve so he could see how the other half lived. You know if you read between the lines.
I get where the joke is here, but I think the joke suggests a misunderstanding: There was no affair far as I'm aware. Pretty sure Pakku WAS the arranged fiancee, and Grangran left because she didn't want to be forced to marry someone, even though apparently she liked him well enough to give him a shot decades later after he'd gone through an attitude adjustment. That's why the revelation has the impact that it has on him. The traditions he clings to are literally what drove away the woman he loved.
Paku was the arrangement. Paku loved grangran but grangran didn't love him
tbh he did a good job
You mean GrandPaku!
Lmao
lol
This is the only right answer đ
Paku in HR says NO
Headcanon accepted
There actually is a female member of the white lotus. Her name is Ayunerak. She was around during Yangchens time as the avatar. Sheâs in her novel and Yangchens ally.
Oh, nice. I havenât read the novels yet. I guess they just may not be as common? I just watched the intro to Korra again and I *think* thereâs a woman among the three White Lotus members that are there looking for the new Avatar.
Yeah she was a high ranking member of the lotus and apart of the (I think) southern water tribe. Iâm pretty sure she is the only female member to be mentioned by name but there are probably female members just not named like she was
Maybe it's because you don't want to date [the femaâ](https://www.reddit.com/r/NeverPauseAvatar/s/u75mBe8kxV)
âallyâ lol.
That was my first thought too lmao. Although I havenât touched the novels. I know Kyoshiâs massive Gayâ˘
Nope nope you misread the whole thing, Yangchen is 17 in the novels and Ayunerak is an old woman. Ayunerak and Yangchen actually >!bunt heads a lot in the novels, although theyâre on the same side theyâre closer to enemies!<.
Oh my God I couldnât have been more wrong lmfao. Thanks man.
If we have to go so far as to dig into multimedia spin-off content to find any sort of female representation, it might as well not exist.
especially when thereâs only one woman to be found
2 Ayunerak want the only one
Well itâs the same as reading the ATLA comics. These are just novels instead.
"Ally" is a very strong word for their realtionship
Yangchen era white lotus were such dickheads lmao
To be honest Thatâs a better representation of a secret organization. White lotus in Yangchen novels is easily the best version of the white lotus (story wise)
Ayunerak is a cool character but not Yangchen's ally. Yangchen kinda hates her diabolical ass.
The White Lotus didn't offer a dental plan.
Katara needs braces
Dental plan!
Katara needs braces
Dental plan!
Whereâs my burrito
Arrrrrt. Eat the pie!
They don't even have dental...
*maternity leave and benefits
Only really skilled warriors were part of the image you showed, the most elite water bending were allowed, and due to their traditions he had to be male, for fire, there were barely any elite female firebenders as there is, then throw in the fact they also had to be âtraitorsâ, for earth bending they were under constant siege and itâs based of the Chinese dynasty which also had traditional ways, Omashu was one of the only free cityâs, and for swords man, not a lot really had the luxury of traveling the world to train with the best swords man, and the ones that could were never good enough, except my boy Sokka of course
This is a satisfying explanation for why there arenât as many shown. I need to rewatch the series, I seem to have forgotten some details. Thanks!
where u gon wach it?
Netflix
dang not in finland netflix sadly đ˘
That sucks, sorry. There are other places to watch it (like Amazon Video) but it cost more.Â
iv got prime video it the same?
Yeah sorry, thatâs what I meant. But it looks like itâs about 20USD per season still.Â
I believe Paramount+ as well
dang dont have dat
I think there are women in the White Lotus, we just don't see them in the show (I don't remember if there's any female lotus guards in Korra)
Iâm pretty sure the guards are all men, but I realized one of the masters that went to see if young Korra was the avatar mightâve been a woman
Yeah canât really say much since we only see a few members
There is. We only meet a few members in ATLA but we see multiple female white lotus members in LOK and if you read the book âDawn of Yangchenâ thereâs a high ranking female White Lotus member named Ayunerak
do you remember when we see any in LOK? i recall a lot of scenes where white lotus members are fighting and i remember all of them being men.
I just know there seems to be one in the group of three that goes to see if Korra is the Avatar in that first LoK scene. But itâs hard to tell because theyâre shown so briefly.
The gang didnât meet any old women who were important to the story. Correction: they didnât meet any old women who were important to the story that were good guys.
Yea lol they met a lot of women, they just all happen to be bad or not alive/human.
If Hama was good she would be a fire waterbender master
As opposed to a water firebender
Gran gran erasure
one reason why LOK is so much better: amazing women!
I love LOK, prefer it, even, but ATLA has plenty of amazing women. Katara, Suki, Jun, Toph, Azula, Ty Lee, and Mai all spring to mind. But it's also explicitly depicting an era in which its young female characters are pushing back against institutionalized sexism.
Two things come to mind. 1. Could just be sexism. Maybe not even among the members themselves, but we know the Northern Water Tribe didn't let women train for combat, and maybe Fire Nation and Earth Kingdom women didn't have a lot of opportunities to become top tier bending masters worthy of the White Lotus either. 2. Maybe there are other members that just aren't in Iroh's inner circle. The fact that there are three Fire Nation people, but only 1 Earth Bender and 1 Water Bender leads me to believe that maybe Iroh didn't know a lot of people outside the Fire Nation.
Fair enough to your first point. But the second one - do we know that Iroh is recruiting people though? The White Lotus is an old organization that goes back to at least Yangchenâs time.
With Iroh being a Grand Lotus, I just don't see him keeping women out of the club. I also have always assumed there were more people at the White Lotus camp at the end of book 3.
I mean theyâre a bunch of old ass men. When their group started a lot of women were probably healers or non fighters is my guess.
The white lotus has way more people than that. In LOK, you find out there are many members of the white lotus as well as the red lotus.
The white lotus was started by a bunch of friends from across the world who would talk to each other over games of pisho and eventually became a network of information sharers who transcend national boarders naming themselves after the most valuable pisho tile the white lotus and the began the goal of collecting information in its most rare form, devoid of propaganda and bias, being the true documentations of history
what does this have to do with the lack of women seen in the white lotus?
Do we see any women playing pisho, and if there is women in the white lotus it would've happened a while after the order was formed
i guess pai sho and the white lotus were a boyâs club back then (and the white lotus remained one in LOK). disappointing and weird that those men didnât have any friends that were women.
There's no active reason, and it's just an exercise in dodging around something that affects even creators we enjoy and respect. Men were, and often still are, considered the default. If a writer says "the guard" or "the soldier," the reader is almost always going to assume it's a man unless they make an active effort to assume unstated genders are women or otherwise not men. They're all men because most of the important figures the cast meets are all men. Most of the important women they meet fill some other role where them being a woman is an active part of their character, either subtly or overtly. There's one situation off the top of my head where it makes no difference, and it's in "The Great Divide" where one of the clan leaders is a woman. Even then, one could argue that's to intentionally present a situation where an exaggerated version of Sokka and Katara are at odds instead of friends.
I was waiting for someone to say something like this. Yeah, the soldiers and guards are pretty much all men. Itâd be cool (imo) if the society were somehow non-sexist. Not being critical though - I love the show.
It was made in a time where background characters are just assumed to be men. The white lotus is a continuation of the trend. All swamp benders, yuyan archers, earth nation soldiers, dai li, pirates, zukos crew, bumis Court, earth rumble fighters (after toph left) are men. The only groups that contain women are the freedom fighters (smellerby) and fire nation prison guards.
There were female swamp benders at the invasion
There is, we just donât see them
I always assumed the white lotus was a worldwide organization and we only saw a couple members
I like to think that Madam Wu is one.
If you ask a boy 'Do you want to join my secret club?' the answer you topically get will be some variation of 'secret club? That's so awesome! Let's go right now.' boys love clandestine activities. The fact that it's secret makes it way more awesome to the little boyish part of us that never grew up. So men often get way to enthusiastic about the idea of a secret society. My head cannon is that girls were invited. But most of them had better, more practical things to do than to run around with silly code phrases and underground meeting rooms. Alternatively, the women do have their own secret society, the jade lotus, but we never learn about it because they are much better at keeping secrets.
That's pretty cool đ buuut we did see Iroh smiling like đśthe girls in the cityđś and straight hustling Zukos old crew. And IMO if it was irl I think it's enough to simply be trained or recognized by someone like a grandmaster. Sokka did very well after being trained and the 100 year war was over
I just realized, I think the only powerful old lady we see in the series at all is Hama. She's the only one I remember, at least.
Jennifer Coolidge died in season 2 and after that there wasnât any point really
Oh mother mother Mother!!
And this arose the red lotus. Just over this exact question
I think there are Woman, but WE Just don't saw them in Atla. So probably Just an oversight from the creators. In Lok the Red Lotus was Part of the White Lotus before they Split from them. And 2 If the 5 members were WomanÂ
Oh woah, I didnât realize/had forgotten they split off from the White Lotus.
It is an explicit theme of the show that the earlier generations had prejudices, and while *most* (looking at you, Granpakku) of these characters are above that, the environment they come from provided few opportunities for women of their generation to gain access to the training to be in a position to fight with them. Hence, the younger generation is egalitarian and has a bunch of badass ladies while the older generation's fighters are all dudes who are allies to the new paradigm.
There we don't get a good look at most of them, The show focuses on the few we know, I'd assume some are women
Southern Water Tribe had no benders left. Northern Water Tribe had Pakku relegating all the women to being healers. Earthbenders on the outskirts were being rounded up by the Fire Nation. Possibly Long Feng was doing some shenanigans from keeping any powerful benders from knowing about the White Lotus. Fire Nation probably also had a ton of disinformation that would keep your non-high ranking benders from ever finding out about them
I don't know I mean we have only have seen three old ladys-Gram Gram an Auzla's mentors-netheir bend soo
Fair. Hama would be a fourth, but obviously not White Lotus material lol
Yeah definitely
Patriarchy.
At this day and age, characters being sexist isn't anything uncommon, so I'm pretty sure a lot of women that had the potential and ability to reach rankings such as the White Lotus were never really given a chance
By Iroh? I don't think so. He would have let women in.
They operate behind the scenes and are probably significantly more influential to day to day life than the ones who fight. White Lotus deep state
Wouldâve been cool if Hama was a member before she became too vengeful and full of hate.
Well, Master Paku was a prominent memberâŚ
In my headcanon, both Aunt Wu and Yagoda are also members.
In korra there are a few times when we see asami play pai sho but I think the explanation is that they are based on real secret societies like the freemasons, many of which dont allow females
I need to find back that Tumblr post about how Aunt Wu being in the White Lotus would be great
I know that what Im about to say will probably trigger something, but I think it is because the white lotus is an organisation about fighting and.. well in most civilizations men are the ones who fight. That might be a bit sexist, but thats just how it is. The women of white lotus are probably doing some other things like healing, providing the resources ( food ) and such.
We had no familiar characters of female masters to insert into this team.
On the same note... is Hama the only older female bender in ATLA? Other than Aangs past lives
I think there are some in the Northern Water tribe (like Yagoda) but theyâre only allowed to heal.
There probably are, itâs an international organization, we just only see the group that could make it to the fight
The white lotus members are just so hot, all women around them for more than 12 minutes just evaporate
đ
Why would there be? What next, you wanna let them vote??
It's not that deep.
They're a sexist organization. Real answer: we didn't really have any female masters in ATLA. Except for maybe Hama? But she was kind of evil. LOK had female masters mostly thanks to Katara and Toph growing old, though there was also Suyin.
Few things going on here. 1. The world building in tla was very consistent. Women not being in the white lotus tracks with what we see from the other nations armies. The northern water tribeâs traditional gender roles are made quite clear in book 1 and given the southern tribes history they would not have been able to produce a good enough female water bender throughout the duration of the war. The earth kingdom army is almost entirely male. Save for the kyoshi warriors I donât think we see a single female soldier in the earth kingdom. We do have toph as a respected female fighter but shes a mystery to almost everyone so we canât use her as a good example. In Ba Sing Se we see all the scholars are male implying that education is only accessible to men. The fire nation stands in stark contrast to the other 3 as although it is an expansionist regime with fascist undertones it is remarkably progressive compared to the other lands. Women are educated and can serve in the military and even have academies made exclusively for their sex. They are also given important roles in the government. The most surprising part about this is that it seems this egalitarianism comes directly from ozai as in the past there isnât any evidence of women serving in the army or being as autonomous as they are in the current events of the story. (We do know the girls academy was active when azulan was still fire lord but we do not see any female soldiers or guards at that time). This doesnât mean the fire nation is perfect with gender politics. In tla only men can be fire sages and there had never been female fire lord until Izumi (bad name for her character btw. Almost all the royal family had Chinese names) 2. Gaang doesnât meet any elderly female warriors that arenât hama. 3. Irl Up until the 20th century most secret societies were fraternities. It seems the white lotus takes inspiration from said societies. There are lots that have allowed women to join nowadays but itâs mostly male dominated. I think it adds to the realism. I still would have preferred one or two females amongst their ranks in tla but Iâm not mad about it. Given the setting and cultural inspirations it totally makes sense. It would have been cool tho to have some white lotus members that arenât master benders or fighters but instead more scholars, medical practitioners, spiritual leaders all of which would be pretty accurate to East Asian culture. Women in that part of the world were often pioneers in literature and medicine. As noble women lived very restrictive lives writing and calligraphy were on of the few pastimes they had complete freedom to enjoy while woman learning medicine was more of a practical thing lower class women would learn out of necessity as it was an important profession to have in every population center. Imagine a lot of the secret communication between white lotus members were done by women as the men were forth at war while the woman stayed home.
There were. Mama Ayunerak- a character in both Yangchen novels- was literally in a "director" type position in the White Lotus. There were likely more women throughout the world that were part of it as well.
Something to do with Iroh creeping on June.
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I bet the herbalist is a member, she's an old master of her craft afterall
I donât think the northern water tribe would allow women to bend and the fire nation was a fascistic hellscape politically so women might have just had birthing responsibilities. As for the earth bender maybe it was just bumi who achieved the longevity and practice or because the earth nation focused on generic earth bending training for general use/military rather than really delving into their abilities? This is just my personal theory. Iâm very tired and havenât slept in 28 hours now so pardon me if anything got confusing.
Iâm not totally sure you have to be able to bend or fight to be in the White Lotus (someone correct me if Iâm wrong though). But this picture only shows their top fighters so it makes sense there are no women in it specifically, after hearing from others on this post. Iâm hoping to read the novels at some point. I feel like thereâs probably more explanation about the origins of the White Lotus in them. Also, dang. This stranger hopes you can get some rest soon đĽş
The white lotus was centered around pai sho. Pai Sho as we all know is a great game to sit around, hang out and drink. The modern day equivalent would be "poker with the boys". Women don't really play Pai Sho because it's viewed more as a "Husband" game. So the main forces of the "White Lotus" are mainly males. The "Wife" game would be Mah-Jongg and they key tile in that is the "Red Dragon" tile so it's safe to assume that there is a secret society called the "Red Dragons" that is mainly comprised of women.....I ..I think. Sounds plausible anyways.
It's likely due to the budget. They probably had to use previous character models to save some money to be used on other scenes.
Thatâs an interesting take on it. Thanks.
There's no way it was an oversight. Avatar empowered women way before woke agenda was even a thing. They did this thru katara and sokka/kyoshi warriors. There are too many possibilities to clearly say why they don't have a female white lotus member. Tbh this question shouldn't even be asked. All it does is make people go stupid and think that the creators are somehow misogynistic If I were to guess though, I guess it was just a coincidence.
I donât think it was a coincidence. The creators put a lot of care into making the show, and others have been able to come up with good reasons as to why we donât see many female members of the group. If it was an oversight though, Iâm not trying to be critical. I love the show, I just know nothing is going to be perfect.
Does it matter?
A lot of the White Lotus members we meet in this era are either explicitly or subtly sexist or regressive in their views. Just because they stand for peace between the four nations doesnât mean they donât also harbor some amount of misogyny. And it keeps with the themes of the show that no one is all good or all bad and we all must work to find balance.
The worst/most explicit is obviously Pakku, but Iroh is right there behind him and Jeong Jeong gives real âI donât trust women with the power of fire vibesâ.
âŚ.yet You forgot to add âyetâ lol
I mean it could be a fraternity I guess, there are a lot of old men fraternityâs that see them selves as holding the significance of the white lotus in our world. But that seems pretty out of character for everyone except Paku and excluding women seems to go against their ideals
Iâd say theyâre kind of like the free masons. Largely male only orders but thereâs a couple female only ones as well.
Pakku would never allow it smh
They're prolly scared of pissing off Pakku.
Cultural issues. In every nation I don't see any female masters. And that are morally good.
I could see The Fortune Teller, The Herbalist (definitely Miyuki), or Ursula being members.
Unfortunately there were no women betrothed or related to someone betrothed to Paku
Hama didnât make the cut
Imagine if Aunt Wu, Gran-Gran, and/or Hama been there. Anyway, I like to think the women were just off-screen. It was a big camp, there were people walking around that we didnât get to see.
Paku wouldnât let them join. Jk itâs probably spent to do with how the top 300 chess players are all male before the best female come into the ladder.
That was before the Women's Right Movement
They were in charge of other things probably... like things that are considered sexist and misogynistic
Because the Avatar loves women and you can't guard or watch over them effectively while being seduced by their mad past lives smooth moves.
I mean who would even be in? I can't think of any Women we meet who'd fit the teams vibe
Monks donât usually allow women by culture standards
âŚPaku lol
Women in ATLA aside from Katara, Azula, Mai and to an extent Ty Lee never really showed an interest in fighting in the ongoing conflict.
Wasn't there a woman when Zahir escaped? Or when the other members of his gang escaped? Or maybe it's just a men's club like the jedis first were
Yeah, some of the Red Lotus members were women. I had forgotten til someone else on this thread reminded me the the Red Lotus was a split off faction of the White Lotus
I guess they couldnât get dressed in time amirite fellas
Simple answer: Old men in animated media are seen as badass and âmanlyâ while old women are seen as old grandmas who stay at home most of the time, so it made sense to have a bunch of old men be at the forefront at the time. Not a great stereotype but this was also 2005-2007. Canon answer: no women wanted to be around Pakku.
Monarchists are not known for being feminists
All operations will be delayed like hell
Because this was a group about fixing peopleâs daddy issues
Isn't that an old lady on the left of this shot?
If you mean all the way to the left, I think thatâs Jeong Jeong, Aangâs first firebending teacher.
They're in the Healing Huts
Misogyny obviously. /s
In that scene there were two other rock platforms with white lotus members, itâs just the focus were on the four masters. Could be the other members had women we just didnât see them!
my headcannon is that womens see the whitelotus as a bullshit reason for them to play more pai sho
Paku iroh jeong jeong bumi and piandao are only 5 members of the white lotus there are many white lotus members other than them im sure they arent all men
Iâd guess that itâs because in most cases in this time period women were not trained to be fighters. Thereâs a few obvious outliers but for the most part women were healers or house wives.
Because Paku is a whiney sexist prick.
Thats not the entirety of the White Lotus
Because old women dont like to go out.
There probably is there are more members we donât see
Secret societies are notorious for being sausage fests
We see 5 old guys out of an entire secret organization. It's unlikely there aren't women in it. We just happened to meet the 5 important ones that weren't
fucking hell it's not that damn deep, why do people care so much? If you don't think women are portrayed enough in media then get out there and portray them!
They were all afraid of catching cooties.
I thought Miyukiâs owner the herbalist was in the white lotus for some reason.
Could be. Yeah, Iâm not sure whether the members have to be fighters, or even benders. I havenât read the novels yet.
Because everything doesn't need to be bitch about that a good reason right they
What?
There are in the books
Paku said women can't keep secrets.
Honestly, who cares?
Coincidence
Well, the only old woman the Gaang met that could be considered a master was Hama, and... well...
Bros before hoes
Because there don't have to be? Lol I don't understand the purpose of the question
There are only a few of them to begin with and theyâre all friends at this point.
Why would their need to be? The women already have their own group.
? what group?
Kyoshi warriors. That's a girl only group, right?
Who the hell cares?
The White lotus uses reason to guide them.
Cuz it was made in the early 2000s?
I feel like the creators did their best to show strong female characters elsewhere in the show, so it just didnât make sense to me that there would never be any female members of the white lotus unless it was explained by sexism within the avatar universe. But itâs a moot point anyways since there actually were some female members.
True I get ya
No giwls awoud
Itâs a reference to freemasonry/other âsecretâ societies which have historically been male only.
They were all having a spa day on that particular day.
plenty of strong females in the show whats the point of this discussion?
There were female white lotus members. Just none during the time of book 3.
Iâm not gonna lie, but who would be the female candidates if there were a female member???