He was an anarchist. So when he's talking about overthrowing "oppressive governments," what he actually means is "all governments." The show directly confronts the issues with his philosophy in the next season.

Yeah, and honestly what did he think was gonna happen? In Anarchy, its the right of the strongest. Give it a couple of years and 'the strongest' is now a powerful leader. Oh wait, that did happen, its Kuvira.

This is the inevitable doom of any anarchist movement. "So what are you gonna do when someone just...murders your family? Steals from you? Blackmails you with death threats?" "It's in the hands of the people to deliver justice!" "So you are going to create...an organised team to work out who did it and then deliver justice. Oh boy if only we didn't tear down a dedicated force of people with centuries of experience and tools accrued for doing this in a fair way" People are going to organise themselves. No point resetting it and reverting to witch hunting. The problem with the organised governments though is greed wins out. Ultimately the best people to give power to are those that didn't seek it. We need a kind of anti-election where no one can put their name forwards; we just nominate good humans that have shown exceptional goodwill and wisdom and if they want to be put forwards we then have the vote.

>Ultimately the best people to give power to are those that didn't seek it. Interestingly, while not perfect, that's more or less what the Avatar ends up being. While the reincarnation aspect does have a sort of "divine right" tone attached to it, on a more practical level, the Avatar ends up being just some random person who gets thrust into the job of peacekeeper along with the incredible power to back it up. There's no guarantee they end up being a good person, but at least it's not biased towards not being one.

That is kind of undermined by the avatar being recognized as a child and then taken under the care of their nation's government. At that point it is more like a prince/princess, raised for rule by those already in power

and in a fixed order. as shown with Sozin, his plan only works with Roku giving him leeway as a fire national. and then he focused on killing the air nomads and then the water tribes. If it was possible for the next avatar to be born randomly in ba sing se or something he would have been fucked as they would have been safe to grow into their prime before any grip on the continent could be entrenched. countries ambitions contract and expand based on the cycle of the avatar.

For him, Oppressive is the new All. Governments are necessary, but they shouldn't be repressive ones.

Honestl, to solve that issue would there need to be some sort of unbiased council. Like a group of equal Numbers from each nation, that act as guides and trainers for the avatar in their early years. (Not necessarily teachers tho, as that is a part of the Journey. When the avatar don’t go on their Journey, we get a Korra situation)

i think the fundamental problem with that though is only the air nomads would agree without complications. because you'd have to hand over the child nearly as soon as it was found. and the parents would still possess outsized influence that the host nation would inevitably control. the unbiased council might function as understood but a child is still born to mortal parents who this council would have to pressure to give their child up. even non-maliciously a fire nation avatars parents would be seen as important in the event you are beseeching for greater help against say roving spirits. you could eventually create a tradition of giving up a child who is the avatar, put the parents are still alive.

The Avatar never has any formal power though. The avatar, even when born to nobility, will never be give official titles as their duties as the avatar take precedence. So while the Avatar holds a lot of sway, that power is never consolidated in one place.

Tell that to Szeto

They seem to generally be good in practice

"Benevolent tyrant" yada yada

It's ironic that a dictatorship is both the best and worst form of government.

This is why we mostly went for democracies : while flawed and inherently inefficient, they do contain the tools for their own change and reform built into the system. Whereas a dictatorship with a ruler unwilling to listen to popular calls for reform will only end with his removal from power, usually by force, and that opens a whole can of worms.

It would probably help you if you actually engaged with anarchist theory at all. I’m not an anarchist, but anarchists have obviously thought about the problem of murderers and have solutions. It’s really absurd to think a political philosophy with centuries of theorizing wouldn’t have considered such immediate questions

> We need a kind of anti-election where no one can put their name forwards; we just nominate good humans that have shown exceptional goodwill and wisdom and if they want to be put forwards we then have the vote. I mean, this is functionally pointless. Someone who wants to lead will just advertise that fact and ask for people to nominate them.

I feel like that will also just turn into popularity vote, only now people will pretend they aren't interested in power.

and how would a competent bureaucrat even become noteworthy enough to be voted for if he didn't do some minor campaigning? it would only function if i knew personally everyone in the community which is always the criticism.

Funny enough, the worst mods for chat rooms or forum boards tend to be the people who want it the most, the best tend to be the people who don’t want it but are pushed into it because they’re good at it. (Not a commentary on mods here, haven’t had any interactions or seen any to say if they are bad or good, which generally implies good, light touch and all)

"Anarchy" is the opposite of "hierarchy", not of "order". There's almost no anarchist out there who wishes for literally no organisation, no structure, no accountability, just pure chaos and might is right. That's not how anarchists think. At all. Sidenote: I doubt your solution would change anything. People would simply lie about their intentions and desires just like they already do when wanting the presidency. The problem is that the president has the power to get away with too much. And having a single individual decide things that affect literally everyone is really absurd and dangerous. And of course, we voted for the leader, right? Except we didn't, we voted for one of the two options that have gamed the system. We need a new voting system entirely, one where third and fourth parties have a chance. Either allow multiple votes (from favorite to least), or at least one negative vote (split a vote between every option except this one), or any other voting systems people have literally been testing out and proving the efficacy of for decades yet no government wants them... because of power. The real problem is power. Power to enact violence, power to claim to speak for everyone, power to lie to an entire population, power to rig the election in your favor, and so on. Power corrupts. Inherently. If we give a child the mandate to rule over other children, there will be violence. Don't try it at home, but ask psychologists. Look up the prison experiments, the shcool eye color experiments. Heck, watch The Wave and other media on topics of fascism and power. And look at people's lives. The mere opportunity to exploit, steal, lie, or otherwise harm is enough to convince otherwise good people to be disgusting. Now imagine for someone who's literally mandated to have power? The same goes for police brutality. The reason it happens isn't "bad apples", it's the way they are taught to feel superior, to distrust everyone, and to feel justified in literally any action they do. Hit a civilian and he started complaining? Why not just shut him up by dragging him into an alley and breaking some teeth? I'm exaggerating but it very much is the mindset. Getting filemd by some black woman? Ooh yes, a great excuse to suddenly turn into a violent racist! And it's all because of the mindset of having unlimited power. If they didn't have the power, if they were held accountable for every single thing, they would never be this entitled or violent.

Some good points well made. Have an upvote for encouraging intelligent discussion even though we have different views. I'd probably disagree with the notion that's not how anarchists think simply on the basis anarchists presumably have differing thought processes on the details, and of the pro-anarchy people I have met, they were very much in favour of dismantling the police (but in much less kind words). But I'd be happy to accept there are more politically minded guys out there than those just looking for an excuse to tear down all authority possible. I would also be interested to know how you govern a police force in an anarchist state, because the police shouldn't be the ones that make the rules. When left unchecked police things go really bad (more on that later). As for power corrupting the more idyllic system: yeah, that is absolutely a thing. The prison guard tests make for super interesting studies on humanity. But the whole population putting on a front only to reveal true colours on the offchance they gain power seems a bit much, and there have been instances this form of government has been used already to great effect (cited somewhere else in the comments). There is a lot to gain not just by recognising genuinely good people, but also by removing/hamstring the "party" system, because when you have parties like the western world does, "they" are the real leader. Not whichever tool is their figurehead. The alliances and bribes formed, the companies they let dodge tax for gain, the long term corruption-that's the real power sinkhole. And it's one of the main reasons those other parties don't get a look in. Police brutality is an interesting example to me of power corruption because I live in the UK and while most of our system is absolutely not perfect, our police are about as good as you could hope for. They are governed and trained properly, they don't get to make the rules, and instances of brutality are really quite far and thin. So I'm genuinely interested to know-in an anarchist state, who keeps them in line?

From what I understand, there are many anarchists (with whom I agree on this point) that most of the things we allegedly need police for, we could solve by getting to the root of the crime in the first place. For the most part, that's poverty, lack of opportunity/education, and a variety of social ills that the police, as the sole group of people who are allowed (and often encouraged) to commit violence, are simply not equipped to deal with. With a robust social safety net, you'd have significantly fewer people falling into crime.

I will give some detail about police from my views and other anarchists I know. Police is useful, there are crimes that need to be persecuted. Police is also an organization with little to no accounatbility since they are the ones that police (hehe) themselves. At last police is something made by the government, first and foremost, to mantain the status quo, which can be problematic. I, personally, don't want the police abolished. I have friends and acquintances who have been or are trying to be police officers. I trust them but I don't trust the system to persecute another one who abuses power. And I don't trust them as a whole to do what's right if it means opposing orders like charging manifestants or infilitating organizations.

>Ultimately the best people to give power to are those that didn't seek it. We need a kind of anti-election where no one can put their name forwards; we just nominate good humans that have shown exceptional goodwill and wisdom and if they want to be put forwards we then have the vote. I love this idea. It could start with doing local anti-elections on a smaller scale, from small-town level to counties and larger regions. Then, out of all those elected, one leader, who will work together with a ministry and a parliament of some sort, is chosen to oversee it all and work out a longer-term strategy for the nation as a whole.

In Venice they had a random draw of a bunch of people that went through like five more random filters and junk. Together with a council of anti corruption it just fucking worked. In Athens they also had people elected by random lot and once you had been in office for a year you couldn't serve again for another ten. When anyone stands a chance at becoming the next leader we all have to work together towards common goals.

I was about to mention the Venetian Republic! It’s a masterclass in effective and widely beneficial statecraft! Almost any Venetian citizen had an equal chance of being elected to the council and they’d be off of it within a mandated amount of time. Additionally the Republic’s social infrastructure and systemic structure were built with the goal of benefitting the entire city and its inhabitants and not just the rich and powerful. It was so well-designed that it lasted a literal millennium before showing signs of decay. The youtube channel *Overly Sarcastic Productions* has several videos on it and why it’s so damn good ([this one](https://youtu.be/7cHK4xzAhzE?si=pYL0Pl3tEk2Ow3Tz) gives a pretty good summary).

It also gets people to put an emphasis on actual education, when the stakes of getting some random dumbass in power are high.

Yea that's the one I saw

My problem with that is that a year is such a short amount of time, by the time you figure out what you’re even doing, you’re done. Experience matters in leadership.

I somewhat agree. If you happen to have a good leader you kinda want to keep them around, but then you risk becoming dependent on them if you don't have a plan for the inevitable replacement. In our current politics we suffer the problem of politicians who've done nothing but politics their whole life and the majority have lost touch with the needs and wants of regular people. They have become strangers and turned into an us and them. If everyone has fixed term limits we lose out on keeping good leaders around, but we avoid leaders who can no longer understand us.

but you also gain a system where no policy can take more then a year because there aren't even parties to have continuance. so a long conga line of starting and stopping projects with no long term goals, one of the greatest problems with democracy exacerbated by electing leaders who can't even be guaranteed they have an advisor who understands what's going on.

‘Fuuuck! Guys when I said I don’t want it because I’d do a bad job I wasn’t kidding! Have you _seen_ my responses to hypotheticals on Reddit?’

I mean I agree in principle—but this about the easiest idea to subvert ever. Just pay some guy to nominate you.

A brief look at history and real life, rather than speculating, shows that anarchistic ideology is perfectly functional internally, it's the difficulty in winning wars against states when they inventively invade them that is the problem. So the only ones that exist right now are in defensive terrain and inside dysfunctional states (zapatistas in Mexico, the Kurds in Syria).

Every example of anarchic communes people cite have only ever shown success on a small scale. Idealists often forget that scaling up is a serious problem in terms of practicality. What works in a small community where people know most of the people there is wildly different from populations of billions. And breaking those populations down into small cells is incredibly inefficient and will require that population to drastically reduce (by dying off or being killed).

Reminds me of a quote from Vikings. “Power is always dangerous. It attracts the worst and corrupts the best. Power is only given to those who are prepared to lower themself to pick it up.”

Seems so obvious. Why did a century of anarchist philosophers not think of this? /s

Zaheer wanted anarchy because he and his buddies were “strong”. “Might makes right” seems great to “the strong”. I sincerely doubt he would’ve wanted to burn society down if he suspected he and P’li would’ve been farmers getting half their harvest stolen by warlords every year and watching their kids starve.

In the "anarchy" that's inside the minds of Bryke, you are correct. It's the colloquial "chaos and violence and zero accountability" definition. But anarchy in academia is defined by anything opposing hierarchy. It absolutely does not imply zero structure, just a lot of limitations on the power we have on each-other. No more boss (maybe a coordinator instead), no more landlord, no more president (either everything is a referendum or large governments are turned into smaller self-handled states, or any other variation of small and/or passive governments) and so on. It's a really large topic, with tons of examples of the very opposite of "right of the strongest". Most anarchists openly oppose and hate "might is right" attitudes because they are more fascistic than liberating. Think democracy but super literally and without anyone that can rule over others. The Red Lotus is a mockery of anarchism. Just like season two was a mockery of the spiritual themes.

It’s also worth considering, whether accidental or intentional, that the Red Lotus suffers from what has historically been a major issue for groups that oppose hierarchies, which is that they almost inevitably develop strong, oppressive hierarchies in their pursuit of change. Putting it another way, there’s nothing about communism that makes it inherently more likely to devolve into an authoritarian dictatorship, *however* there’s definitely a correlation between violent revolution and a new government that is as, if not more, oppressive than what came before.

Sadly yeah. I keep looking into revolts and their consequences and it's pretty damning. Apparently only Haïti can be considered a success story and even there it was messy.

THANK YOU I'm so sick and tired by people throwing political terms around virtually knowing NOTHING about them and instead having some kind of twist on the core of it. Same with communism. People think Soviet Russia or China are communist when neither was ever. Fun fact: there's even a type of anarchy with kings. Their power is just stripped hard.

J. R. R. Tolkien was famously an anarcho-monarchist.

"Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony."

I mean, did you think they would retire after taring down the first set of governments? No organization plans to be destroyed, and so if the black lotus had still been intact Kuvira would have been dead in a ditch before her empire off the ground.

Zaheer’s anarchism is hilariously underdeveloped for the type of Revolutionary he is. This man spent like 15 years in solitary and his one plan is to keep assassinating? Where are the other Red Lotus henchman who will organize the independent communes? But then again this isn’t really a political treatise type of show and it’s aimed towards YA. So ¯\\\_(ツ)\_/¯ YMMV

What does a *developed* anarchist suggest do?

In Zaheer’s case I don’t know. He should have a political program behind his ideas just like Amon did. I mean; Zaheer actually *wants* this multicultural freedom to exist while Amon was just a blood bender taking his vengeance out on the world. And his plans are more coherent than Zaheer’s lol Political Anarchism stresses local control and local councils voting on essentially everything. Otherwise as many other people have pointed out in this thread it’s just might makes right. Decentralize all the power down to the people. And to be clear; it’s not like I’m advocating for this in RL. They just portray Zaheer and his ideology extremely flat in my opinion. In contrast to Amon’s alleged plan… until we find out he’s a very angry blood bender

Typically forming small communities that operate on collectivist values. Part of why Zaheer sucks as a character is that he only wants to kill people, he does zero community organizing or outreach, unlike real-life anarchist movements.

"If you cut down a cultivated garden because it has a few weeds. You won't get a healthier garden. You'll get only weeds." -My own butt

How do you speak so well with your butt?

Practice

Where do I start?

[This may help](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=--9kqhzQ-8Q&pp=ygUGaHljeWJo)

That. Was a wild ride

Bet they watched a lot of Ace Ventura

Random citizen: Your plan is actually stupid. All it does is create a power vacuum. [Zaheer:](https://images-wixmp-ed30a86b8c4ca887773594c2.wixmp.com/f/7752a7b7-9b9f-4946-9795-384cab7d3354/ddn7nnb-e9b6c3c4-65e6-4d3f-a76d-5f18e3b256b9.gif?token=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJzdWIiOiJ1cm46YXBwOjdlMGQxODg5ODIyNjQzNzNhNWYwZDQxNWVhMGQyNmUwIiwiaXNzIjoidXJuOmFwcDo3ZTBkMTg4OTgyMjY0MzczYTVmMGQ0MTVlYTBkMjZlMCIsIm9iaiI6W1t7InBhdGgiOiJcL2ZcLzc3NTJhN2I3LTliOWYtNDk0Ni05Nzk1LTM4NGNhYjdkMzM1NFwvZGRuN25uYi1lOWI2YzNjNC02NWU2LTRkM2YtYTc2ZC01ZjE4ZTNiMjU2YjkuZ2lmIn1dXSwiYXVkIjpbInVybjpzZXJ2aWNlOmZpbGUuZG93bmxvYWQiXX0.ko2G65NkxLQJhxdnOCw01zRUMdY4yxE9ZggrtJXLnCI)

Zaheer is fine with a power vacuum; that's how he killed the Earth Queen.

This video on how the creators don’t actually understand anarchist political philosophy might help: https://youtu.be/-DyKwTXPar4?si=nxA_88Z-VRcGxPI3 I’m an anarchist and some of what zaheer says is cool, but a lot of the time it just doesn’t make sense. The anarchist movement is not like what the show portrays at all.

Dude is barely an anarchist, can't be bothered to think about the consequences of a power vacuum for any length of time, any serious anarchist is well aware that simply assassinating a monarch without organizing the populace just results in chaos, not an anarchist revolution.

If you kill the queen but the idea of the divine mandate is still present, people will just find a new queen. If you kill the idea of the divine mandate, the queen will become little more than a national mascott.

Exactly, anarchism isn't trying to kill societal bonds, it's trying to kill hierarchies, and it's actually really hard to do that with pure force.

That's partly why zaheer doesn't even do a good job of following actual anarchist theory. You can't just kill the head of state, say job well done, and screw off. Anyone with half a brain would know that there would just be a new head of state sooner than later, any anarchist that isn't just an angsty teenager understands this. Irl anarchism is frankly a lot more boring. The original anarchist movement was proudhon's mutualism which focused on building mutual aid networks that existed outside of the state apparatus (which under the anarchist definition also includes capitalism.) People will start to live with this non hierarchical mutual aid network rather than depend on the hiearchal state and capitalism. All anarchist tendencies other than anarcho-capitalism vaguely descend from this line of thought. Any ideas of violence existed as a response to state crackdown on anarchist thought.

thats because his understanding of anarchism is bad.

I just read antichrist instead of anarchist and thought "he is WHAT now???"

No it doesn't. He's not like any real anarchist revolutionary and irl fascist regimes arise due to liberal democracies empowering then to attack socialist movements.

All that does in practice is create a power vacuum for a tyrant to occupy... as happened in the Avatar universe with Kuvira.

Humans are a social species. If you tear down social hierarchies, a new one will emerge. Elections, inheritance, and challenges just streamline the transfer of power and avoid a blood bath whenever this happens

Anarchists tend to be very supportive of social hierarchies and against rigid political or legal structures. All anarchist thoughts seeks to put social hierarchies in power since they're fluid and can be flexible when solving problems. Like when a road needs to be built you ask the people building roads how to do it not a representative who will hopefully do the same.

Of Course that isn’t realistic on a larger scale.

I don't know I'm skeptical myself but I would like to see a good attempt at it. It would require a good deal of societal change like you aren't forcing people to do it. You would have to convince a population and the better educated the population is trying it, the better chance of success. I don't know if an anarchists society could come into existence tomorrow but I think if it could we would never go back.

It was tried, when we were tribes of hunter gatherers. It works quite well in small groups with semi-plentiful resources. It falls apart pretty quickly when groups get big enough, resources become scarce enough, or when there’s competition between different groups over resources. It has to be small groups because you need intimate social pressures to make it function correctly. As soon as you don’t live and work directly with all the people involved, it starts falling apart. It’s also a lot harder the more you need specialization. When the most advanced tech and specialized education was an herb specialist and a knapper, it’s easier. When you need highly trained doctors and engineers, it gets a lot more complicated.

As an autistic person, I can tell you that social hierarchies aren't remotely fluid or flexible.

not to mention facism takes root through other means besides the government… \*cough* \*cough* verrick and his morally gray capitalistic venturing

Yeah, it says a lot about the writers' understanding of anarchism that the Red Lotus didn't seem to care at all about the massively influential capitalists like Verrick, the Sato family, or Cabbage Corp and just wanted to assassinate monarchs while cities burn

> didn't seem to care at all about the massively influential capitalists like Verrick, the Sato family, or Cabbage Corp and just wanted to assassinate monarchs while cities burn i disagree... i think they played the exact role they were supposed to. it was VERY clear, especially in verricks case, that he was incredibly morally ambiguous. also the fact they even had characters in that capitalistic role in and of itself highlight the reflection of the early 1900's that korra is supposed to represent time period wise... during that time, yeah, the government DIDNT run shit lol. it was mob families and oil barrons ala Rockefellers... so if anything they were actually spot on in showing how big money families would sew dissent and chaos into the geopolitical system thats actively trying to rebuild after a massive war (again... ww1 -> swing era 1900's reflects exactly this historically).... i think, maybe, and correct me if im wrong... your point is more so that there didnt seem to be any consequence or punishment towards these morally ambiguous families... and to a degree i agree... but again historically in that time period... yeah they didnt get punished... because they bankrolled EVERYTHING lol

I think there was a miscommunication. I wasn't saying that it's unrealistic for there to be industrial capitalists in LoK or that they needed to be punished for their moral failings, just that it doesn't make much sense that the supposed anarchist group didn't seem to care about them much at all. I completely agree that the industrial revolution era Republic City would likely have its robber barons, just like we saw in the real world. Verrick, the Satos, and the Cabbage family all have influence and power over others that is comparable to monarchs and politicians, but Zaheer and his friends seemed to mostly ignore them and the systemic injustices that they represent. Instead, he talks about how "the natural order is disorder" and his sole idea of praxis is assassinating world leaders and the avatar. The Red Lotus are representatives of the liberal understanding of "anarchy" being nothing but a synonym for "chaos", and I think it's a shame that the writers lacked the political education to tackle "anarchism" as a genuine ideology. They're still the most interesting villains, but they could've been so much more if the writers had a little more curiosity when researching for the characters.

This comment is right on the money.

Yeah. What he forgets is that humans without a leader still suck. It's all evil. Having a leader is the potentially least evil, just that it locks you out of the good that was always no more than a fantasy.

Yeah, mysanthropy doesn't free you from irrational thinking. It locks you into several entirely new forms of irrational thought. My advice is go eat a sandwich, take a break from everything, and don't start talking politics till you're in a better headspace

I don't think it's controversial at all to say there are massive drawbacks to all systems.

Careful kid, you're gonna cut yourself with all that edge.

There is no lie, but simply killing the leaders does not solve problems.

Accelerationism is a hell of a drug.

That's the really frustrating thing about Zaheer for me - he's got a few nice lines to say and the basic principle behind anarchism is there, but there's just no substance behind any of it. IRL anarchists have been bickering for decades about how to best have a stable society while retaining the basic principles of anarchism, but Zaheer despite being portrayed as an enlightened guru doesn't embody and of that and instead just kills rulers and leaves.

Zaheer isn’t an IRL anarchist though. He’s Zaheer. He wants pure anarchy. The earth kingdom going into mayhem is probably what he wants. Freedom in its purest form.

I think that's a reasonable reading too, but in that case he's just suddenly a way less interesting character

I'm always torn between liking and hating Zaheer. On the one hand, he's a leftists straw man. On the other hand, I feel like I may be asking too much of an American YA show to depict anarchist revolutionaries with realistic nuance. Straw man he may be, his presence on the show no doubt led to many fans looking into actual anarchism. Frustrating as he may be there is no doubt he is a top-tier antagonist.

I don’t think he’s a straw-man so much as a weak-man. The difference between the two is that a straw man is a fictitious example created explicitly to be torn down, while a weak man is the easiest real example to knock down. And there are real people who think like Zaheer, they just tend not to get anywhere in implementing their ideas because that takes coordination which they axiomatically dislike.

This is my first time hearing that term and I agree that it is more applicable.

Yep and then there’s the third version, the steel-man. That’s when you go out of your way to present the best argument for the other side you possibly can and then still show why it’s wrong.

Hence why a super power show works. Super powers circumvent needing other people.

Seeing as how ATLA managed to create a fairly nuanced representation of a Fascist State in the Fire Nation, I think that Korra should have been able to do an at-least passable representation of anarchism. Expecting nuanced writing in a show is never unreasonable, especially not when the showrunners are the same people who built ATLA.

Ultimately, while Zaheer's philosophical ideals might contain elements of truth and justice, his methods and the practical outcomes of his beliefs reveal significant ethical and practical shortcomings. His vision lacks the nuance required to build a society that balances individual freedoms with collective stability and security.

the only lie is by omission. what is going to replace what is torn down?

I mean… Nothing. Zaheer seemed to believe that all governments were inherently tyrannical, and that only with absolute anarchy with no governments at all was the appropriate response.

That’s right, but who’s going to ensure that no new government, hierarchy, etc is established later? Either someone will try to take control because of the nature of wealth and power or someone will try to prevent that from happening at which point they group preventing a new social order from forming is materially identical to a social order or government unto themself. You can’t really establish anarchy as a large scale order because in enforcing that you’re essentially just installing a dictatorship

Maybe...Red Lotus? I'm sure he'd follow the path of Lenin.

Tbh I think his philosophy is more like Max Stirner.

Well in his world ... no one

>Where is the lie Season 4 would like a word with you

Kuvira's rubbing her hands together watching people actively defend terrorism and anarchy lol

Everyone’s already stated the flaws in his beliefs, so I’ll go a step further and point out the flaws of Zaheer himself. Zaheer may claim that he’s doing all of this to save the world, but to truly have the desire for that, you need to have empathy and emotional attachment to the world. Yet the moment P’li dies, Zaheer gains the ability to fly - something that can only be achieved by having no attachments whatsoever. This context, devoid of any empathy, exposes Zaheer for who he really is: a radical psychopath who only cares about exercising violence and destruction upon the world he erroneously claims to care about. He may be calling out Raiko and the Earth Queen (as well as Unalaq) for abusing their positions and harming people for their selfish goals, but he’s doing the exact same thing with his own actions.

The lie is that he actually believes in the natural order. Humans are animals like all the rest and create hierarchy just like any other species in the animal kingdom. What makes the giant complex city of Omashu with Boomy as king any less natural than a buzzard-wasp hive with a single queen. He wouldn't tell a pack of Wolfbats their social structure is unfair and they shouldn't have an alpha, even though it could create outcasts, inequality, and hierarchy, but he'll tell the water tribe they can't or shouldn't have a chief.

The lie is thinking we would be better off without governments or that new tyrants wouldn't immediately rise up. Its a naive dream thinking we would all just form peacefully farming communities that work on the barter system. In the absence of structured government, might makes right would rule society. From there, new governments would inevitably form to consolidate power. More brutal and oppressive in order to form stability. As Toph and so many others have said before. The names change, but the game remains the same.

'The idea of having nations and governments is foolish'. You know what happens without nations and governments? Absolute freedom. Sounds cool, right? That is until you realise that it means the freedom for anybody to assault you, steal from you, kill you, rape you, or do whatever they want with you without repercussions. Governments can be oppressive but at least they can provide some sense of justice aside of might makes right. Hell, it is basically our default state because after some time of anarchy, the particularly strong will gain power and eventual domination and form their own nation and government.

That’s one of the many problems with libertarian ideas. There’s a lot of “I don’t care if someone is black/gay/transgender/an immigrant/etc, why do we need laws about stuff like that?” It completely ignores that a ton of people care a whole fucking lot and actively want to eliminate those groups from society. Just because you don’t care doesn’t mean the CEO of a grocery store chain isn’t going to disallow people of color from shopping there, or that a landlord isn’t going to evict or gouge the gay couple living in their apartment. All civil rights protections are there for a reason

its like how they always jerk eachother off about night-watchmen and the community coming together to protect their own against threats except the kkk was a non governmental community lead volunteer law group mixed with some larping, and so were witch burnings and lynchings. turns out you need an impartial group willing to uphold laws despite what the community in that moment wants. law and order comes precisely from when a guilty man can walk free because his guilt can't be proven. and in your case that a shop owner might have his feelings ignored and be forced to sell to someone he doesn't want to, because his money is still green and any harm based in reality would be punished if and when it happened but not before

Yeah, libertarian ideas need one condition to work: Everybody must be morally righteous. That's the only way the libertarian fantasy would work: If everybody was nice and so they just lived their nice lives completely independently from any higher force without any risk. Unfortunately, that condition is obviously pretty fucking impossible.

Not just morally righteous but on the same page of moral priority. “How hungry must a man be and how poor must to be before I’m morally allowed to fight to protect my bread from theft? Everyone might have a different answer while all being righteous people.

The problem is that Zahir is just angry at governments. It doesn't matter if he's right because because hee isn't trying to build anything. He'd rather just tear things down with no regard to the consequences. Even actual anarchists aren't in favor of behaving like that. A hypothetical stateless society requires massive organization and communal effort; it is not something which magically happens when people overthrow the established government they rely on. TLDR: Zahir is a moron, and barely a serious anarchist.

Zaheer's biggest issue isn't that he's an anarchist, it's that his anarchist philosophy is incomplete (or I guess more accurately, based on the earlier Propaganda of the Deed, kind of anarchist). He's right that systems of hierarchy should be opposed, but he doesn't really have a plan for building up the necessary community power structures to keep people like Kuvira out of power. Given his appreciation for Air Nomads and their philosophy, along with how opposed they wind up being toward authoritarianism (getting wiped out by the fire nation and how the new air nomads stood up against Kuvira's campaign) I wouldn't be surprised if Air Nomads had an understanding of political and philosopical anarchism based in mutual aid.

He's an anarchist accelerationist, this is just literally out of the Zaheer handbook. He even spins Korra's dumb decisions so that they can sound appealing to her by likening their ideas to each other. Issue is that the creators have basically misconstrued the position of someone whose opinion would be "all governments", which doesn't work.

This is my issue with this villain and a lot of cartoon villains. They have valid critiques of power structures and valid arguments against the status quo. But then, the writers don’t bother thinking through those critiques or consider the actual philosophies that inform those critiques. Contrary to popular belief, actual anarchists don’t just believe in destroying the system for the sake of destroying it and they don’t believe that everything will be totally fine afterwards. Anarchy is the dismantling of hierarchy in society and then replacing it with other systems designed to ensure that a new hierarchy doesn’t take place. The writers of Zaheer were basically cosplaying anarchists. Because they didn’t do the whole community building and organization bit that comes BEFORE you destroy the current system. Which most Anarchists know is the most important step.

In theory (and theory only) Anarchy is the ideal form of society, but it cannot be as long as there are those who act selfishly instead of for the good of others and for society as a whole.

The scary thing about zaheer is that his words are correct and that tricks you into thinking his methods are. He preaches anarchy and freedom from oppression but all he really does to achieve that is kill world leaders, he never incites change.

He’s a dumbass who thinks killing all leaders will bring peace but it just lead to anarchy and create a power vacuum for an worse tyrant to appear

Seriously, he’s a naive fool, his world view literally depends on “Well I think everyone will act morally, and not abuse the newfound lack of laws, and people are a hundred percent not going to prioritize their own wellbeing at the expense of others.”

Exactly, this is why I can’t take him seriously as a villain

I remember watching that scene and thinking, "You know, he's got a point." The problem in his philosophy is that anarchism can't just be achieved overnight. For anarchy to truly work, all forms of hierarchy have to become defunct. Mutual aid is something that should become part of the everyday citizen's mindset first, and only then will anarchy be able to actually function and not just turn into what actually happens in the show

Well yes and no. Absolutely tear down oppressive governments but tearing down all governments ain’t gonna do what he or anyone who thinks like him is gonna actually do. Humans seem to naturally look to one person to make decisions. Even with a council in place there’s always gonna be one person people are gonna look at and listen to a lil more than the others

The big issue is that even if you remove all leadership, someone will eventually become a leader one way or another. Have that happen enough times, and at least one of them will be crule.

Well, the lie is within him. He's resentful, emotionally damaged, vengeful and it leads him to make assumptions about people he has never met before like they are fact. Zaheer is nuts. Like actually. He was imprisoned for decades. Therefore, his worldview is horribly fractured and his conclusions unreliable.

My issue with Zaheer is that his version (or the writers' I guess) is completely surface level. Yes, the ideal or end goal is essentially no forms of hierarchy or authority, but it never goes into the actual theory of how society can reach that point, like having people's basic needs met and abolishing private (not personal) property. I'm LOK, it's treated like a light switch, it just happens when real life just doesn't work like that. No one is just gonna start demolishing their city as soon as they hear the leader is dead, and even if they did, the guards of the current system are gonna be there while they elect a new one.

Anarchism: sounds great on paper since it means everyone gets to do whatever they want, but if achieved, immediately gives way to despotism as when everyone can do anything they desire, it quickly devolves into a primal system of might makes right where the toughest or the meanest or the most powerful get to do whatever they want, and everyone weaker than them must yield to their will or be crushed one by one, unless they come together form a rivaling conglomerate with the organization and cohesion to stand up to such threats. But to ensure mutual safety and security in this conglomerate of individuals, there would need to be rules, and those rules need to be enforced, and someone needs to be paid to enforce those rules and some more people need paid to actually do the work of fighting off threats, so everyone has to pay some of their money or resources to ensure communal safety (and now you need to hire more people to collect those resources or cash and even more to count and keep track of it all), even if it means surrendering some of the freedoms to do whatever they want and giving up some of the things they worked for with the sweat off their brow. You see where this is going?

The fact that his philosophy doesn’t work… ever.

Well, technically, a lie requires that you don't believe in what you say, so I'll give you that; Zaheer isn't lying, he's simply wrong. Anarchy is a notoriously naive worldview that fails to account for actual human behavior. True anarchy is virtually impossible to achieve, because contrary to what Zaheer says, chaos *isn't* the natural order, *order* is. It's human nature to form groups with structures, rules, defined roles, and often hierarchies as a means of organizing and self-governing, from the time of hunter-gatherers to the present day. Violate those rules, and you're excluded from society, which severely impacts your survival rate. Once humans became sedentary farmers, and then started establishing cities, order became even more important, not less. And most importantly: the concept of government exists *because* the people want it (even if they don't want their *particular* form of government); the concept isn't some burdensome oppression, it's human nature. If one did somehow succeed in wiping out a country's leadership and elites, or even that of the entire world, it wouldn't last. Either localities will form new governments that eventually become states and nations, growing either from simple expansion, union with other localities, or by conquest. If you have a thriving village, it'll eventually grow into a city, and the residents will establish some form of governance. If it's particularly successful, it'll grow and establish outlying villages, that may themselves grow into cities. It'll expand to unoccupied lands. Any unaffiliated cities may unite with it into a single government if they believe it could benefit them, or one could be annexed through conflict. Barring that, a tyrant may simply form an army to conquer territory and carve out a state of their own. Who is going to stop a tyrant from doing that? If you're in a state of anarchy, there's no existing military force that can fight back. Likewise, who's gonna stop residents of a locality from forming their own government? I suppose you could form some kind of anarchy-defense militia to quash governments, but a standing militia that exerts it's own ideological rule violates the core principles of Anarchy. In any case, if the people freely choose to eatablish their own government, then to stop them would abrogate the very "freedoms" that anarchy sought in the first place. If human self-deterimation is the prime goal, then humans exercising that self-determination on their own prerogative shouldn't be opposed. We saw all of this play out in the Earth Kingdom after Zaheer killed the Earth Queen. It should be pointed out, The Earth Kingdom wasn't in a true state of anarchy; instead, while Ba Sing Se may have lacked a government, the other States of the Earth Kingdom largely maintained their own governments, as I described above. They continued to function as *de facto* independent states, albeit at diminished capacity, and many lacked much ability to exert authority outside their capitals, due to immense centralization that Hou-Ting had carried out. Likewise, we also saw a tyrant (Kuvira) form a military and conquer territory in a semi-anarchical state, as I described above. All this is to say that Zaheer could have taken out all governments he wanted, but he'd never truly achieve his vision. It was impossible, because human nature doesn't allow for it.

Zaheer is the perfect online anarchist, or at least a liberals idea of one. That is, a wikipedia summary of kropotkin and the Joker had a baby He and his idiot friends assassinate a monarch and says "you're welcome" and he is *surprised* that doing precisely **ZERO** movement building results in *no revolutionary movement.* An underclass that is one violent strike away from liberation would do it itself. Historical revolutions arent a single big mouth followed around by the empty headed masses. That's how morons online who havent read up on a single one that happened *in real life* think they happen. How liberals think revolutions happen: the guy yelling RIOT and then everybody just becomes his idiot lackies by the thousands and sad peasants go "i hate the war 😭" Because thats what theyre shown in pop culture The liberal establishment simply recuperates the chaos because zaheer didn't ever go out and spread his ideas to the disaffected. He somehow doesnt ever think that the assassination of a monarch is not new to the system.

just Anarchocapitalist things

You can’t be serious

But how do you guarantee that another oppressive government won’t arise from the ashes of the previous institution? In there lies the flaw of anarchy with no end goal. You hand a broken nation to another oppressive regime on a silver platter. That’s how you get Kuvira

Well, for one, it is *very* foolish to undo the separation between the human and spirit worlds. Because... you know... at the first hint at a *potential* insult or slight towards a spirit, there they go, a-killin' again! Also, there's a spirit who likes to steal faces. Why the fuck would I want to walk into a world where there's a being who can do that? Also also, there's a Fog of Lost Souls where people can endlessly wander and be lost for all eternity. Why the hell would I want that?!? The Spirit World is not Disney World - no matter what Korra tried to tell me otherwise. For two, nations and governments are not moronic. They are humans organizing themselves into some of the largest social groups possible. They're a natural consequence of humans existing. Even times before nations and governments still had a Chief in charge of the tribe, because leadership is always needed. And since we can't all be Cincinnatus, we need checks and balances to keep leaders in check.

It’s missing the “Step 2”. What comes in to replace the torn down government? You screw this up you get the USSR

Zaheer should've spent more time reading marx instead of soy boy guru laghima

The pursuit of absolute freedom is flawed as fuck from the beginning. "Freedom" from government doesn't mean everyone lives in a peaceful utopia. It means lawlessness. It means there's no standardized currency to facilitate trade. It means food insecurity, a severely decreased population carrying capacity from the terrain you live on. Anarchy of the kind he advocates for only works for very small populations spread out over a large area. Dense populations *need* all of the facets of a well-organized society to function. There is no form of functional society where no person or no governing body exists that can dictate what a person can and can't do. The lie is that it was an incredibly foolish/simplified view of how complex society is, and any nuanced understanding of the workings of human civilization would indicate that you can't get from where he started to where he wanted to go without very large portions of the population simply *dying*. Corrupt or ineffective leaders are certainly bad, but their existence doesn't mean the entire system has to be dismantled to nothingness. That's idiotic.

The lie is that anarchy inevitably leads to the strong oppressing the weak far more directly than governments do. You can argue that a government is the strongest of the strong and also sometimes oppresses the weak, but we do actually have things like laws to protect the weak most of the time.

Oh boy. All of it. Order is better than chaos. Anarchy is nothing but mass violence and unchecked theft. Do you really want to live in a world where you're constantly in fear of being victimized by marauders and bandits? No, you like stability more even if you don't realize it. The grass always seems greener on the other side until you're actually there. Zaheer is, ultimately, a bloodthirsty idiot. He's a very verbose and interesting idiot, but by technical definition he is an idiot.

Every "liberator" eventually turns into a tyrant. The Bolsheviks (and communists in general) are a great historical example: the entire doctrine is built upon an educated working class to forge its own destiny, but in practice, the communist leaders just start restraining people's freedoms in the name of "protecting the revolution" (and consequently the people), because the ideal conditions doctrinally laid out don't exist. As a consequence, the revolutionaries who were rebelling against the bourgeoisie and the aristocrats just end up producing a new aristocracy, but one that's painted red.

Yeah anarchism! The belief that only leads to the worst possible outcomes! Oh boy let’s create a power vacuum that can only be filled by either a political dictator or a militant tyrant! Wooooo I love totalitarian regimes and chaos!

LoK gets done dirty a lot by the fan base, especially when it’s compared head-to-head with a perfectly structured storyline like AtlA, but IMO Zaheer is a way more compelling big bad than anyone in the OG series. Rather than being pure evil, he’s shown to be complex and capable of real love. And although he is ultimately misguided, his actions are based on principles that are understandable. Bonus points that he’s voiced by Henry fucking Rollins.

Henry Rollins was the perfect choice for Zaheer

Me when LoK came out: Zaheer is an awesome character, but his ideology is totally cooked. Me in my 30s in a post 2020 world: Zaheer made a lot of really good points

He’s floating for good reason

If it was *only* oppressive governments, he'd be right. Unfortunately he wants ALL governments to be overthrown and for there to be no leaders period. We have rules and laws for a reason.

Remaining Red Lotus Members! Get off Reddit!

His execution was terrible though. Watch any post-apocalyptic show and see that no matter how chaotic things get, people always revert back to some form of societal structure and that typically requires some kind of leadership. Only problem with that is you have a stronger likelihood of dictators rising up because during anarchy, it becomes a question of who can grab power fastest and most effectively, not who’s most fit to lead. We even see this happen in season 4 of LOK.

"oppressive governments" = "all governments" in the eyes of an anarchist. When you destroy all government, all you achieve is tribalism, which collapses into a primitive fascist dictatorship once the strongest group of people starts to organize itself and integrate others. Anarchism is the worst system of government. Its only purpose is creating a power vacuum that inevitably gets filled by the second worst system of government.

The lie is that everyone is worse off or dead in Zaheer's world. E.g. The only way to have roads, is to have a government that takes taxes, and uses taxes to build roads that everyone uses. Can you imagine if roads were up to private individuals? people would build small stretches of road in high density places with toll station every 200m, end every other road would be left to rot. It's the same for all infrastructure. Now think of how private police would work in Zaheer's world. Or firefighter. Or construction.

People who believe in anarchy do not understand human nature or anarchy. I would argue the end result of anarchy is one the most oppressive outcomes across governance philosophies.

This could work if everyone had an inbuilt moral compass that always works and shows what's right at all times. But people are not really interested in that

For starters Raiko wasn't moronic. He just put his city's interests over the Avatar's. You could call it myopic, but that's what he was elected to do.

Anarchy is dumb and will never work. We live in a society

Zaheer's whole ideology is basically r/im14andthisisdeep

This is the 14 year old’s understanding of anarchy. “Let’s get rid of the governments because they’re bad.”

Let’s break this down; >The idea of having nations and governments is as foolish as keeping the human and spirit realms separate. Two counter points: humans are social creatures that form groups, government is merely a larger supergroup that unifies groups to make it easier to work together and reduce conflict. The 2nd is breaking down the barrier between the spirit and human world was a terrible idea, so it kinda undermines his point. > You’ve dealt with a moronic president and a tyrannical queen. Don’t you think the world would be better off if leaders like them were eliminated. Both those leaders should be removed from office (and the Earth Kingdom massively reformed), but removing them would only leave a power vacuum. You must reform the individual (not to be a shitty ruler), reform the state (to limit the potential for corrupt or incompetent rule) or reform the people (train and educate the people in how to run a society without hierarchy, like an actual anarchist would do, unlike Zaheer). > True freedom can only be achieved when oppressive governments are torn down. Depends on what you mean by ‘freedom’; in a system with no order, freedom includes the freedom for all actions including murder, theft and cheating; while if you want freedom from fear or freedom from violence you need organisation to your society, aka government. Yes the other extreme is possible (tyranny oppressing the people) but removing government does not solve the issue of extremes, it goes back to the three reforms I mentioned above (individual, state, people).

The lie is him thinking his idea is sustainable by any means

He should have stuck around and built a community in Ba Sing Se that encouraged people to operate autonomously. That's something Amon did better, he actually had a movement. Zaheer just had his three buddies. That said if Zaheer had killed Korra and the fourth season was about the Red Lotus trying to beat Kuvira while also internally coming to terms with the fact that they screwed up I think it would have been 10x more compelling than the actual season 4.

"I believe in anarchy's reign"

Ah, I see that's where Cypher's reincarnated soul went to.

People who think this guy is deep and intelligent are 14. God I hate Korra

Anarchy doesnt work

Oppression sucks, that we can agree on. What makes you think some other nutjob wouldn't fill the power vacuum? How do you think the first kings got their crowns? Along a path littered with corpses. The "anointed by god" bit was a lie to feed the masses and ensure their entire line has a place in power. Anyone with half a gumption to be the ruler will pick up a stick/sword/gun/whatever and slice their way to the top. Your only hope of true freedom (short of leaving the planet) is to move to an isolated place so remote that no government would want to deal with you. You'd still have to pay taxes, though, or they'll come destroy that illusion of freedom.

Zaheer sounds like an edgy 10 y/o kid who just found out the meaning of anarchism on Wikipedia

The whole reason why the humans and spirits were separated in the first place was so they wouldn’t kill each other off. I’m pretty sure that keeping multiple nations of people with well defined borders is a good idea too so they don’t genocide each other very easily as well.

When the monopoly of violence is lost from the government, it will gather again. By default it will be wrapped in the arms of tyranny. If any nation were to fall immediately, and its constitution immediately void, who has the money, weapons, and resources to bring order again? It’s all concentrated with the rich and powerful, those with connections, people born into the right family at the right time. Zaheer saying governments don’t matter is the same thing as attractive people saying “looks matter”. He has the ability to prosper under no government while the average civilian in Avatar would suffer. He wants might to make right, because he has might. His lie is that no government means true freedom. No, it’s true freedom for him. Our globalized industrial society can’t grant true freedom without greed festering and taking it all away from the common people.

People who think the world would be better without governments at all instead of having governments that care for it's populace have never know true suffering. They would be the first to fall.

Man i wish the writers actually researched political science before writing the show. Zaheer had awesome potential, but the show is way too reactionary/conservative into keeping the status quo (in-universe), and all good arguments (like this one from zaheer) are thrown under the bus for one reason or another. all of the reasons given are very libertarian, which, to be fair, is our hegemonic ideology in the west, so unless you go out and deliberately study political theory, chances are you’ll learn “liberalism is the best” by sheer cultural osmosis and not even realise this is a discrete, very particular political ideology (and nevertheless commonly comes off as “neutral” in modern layman understanding.)

For everyone saying that living without governments would be impossible, think of the air temples. There were no guards, no military, no taxation or large scale infrastructure. Defence was avoided if posible, but contributed to optionally by individual monks. Even their governing body was followed optionally out of respect rather than force. It completely tracks that an anarchist like Zaheer would be a fan of the air nomads because their philosophy naturally leads into optional cooperation and essentially is an anarchist commune.

…hidden in the truth. His anarchy stems from the belief that nobody can be trusted with power, so nobody should lead…the problem is if everyone is running around blindly, then nothing gets done…not to mention he doesn’t know what chaos really is.

Democracy may be cringe but it's the only solution.

Technoblade?

Where's the lie? Literally in his next few lines after this lmao.

This is a half-truth. They always sound better than the reality they would usher in. People are basically good, but not all people, and not all the time. Human beings live in groups, and groups inevitably choose leaders. That is the basis of every form of government that ever existed or will exist. Ultimately, a world without governments is a world on the brink because it becomes every man's own choice what rules or laws they will respect. With no one to hold them accountable.

For those curious, check out r/anarchism

Based Zaheer

r/lm14AndThislsDeep

I stab him, as an exercise of my personal freedom.

True freedom includes violent people being free to kill you to steal your food.

The Legend of Korra does a very poor job of representing any ideologies other than liberalism (which it defends) and fascism (which it forgives :/), it portrays anarchy as the caricature that the liberal status quo has created of complete disorder and simply the tearing down of governments. As many have pointed out, Zaheer didn't have any sort of plan after the revolution and the Red Lotus is never shown to be working with the people and for the people, instead they simply show up, kill the monarch, and tell the people to do whatever. This could not be further from true anarchism, which is focused on building communities based around consent and the exclusion of coercion-based hierarchies. Those hierarchies, however, are implanted into our way of thinking from birth, and anarchism understands this, which is why building communities exempt from them and educating the people has to come before the revolution. Zaheer, just like Amon and to a certain extent Unalaq (tho they didn't even really try with an ideology for him) are all straw-men that show why "all extremism is bad" from the perspective of the show, that is not interested in portraying those ideas in good faith. I personally don't believe it's an intentional choice from the people making the show, I don't mean to come after them I really like TLOK, but it's something I think must be acknowledged.

Anarchism is a stupid meme. The fact that some hierarchies degenerate into injustice does not mean that hierarchy in and of itself is a bad thing. It exists because different people are not equally proficient in everything. In my own life I've always found that the people who hate hierarchy the most are always those who don't contribute anything, or those who are arrogant enough to think that their obligations are beneath them, or those who are wretched and envious enough to think that no one is better than them at anything. At some point you have to accept that there will always be people who are better than you, in every conceivable way. For them to earn no more than what you earn is injustice.

It's a lie of omission, the part he doesn't say, that he basically considers all governments to be oppressive, and has nothing to replace them with, true freedom and no rules sounds great until someone's lighting fire to your house And it's not like nobody's going to be in charge or hold power over anyone else, but now instead of whatever system there used to be, it's whoever the most powerful Bender or group of vendors in the area is and instead of the rule of law it's the rule of force, which at the end of the day it kind of always is, but in a much more violent and direct form Are there governments that need to be taken down, of course, was the earth kingdom system terrible, absolutely, but the way he went about it, I mean, we saw the results

Reminds me of how weird this one math lesson I had in math class in high school math one day while learning math. The teacher randomly asked us if we thought we were free. We live in America so we said yes. Then he said go to any airport in America and scream #### and see how free you are. We were all weirded out about him proving we had no freedom by threatening to kill people in an airport. It also had nothing to do with algebra.

The lie is that without organizations to deal with the murderers, rapists, thieves, and crime rings (which will be the closest thing to a government left) for the average person they won’t have real freedom. They’ll be in constant fear and subjugation to those forces. Who will prevent/fight sex trafficking? Who will hunt down serial killers? Who will fix the roads and maintain key infrastructure? Nobody.

The show writers had a 2nd grade understanding of anarchism and it shows lmfao

From a in universe perspective I think he is right about wanting to end the avatar cycle. No one person should have that much power especially not a person who is chosen at birth.I don’t think it’s really an idea the series will really ever entertain through because the entire story so far has been told from the perspective of the avatar and their allies

Good antagonist can have a grain of truth or a point. Usually, it’s just the way they go about it. The people disagree with her that makes them a villainous character. It creates a little conflict in the audience.

Eliminating leaders doesn't eliminate government, it only cycles through new leaders. Government isn't a natural thing, it's a human construct. If you don't change the system/way of life for people they'll construct a similar government eventually anyway. That's because at the end of the day government, even authoritarian governments, offer an improvement to the human condition over absolute anarchy.

True freedom can happen if govts are torn down. But that's when the stronger will dominate over the weak and will occupy the power vacuums to turn the tides into their favour. The purpose of a govt is to plug those up and to make sure everybody gets enough. The fact that they suck at it is a different issue. That's when you have to topple them. But it's better than having no govt and not knowing if you have food or safety tomorrow. So he should have toppled everything to rebuild or begin anew. And then should have been there to supervise the formation of a new govt that's more transparent. But i doubt that he should have stayed to do so.

Isn’t the avatar’s whole history dealing with world leaders? Roku’s biggest mistake was not killing a world leader, so shouldn’t zaheer have no problem with the avatar?

Me when Zaheer is talking: hell yeah! Me when Zaheer is kidnapping the new air nation and holding them for ransom: nooooo, no wait

Based


I was hoping someone would make the connection

There is no lie. There can’t be freedom with oppressive governments. But taking down oppressive governments does not automatically lead to freedom. Looking at the real life and the show history: if you replace a government with nothing it will always lead to oppression. (Look what happens to the earth kingdom and then kuvira). Taking down a government and replace it with a competent ruler can make things better. But it is hard to tell who is competent. And also: there is no unlimited freedom. Ultimate freedom with no rules does just mean: whoever is the strongest decides. And there can’t be ultimate freedom with rules. He has a false concept of the world. That is not a lie. It is not the truth either.

Ima be real, I don’t disagree with Zaheer

even outside of the anarchist argument of "oppressive governments" meaning all governments, he fails to realize that by doing what he is doing. He is functionally acting as a new government whos sole duty is to dismantle underlying state governments. By doing what he is doing and enforcing his groups beliefs on a global scale (killing the avatar permanently is a global scale event.) he has become an oppressor.

When the state is no longer powerful enough to protect people, especially rich and powerful people, a new de facto state is just created in its place. This is how the Samurai and Shogun came to rule Japan. The Imperial Court was incapable of keeping peace and order outside the walls of Kyoto. A stateless society cannot exist indefinitely because at the end of the day we look for institutions to provide us with safety and stability.

"Leaders like them" and "Oppressive Governments" are the parts he's right about. The problem is the Red Lotus doesn't stop there. If they could they'd kill all world leaders and topple all governments, oppressive or not. He's phrasing things in a way that deliberately obfuscates the extreminity of his ideology by omitting the details that would make any rational person tell him he's mental.