Amon Is Terrible: How to Write a Villain Without a Point 

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You know I just realized, they made the two most prominent benders other than the avatar, mako and bolin, be extremely poor and grew up on the street, their bending is the only thing that they’re able to use to make money. Meanwhile the most prominent non-bender is asami, a wealthy industrialist and daughter of one of the most influential engineer in the city. Kinda the opposite of what the story wants us to think is happening.

On the Sydrome point, I always assumed his motivation wasn't to make everyone super because it would make thing. His whole plan was to get rid of all the old heroes, use his inventions to play super hero to get all the love and admiration they got as the only hero, then when he got bored, sell his inventions to make the idea of a super hero no longer a thing since everyone can have powers. doing so would make him the last great Super Hero and destroy the legacies of people like Mr. Incredible. Selling his stuff seemed like a means to his actual goal of just creating the ultimate ego boost.

Frustrating that no one ever tries to tackle the issues Amon brings up, despite there being basically no shown issues, Korra never goes ok what's the problem maybe we can fix it. Instead she spends most of her time just being scared whenever Amon is vaguely alluded to and being manipulated.

Actually Syndrome is the perfect comparison. Both he and Amon are faking societal issues as justification for seeking revenge on someone else. They've created these shallow, empty arguments against super powers as a reason to go about destroying super powers to try and erase the likeness and even the memory of the person they actually want revenge on. Everything Syndrome does is just to get back at Mr. Incredible. All he really cares about is that Mr. Incredible is beaten, forgotten and no one like him will ever appear again. Amon wants Aang's legacy destroyed. The city, the benders together in harmony and, of course, his successor/reincarnation. Nothing else matters to him. Leaving her alive but without bending is the ultimate trophy. They're kind of close to being the same character, except one destroys the city as it's part of the goal and the other destroys a city as a means to his goal.

I think people tend to misinterpret Syndrome’s speech. Making everyone super isn’t his motivation. His motivation is that he wants to get revenge on Mr. Incredible for snubbing him years ago and that final move of giving everyone super powers is less of an altruistic move and more of a final way to spite Mr. Incredible, because Bob’s main insecurity is wanting to be a superhero again and this line twists the knife in harder by saying he never will. Is it extremely petty? Yes. That’s what makes Syndrome a villain. His crusade is purely driven by spite, not misplaced altruism

I have a major disagreement with an implication in your video here. Syndrome is not one of the “has a point villains,” not by a long shot. The dude kills supers so that when he sends his death robot to attack a city he’ll be the only one to “save” people, he’ll be the only “hero.” He then says when he’s tired of being a fake superhero he’ll get rich off making everyone else as super as him, thereby making no one special. He doesn’t do either of these things out of any selfless motivation, it’s all selfish. He thinks he deserves the spotlight and when he intends to leave it he intends to make sure no one else will enter that light ever again, that’s his perspective and goal. The fact that his retirement selling super weapons happens to objectively benefit people is not some righteous act when his motives for doing so is purely selfish. None of this is speculative, it’s directly stated his motives: Why he killed the supers: Syndrome: “Oh come on, you gotta admit this is cool! Just like a movie: the robot will emerge dramatically, do some damage, throw some screaming people. And just when all hope is lost? Syndrome will save the day! I'll be a bigger hero than you ever were.“ Mr. Incredible: “You mean you killed off real heroes so that you could pretend to be one?” Why he sells his weapons: Syndrome: “And when I'm old and I've had my fun, I'll sell my inventions so that everyone can be superheroes. Everyone can be super! And when everyone's super... maniacal laughter no one will be. Syndrome: “See? Now you respect me, because I'm a threat. That's the way it works. Turns out there are lots of people, whole countries, that want respect, and will pay through the nose to get it. How do you think I got rich?“ The point of Incredibles and Syndrome is that to force special people into mundanity, because by nature of being special that means others aren’t special, to level some sort of “playing field” is wrong and downright evil. Trying to say “Syndrome has a point” completely misses the point, he does not, he forces circumstances to make him look special and intends to make everyone less special after. The people will not be empowered by his weapons they will be even worse off because they are robbed of the chance to find what makes them special by taking the easy way out, and many people may not be able to afford it anyway leading to a lot of bad power dynamics becoming even worse.

The way I interpreted Amon and Thanos is that they are actually delusional. In the case of Thanos, it is aparent from the moment he states his pursuit for purging half of the life forms in the universe to solve the problem with resources. As seen in the next movie, he didn't limit his purge to only "intelligent life-forms", but also non-sentient animals and plants too (e.g. there's a tree that respawns in the Avengers HQ after Hulk does the Blip). Getting rid of half these life-forms means that near half the resources are gone, making the problem persist. The fact Thanos didn't think of it or care about thinking of it is a subtle way of indicating that he is in fact delusional. In the case of Amon, it's much easier to see without having to go through a lengthy dissertation about the politics in the Avatar world. In the very first episode Amon appears in, one of the very first things he says in his introductory speech is: "Benders have been the cause for all wars, in every time period". The people in that small crowd get behind that statement because they hold resentment towards benders and because they don't know of a world where benders don't exist (so they can't fact-check what Amon is saying). But for the audience, who live in a world without bending, it should be immediate to notice that Amon's statement is bullshit: War, inequality, and conflict exist even without bending, and removing it from a world where bending exists wouldn't be enough to stop these things. Amon as a villain is not defined by pursuing a civil rights cause; he is defined by deceiving and manipulating the masses to pursue his personal vendettas. The fact that the bogus civil rights movement lacked a legitimate point (as per this video's analysis) further cements Amon as a deceiver, akin to a cult leader.

Frankly, I call that group of villains that "People who sound like they have a point, but are actually some of the dumbest people you've ever met" and it infuriates me that no hero ever actually confronts their motivations or plans. Thanos' plan was to kill half of everything, not everyONE, everyTHING. Plants and animals would die alongside sapient life. Even if Thanos was right, and that led to a utopia, it would take two, three, probably a maximum of four generations for the population to return to before "The Snap". That means that once every hundred or so years, you have to gather the infinite stones AGAIN and kill half of everyone AGAIN. But that's not even the real issue, because Thanos' plan was to break every supply chain in existence, all at the same time. This would cause massive shortages of every resource imaginable, and would likely lead to the complete collapse of society and all of everyone dying. Imagine if you wanted to get in your car, buy something, and return home. You can't drive your car because it's out of gas, you can't get more gas because the pumps are empty, the pumps are empty because there's no semitrucks, there's no semitrucks because there's no mechanics, drivers, or supervisors to handle orders and send out shipments. Everything you could do, that would require someone else to do something else, is gone because that supply chain is broken. But even THAT isn't the real issue, because Thanos is wrong about basic economics. Having more people means there can be more specialists, and those specialists can produce food at an insane rate. Right now, we're producing so much food that a lot of food is being thrown away because we can't eat it fast enough. If he's worried about over population, then it's freaking SPACE dude! Do you have any idea how much space is in space? You could make the population of the universe quintillions, and there would still be plenty of room. I mean seriously, it's actually all of space. Frankly, Thanos is my least favorite Marvel villain. It would be Kill Monger, but Thanos operates on a bigger scale and both of their plans immediately collapse under the lightest scrutiny. And Amon had so little of point it was ridiculous. Back during the hundred years war, if you could shoot lightning out of your fist, you were a god among men. You were untouchable, unbeatable, and fame, wealth, and pleasure were at your fingertips. If you can shoot lightning out of your fist, you are a factory worker. All the richest people are non benders. Non benders run companies, non benders design new technology, non benders make art, Unity City is so stacked against benders that the strongest benders are factory workers. If you think Syndrome had a point, go watch Mega Mind.

I like this video aside from one thing. Syndrome isn't really a character written to have a good point, it's already in his name he has a big Hero Complex and really looked up to heroes but only really saw the adoration and glory in the gig. In his flashback of being rejected, Bob was alone but the earlier scene where that takes place he was actually in the middle of convicting a villain. And later on during his plan, he sucks at even being a pretend hero because the point is that Syndrome lacks the mentality to be a good hero.

About the gang of benders scene: the police who are benders came to deal with the situation? They even arrested korra, the avatar who's the most privileged bender of all time because she caused property damage she's thinking that it's her job to deal with crime like a generic superhero?

My personal theory is that the writers got scared, they got planned all this opression and real discrimination issues, an Amon with no second intentions behind, and a real division in the society was destined to happen. But they didn't knew how to fix the problem, how would you keep bending and avoid being used as tools of opression, you can't. And being unable to resolve the problem they give up and the make up a much tamer story, one that could be resolved by the incompetent Korra

Why would the Equalist movement even reject Amon after finding out he's a bender? Everything he did was with their best interest in mind.

11:30 - the problem about that is that benders are *objectively* better at some things. A non-bender construction worker is inevitably going to be worse at the job than an earthbender, whereas there will not be a difference between the performances of a black man and a white man. A waterbending healer is going to be worlds better at the job than a non-bender, whereas that difference will not exist between a woman and a man. Provided, in both cases, an equal skill/training at those tasks. And that's kinda the crux, because IRL (theoretically) anyone can get the same training and have equal (more or less) skills, so gender- or race-based discrimination is baseless, but you *cannot* learn to be a bender if you weren't born one, so you're going to be inevitably unequal in at least some arenas.

Korra learning the philosophy of airbending would actually be pretty interesting. We never really got that with Aang bc he was already an Airbender and his culture was wiped out, heck we could have had a nice little call back of Korra channeling Aang at the end after Tenzin teaches her airbending, and Aang saying to Tenzin how he's made him proud of successfully passing on their culture. I would have loved that so much more than a quick flashback of an old villain Aang once took down.

I will say that people need to stop doing the Malcolm X vs Dr.King allegories because they were a lot more a like in their beliefs than people assume. Certain people (the rich and powerful) have softened the image of king because it makes them feel safer. But from a writing standpoint it would make their fantasy stand-ins way more interesting in their dynamics and character arcs.

My problem with LOK has always been, that it sets a problem, finds it insolvable, and then shifts it to a personal thing (it is not a systematic problem, just villain is bad). I understand, a war is easy, but politics is complicated. War is about survival, politics is about compromises, and is boring to watch. So we have a protagonist who isn´t able to deal a compromise and try to have more action scenes than in the literal war. I enjoy characters and themes, but never get it.

thanos is specially stupid because not only he decides to kill trillions but he doesn't solve the big problem he wants do adress, after he kills half of the universe he then destroys the stones wich is completely stupid because eventually the universe will reach the same point it had before he used the snap

Syndrome's plan is to crush the human spirit with "gifts". He's going to solve all their problems, sounds great right? Well because there's no problems there is nothing to defeat, nothing to strive for anymore. Why excel when everything is great all around? When everybody is at their peak, then everyone is mediocre. Syndrome never had a point, and he just wants to be the genius around the worms.

26:23 But there's an issue here, too. You quite literally confirmed that benders are working class.. not all benders are fighters, nor would they be. And every incredibly clever inventor in both ATLA and Korra, were non benders. The top swordsmith in the Fire Nation was a non bender. The Beifongs in ATLA were rich, filtny rich, and only Toph could bend as far as we know. Jet and his freedom fighters were highly skilled and talented and FREQUENT took out Fire Nation soldiers. The Kyoshi Warriors, non benders, were obviously formidable until overpowered by grown soldiers who demonstrated absolutely no ROE. The Professor from Ba Sing Se, not a bender. The EARTH KING IN BA SING SE not a bender. Tai Li and Mai both came from presumably non bending families. If only 25% of the population are benders and they do like, all of the manual labor, including healing, military, policing, power generation etc, Im not sure how theyd ever be able to discriminate against non benders in any real way. They're literally the working class, meanwhile Cabbage Corps, Sato Engineering and presumably all the artisans, merchants and inventors are just doing just fine and not expected to use their genetic gifts to prop up society. Which, again. 25% of the population. Amon is 100% useless and in order for you to even FIX the story you ironically have to take away positive attributes already known to non benders.

"cant use a gun to build a house". nail guns:" am i joke to you?"

That water bending health care thing is an interesting idea Imagine seeing water benders using healing techniques in a more modern setting, possibly having to charge large amounts of money due to how much practice they have to put into learning this, which gives non-benders a bad impression of them because they think they’re overcharging them, even though the prices are justified and don’t discriminate benders from non-benders Or alternatively, another interesting angle could be water-benders losing their job as people favor modern medicine over traditional healing, which is something that any non-bender could do, and could be something water benders feel threatened by This actually makes me think of a whole nother route the series could’ve taken! We see how bending gets integrated into various industry, but imagine that as technology becomes more advanced, bending becomes obsolete as new technology comes out that allows non-benders to do all the same things that benders could, and even those lucky enough to be born benders stop using their powers because technology is so much easier This causes a divide between the younger generation who favor the use of modern technology, and the older generation who worry about hundreds, if not *thousands* of years of tradition, including generations of their own heritage, being forgotten! Edit: of course bending is still simpler and easier, but you get the idea

Yeah the biggest problem is amon SHOULD have a point. Think about the fire nation, a hundred years of a war between benders with normal folk stuck helplessly in between. On top of that you'd have benders who abuse their abilities as well. It wouldn't be wrong for a counter culture to rise against benders, especially benders who are in power. But nope amon is a bender, he was the son of a gangster who never actually cared about non benders and non of these issues are ever brought up properly and dropped completely. Like korra completely upended peoples lifes by leaving the portal open, another bender in power making decisions that destroy their lives and it's barely addressed.

"You can't use a gun to build a house" Oh ya watch me

I can explain the reason Thanos wanted to wipe out half of existence. In the comics the reason he wants to wipe out half of existence is so that he can be with Lady death to appease her he wants to cause a ridiculous amount of death and destruction.

Everyone wants a villain who "has a point", but so many are deathly afraid of making a villain who could be right.

14:10 Not to the majority of people, but at their fundamentals, guns ARE tools as well. Tools of destruction, yes, but there are still many who rely on these tools to ward off predators, hunt down the food they need to survive, and defend their homes. I understand this may be a bit harder to imagine if you say grew up in the city, but guns are a necessity in some people's lives just as much as a hammer or truck.

Amon should have been like the “Anti Aang.” A sadistic violent manipulative old fart who hates bending because of what Tarlock’s family did to him. Instead of burn scars he should have scars from frostbite & have it so that he was actually saved by them but he wanted to die with his family & it was other water benders who killed his family in the first place & he gathers crowds like a shepherd his lot of sheep. Give him some speeches straight outta Senator Armstrong’s repertoire, & make him irredeemable instead of a person who’s redeeming others. I mean what a better villain for the antonym successor to Atla ayy?

My criticism of the video is that I think it's missing the point. At least in my opinion. Watching Korra, from my perspective was like watching a social politics simulation for kids. Fact is benders are being discriminated against but they have the "magic powers." Benders in universe are basically seen as "the muscle." Amon's point from a writing perspective was supposed to illustrate gaslighting personified & the societal consequences thereof for personal gain. Remember, that he's doing all of this as a revenge/power plot for his dead father. (We may not know "exactly" why but that doesn't matter because that IS the point, kinda. He's evil for the sake of being evil.) Amon just wants to be powerful by ANY MEANS NECESSARY! He's based deeply in machiavellianism & dark triad traits. At his core, Amon is just faulty biological programming from his toxic fathers gang upbringing of gaslighting & brainwashing his sons, wanting them to avenge him in some way after he was brought to justice for his crimes then had his bending taken by Aang. Amon is just a crying child broken morally by his upbringing. In a way he is SUPPOSED to be a pathetic, generic, irredeemable villain to emphasize how in the real world, the masses can be made fools of & a movement started up over one toxic, twisted, egotistical, charismatic, manipulative, confused idiot who's selfish, self-serving ambitions weren't even his own! Amon is & was simply just a ghost of his fathers ambitions. A broken man with no actual free will. From this angle, Amon is actually sadly relatable. I feel as though that subtle nuance was missed by a lot of fans watching. 😁 "Sins of the Father are paid for my his son's" as the saying goes. 😓 Could the writing have been better? Yes, but that requires more budget, seasons, run time & support from Nickelodeon corporate which at the time was gaslighting the writers & producers of the show making them think that each season was the series finale. ... And it's kinda hard to work under those circumstances 😓😅 I would have loved if Amon's death was a fake out & we got him back and perhaps teamed up with another season villain. But That was definitely asking too much for at the time Nickelodeon drama. 😓🤦‍♂️

In Thanos’ defense, his motivation in the original comic series was he wanted to impress Death herself.

At least with Syndrome his actual goal wasn't actually making everyone super, it was his excuse. Syndrome just had a massive ego. He had a parasocial relationship with Mr.Incredible, and the bad kind where he felt obligated to be accepted by Mr.Incredible as his sidekick. And when he was rejected his ego snapped and he held what should of been a petty grudge but dialed it up to the extreme. Even his name is a reference to his. Syndrome is a villain with no actual point. He is just some guy who couldn't get over rejection and built up a narrative as an excuse to get his revenge.

20:00 My personal belief on the whole Pro Bending thing is that it doesn't have to be bad or boring. Especially if it has an opportunity to contribute to the plot. Especially if it were to become more common for later avatars to take up Pro bending as a hobby for improving their usage of different bendings, and get made allowed to serve as wild cards whenever they have to fill in someone else's role on the team. Hell, with the return of many more Air benders, the teams could be expanded to 16 member teams in the case they wanted to expand the game to include more complex and wacky rules. Such as mono 4 on 4, dual color match ups, or one for all. Go back to any 90s anime with a tournament arc ever, and you will often find them to be just plain awesome. It was a big opportunity to see an amazing duel between two or perhaps even more characters in a all out brawl for our entertainment. With all the cheer and fan fair of a WWE wrestling match. Pro bending should've been a reflection of our desire to watch people get into a ring and beat the living shit out of each other.

Thanos not using the infinite power he was given to fix the problem, was them showing us why he's the villain and called the "Mad Titan". Also, and this is more Marvel's fault, but they did go into the repercussions of the snap bringing everyone back. First as a little joke in "Far From Home", then as a plot point in "Falcon and the Winter Soldier". Also Syndrome explained his plan of showing up to save the day, becoming a "hero", and then giving out his tech once he's retired and had his fun.

I'm not going to defend Korra. Not my hill to die on. I will point out a few things though: 1. Sozin didn't hate airbenders or kill them because he wanted to prove fire bending. The man did it because the avatar would be born an air nomad, his journal even states this outright. 2. The creators did a horrible job on this, but the answer could be right in front of us. How many of the problems in the ATLA world have been solved peacefully? "We need to get our family to the Earth Kingdom capital- oh shit, a sea serpent!" "We are hunting the avatar, let's burn your whack ass village down to force your hand" "Youre a sexist old man who refuses to teach bending, instead of hopping from one teacher to the next I will fight you." 3. "Where are the social revolutionaries?" China didn't really have them. The Emperor stepped down and allowed for a new Republic led by Chiang Chai Shek before regions manned by members of the revolutionary army breaking off regions to form independent military cliques. There's no peaceful solution there. Can't talk to military leaders wanting personal power and say "why not democratically improving things!" It's why the Communists gain prominence, they offered benefits to the majority of downtrodden people compared to keeping China as it was going. If they wanted to show a faction like the equalists making sense in a post-war world it would need to make sense. Maybe the Equalists were founded in the Earth Kingdom in response to the Dai Lee or bandits attacking them. THAT WOULD MAKE A GREAT DEAL OF SENSE! Having them walking over to Republic City saying "yeah, we have similar but worse problems. Our Government operates like the triple threats and your city is just a diplomatic center between the four BENDER nations! The great war was fought because of bending and we lost the air nomads AND nearly lost the largest of the 4 nations when Ozai tried burning the earth kingdom down! We almost lost the moon because Fire and Water benders beefed. We all get caught up in THEIR politics!" Could have worked from that angle and dismissing peaceful protests by showing Republic City and the earth kingdom using bending to put down riots/protests. 4. You got a lot of comments about Syndrome already, man didn't deserve to be accused to only "kind of having a point but insane." Man just wants vengeance on Mr. Incredible and heroes, seeking the love they were given in a bygone era and destroying supers that looked down on him for "not having powers." Entirely selfish motivations but understandable. Amon is less so.

The Legend of Korra needs a reboot!

I swear they didn't elaborate on the bender discrimination for one of two reasons 1. Being to accurate to real life discrimination could have Nickelodeon in hit water 2. They just expected you to think aince thats how things happen in real life qe would get the picture from our own understanding of discrimination in our world

There is nothing more annoying than an antagonist where no one criticizes them on all of the things that would make them compelling

I really liked this video because it addresses some of my problems with Amon (and TLoK) as well as adds some I didn't think of. I recently rewatched Avatar TLA and TLoK and was shocked by the drop in the writing. I remembered TLoK being worse but not as bad as it was. What also makes this video relevant is that I've recently seen an increase in Avatar TLA hate from Korra fans. The main reason I dislike TLoK is because just going to remain an annoying blemishing on the Avatar franchise. Everything that was set up in TLoK will remain part of the franchise no matter how bad it was. The perfect scenario would be if TLoK got a reboot that retconned majority of the series. However, the best I think we'll get is some of it just being retconned out. What's annoying is that Amon could have been a terrifying villain if he wasn't written so badly. I would love other videos like this looking at the other villains from TLoK. Here are some additional thoughts I had: I hate how TLoK turns bending into just throwing elemental punches. It takes out the element that made it unique and fun to watch. I really can't understand why anyone would call the TLoK better than AtLA when TLoK does everything worse. 22:55 is why Thanos in the comics was better. Comic Thanos literally just wanted to impress Death by killing half the universe. 24:30 I think Syndrome's point was that if he used his tech the way he explained then no one would be super and his whole motivation is to be a super. He doesn't want everyone to be super. Ok, something else I think should be brought up is that benders and non-benders are not equal. It's the same problem with mutants in X-Men comics. Should they have equal rights? Yes. But are they equal? No. Having a superpower is not the same as being a different race. Non-benders wouldn't be able to do every job that a bender can do. Even some of the jobs they can do they wouldn't be able to do as well as a bender. Should anyone get paid the same for doing a job worse than someone else? Consider both a non-bender and an earth bender have jobs as construction workers. The earth bender is just going to be better at their job and get more work done. Shouldn't they get paid more than the non-bender if they're doing more work? Another example is that a non-bender could never compete in pro-bending.

Just because a show look mature doesn't means it is , if that's the case one piece is the most childish show ever , i hate it when people look at the last Airbender and legend of Korra and say legend of Korra is more mature because it looks mature

I always thought it was bizarre there was next to no real aftermath to the first season. It almost feels like it was inconsequential and other than knowing who’s who, you could jump into season two without watching the first. The Equalists just disappearing is also disappointing.

my take to make Amon work: have Amon and his brother Tarrlok be working together to take over Republic city. Tarrlok is the face and like the show has been working his way up the city's government but he also owns and uses most of the city's news papers and the radio station to promote himself and slander his political enemies, but he has a problem the equalists. the equalists in this version is a growing movement to have all the people of the city living there treated equal and have equal rights for voting, owning property, ect by removing the requirement to prove your from x nation/tribe. Tarrlok uses this movement to gain even more power, by having his brother Amon from a shadow/stawman version of the equalists that's about the evils of benders that conveniently removes Tarrloks political rivals while making the average equalists look bad. Tarrlok in turn uses Amons actions to have the metal bending police conduct raids against the equalists that are not apart Amon's, with Korra 'leading' the one raid that does hit one of Amon's staged equalists bases. but Amon becomes radicalized by his own messaging becoming a messiah figured by the growing shadow equalists as more and more non benders turn to Amon against the growing tyranny of Tarrlok. Amon turns against Tarrlok stripping him of his bending and locking him away while Amon and his equalists seize control of the city.

I also think that if they made Amon have a point and made him not a total fake they could have incorporated the equalists into later seasons, with strong political causes like this with such a massive support base, especially if their leader isn’t a liar, They’ll fight on, maybe not the recruited masses but at the very least his elite chi blockers. Maybe even have equalist remnants turn around in the later show with the whole earth tyrant and have them work with Korra against the dictator, two former enemies unite against a worse evil, I would have loved to see that

Syndrome is written very consistently . His motivation is not that he sees a societal imbalance and wants to correct it for altruistic (but misguided) reasons. He is characterized as an emotionally immature man-child who wants to spite Supers, specifically Mr. Incredible, whom he thinks has wronged him. His plans do line up with this revenge motivation very well: first he wants to cement himself as a better hero than Mr. Incredible; both to publicly shame his former idol and establish himself as superior. Then when he's too old and feeble to do this anymore, he will distribute his inventions among the populace; not to benefit the people, but to render natural superpowers completely irrelevant, thereby crapping on the Supers' legacy one final time before retiring. The idea of bettering society never crosses his mind even once, despite many fans trying to attribute this motivation to him. It is all about aggrandizing himself and diminishing those who he feels have betrayed him. Pure spite and selfishness.

I kinda expected there would be discrimination against firebenders, like they had a 100 years war going on and people just forgot? This discrimination of non benders just came so random and out of nowhere. A missed opportunity in my eyes

The writing in this show in general is not exactly known to be... How do I put it... Competent.

It's annoying that there are so many villains in movies and shows like Amon who have good arguments about complex problems, but every time the heroes only try to stop him, without ever offering a better solution to the problem than that of the bad guy or even less to indicate in more detail why the bad guy's solution should never be possible.

A good video with some decent points. A few things. 1. Sozin didn’t genocide the air nomads because he thought firebending was superior; he did it because he wanted to start his conquest and the only person in the entire world who could possibly stop him in his eyes was the avatar. (Sozin literally says this himself in The Avatar and the Firelord: “I knew the next avatar would be born an airbender, so I wiped out the air temples.” 2. Amons main point is the 100 year war and the fact that the fire nation used bending to nearly end the world. As well as the fact that we see extortion of non-benders in episodes like Imprisoned where Harus mother gets extorted by the firebenders. 3. I do agree that there should’ve been more examples of benders extorting people in Korra, but we literally see the triads use bending to extort someone; Amons argument isn’t so much that benders are oppressive to specifically non-benders (that’s what his followers think), but that bending itself is a problem. 4. With the guy in episode one who is peacefully protesting I think there are some implications that peaceful protest has been going on for a while because it’s not like Tenzin told Korra not to go to air temple island because there’s violent protests in republic city, and another point to it is even if it’s a bit unrealistic that the non-benders would side with him so quickly, Korra does pretty much immediately prove his point by using her bending as a near first response. 5. The last one is more of a personal grievance, but please stop injecting your political beliefs into the situation. I agree with some points you brought up and can see the validity of others, but it’s an analysis of a fictional show beloved by people all over the world please don’t bring personal beliefs into an analysis of writing.

Amon would have worked far better as the final villain of Korra. Having a water bender becoming the dark avatar, the actual avatar releasing spirits onto the world, an airbender destabilizing the earth kingdom, and Kuvira attempt to abuse the resulting power vacuum would make the "yeah, benders are kinda too dangerous" sentiment among the general populous more logical. Have Amon show up with a story about how his family died during Kuvira's assault on the city and you have a more compelling villain who has a direct beef with Korra and benders. It isn't perfect, but it is better.

Awwww, man, Amon is asowme. He's one of my favorite villains

On the Syndrome point, I always took ut that he didn't actually care about "making everybody super" since he even states he'll use his tech to become a famous hero (with, it seems, manufactured crises) first and after he's had his fun release it to the public to become MORE wealthy and famous. Pair that plan with his whole "when everyone is super, nobody will be" line and its less a genuine drive to address what may be a genuine issue in The setting and more that Syndrome wants to drag the heroes down and satisfy his own ego.

I think Amon not having a point, is the point. He doesn’t care about the non benders of republic city because he’s neither a non bender or from republic city. He cares about his own goals and building a cult of ki blocking anti benders is how he gets his goal. He cares about dethroning the avatar as revenge for his father. He’s actually very similar to a lot of real world examples. I hate to get political, but trump for example is one of the richest men around but his audience is the poorer conservative crowd because he knows what to say to get them on board with what he wants, Syndrome actually is a good example too. He doesn’t actually care about non supers, he cares about revenge against mr incredible. Getting rich and selling his tech is just a byproduct and means to an end. He really doesn’t care about any of it outside of getting revenge against mr incredible Amon is much of the same and I think that’s the point. He’s using fake social injustices to gain power in people who might feel weak. Non benders aren’t actually all that much worse off in society but his story and his claims makes it feel like they are. Outside of a few scenarios Sokka never felt inferior to katara or Zuko because he was a non bender, he often used various gadgets and his skills to compensate. He’s knocked out more benders with a boomerang than most people ever have successfully thrown a boomerang. There isn’t a discrepancy between bender and non bender right, but Amon benefits from making you think there is

Amon had a lot of potential for some great worldbuilding and character development for Korra herself. Them glossing over his point, making him a fraud and killing him off wasted so much potential to elevate story

...I think you missed a few things about and the whole point of Syndrome.

I agree with your take. Amon is very cool, very scary, and the legacy of The Equalists is that a non-bender is elected President of Republic City. All that being said, his motivations don't make any sense. Being related to Tarrlok and Yakone does nothing for the character. He should have been a spirit bender, or a non-bender.

I don't think you understood his goals/aspirations. He does not actually believe in getting rid of bending or the Equalist's movement. After all, he is a bender himself. He rallies non-benders to his cause due to their non-representation in Republic's City council. Essentially, he saw a power vacuum and filled it. Utilizing the flag of "equality" as the rally call, and then he built his extremism around it to maintain the momentum he built. He probably intended to become the representative of non-benders in the council, and only switched to extremism either due to the incompetence of the avatar, council pushback and/or he believed he could actually take over with the help of Hiroshi Sato's financial support. At the end of the day, his entire goal was power. We can see this theme being reflected by his brother, and father. Does that make him one dimensional? No. It just makes him a manipulator who sees the Equalist movement as a means to an end. If he had succeeded, it would have certainly resulted in disaster, though. I have 0 doubt that all nations would've rallied together to put an end to to someone (who would've most likely had to kill the Avatar to conquer Republic City) have the power to remove bending, and have a whole movement related to that. Also be responsible for wiping out the Air Benders again. Republic City most likely have been destroyed, and Amon executed or killed in combat.

I'll be honest i liked the pro bending scene, i wouldn't complain if it had it's own spin off show, with bolin and mako dealing with how difficult their life is, them losing their parents young, growing up with gangs their own story was more interesting to be honest for me.

I think the equalits should have been frustrated Firebenders and Fire Nation descendants who are facing some degree of discrimination after the war similar to how Germany was hit disproportionately hard after WWI.

When it comes to Thanos, I would argue that the movie suggests that Thanos is just insane that there aren’t real overpopulation problems. Thanos talks about how his race died out due to overpopulation and that made him believe that all races have the same problem. The movie even shows that he doesn’t correctly follow his own logic of killing half: he kills half of the asgardians who were just decimated and when he does the snap, that halves the populations of all the places he “saved”. It also doesn’t solve the problem of new species coming around with overpopulation or the damage done by killing half of all species. Thanos isn’t correct, he just so firmly believes his own insane ideology that he sounds convincing. There’s no evidence of overpopulation being common in the marvel universe

The Triple Threat Triad targetting non-benders is something that I think is very clearly implied, actually They don't have to tell you that they're going after non-benders SPECIFICALLY, because, I mean, if the guy was a bender, why doesn't he defend himself? And even if you could make the argument that, oh he's old, that's still adding layers to an otherwise simple explanation Because if they weren't targetting non-benders, there'd definitely been at least ONE person who'd try and fight them off and probably could, even if it's a very impulsive decision, given how they're supposed to be a crime syndicate My point being: the simplest explanation of why the people being exorted don't defend themselves is because they can't, because they're non-benders so they're literally powerless to stop the Triad. It can go even further: they don't go to the police - at least partially - because the police force is comprised (iirc entirely) of benders. And it's benders already oppressing them, so they might just not trust benders Which is very realistic, given how oppression (especially when the police is involved) works. The people that could help them are of the (literal) same breed as the people oppressing them Just adding that the whole "non-benders are oppressed" argument is still bullshit, because the writers just wanted to tell you about something without showing it Which is the cardinal sin of visual media

At the start of Legend of Korra season 1, Republic City is ruled by a 5 member council of benders appointed to rule the city-state by the rulers of each of the other nations in the world. The Fire nation sends a fire bender to rule. The Earth Kingdom sends an earth bender to rule. The two Water Tribes each send one water bender to rule. Aang's grandkids send their dad to rule. The show then goes on to prove the advantages benders have by making all pro athletes, the best paid factory workers, all the cops, and everyone in power with the exception of the Henry Ford parody all bender. All this comes after Last Airbender establishes that every nation is run by hareditary monarchies, most of which are benders. If you really don't understand why being ruled over by foreign arristocrats with zero representation or hope of advancement will always lead to revolution, you need to study history. Edit: Amon is the head of a cult of personality. Look at the last 2 decades American politics. Fascist cult leaders that never get questions by their fanatics are one of the most common types of real world villains.

I don’t fully think him having no real point is a flaw, because he doesn’t actually care about his own movement. Don’t get me wrong, Legend of Korra is definitely a terribly written show 90% of the time, but I liked Amon because he was a terrible villain. No one stopped to question his issues because people just like being mad and want to be apart of something. If Amon says that benders discriminate against non benders, they kind of just follow his lead. Amon wasn’t interested in his own movement but used it because it made him seem like a discriminated activist rather than just a dictator who wanted power.

Amon is a villain with a point (manipulative assholes can and will prey on people's fears/insecurities to seize power for themselves) and that point is conveyed well. You just don't like that point because you were hoping for some social revolution plot.

I disagree with your point about Syndrome though. Because his main motivation is not to give everyone superpowers. His main motivation was to fulfill his power fantasies of being a superhero by playing pretend regardless of how many people he killed to get there and how much destruction he was going to cause in his fake battles. The idea of giving his tech to everyone so that everyone could be a superhero too is not his main motivation, that's mostly a last act of vindictive revenge against Superheroes, he wants to take away their status but only after he grows too old, and bored with that status himself. He doesn't even pretend that his point was to lift up non-superpowered people. It was made very clear that this was all about his power fantasy and the chip on his shoulder he had against superheroes since he was a kid. I don't think Syndrome is a villain with a point because he doesn't actually have a point. His plan would ultimately bring a benefit to the world, but he isn't driven by that, he isn't doing it for the greater good. You can argue that it would have been better if that aspect had been explored, but Syndrome is not a character like Killmonger who is right in his philosophy and beliefs but wrong in his morals and actions. Syndrome's motivation is pure self-indulgence, he doesn't even pretend he is doing this for some sort of cause. The one that could be argued does fall into this category is Screen Slaver from Incredibles 2. Because, while her primary motivation is personal revenge against Superheroes, her message and views are kind of right. Her parents were murdered because her dad was overreliant on Superheroes. She is 100% correct that people without superpowers shouldn't rely on superheroes all the time and shouldn't grow accustomed to do nothing and wait to be rescued by superheroes, because the heroes can fail, they can't be everywhere at once, they can be beaten, then can be corrupted, and they cannot always save them....and then the movie kinda forgets about that plot and makes it about media obsession, and Screen Slaver's plan still relied on superheroes, and the entire situation was never actually addressed in the end and didn't tie to the main plot of the family either. I don't know, man, Incredibles 2 is a mess.

The thing with Thanos is that overpopulation was never a problem. That is why he is called "the mad titan". So there was no need to fix the problem after defeating Thanos, the problem never existed to begin with. The universe is vast and all the planets with space travel have loads of new habitable planets to move to if they really need it. And earth with how much technology is enhancing and growing at the time, the only reason people are lacking things is either personal choices and other people getting in the way. Even today, there is zero reason anyone in the world should be starving despite the billions of people we have. Government, people, wars, gang violence, corrupt businesses and the rest just get in the way of people getting those things. Bad management is the issue, not a lack of resources.

23:03 the problem I’ve always had with this framing/criticism of Thanos is that no, overpopulation is NOT a “legitimate problem.” It’s not a *real issue,* in reality or in the MCU. Resource scarcity *is,* but that has fuck all with too many people populating the world/universe. Thanos is an insane egotist who believes very very strongly that he has a good motive, but he doesn’t. From square one, his logic is faulty, so it follows his solution would be as well. He does not have a “legitimate grievance,” overpopulation/birth rate is not some problem to be solved. To treat it like one is to accept without evidence that his bullshit terms are the correct lens to view the world through. There’s no legit cause for the viewers or the heroes to say “gee maybe Thanos was right and we should be concerned with policing or managing how many people are born in the universe”. That would be utterly stupid,

Amon doesn’t just have no point, he’s also boring. Like, somebody tell me one character trait the guy has beyond “intimidating”, and I guess “duplicitous.”

I remember hearing that originally Assami was going to be an equallist. Imagine if they kept that, making her the MLK of the Equalist movement gives her more to do.

Bro attacks matt walsh in the same video he softballs mao. Truly, we have reached peak reddit.

The most disappointing thing was the korra herself. Amon is the product of a society with inequalities and relics of feudalism. Instead of fixing the issues, korra just beat the protesters... Instead of acting for balance, she acted to maintain the power structure no matter how rotten it got. It was a missed opportunity to have her show some initiative, by stopping the equalists, yet at the same time defending the oppressed non benders.

Also he isn’t communist, I don’t know why people say he is communist but he isn’t.

A bit ironic with the religious one since the avatar could be claimed to be a religious figure chosen by the spirits to fix the world. Pops up every generation, tries to fix the problems, if failed things get much worse. Though that could work in the villain's favor and also explain why he would threaten, but not remove Kora's power. Half due to the fear ahe might undue it due to her being the avatar... And also he could claim she is going against the will of the spirits as they should be working together as he will simply 'wait' for her to understand her role. Could even throw in a jab about the previous avatar by stating when he didn't accept his role the world got stuck with the 100 year war and when he did accept it the war ended.

I mean, non-benders are objectively inferior to benders. A bender can become as smart and skilful as Sokka but Sokka can't bend water or any element no matter how hard he tries. Inequality is pretty much a given in a world like that. Honestly in a world like that its surprising that non-benders arent slaves.

11:35 So I don't think you can make a law telling people what to pay. You can do a law for equal pay for equal work sure, but if the job requires you to shoot lightning or flames then non-benders are out of luck. You can't say that the guy shooting lightning is bound to the same wage as a guy who mops the floor when their done. We see Mako sweating at the end of his shift, its hard work. If you make it so that other jobs that the benders are perfectly capable of are mandatory higher pay because or equal to the benders generating the power then over time they won't do that job anymore. Why break a sweat shooting lightning all day when I can make the same amount of money pushing papers or doing something else that is perhaps easier? You have to make sure you don't remove the insentives of the firebenders making electricity since they clearly rely on it. If you mandate that non-benders make more money by the nature of being non-benders then maybe your nice but also a bit of a hypocrit since you are arguing for non-discrimination between benders and nons. You could argue for recognizing the difference and insisting on a legal discrimination that provides government subsidies or higher base pay for non-bender employees. However, if this angers the bender population then they have far more leverage to go on strike with. You could find yourself without electricity or healers or cops/soldiers. It really is a very fascinating issue that the writers of LoK didn't bother exploring, opting instead to write a love triangle. I feel like they watched @TerribleWritingAdvice and took it seriously.

I have to disagree on the protests part, I wouldn't use biased corporate media when discussing politics regardless of their political slant. It doesn't do you any good either from people watching you to take you seriously or for you to figure out what you're saying is actually true, most of those protests have been incredibly violent for one and two Lenin and his gang were pretty violent too, anti sex work and very hateful and violent towards other demographics of the population and absolutely abused their power and were also book burners

Isn't Syndrom's motivation for making everyone super, so no one is... Like, make superheroes not super anymore because it's normal to be able to do the kind of stuff they do?

This is SO GOOD!! I love how you fixed the problems with the writing, and all the real issues you bring up. I really want to see a video like this done with Zaheer. It probably would go over many of the same points, because let's be honest they are the same plots just done with different paint- but that would be interesting nontheless.

I love TLOK but I still agree with most of your points. That said, I think your Part 2 about oppression was weak and showed you either weren't paying much attention, or you don't fully understand systemic oppression. I recommend watching "The Admiral's Analysis".

I disagree with the whole "Thanos has a point" thing. Even without the Infinity stones, the entire overpopulation crisis can be averted by providing underdeveloped countries (or planets in this case) with aid and contraceptives until they can reach the more developed ones. Also the point about finite recourses is very weak, because new materials, fuels, proceses and uses for well known recourses are found everyday. For example, copper was originally used in tools, and when iron was discovered it was thrown to the wayside, it's only uses being in jewlery and maybe cheap pots. Today however, copper is incredibly valuable because it's used in wires, and we have more methods of extracting it. Anyways, sorry for the yap session, I'm just peeved how everyone takes what billionaire tycoons say about personal freedoms without realizing it they're not the ones who will suffer the conscequences of population control laws.

Could you potentially have a story where Amon is still kept as highly illogical, but have the point of the story be about how he utilizes charisma and emotional manipulation to still rally people to his side in spite of not having a good point? Perhaps akin to a non-religious/non-spiritual version of the cult idea?

For Hiroshi and Varrick being introduced in season 1. They should be non- benders but are the only ones part of the 1% but are still being discriminated and are seen as inferior because of being non-benders, despite being part of the 1%. We see this with Black and other minorities who are business owners or part of the wealth establishment but are still being seen and treated as 2nd class citizens and are often punished if they challenge them or surpass them in some shape or form.

One thing can be said, is that amon trembled so belos could run

N’s farewell will always make me cry

I always thought it was really weird that like the show thought amon being a bender made his point invalid. Life if there was some masked guy doing black rights activism right. And then he gets outed for being white. It's not like everyone who supported him will now like dislike him. It'd most likely be some radical black separatist minority right. In fact that is also a way the show could have gone towards. Because he was a child soldier blood bending guy. He could have hated bending because of his personal history with it. Not really realizing there are also positive aspects of bending. For there to then be an agreement between the protagonist and amon where they realize some people shouldn't have bending. And some people should. Kind of like some tools in real life you know. Actually leading up to the seasons after this when people ask why korra is qualified to be the avatar.

Did bro just call Bending, Magic?!

You know the show was a studio mandate from a massive corporation when their main villain was meant to make kids hate the proletariat.

14:22 the thing about the gun; you can literally use an air gun to cutdown a tree. You can use a flamethrower to help you smelt, etc. There are guns that can be used like tools instead of destructive tools, hell gun, guns are used for hunting; an AR 15 is going to have trouble taking down a boar but will take it down. A gun can and IS able to help you. Hell, a gun can help you protect your home.

Those are very good points you brought up. It suspect it is because the *idea* that non-benders would very likely be treated as second-class citizens makes so much sense, that we don't always critically ask whether that is actually shown. The main inequalities I've found were the city council solely consisting of benders (mentioned), as well as the police force employing all metal benders we see, and no non-bender I can recall (not mentioned). I'd argue those points are still important enough to grant Amon's positive reception among the population validity, especially if both have been ongoing for years. That last part is indicative of the main problem with the narrative -- the valid and interesting points the Equalists bring up are at best hinted at, but more often left to the imagination. We cannot be sure about the council/police force being bender-only for years. If head-canon provides those details, it may be making the first season more interesting than it actually is.

This was a great video but the problem with your take on syndrome is he just wanted attention in the end The reason why he didn’t give people super powers when he was alive because he was gonna do super hero stuff himself He killed off retired hero’s so that way he can have the spot light when his robot does bad things He also said once he’s retired he would give all his stuff out and because everyone is super No one would be

The whole plot doesn't fit a children's show narrative. Even in the comcis we see the growing devide between the benders and non benders, with industrialization leaving skilled benders without work, leading them to form organized crime groups where they fight eachother and oppress the non benders. This started in Aang's time. How exactly is the Avatar, Korra or Aang supposed to fix this in the format of the show. Even if you have someone like Aman to be the face of the movement, even if you punch and defeat him, the problems that caused him are still there. He was a symptom not the cause and getting a non bender president doesn't magicly fix it all. It an issues that would take generations to fix, not something you can show in a action adventure kid's show, where every problem is supposed to be beaten with punching. People say Aman was a good idea and it just needed a better execution, but how? How do you write a solution to this problem in a way that isn't gradual political and cultural reform. Kids, hell not even adults don't want to watch 10 episode of Korra sitting in meetings and lectures. The issue can't be solved in a way that the audience of the show would find fun to watch

Another great analysis. Amon always felt a bit underwhelming as a character but I was never able to put it in words.

I have two questions: 1) How the Blood Bending was passed if the only ones that had that ability were the old lady that first learn it and Katara? Yeah, maybe offscreen there were other Blood Benders but never mentioned 2) HOW Amon could remove the bending ability from benders if the only one who could do it is the Avatar itself? How did he learn to do it?

Korra was shown messing around with her bending as a child. I would have loved to see how that became a problem later, when she came to Republic City. Imagine people already don´t like benders, because they abuse their power and then the young Avatar comes around and uses 3 different elements to mess around with the people on the streets just for fun. 🤣 Of course she would have thought of it as a joke, but people would have gotten easily provoked by that. That would have been a beautyful way to adress the problem.

Syndrome's real motive isn't to make everyone heroes as he says, he really just wants to set himself up as a hero. That's his whole deal, he's just evil Incrediboy. He doesn't care about bettering society, he just cares about being a hero, even if he has to make the monster. It why he's called Syndrome in the first place, after Hero Syndrome. His valid point is really just an excuse for his childish behaviors and wants, he's a massive manchild.

There's actually plenty of evidence that non benders have an unfair disadvantage, the simple fact that they can't control an element makes them at the benders mercy. Also as far as employment goes, we see that there's far more jobs available to benders like being a cop (earth & metal bending required), electricity generator (fire with lightning required), pro bending athlete (any element except air), and I'm willing to bet other jobs in the city that are only available to benders exist too (a firefighter is much more useful if they can water bend after all). So we definitely see the discrimination take place.

Honestly compared to Zaheer, Amon is slightly better. If you ask me all they had to do was not make him an actual non-bender and i think he wouldve been alomost great. Also..can we talk ablut the fact that Amons way of taking peoples bending away is by essentially giving them mini strokes?

No way you played the Avatar intro WITHOUT THE ELEMENT MONOLOGUE?! The music is incomplete without the element monologue.

hey i got bad news for you big man, i cant be bothered to watch the rest of this, so for reference, im paused at 4:32 while commenting this. this, this is exactly how activism works. in fact, this entire plot is a commentary on how activism can (and often DOES) go wrong, with specific emphasis on how organizers are often preying on and manipulating emotionally charged people during times of political and socioeconomic upheaval in the mindless pursuit of their own selfish gains, there isn't really anything here that you could realistically call "bad writing" and it's already apparent to me what your actual problem with the plot is. You are very likely the exact kind of activist that the show is criticizing. if i wasn't so bored of this kind of RU-vid content where people get seemingly upset over movies / books / tv shows / comic books / games due to a personal, primarily emotionally-driven reason and instead of addressing their actual problem with it they pull up some non-sequitur garbage from the magic hat of "it's bad [writing/game design/illustration], i might find your apparent lack of self awareness mildly amusing. instead i think im just going to go outside, maybe ride my bike. you should do something similar.

hold up syndrome would probably do what he said but he didn't because the writer said so but because he died and he want to send the death ball and "fight" it so that people will see him as a hero because he wants to be validated and prove mr.incredible because he was rejected that's why syndrome did what he did. for your critic of the point is that syndrome didn't sold his weapon to a lot of people who need weapon and he doesn't who he sold it to so no the film didn't write him as giving super tech to every one as a bad thing but that he use his tech to make himself stronger and to inflate his ego and we need to remember that even if you say syndrome sold his weapon for a good cause he still killed a lot of people for that death ball so that it will attack a city and he can safe the day, an attack that could have killed dozens if not hundreds of people. also what's up with killmongger I mean didn't he just think that wakandda is just the super country who can rule the world and he can be big boss I mean what point that he tried to make what is it racism or global war but he doesn't make that point or is actively being a part of it so what is the point

Class discrimination doesn't result from racial oppression, it's the other way around

0:49 I just knew I couldn't dislike this video because you said Unalaq was a crappy bad of the story... he's honestly the worst character of either show and makes Amon look like Darth Vader. So, I'm glad we both agree he sucks ass. 2:32 Were we watching the same film here because how does Syndrome have a point. All he's driven by is the desire to get revenge and look like a hero, and he's never seen to have any morals to speak of (he literally has no problem firing on a jet that ahs children on it) because at the start of the Incredibles when he wants to help people he only does it because he wants the glory of it and to look good in the face of his idol. Also, his motivation is purely his own ego and vengeance, how is that debatably morally good? He is an amazing villain but he's not a sympathetic one (even though those types of villains can work) because he does a sympathetic backstory (rejected by his idol), he's not a sympathetic character but he certainly does has a point because of all the reasons I previously mentioned. 4:45 Also, even if he is a non-bender it's never stated that he was attacked because he's a non-bender. 10:58 I may also note that when it comes to how literally all humans and good characters and worlds work is that humans very easily take the first step because it's not that much of a commitment, an extremist isn't the first step because to be a part of his movement you have to actually devote and commit yourself entirely to an ideology that undeniably extremist which can happen but it's not something that happens overnight. Also, to bring back the Mao comparison, Most people supported the less extreme Nationalists who opposed them but it was only after their numbers and popularity were destroyed due to WWII and their horrible decisions, and even then the Nationalists had several chances to defeat the Communist entirely and just failed to take them. I may also, note that the Nationalists and Communists weren't all that different until the 1980s were Taiwan became a democracy (and part of the reason why that happened is it had to account for a lot fewer people than China ever did) and Chiang Kai-shek (the leader of the Nationalists) was always a dictator, and the reason why the people of China had to choose between these two extremisms is that China has always had an authoritarian culture (The same thing with Russia which was caused by the Mongol invasions of the Kievan Rus and the policies they implemented which implanted an authoritarian culture) which is, of course, a byproduct of being the country that's had the most people for millenniums, and it's never stated that the culture of the world of Avatar of even the untied Republic is naturally authoritarian and they have no problem electing a democratically elected leader at the end of the first season which disproves the idea that their culture is authoritarian. Bringing back to the point of people easily take the first step when it comes to violent revolutions they tend to be preceded by events that show peaceful revolution is impossible like the Boston Massacre or the Red/bloody Sunday, and to quote John F. Kennedy "Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." 22:34 Thanos believes his original plan that he proposed on Titan of killing half the population was a good one and he never deviates from it because he's mainly driven by his ego it doesn't matter that there are better ideas it only matters that he follows his original plan even though it's not perfect because he's ego is too big for him to think or be convinced otherwise as evidenced by him flat-up saying "I'm the only one who knows that." 23:58 Syndrome's motivation isn't to give everyone in the world superpowers it's to make himself look like a hero and kill all of the other superheroes, giving everyone superpowers was never his main goal it was a side goal and the only reason he wants to do it is because he wants to make Mr. Incredible as un-special as possible because he's never driven by good intentions his driven by his own selfish desire for vengeance and again his ego. Syndrome never wanted to help people with things like his inventions he only wanted to appease his own ego and get vengeance, because he was rejected by his idol so he's motivated to look like a hero and kill all other heroes because all he cares about is looking like a hero that's why he tried to be Mr. Incredibles' ward and that's why he does literally everything in The Incredibles. Also, if everyone had superpowers that would also mean that horrible people like terrorists had them so how would making everyone super be a good idea? For both Thanos and Syndrome, you seem to not know about this little thing called character flaws, and both of these characters' flaws are clearly established and developed and play a major role in the story so it's not an issue yeah both these villains aren't perfect but they weren't written to be perfect since all good character is written to have flaws which make them fail and (in any villain's case) wrong.