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You made me feel stupid when you analyzed the subtext of that Avatar comic. Like, how did I not see that correlation! Your perspective is really refreshing, and thank you!
@@breadtunesshow up to things locally, see how you can help. Is there a native friendship center in your city? What do they need? Are there people fighting for migrants rights? What do they need? Are there people organizing for housing for all? How can you help that initiative? Who in your city is having the toughest time, and how can you help them? Do you have access to disposable income? Do you have a vehicle that can transport people and things? Do you have special skills you can share or do special tasks with?
@@breadtunes the content around such discussions are growing by the day, so even if it seems oversimplified to "just look it up" it's not like there's an obstacle course
One of my favorite elements of the book is how Snow repeatedly has these big revelations about how evil the Capitol is (e.g. how they’ll gladly destroy anybody who opposes them, district or not; how they manufacture ‘war’ against the districts even after the war has ended, for no reason other than sadism and control; how district conditions are basically unlivable; etc), but he still knowingly helps them. He knows that the system is evil, and even feels the repercussions of that on a personal level. But instead of fighting against it, he uses any means necessary to cement himself in a position of power and reinforce it. Sure, he’s young and traumatized, but at the core of it, he’s still undeniably a bad person. He’s power hungry, openly manipulative, cruel. He views people from the districts as subhuman (even whilst living amongst them). Even his “love” for Lucy Gray is a blatant desire to own and control her. While I think the themes are laid out pretty clearly in the movie, in the novel, Suzanne Collins takes every possible opportunity to remind the reader that Coriolanus’ circumstances don’t excuse what a horrible person he is.
He has ambitions and will do whatever it takes, no matter what the personal cost. Because that's what is most important. Hell, a character who starts out licking The Man's boots for survival and becoming a True Believer and loyal follower can be compelling, sympathetic, and thus even more monstrous than any privileged group.
Also, he understands that he would be branded a rebel for simply knowing a rebel or being at the wrong place at the wrong time, but he still idolises the Capitol. Now I think about it more, he probably thinks the way of thinking the peacekeepers have is unfair to HIM, but not to the district people.
Yes! This! I wondered about how consensual a love story can be when one person (Snow) is free and the other (Lucy Gray) is a captive, literally in a cage for most of the “romance” Gives me Thomas Jefferson and Sally vibes. Can’t call it a love story with that type of power dynamic. Even after being a Victor, she was not really free.
I like the interpretation of Katniss and Lucy Gray both representing beauty in a society that doesn't have a lot of it; both in personality via their integrity, kindness and honesty, and also via their artistic skills (singing). Meanwhile, Peeta is inspired by Katniss and adores her because of what she means for him. But Snow wants to possess and control that kind of beauty, because he is aware of the danger that art and honesty can bring to an oppressive regime.
The movie adaptation of Ballad downplays the dehumanization of the District people. Aside from being kept in a zoo, the Tributes who fled had their bodies dragged through the streets and one girl died cuz they gave her a veterinarian instead of a human doctor. 2 people died from asthma & tuberculosis & a simple doctor's checkup might've saved them
Yeah, I agree. I mean, they kept the part about Marcus being hung and mercy killed, which did have a very emotional weight to it. But the directors not including more of the inhumane treatment the tributes lived was definitely a choice...I remember when I read the part about the procession of the tributes and dead bodies that tried to flee and wanted to throw up with how horribly they treated the districts. It also showed the stark contrast of how things were for Katniss and Peeta. A luxurious train with all the food and drinks they want. A lavish hotel. It's definitely shocking!
As someone who still adores the hunger games i disagree with your take on coin. And katniss. Katniss isnt doing a centrist take. Katniss, at her core, is a broken character. She isnt a Rebel. She spent most of the books being a pawn being placed on the chess board, even when she thought she was doing things herself. Her one motivation was her little sister. By the end of the series, Coin is heavily implied to have sent katniss's little sister to her death, she wants to keep the games around, is one thing katniss and Peter want to get rid off. District 13 has been portrayed as a highly militaristic district with a strict hierarchy. In that reality, Coin is on of just instating a new elite and exacting revenge, rather than build something new. Removing her shakes that up and opens the opportunity for someone new. but katniss, in the end, doesnt think about that. She is killing the person she thinks killed her sister
agreed. even when she join the rebel in the later book its not cause she believe in the revolution. In fact reading from the text you can tell she is just being use by the revolution to be a symbol without any real power. One of the reason at the end she is lifeless. A husk torn from a war she didn't want to be part of for a cause she was not truly embrace. As for the trope of the good rebel. Recall that united state came from a rebellion so people growing up with those story tend favor rebel while ignoring that the confederate where also rebels in the eye of the federal government. Where one rebellion succeeded the other fail. As for the aftermath of a successful rebellion one can consider united state as one that manage it right but compare to france who had several rebellion after they depose the king leading to the rise of napoleon. Fact in most case after one rebellion topple the ruling elite another may form right afterward as the new class is develop. another example is USSR who rebellion ended with a demoncrated only to be topple by the later communist leading the brutal vicious regine of Stalin
I agree with you. Coin wasn’t going to reconstruct anything and she was very explicit about that. Katniss was right to kill her. Reconstruction post-empire was never going to happen under Coin.
Exactly Katniss killed Coin because of Prim but also in the context of the plot... Like the way district 13 punished the capital people for stealing bread when they didn't understand why everything was rationed was horrendous. Coin was basically another authoritarian and her death enabled an election process and some amount of democracy. Where Coin kept herself out of it, the leader from 8 comes in and has actually seen the fighting and the casualties. It's real to her. That's why narratively it's needed and serves the plot to give her the hope to trust Panem and have children eventually.
i agree! but i think the point is that we should be considering what biases collins has that subconsciously influenced her creation of coin as a character.
I guess controversial opinion but I think Katniss shooting Coin is the only good way to end that story. Coin is pretty clearly gearing up to be the next Snow and I think what we're supposed to take away is that it doesn't matter which side is "good" if both ultimately have the same goals dressed up in different wrapping. I'm not sure we're on the same page about this one but Coin as Hillary Clinton *is* how I think of her: someone whose idea of change is not to interrupt the overall system any more than is necessary to put herself and her people at the top of that system with any positive changes for those in need being either incidental or only something to pretend you care about when you need those people to support your campaign/rebellion. My read from both the books and the movies is that we as audience are meant to question what ideas are really at odds here. Coin represents a liberal continuation of the status quo rather than a truly socialist re-imagining of what the state would look like. The idea to re-instate the games is a good signal that she wants to use the Capitol's own oppressive tools; this combined with the tactics used at the end of the war and Coin's mention that an election will be held at an indeterminate point in the future very much suggests that life under Coin may not be substantially different from life under Snow. This is in contrast to what the Rebellion promised to people *like* Katniss; the people struggling the most under the Capitol's rule are courted with the idea that the new system will be wholly different from the old specifically in regards to representation at the decision making level. Katniss shooting Coin is personal - this is the woman who used Katniss, essentially tried to discard her once she was no longer pliant, and may even have intentionally killed Prim - but it's also a literary symbol that average, struggling people will not be served by a mere change in leadership. The entire system needs to be toppled and that is ultimately what Katniss' actions achieve. Side note on not shooting Snow: I want to say there was also a bit of "his death will be more painful if he dies from his illness" in the books. Execution can be a mercy and Katniss was not giving him that after everything he did. Plus she only had time for a single shot. She chose the active threat over the threat that would take care of itself.
Did she only have time for one shot? I thought that she might have shot snow next but changed her mind when the people rushed forward to attack him themselves.
@@Sheena000she was only given one arrow as it was a symbolic execution and it was like “the final arrow to end the war” and she had to choose which tyrant to kill. Killing Coin was the only way to get them both dead bc Snow was accessible to mob and kill him
I don't think the critique was aimed at Katniss' decision to kill coin in universe. The critique was about how all revolution stories seem to have the leader of the rebellion be a secret fascist and lie their way through the rebellion just to put themselves on top of the system instead of destroy it.
I find your choice to use Hillary Clinton as an analogous example kind of weird tbh. Rather than literally any/every male politician and male president ever (with some exceptions like Bernie Sanders of course). Nor even a female politician actually blatantly like that-like Margaret Thatcher or any current female politicians in the Conservative Party. I think I find it odd because imo she’s actually more of an example of…the dominant hierarchical social power system being stacked against her and all those like her? Because being a woman in politics requires dancing SUCH a fine line already due to misogyny + male supremacy + patriarchy…I almost don’t see how it’s realistic to expect a female politician to be blatantly anti-status quo but also reach the highest positions of power possible. Like she’d be *required* to play that game-and play it better and more convincingly than any man around her in order to compete (and/or even be “allowed” to compete). Because any female politician (including Hillary Clinton) is literally already anti-status quo just by being a woman in politics + wielding power. And *especially* Hillary Clinton, in fact, as she was the Democratic presidential candidate. Anything more anti-status quo than what she already represented and imo it’s unlikely she could have reached the candidacy for the highest position to enact any real societal change (so long as society still remains so pervasively sexist and patriarchal). I mean…just look at her case: she had been the First Lady, a US senator, AND Secretary of State. She was literally the most *over* qualified presidential candidate to ever run, and yet her qualifications were *still* questioned constantly by so many freaking people, regardless of political affiliation. Like she was *still* literally criticized as under qualified and not fit to be “leader of the free world” via extremely coded sexism and misogyny. Like being a “nagging hag” or a “bitter shrew.” Not to mention, the whole unhinged “she’s a criminal, lock her up” smear campaign. When she was literally as status quo as possible, and had done absolutely nothing that any male politician and male president hadn’t done before. And…then still lost to the most clownish embodiment of “patriarchal toxic masculinity” I’d ever seen-an idiotic, narcissistic, predatory conman who was so blatantly incompetent and has had so many endeavors and businesses go bankrupt that it’s not even funny. I guess I just find your use of her as an example odd, since I find her case so insanely complicated and set up against her (and incredibly representative of the experiences and obstacles of an entire marginalized group of people…consisting of half the human population). Because she literally could not have been more meticulous about being “perfect” and “qualified” to be president, at least as US presidents tend to go (ie. they’ve all + always have been absolutely about the status quo). Though personally I’m still bitter about the sidelining of Bernie, lol
I am an US citizen. I am more than passively part of the empire. Every day I directly benefit from how my country has actively influenced the world. I know that if I buy a cell phone or an electric car I benefit from an African child working in mine to get Cobalt, a South American polluting their water to for Lithium, and Chinese person working inhumane conditions to build the battery and parts. The thing I am using to type this very response undoubtedly was cheaper because another person was exploited to make it. I benefit from the system. I am minority in this country but I still benefit. The question really should be would any of us be willing to give up our privilege (that includes the creature comforts of your society) to uplift someone who less fortunate. I think most most of us would chose our own stability and prosperity over social and economic equality throughout the world. You have to remember what your country considers poverty is probably nothing compared to poverty in a poor country. Would let the system die even if its death wouldn't benefit you? Would you give what meager piece you acquired just so someone else could have more? Eat the rich sounds good until you realize that there is someone who makes $0.60 a day and you are the meal they are looking at.
@@benjaminfletcher6632 No one who says "eat the rich" is talking about the American working class. Yes, undoing imperialism means reordering society to eliminate exploitation, but that doesn't mean lining up everyone from the global north in front of a firing squad. Dismantling capitalism is not a call for genocide, in fact it's the complete opposite.
@uuneya huh, I think you missed my point. The technology and society we have today is based on exploitation. Whatever you are typing this response on is made from ill gotten gains. You are the villain of this story, not its hero. Ending exploitation would also mean ending global production as we know it today. Since I can not live without the technology and privileges created by exploitation, I accept and support the system. My point was that I believe the choice becomes incredibly simple when you put it in those terms.
A question, that was solved for me during the backlash surrounding the Star Wars' prequel movies: the "mainstream" fans ARE unironically the Empire and they are proud of it. Then Gamergate happened and it solidified it all.
@@benjaminfletcher6632 I understood your point perfectly, I simply disagree. I am not the villain of this story because I did not choose this economic system, nor do I have any control over how it functions. Believe me, I have tried to consume ethically, but it's literally impossible. Because this system was not designed for me, it was designed for the capitalists. Trying to pass this off as being "for me" or caused by me is just like when the oil companies tried to guilt everyone into fussing over their "carbon footprint," when none of us among the lower classes get to choose how goods and services. For those of us in the so-called "first world," we have a moral obligation to fight against this system even though we are currently stuck living in it. To capitulate and say you accept and support it is what makes you a villain.
I'm Mexican; and I remember that when I read the promise I thought "oh, they wanted to do something like Mexico" Mexico's history, like all the other countries in the world is a complicated one. After the colonization there was a lot of mixing, specially between poor white people that came here from Spain trying to find a better life in New Spain, and indigenous people (Plus African slaves (yes there were African slaves in Mexico too, it's just that they were freed a lot earlier, that's why it wasn't such a big deal here)) And the thing is that when the government tried to make a national identity, they couldn't use the Spaniard identity for obvious reasons, but they also couldn't use the indigenous identity because the Spaniards already had injected the racist ideology. So they decided to reject the Hispanic identity and reject the indigenous identity to create a new identity. The Mexican identity. Nowadays a lot of Mexicans, like myself, are some degree of mixed. And the thing is we don't have any real past, because at most we can just said we were the result of a very violent act that replaced the original population, but we are also the descendants of the original population? Now we are racist to other descendants of the original population because they managed to keep some of their culture despite everything? It's a messy business. So when I hear gringos talk about land back, I'm always in conflict because, what, I'm a colonizer too? But my skin is brown and my facial features are more similar to indigenous people than white people. But I also can't say I'm indigenous, that culture was uprooted and forgotten by my family generations ago. Plus my mom's side of the family looks very white. I don't know. I guess I can only say that I'm Mexican, whatever that means. But hey, the good news is that my European ancestors at least gave me lactose tolerance.
i'm happy to hear you say that, as a dominican. i mention latin america as a settler colonial project on par with the US but many hispanic people find offense, particularly mestizos. but i'm of black (primarily), white, and taino descent, and i understand the conflict you're describing completely.
Too much nuance, my guy. You got to pick a side and then other side becomes all that is wrong with the world. Come and bask in the beauty of black and white morality.
The process of mestizaje in Mexico is complicated but mostly tragic. On discussions about the dismantling of Isra3l and how they should go back to their countries there's always someone saying I'm not native enough to say that and that I should also go back to Spain. I am a light skinned Mexican which really means little, I know 3 of my great grandmothers were Mexican, I only knew one of them personally and I wasn't interested in my roots while she was alive, all we know is her family was from Texcoco which could mean something or not. I don't know if I am native enough, I don't know what does that mean at this point. If I were to take a test what percentage of native blood would be enough to make me fit to fight for native rights anyway? I know what's meant for our country to be "independent" while still being exploited by colonial powers (still including Spain), while still exploiting native people and their land, while still being fighting between the exaltation of original native cultures and racism towards their direct descendants, between the "you should be thankful Spaniards conquered you" and the complete rejection of their impositions. Or maybe because we know how it happened, we know the process, we know what's coming that we stand with the oppressed, that we want to fight colonialism, that we want a Free Palestine.
8:20 Then again, if you disband the Fire Nation monarchy, Zuko (one of Team Avatar’s only Fire Nation allies) loses all of his power & thus his ability to help end the war. Truth be told, Zuko becoming the Fire Lord is one of the ways that the tv show was able to believably get across that the war ended with the good guys winning. If Zuko’s not in charge, most of the power would probably go to the generals/heads of the Fire Nation economy (who might want to continue the war). Now in Korra’s time, it would be a great develop for the Fire Nation to dissolve their monarchy or at least become a constitutional monarchy.
It's more or less that world is so full of "power" conflict is just gonna snowball now. Unironically Korra made things worse, yet that might be by design, if they play into better. Yet from some of the comics... No so much.
Agreed. Rarely does trying to immediately transition a government from a dictatorship to a democracy goes well. Transitional periods (such as a constitutional monarchy) are very necessary.
Yeah very true. When people see decolonization and overthrowing an oppressive government, they think its all or nothing and if you dont uproot everythiingggg you're a centrist. In reality, you often create a power gap that's filled by just as bad or worse people. This isn't to say the use of violence isn't vital in overthrowing oppression, but that violence is ultimately a tool to DISMANTLE, not build new better worlds. There's things like Lula's government creating a Ministry for indigenous folks is an example of decolonization, as well as many other examples I can't list off the top of my head. Avatar was radical in some ways but very not radical in others.
@@luciaeliade2224 I would argue that what is more important is the transition of mentality. If people in general don't want democracy or don't care enough, it will transform into some form of authoritarianism at a moment's notice. Some of the time (a lot of the time) it's just not the right moment to install democratic institutions.
Fullheartedly disagree with the statement of Katniss shooting Coin to be a read of “but the rebels are just as bad as the Capital!” I used to think Katniss shooting Coin was centrist but as I thought about it more, I realised “yeah, Coin was the threat there. She wasn’t going to change anything, she was just reinstituting a power to further harm people (ie. remaking the games but for the Capital.)” And I think that’s very important to consider. (Btw I’m saying this from an Indigenous perspective.)
I mean, it’s not even only that Lucy Gray is hot. It’s that (at least in the book, it was so so in the movie) he believes she’s SUPERIOR to other ppl from the District. Her Covey identity means she’s not from the districts, they were neutral, therefore she is more like the Capitol, therefore she is more deserving of his attention. Classicism is a key factor in his attraction to Lucy Gray (hard to portray in a movie bc you don’t see his thoughts). And even then, by spending more time with her, he eventually realizes that she doesn’t see the world the same way that he does. And that makes her inferior again in his eyes. And is part of the reason he was willing to kill her and destroy her family’s living and identity (banning music in District 12). There’s also a certain irony of Francis Lawrence making 4 hunger games movies (he didn’t do the first one) and also being a Zionist.
Well she saves him and he has to admit he can't act all high and mighty like a kind benefactor when she gave him his life and he's giving her cookies. By circumstance he's forced into realizing her personhood. Then he does whatever mental gymnastics he can to support his world view and the idea that a district person is just as much a person as he is.
Me: How can people not see that Snow is super white supremacist bootlicker coded? It's so obvious this character is a bad guy that we're not meant to empathize with, rather he's meant to be a reflection on how racist/totalitarian systems radicalize some people and dehumanize other people. This isn't that complicated, I'm sure media literacy will prevail. Also me: *sees thirst trap videos about the character and comment sections filled with people defending his actions claiming he did nothing wrong/vaguely incel commentary about how women are bad and make men into monsters by breaking their hearts* ...oh... well, that's disappointing.
people can be very dense about certain topics. I had to explain someone that just because white supremacy isn't literally mentioned, doesn't mean the Capitol isn't.
will say it was incredibly depressing to go into the tumblr tag looking for gifsets to reblog after watching the movie and instead being met with post after post of coriolanus x reader fics lol
How you gonna have an over 1 billion dollar franchise based off novels and films, and yet, despite the general audience members loving it, they misinterpret nearly ALL of the political analysis within your work? I'm truly befuddled 😅
Perhaps it is age they initially consumed the work, detachment, and marketing. If it was a piece seen as high educational value than people might seriously think of the themes and real life consequences.
@@MADEbySOUL You are giving people way too much credit. People see what they wanna see. They do not want to consider the idea that a piece of media or fiction is saying something about them.
@@MADEbySOULthey’ve been misinterpreting it since 2009. People have lost touch with how to think about things since about September 1, 2001. I say that as a 16 year old in that year. I didn’t understand the specifics and nuances, but I understood more then, than what 25 year olds understand today.
I used to think the killing of Coin was a centrist thing, but definitely now think it's about the importance of Reconstruction after revolution, and not letting opportunitists use revolutionary language to steal power
I did a thesis on the hunger games and dystopia in YA broadly, I love the bread and circus aspect of Ballad so much, and the young Snow having genuine attachments and choosing to discard them, to be controlling, to watch and trim out what he finds weak: it's human and it's chilling. The capitol framing the rebels, how snow and everyone capitol sees them, I found that fascinating but also I might be more invested in the social theory of power in the hunger games than most
"if you do not nail reconstruction, you're kind of back to square one" At this point, it's weirdly refreshing when people bring up ATLA _as a negative_ example.
Indigenous people are still fighting for what's left of their land and culture. They don't control the land they live on: the government pays to lease the land---and they barely get any of that money. All most Native Americans want is to control their own resources and make deals that will be honored. We're not being asked to give up our subdivisions.
Anyone who thinks colonialism is 'over' is...too uncomfortable to really think about it too much and hope for a buzzword or two to terminate those thoughts. Having been around a Mr. Snow, I'd say guys like him are very common and do have those very short fuses to then act on violence so quick!
@nicolemusic2242 it's often the tempering of their actions and quoting them out of context; one would swear that MLK died giving the 'I have a dream' speech because people never quote his more progressive statements from after that. Nelson Mandela is often viewed as this docile and peaceful protester but he was actually a proponent of violent struggle. People who sanitise these men's actions to fit into neo-liberal ideals of today, would probably view them and any rebel faction of similar values as terrorists.
@@thatmessy132 Yes, I think perhaps because Americans need an unambiguously good man to paint as a hero, MLK has become that hero for the Civil RIghts Movement. Whereas, Malcolm X has been portrayed as the radical (and sometimes violent) leader who doesn't fit in so well with clean-cut the historical narrative Thus, MLK's real role in history has been flattenened.
I feel like the point about Iroh is kind of unfair and unfortunately hints at once one of the more worrying things coming out of left discourse That being the idea that people can't change Yeah he tried to invade Ba Sing Se but that was at least over a decade ago He then saved Ba Sing Se and proved that he had become a good person. Without his guidance the war would have been lost. Zuko would have never turned against his father and that city would have been destroyed. I feel this is incredibly relevant and honestly quite disappointing to hear Because when you write people off because of who they were rather than who they are You end up leaving a lot of potential allies out of your cause
I think your point on how passivity is just as violent as those who actively engage in oppression is on point. Even when you look through history, especially from the last century, it's obvious how complacency has fed into both supporting and enabling brutal systems even if people don't necessarily mean to.
That is true, I was more talking about in cases across history when blatant cruelty and injustice was being carried out and people chose to be complacent. Such as in cases like "First they came", even if that poem has been misinterpreted by people in recent history. I don't think it's possible to advocate everything because our brains didn't evolve to consider and manage that much information at once. But still trying to be aware and do something about the causes you do know about is far better than choosing to do nothing at all.
Can you blame them? You're either going to some sort of Prison Camp or the "Killing Fields" if you speak out. That's if you just don't have your door kicked in middle of the night or explosives thrown at your home. Sometimes the oppression ramps up too quick and people get stuck, surrounded by murderious idiots
It's constantly shocking how much terror people will tolerate as long as it won't really affect them. I feel that's how populists are so successful, their supporters are fine to sacrifice any other group to get rid of that one they hate specifically.
I think the thing we forget about rebellions and revolutions as that most people who participate will suffer, torture, die and be forgotten. And the chances of said revolution working may not end up true. Its not a great sell when being passive gives you general "safety" I am not endorsing being passive I just think why its really hard for people to break out passitivity.
And very dangerous to break out of ... usually ends with imprisonment, torture and/or death unless you somehow have gotten to a point where the executors of state violence have become sympathetic to you (or aren't prepared to have a full-scale massacre on their hands)
Yeah, it isn't "fun" you HAVE to become a monster for a rebillion to work, there's no "softness" there only violence or subversion. Either way evil has to be brought forth because if one is forcing change people that don't want things to change have a right to fight. That's why this type of content is "Young Adult" it feeds on that immature drive to rebel when in hindsight one might have done some bad things and hurt people.
There’s also the fact that most people just straight up don’t know how to break out of being passive. If you don’t know much to start with it’s hard to find places to learn more so that you can create change. As you learn you’re also faced with the “safety” problem.
@@Alex_Barbosa Yes it is due to hindsight you realize the "rebellion" caused more problems than solved. You realize the parents were kinda right. They methods were most likely shit yet what they were trying to convey was right. Yet this isn't all parents of course. Yet when it comes to typical rebellion kids do, yeah it's immature.
Re: 12:18 -- The important part of that quote was what you left out: the model of settler colonialism used. The settler colonialism that creates a large indigenous displacement is the English/British model of settler colonialism (that we see in the USA, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand), but it is not the ONLY model of settler colonialism. The ATLA model of settler colonialism is the Spanish model of settler colonialism where territory and population are annexed and the settlers become a new power and authority coopting traditional power structures and without a significant exodus of population. Accordingly, there is no need to "bring back the exiles" since they are (1) few in number and (2) most of the indigenous population is already there. What needs to happen is a political reorganization so that the marginalized indigenous population has political agency and can eventually decide their fate in tandem with the settler colonials and their descendants. (In many ways, the story of Yu Dao could be cast as the story of Belfast in our world because British settler colonialism in the north of Ireland was much closer to the Spanish style of settler colonialism, the British had disproportionate power and the reorganization of Northern Ireland as a constituent devolved state within the United Kingdom served to give the indigenous Irish the political agency to decide their fate in tandem with the British settler colonials and their descendants.) To the extent that we see refugees in ATLA (and we see plenty of them), they are either fleeing in fear of what Fire Nation control could bring or they are fleeing areas that are subject to battle between the Fire Nation and the Earth Kingdom, which is the outgrowth of war more generally and nothing to do with settler colonialism as a distinct phenomenon. Most cities that the Fire Nation has control of in the Earth Kingdom have Earth-Kingdom-ethnic majorities, which is NOT a hallmark of English/British settler colonialism where most towns and cities (even in their earliest periods when there was more intermixing) have over 90% settler populations. Conversely, places with Spanish settler colonialism have large scale ethnic mixing, which is why "Mestizos" or persons of mixed ancestry are so common in Latin-America, but there is no similar word in English.
Haven't seen that particular Lucas interview before, but he has always been clear that the rebels were based on the Vietcong. He considered Star Wars to be a follow up to American Graffiti. He passed on Apocalypse Now to make Star Wars and considered them basically to be saying the same thing in different ways.
You’re spot on. This why more people should read the prequel. Suzanne Collins, the icon the legend, made DAMN SURE we knew Corona Snow never had pure intentions with Lucy Gray / The Games, As a society, let’s de-normalize calling a white supremacist our “white boy of the month😩“
I agree with everything you say except for the idea that executing Coin is a rejection of the rebellion or adopting a centrist position. Katniss assassinates Coin because Snow has already been defeated and his reputation destroyed, but Coin has the potential to be another dictator. By proposing another Hunger Games with district children and having Katniss ceremonially execute her defeated enemy, Coin signals that justice doesn’t matter to her. Spectacle does. You can certainly make parallels to certain liberal politicians, but Katniss isn’t saying “both sides bad.” I think what’s brilliant about the Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes is that by putting the reader in the mind of a young Snow she illustrates the reality that most people will fight and kill to grow their own power within a violent system rather than risk their lives to bring it down. It confronts the audience who identify with Katniss but don’t recognize the evil of the systems around them with their own complicity in violence. How well the author of the movies, a f*cking Zionist, understood that, is less certain. EDIT: grammar
Yes, Coin's character is not meant to suggest that overthrowing the Capitol is bad. She shows that rebel leaders can also become dictators and/or become as ruthless as the people they're fighting, which any remotely honest look at history will show is true. In killing Coin, Katniss (hopefully) rescues the rebellion from this possibility.
I too must admit that I'm very puzzled by the comparison between Coin and Hillary Clinton. But what Princess is saying does make some sense, because Alma Coin can be read as a sort of Oliver Cromwell or Napoleon Bonaparte figure, someone who, by all accounts started out fighting for the ideals of the rebel movement they lead against the oppressors, but by the end got corrupted by power and became "just as bad" (although not really) as the tyrant they deposed. The reason why I'd disagree with her still is because I think even that interpretation I would say is inaccurate and gives Collins too much credit. Because, to me, Alma Coin seems to be most in line with a figure like King Henry VII, a wannabe pretender that won the crown of an absolute monarchy through open warfare and just became the new monarch in an identical system, albeit a slightly more benevolent one. The only difference is that Coin is also a lying demagogue, who also used the ideals of a rebellion, ideals that she most certainly didn't rellay believe in, to achieve her purpose, basically making it seem to everyone that she herself is a revolutionary and not just another power-hungry aristocrat climbing to the top of the unjust hierachy. I just don't know if this was intentional (case in which, kudos to the author) or if Suzanne Collins actually wanted Coin to be a sort of Cromwell/Napooleon figure and just screwed the pooch with the writing...which would be...pretty horrendous, because it implies that she used that "both sides bad" mentality that irks me (and Princess too, it seems) and also isn't very good at character writing, basically making it seem like this was her plan all along and it just took Katniss a while to figure it out (cause she's dense like that). P.S. In case I didn't make myself clear already, although they can be called tyrants, Napoleon and Cromwell were nowhere near as bad as Louis XVI and Charles I, respectively, and definitely didn't reach the level of absolute psychopathy seen in Coin.
I always felt it was an acknowledgement that real rebellions are a loose coalition of factions that at worst have nothing in common except their opposition to the authoritarian regime, and might even hate each other almost as much as their oppressors. (Andor touches on this when Luthen goes to talk to Saw Gerrera,) But once the regime is gone, they turn their knives on each other. I thought it was a pretty mature pop-culture representation of revolution beyond the Star Wars-esque fantasy we usually get, especially in something targeted at that age group.
@@madsgrams2069 The Irish might disagree regarding Cromwell. As far as who Coin represents, I think trying to apply a purely domestic political allegory to her doesn't work. She is the leader (elected, possibly? We don't really get a sense of how District 13's political system works) of what is effectively a sovereign state that has existed in stalemate with the Capitol for the preceding 75 years. The threat that the Capitol poses to her is very real, I don't see any reason to think she was underhanded or lying about finding it a threat, and she's probably sincere in wanting to help the other districts overthrow the Capitol. But she's also vengeful in a way that mirrors the Capitol's own crimes (her planned retaliation Hunger Games), willing to order the commission of war crimes in furtherance of the rebellion, and seemingly using the platform of having led the rebellion to victory to amass more power for herself. That makes her both a war criminal and actively dangerous. It doesn't implicate her cause itself, which is also the cause of all the other main characters in the series.
@@ColonelGreenI always really wanted a sequel series. I'd like to see who comes into power, the how and why. I thought Coin's motivation for another Games was so good. She lost it all so why would she have empathy? It makes me wonder of the warning stuck and future leaders didn't ever question it again
In manga Dorohedoro, it is touched upon how to resolve long-standing conflict. Humans in underground colonies were kidnapped by magicians for magical experiments like Guinea pigs. In the end,some magicians realise they were wrong and try make amends by giving potions to treat magic victims (reparations) and decide to leave humans alone to recover (land back) rather than forcing their way in because they're 'good' now.
This just makes me even more sad that The Voice Referendum in Australia was defeated. We were given the option to take a step towards resolving some of these colonial tensions by giving Indigenous Australians more of a say in issues affecting them, but the majority of the country voted "No" after an intense campaign playing into exactly these sorts of narratives. How do we force people to sit with the discomfort of our colonial history for long enough to actually begin the process of reconciliation? And how do we shut down harmful counter-narrative that "reconciliation" means "the government's gonna take your home" for long enough for a more nuanced conversation to take place?
It's becausse Australia was a raw deal for BOTH sides. Natives didn't know wtf was going on and the people left there were supposed to die. It makes sense they don't vibe with it due to it's UK's fault. If they didn't use a whole nation as prison colony. They nation might have been conquered by either the japanese, chinese, or spanish
From what I've read here in the U.S., indigenous people simply want the treaties honored and to have control of their land and communities. No more exploitation, no more withheld/stolen treaty payments, or any other BS. If that's true elsewhere, hammer on that message. They want to control their own fates and to be treated as equals under the law, not as incompetents or dependents upon the Great White Whoever.
Your point about 'The Promise' is why I couldn’t finish another series from the Avatar creative team, The dragon Prince', Which starts the series by telling us out right that hundreds of thousands people had to under go a massive forced migration off their home lands as punishment for some people trying to find a way to be on more equal footing with the ruling class and it never affects anything in the series.
To be fair, future seasons make it more clear that the humans really were oppressed and viewed as lesser than by the dragon ruling class. Haven’t caught up with the series, but I don’t think the idea is unacknowledged. Seemingly most of the conflict in the series originates from evil actions by the dragons, from vague spoilers I’ve seen.
Girl! I thought many of the things leaving this movie. The saddest thing was watching Lucy Gray realize that this man was dangerous and she was caught in a trap. Slowly, she began to see what the audience should have already seen by his obsession with her winning the game. Not necessarily to save her, but to further himself. He believed in the games. She was just a piece on the board. It was very disturbing. I actually liked the film very much.
What I will ALWAYS give Hunger Games credit for is that it shows that revolutions aren't quick struggles where only the heroes get hurt. Revolutions are messy, bloody, violent, and desparate wars that, by definition, are waged to destroy one power structure so it can be replaced with a new one. In real-life revolutions, people starve, innocents die, and the groups who are fighting institutionalized oppression may resort to unjust and unnecessary violence. The Hunger Games may only show very small glimpses of it, but revolutions, even just ones, leave an amount of trauma and instability in their wake.
I think your critique of avatar is too American centered. I'm from Lat.Am. and Colonialism basically blended the racial identities of 80 percent of the people. We don't even know how much of our blood is black or indigenous most of the time and only the people that stayed in the reservations and other closed communities preserved their native language. The stict racial segregation you see in the US is very particular. The process in Asia, Africa and Lat.Am were very very different.
hmmm. i think i disagree with your point about snow and why he is written so sympathetically. i dont think its to absolve him in anyway for what he is, i think its to be able to more easily clock that kind of person. like you said its hard to recognize the USA as the Empire in star wars because they are so cartoonishly evil. you would never think oh the empire is 'me'. but its a lot easier to recognize someone who has a heart, whose heart can break, but still ultimately will chose ambition, comfort, selfishness and the state over radically changing their worldview. you can recognize that in yourself or in others and see that its a much closer allegory to the US. completely agree with your point on reconstruction. i was so hoping the sequel trilogy would be about that when it was first announced but... we got what we got. and the ahsoka/mandolorain/other shows seem aggressively uninterested in post empire, new republic life. the post snap mcu could have done something like that but its really barely touched on. maybe they are out there and i just cant find them, but it seems like such a obvious hole in modern popculture media.
I listened to the hunger games trilogy audiobook on holiday with my mum around and she was asleep for the end and all she had to ask me was “so which one did she get with” as if the love triangle actually mattered over like the horrendous atrocities
even as a teen I didn't care for the love triangle and was dissapointed when the epilogue was about Peeta and Katniss having kids instead of showing us a rebuilt panem :/
@@dia.96 I always saw the ending as depicting Katniss and Peeta's personal reconstruction. It showed the personal emptiness, trauma and devastation but also that light was possible afterward. The rebuilt themselves.
But, like, actual question. What should those fire nation descendants do? The war went on for a long time, it's likely that many know absolutely nothing about the fire islands, most would have never been there and don't have any family there. I get that just saying "well we aren't changing" is just a justification of the fire nations invasion and colonization, but its still their home. I don't understand why leftists act like its a binary choice between: continue imperialism or commit genocide but against the "right" people this time. Like, fire nation descendants would have to do some introspection, would have to come to terms with what their presence means, but that doesn't mean a family that has never known the fire islands has to go live there now. They can find a way to equitably redress the harm brought to the earth kingdom people, there are peaceful equitable solutions provided the populace is actually progressive enough to not fall into reactionary politics that further punish the oppressed (conservative white Americans being a good example of that). Just saying they have to leave or die because they don't have a time machine to go back and stop the fire nation invasion isn't a solution and isn't even remotely a serious attempt to make any kind of point on the politics of descendants of colonists in colonized land.
My take is that Zuko could just return the colonies to the Earth Kingdom and use his influence over the colonists to make the transition amicable while opening the doors to any of them who would like to return to the Fire Nation. This situation doesn't seem much like the United States case, Americans have no place to "return to", fire citizens still have the choice, but of course you can't just take them all out, that's just not feasible nor morally sound.
@@jennym3883 I can just about guarantee though that you agree with her argument though. If I'm wrong, please point out even a single prominent online leftist that wouldn't.
@@thumbhead3370 assuming you know what other people think is a good way to misunderstand people. (so strange of you to try to tell me what i think) i don't think displacing anyone is a good answer and I certainly think genocide is always wrong, and I don't know anyone online or otherwise who has said what you said leftist say. probably the reason you think leftists think that way is cause social media likes to show people extreme opposing views to keep them hate engaged even though those views are the minority. it's such a weird ask to point out an online leftist that doesn't advocate genocide, cause i cannot think of any that do, but here goes. Hank Green, cody from somemorenews, trevor noah, jon stewart. jon stewart made a video about palestine if you want proof
Re: 14:00 -- There are two major issues that I have when it comes to the argument about the descendants of the settler colonials not wanting to be displaced for an indigenous return being seen as hypocritical. The first, and certainly most obvious is: any disruption of present society to the degree contemplated here is guaranteed to result in chaos, death, and destruction (just like the first time) and there may be a better way to integrate these populations that would be less injurious. It's the same level of ethical confusion that our ancestors who promoted the "eye for an eye" type of ethics around retribution had. It's better for one person to financially compensate the other for his wrongdoing than to put out his eye. Now, I am not sure what that looks like in the undoing of British settler colonialism, but it could be a greater economic incorporation of indigenous people, a more broad respect for indigenous academic self-interpretation, increased autonomous powers to indigenous governing councils, etc. but forcible eviction of the descendants of British settler colonials only seems like a recipe for further conflict and not wanting that seems rather sane. The second is that we have already played out this story. Israel and Armenia are two countries that exist that were founded by ethnic groups (Jews and Armenians) with a specific homeland that they had been ejected from due to settler colonialist practices of a more powerful empire (Rome in the case of the Jews and Persia/Ottomans in the case of the Armenians) and then those minorities returned with the goal of creating majority-them states in their historic homelands (the Jews did this from 1900-1948 and the Armenians did this from 1826-1921). What they did was displacing the settler colonial populations (Arab Palestinians in the case of the Jews and the Persians and Azeri Turks in the case of the Armenians) to reclaim their historic homeland. It may come as a shocker, but Israel and Armenia both suffer from mass hatred from the communities they expelled in their undoing of the first instance of settler colonialism. It turns out that forcible eviction of a pre-existing population, even one that arrived in that location as a result of settler colonialism, is not the road to peace, reconciliation, or long-term positive neighborly relations.
two things that stuck with me the most while watching the movie was 1) Coriolanus thru most of the movie was terrified of the very system that he will then rule. which explains all of his actions in the movie and his conversation with Katniss in Catching Fire 2)The parallels between Snow x Lucy and Katniss x peeta and it made me feel super sad seeing that the person Coriolanus could've been instead, but he had everything coming to him. Also in terms of Coin, she wasn't interested in the wellbeing of the citizens of Panem, but rather replacing Snow as leader which is complete misappropriation of the actual cause
2:32 are… are we positive ms collins didn’t name him Coriolanus because of the tragic Shakespeare character, Coriolanus, from the play Coriolanus, about the titular character’s political gamble for power and subsequent murder by his political rival?
She totally did, even if most of us are much less familiar with Shakespeare or Roman history's Coriolanus than we are with other Shakespearean tragic heroes or Roman historical figures.
Sorry, few seconds in, but what was that quote about Finnick?? The person says blonde and very tanned skin and then says Ian Somerhalder (!!!!!) would be perfect for the role? Ah sure, his very blonde hair and very tanned skin are indeed perfect 🤷♀️
“THERE were two “Reigns of Terror,” if we would but remember it and consider it; the one wrought murder in hot passion, the other in heartless cold blood; the one lasted mere months, the other had lasted a thousand years; the one inflicted death upon ten thousand persons, the other upon a hundred millions; but our shudders are all for the “horrors” of the minor Terror, the momentary Terror, so to speak; whereas, what is the horror of swift death by the axe, compared with lifelong death from hunger, cold, insult, cruelty, and heart-break? What is swift death by lightning compared with death by slow fire at the stake? A city cemetery could contain the coffins filled by that brief Terror which we have all been so diligently taught to shiver at and mourn over; but all France could hardly contain the coffins filled by that older and real Terror-that unspeakably bitter and awful Terror which none of us has been taught to see in its vastness or pity as it deserves.” ― Mark Twain
We’re always rooting for the rebels because we think we are the rebels, even if we’re part the most fascist oppressor class. That’s why I’ve been cautious about the educational value of these media…
@@alexbennet4195fascism is often the way the most visibly and clearly oppressive elements of capitalist regimes are enforced. There’s this old quote: “Fascism is capitalism in decay.” In a story with a rebellion the oppressor will like 9/10 times have some sort of fascist politics - because they’re usually some sort of capitalist regime holding on to power.
@@alexbennet4195you could make a point about looking away from stuff like migrants being treated like shit as well as underlying colonial aspects (multiple times I've read something in the news and gone "we've been having soldiers where now??? And they're being framed as having a right to be there (on foreign soil in a country that doesn't want them anymore) .. why?")
Lord of the Rings analogy is invalid. The Fellowship were not "rebels", they were a special op group formed by an alliance fighting against an invading power. Sauron never ruled over Gondor or Rivendell.
I'd love to hear more about Reconstruction in media. You're 100% right that Teen Dystopian Fiction focuses much more on the 'destruction' part than the 'construction' afterwards... If someone was able to imagine, and put into words, ways that we could have a better world - then it'd be a lot easier to chart a course of political action TOWARDS something, towards a defined, positive goal, rather than just "away from harm" like we have now, which is what results in incrementalism and attempts to compromise with the right-wing that has paralyzed Congress. I'm really limited in my imagination - I'm white, I was raised in majority-white, upper-middle-class suburbia, and read white author's fiction my whole life because my parents loved Shakespeare and JRR Tolkien and D&D. I'm learning to see where that education left gaps in my understanding of the world, but I can't design a solution - it wouldn't be holistic enough. That's got to come from someone else. That's why I want to support stories of building up, rather than tearing down. It's not good Action Movie(tm) fodder, of course, so, it's harder to find on TV, and might only be in books. I can't write that book, but I can buy it after it's written and make sure the author is justly compensated, at least!
This is such a good point. It makes me think that our media so thoroughly, ubiquitously, and I think rather inconspicuously, propagates and underscores this idea that justice-oriented or anticolonial social change is all about tearing sh** down. Not to say that the sh** doesn't need to be torn down and that it's not important to do so, but this totally negates all the intense 'building-up' work that so many people who work for liberation work so hard for
Check out _Socialist Reconstruction_ by the Party for Socialism and Liberation. I haven't read all of it, but what I've read so far is pretty compelling.
The good news is that no one person has to design the solution, and in fact no one person will. What will happen instead is that people will come together and build the solution cooperatively. And you have every reason to participate in that process. If you want a real-life example of this, look at mutual aid networks, especially the ones that form in the wake of immense tragedies. This happened with COVID, this happens during natural disasters, and it happens whenever people are abandoned by the governments that claim to be responsible for their care. All these zombie/apocalypse movies in the media tell us a very pernicious lie: that in times of crisis people will become territorial and violent. In reality, we see time and time again that people team up to help each other.
@@uuneya “All these zombie/apocalypse movies in the media tell us a very pernicious lie: that in times of crisis people will become territorial and violent. In reality, we see time and time again that people team up to help each other.” THAT PART. This is such an incisive perspective. Incredibly written and undeniably true. I would argue, too, that that the theme we see over and over again of people in crisis just looking out for #1 reflects who gets to tell the stories that make up the foundation of mainstream popular culture’s canon. From my point of view, in times of crisis, it is the well-resourced that think primarily or exclusively of themselves (I saw this in my family during the pandemic)
@@uuneyaIn actual reality, you see both. Human nature is too complex to be boxed into whatever narrow-minded political system or label you might be championing. It’s not exactly like millennia of recorded history have pointed to a humanity bent on sharing and caring all the time.
"Should we all just go home and give the land back" Those are two different things. Yes, the land that was taken should be given back. The power that was taken should be given back. People needn't literally move out, space was never actually the problem here. It's a question of whose rules govern the land, whose language is on the signs, who is in control of the resources and how they get used. Talking about the physical presence of certain people in certain places is a red herring: people move all the time for lots of entirely valid reasons. The real issue is power. It's not about who lives in the house, it's about whose house they are living in. The only time I've ever been treated with respect by a doctor, was at a reservation clinic. The only time I've ever been treated with respect by a government official, it was a tribal chief. It's indigenous people who have shown time and again that they understand how to manage the land. The people who have most consistently stood up for my rights, were indigenous. White American greed and arrogance gave rise to the Nazis who slaughtered people like me by the thousands, and the cleverness of indigenous Americans created the code that defeated them. The legacy of Manifest Destiny was the dustbowl, and the displacement of white families. The ingenuity and determination of indigenous Americans is bringing back the bison and restoring the prairie: a prairie that is capable of sustaining the entire continent, and without which the continent cannot survive. White Canadian and American greed and arrogance is threatening one third of the whole world's fresh water; indigenous Canadians and Americans are leading the fight to protect it. So yes, give the land back. People keep trying to tell me I should make money, but I really don't see why. Making money would mean I need to pay taxes, and that's just one more way for the bad guys to make me support them. When I was a little kid, I learned that you shouldn't pay taxes to unjust governments. I learned that was the principle our nation was founded on. Land back doesn't mean I have to leave the place where I was born and my father was born and my grandfather was born. It would mean I pay taxes to a government that actually gives a f*ck about me, as a disabled queer person with a uterus. It would mean when I buy food, I'm not contributing to the earth's destruction but to it's healing. It would mean my stove and car and furnace run on renewable energy, because my government wants to keep the oil in the ground and the sacred places undisturbed. It would mean that when I go to the doctor and say I have no interest in ever being pregnant, they actually believe me. I've never been asked to give up my traditions or my language by an indigenous person, I've never been told to keep my identity a secret by an indigenous person. I speak English now because my ancestors were banned from speaking their language by white people. So yeah, give the land back. People who argue against liberation movements are just telling on themselves. They are saying that if they could get revenge against everyone who has ever wronged them, they would. I wouldn't. I saw the cycle of revenge destroy Kosovo and Ireland. That's not what justice looks like. Justice looks like Nelson Mandela walking out of prison with his fist raised singing in Xhosa. We often frame that as a racial struggle, but that erases the fact that the Zulu were indigenous people and the Afrikaaners were not. That when the ANC won, what followed wasn't a massacre of white South Africans but a government that was more just for all (albeit far from perfect, for lots of reasons). Not that the Afrikaaners are grateful. Every interaction I've ever had with a white South African has thoroughly disgusted me, including a conversation where-in the year of our lord 2023- an Afrikaaner unironically said that in "civilized countries" they keep their megafauna in fenced reservations. yeah, okay, if that's "civilization" you can miss me with that sh*t m8🤮.
Question: How are you going to take care of yourself or convince anyone to change their mind if you don't have money? How do you connect to the internet to have discourse with those who don't believe in you or what you stand for? How can you advocate for people and their mental well-being if, like in my case, the medication you need to remain mentally sound is locked behind a paywall? I hate playing the game, and I avoid playing it when I can. But tell me... does that do any good, in the long run, when I'm too distraught at the mere hint of fascistic or harmful mindsets that I am unable to articulate why I'm so angry in the first place? Or would you look at someone like me and think I'm not doing enough? That I'm simply weak. Because at the end of the day, I AM weak. The people I love are enmeshed in the system. Even now, with what little rebelling I do, my rejections of consumerism, preoccupations with notions of justice, racism, animal welfare, and the environment... even now I get push back. "Buy nice things for yourself" my family tells me. "Stop reading about wars and conflicts that could trigger you", "you can't change these massive problems, so why do you torture yourself with them?" I can't convince my friends and family to see things from the perspectives of the oppressed or, more importantly, to take tangible steps that will cause a drop in their "quality of life"... what should I do then? I'm agitated by your words, heartened by others, find myself agreeing and longing desperately to prove you wrong, or give voice to some discontent I barely understand. I am telling you all of this, here, now, because I am in earnest when I ask you: what should I do?
@@WhistleAndSnap to be clear, I don't have literally no money. I have enough to feed myself, and rent a room. I've occasionally earned money under the counter too. It's just not enough money to pay taxes on most of the time. That was just too complex to get into for my initial post. Take care of yourself first. I was not saying everyone should, or can, do as I am doing. I have the privilege of being relatively healthy. Do what you need to do to access your medication. Your life is valuable, enmeshed in a system or not (and I am not off the grid by any means clearly, I do live in a major city). I only talked about what I am doing in order to share my feelings of frustration. I would not really even say I am somehow living more morally than others. I apologize for not making that clearer. As for addressing the pushback from people in your life: you did exactly the right thing. You reached out to me, someone who shared your viewpoint. You're not alone🙂. Let's talk more! All of us are weak on our own. But we are stronger together than either of us is alone. For all my eloquent words, I can't do very much. I can't give land back, I don't own any in my own name. I can't do anything more than bring attention to what that really means, at least so far as I know. I'm just a fed up milennial procrastinating on my grad school application. I can't say I have all the answers, but here is what I do know: real rebellion will require building parallel infrastructure. Like you said: people need medecine, food, shelter etc and right now we are dependent on the system to get those things. This is what keeps it going. Infrastructure is what will turn protests into rebellions. Do I know what successful parallel infrastructure would look like? No, except to say that it needs to have revolutionary values built in from the drawing board. I believe it's possible to provide for everyone's needs without hurting anyone, and that's the principle that needs to guide our design. That's as far as I've ever been able to get, because that is usually when people tell me to shut up. No one wants to talk strategy, so I rant online.
@@golwenlothlindel Have you ever watched Beau of the Fifth Column? He has a whole playlist on community building -- building that parallel structure -- that you might find helpful.
I am a bit confused by the inclusion of The Lord of the Rings in this lot. The story there draws from many sources, but one of the main ones are Medieval narratives and epic poems, where there is no real space for revolutions as we understand them in modern times (mainly post-Enlightenment). The social structures are pre-colonial but if we want to draw simple comparisons for the sake of an argument, the fellowship consists of the status quo representatives - 8 members of the fellowship are upper class or aristocracy, apart from Sam who is a servant. They are not rebels! If you really want to humour the argument, it is Sauron's army is working class/differently abled bodied - they actually represent the 'ugly' industrial revolution, not the factory owners but the workers. I wouldn't apply easy comparisons of 'big evil empire bad - small rebel group good' to LOTR myself, but if you want to do it, I think the answers are not obvious in this case.
this has personally been haunting me about the Hunger Games series since middle school when lots of people missed the point of the series and I felt insane. experiencing this again after the prequel movie was so funny but sad too
Two of the best Star Wars books I've ever read were books that were VERY anti-war. "Rebel Rising" by Beth Revis is the story of Jyn Erso's upbringing in the Rebellion. It is so dark that the ending is basically pacifist. "Lost Stars" by Claudia Gray tells the story of two childhood best friends who end up on opposite sides of the Galactic Civil War. It really interrogates the moral responsibility of being a combatant. In this story, the Rebels aren't paragons of virtue and the explosion of the Death Star becomes a tragedy because you know the names of the officers on board. Still, unlike "Rebel Rising", "Lost Stars" recognizes the necessity of the Rebels' cause. Their side might not be perfect, but they are certainly better than the emperor. *"Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes" spoiler below* In terms of "The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes", the book is spectacular because it builds on three major themes: how wars' victors and societies can become so broken that another war is not only justified, but morally necessary, what kind of moral fortitude and choices are required of truly noble citizens and how they are punished for those choices, and finally, that as long as a human being has a choice, they are responsible for the outcomes of their choices. The movie flattens this a lot. In the book, it is clear that Sejanus knows right from wrong, but his idealism prevents him from making choices with positive outcomes. When he eventually chooses to side with the Rebels, he does so ineptly - he trusts the wrong people. Coriolanus Snow, on the other hand, may have starved during the war, and may have been brought up by elitist family, but the choices he makes are not about survival - they're about advancement. He maintains that elitist view - despite ample characters interrogating that view and offering him opportunities to be a better man- and that is his tragedy.
So we just accept all and any violence is the thing right? Everything is fair game right when it comes to liberation, no matter how horrible and brutal it is? I'm not trying to do a gotcha just trying to make sense of this logic, I'm sorry I'm just too white to understand clearly.
Korra deserves a live action reboot to fix its narrative with the villains more than the original. But I would fear for Korra's casting and the actress picked cuz you know the racist abuse trolls would hurl immediately
10:10 because forced displacement of people based on their ethnicity is genocide and should be consistently opposed no matter who does it and for what justification? Like you totally can fight the colonial power structure without ethnic cleansing. "Remove the bad nation people" is not a radical action, it doesn't dismantle the power imbalances nor does it uplift the disadvantaged it just redirects the effort at "the enemy" It's ethnonationalism.
Settler colonialism is when I'm not allowed to forcibly remove people from their homes (and yes those are their home, they've been living there for 100 years)
It’s so funny because Cornelius Snow was named after Cornelius from Shakespeare’s play of the same name. The protagonist, a patrician, who defected from the Romans and led barbarians against Rome after he demanded overturning pro-plebeian reforms. And his mother was Voluminia (the woman who encouraged to lead the rebellion). Sejanus was also a historical figure who belonged to the equites class but still was able to rise the ranks to prefect of the praetorian guard and was executed for treason.
The book was much better about framing Snow as like a super shitty person. Having access to his inner monologue in which he is, the entire time, completely insufferably elitist - like at best in the book he finds sejanus tolerable, but broadly he despises the fact that this district born kid has money when he doesn’t. And it’s fairly clear that his “love” for lucy gray is more a projection of his ideal image of himself as a savior than any actual care for her. The worst crime of the movie - as an adaptation - to me is that it defanged snow and framed him as a likeable protagonist until right at the end
You can't forget the number of times when Lucy Gray is seen as property. He wants her to be "his" there's an ownership that he wants from her. I don't even think it's an ideal savior thing, she's a bauble, a beautiful thing he wants to own and control.
I don’t think Snow was more likeable from move per se. I’m reading book and find myself feeling for his character even with his inner thoughts. I can see fear and hunger (same things that were drivers for Katniss) and then I can see the turns and problematic thinking that helps him rationalize his decisions. It’s all there and it’s complex. But this is also aligned with my view of human nature being survival based and series of decisions stemming from that. You add in trauma and folks will do just anything to survive mentally, including adopting a supremacist attitude to delude yourself into thinking that you’ll survive because you deserve to 😬 which is very present if we look at how politics uses fear and supremacy to build a loyal base. From the movie I think we’re meant to sympathize with Snow because we see him as a child being shaped by those around him and a desperation, but quickly we can see his motivations and I don’t think it’s hard at all to see how he portrayed some of the inner thoughts. For instance, notice his eyes when Lucy Gray sings, he is captivated not by her but how she impacts those in capital. Even at reaping his eyes go to classmates who are having a strong reaction to her, and that makes him smile. So reading the book after seeing the movie I can appreciate some of the subtle choices made to portray his inner thoughts. He becomes fixated on “getting her to sing again” and that isn’t because she moves him, but he sees the power of her moving others. The only inner dialogue I think i am missing is his fear of capital. Rewatching, though, I can see fear on his face when things happened to his classmates (e.g., Clemmie, Arachne) where it seems he is surprised that the capital folks don’t step in, which is a subtle way to portray his realizations that the capital who he believes are civilized, wouldn’t help capital children. That he too could be used as a pawn. So while there could’ve been more to drive this home, I can see on my rewatch that this was done but not delivered with dialogue. But otherwise, all the other inner dialogue would be annoying and insulting to me as a reader to think I needed a voiceover throughout a movie when I can watch the actor portray the role through their craft. I think Tom being conventionally attractive actually brings many of Suzanne’s points to life - I think we are supposed to struggle with the dissonance that surfaces.
"The most pernicious image of all is the anarchist hero figure. A creation of commodity culture, he allows us to buy into an inauthentic simulation of revolutionary praxis' Grant Morrison, _the Invisibles_ Vol.2 #13
Original sin is a Christian concept. Maybe we should be trying to excise that from our moral vocabulary too. That might make it more complicated, but that shouldn't be too much of an ask for those of us who consider ourselves leftists and people of conscience.
THIS IS WHAT IVE BEEN SCREAMING1!!! hearing someone else put it like this, we create in our own image. it makes me feel a hole less crazy, love ur videos and this one was no dif than the others, fire
I’m not a hunger games fan so didn’t know about the discourse mentioned at the beginning of the video (although I did watch the rue video but don’t remember much about it) but the jesse williams thing is so stupid because the description they gave that they wanted for the character applies to him if he just wears a wig
As a mixed kid myself I know when I speak to other Indigenous Canadians about Land Back the majority of us aren’t saying “ship every not Native back to wherever they originated”… let’s be real, the Britts are not waiting for White North Americans to come home. They don’t even think of them as British anymore, if they even think about it at all. Same for many descendants of immigrants. Hell my own European side is either unaware I exist or they no longer exist themselves (my white is a blend of Britt and Austrian Ashki, my Native side is Ojiicree through Mum and her father)… land back more (among my circles at least) means equal and equitable access to land, its resources and its opportunities. It means not having to be caught in the Reservation poverty and isolation cycle by way of birth. It means being able to drink a clean glass of water whether ya be on a Rez, in town or city or rural boonies as a farmer… it means letting those that have kept the land for centuries lead the way for environmental issues with their knowledge of the land it’s climate and critters… it doesn’t mean “reverse colonialism but this time whites lose”… and same for many Palestinians, they do not want Jews to take on their suffering. They want said suffering to cease all round, some sort of cooperative and collective solution that respects the right to life of both sides children and innocent civs in the middle of this war zone
This video was exactly what I needed, thank you for making it! I started reading a new fantasy series over the holidays and it's been so frustrating because the villians and "good guys" are portrayed in such a black and white way (maybe that will change, I haven't finished the series yet).
16:21 I'm not sure if it's in the movie, but in the book, Coriolanus actively tries to convince himself and others that Lucy Gray isn't really district. Lucy Gray does so as well, but in a "the districts are BS" way, unlike Coriolanus' "Lucy Gray is okay for me to like because she isn't actually one of them" way. I honestly think that part (emphasis on part) of the disconnect between the themes and the takeaways of movie viewers is that the movie doesn't provide the insight into Coriolanus' thought processes that the book does, and because the movie had to cut so much out.
I know it’s a kid show but the whole show feels it’s trying to emphasize the whole “balance” theme. So it makes perfect sense that it would be like “let’s remove all the fire nation colonies at once” because in the show that would be balance. But they don’t do that. Instead within the world they wrote they try to add “nuance” with what they think is choosing to be earth nation or fire nation citizens. But that begs the question. In the entirety of the past was there never any colonialism done by other countries? Hell the war is 100 years old, even if you want to ignore the fact that these nations existed before that and therefore would have people living along the borders who would meat and marry have children with dual nationality, you are telling me that none of these issues existed before or during the war?
As far as the world of _Avatar_ the worldbuilding is based on some broad strokes concepts that are very well-developed for its medium, but as with almost any such genre society it's easy to pick holes in how things would have played out in the real world (this extends to the very idea that every single Avatar in history has apparently been benevolent, which doesn't really seem all that likely given human psychology and effects of wielding that kind of power). The whole anti-bending crusade in the first season of _Korra_ is a good example of the show's own writers asking questions that really should not be asked because there's no good answer to them that doesn't destroy the basic premise of a series with the Avatar as the hero.
@@ColonelGreenit didn't touch on racial stigma like what if there's a white avatar vs a black one so I won't get into that, but I think the avatar power never chose someone blatantly evil since it was connected to the sentient spirits of good and evil. It wasn't just energy but a collective consciousness that transcends time, so in my interpretation they had a lottery pull from all the neutral to good spirits each time they died. Whereas there's an evil equivalent to the avatar but since good is more powerful we never see a true mirror
@@ColonelGreen 'the worldbuilding is based on some broad strokes concepts that are very well-developed for its medium' not really there are huge holes in the story. But as it is a kid's story and doesn't try to tackle too nuanced topics, most people give it a pass. Because the very premise that if Aang kills the Fire Lord the war will end is contradicted within the story - during the 100 years war at least 2 Fire Lords have died and that changed exactly nothing. 'this extends to the very idea that every single Avatar in history has apparently been benevolent, which doesn't really seem all that likely given human psychology and effects of wielding that kind of power' they did. The Avatar is always the same person in their core, so they are always good. Or at least are not evil.
The reality that no one really wants to address is that the Earth Nation itself is a colonizer. All humans are. The world belonged to the spirits and the humans were relegated to the Dragon Turtles until they eventually warred with the spirits and then the Avatar closed the spirit portal and separated the worlds, essentially displacing the totality of the world’s spirit population. The Earth Kingdom, being the largest nation at the time of Avatar and Korra, is actually the largest colonizer in the history of the world. Korra sorta addresses this quite well in fact, as she opens the portals again and, ironically, ends up opening a spirit portal in exactly the city this supposedly bad comic takes place in (as it becomes Republic City down the line). Despite what this video claims, Avatar and Korra handle these topics with a great deal of nuance given their medium and target audience. Especially Korra, which also tackles the whole concept of a hero being able to fix complex issues with simple answers head on in S4. Spoilers, Korra learns that it isn’t that easy and that maybe she has to find a balanced and complex answer to a world with complex people and problems. That doesn’t fit the narrative of this video though, so… 🤷♂️
@@adapienkowska2605 Its medium is "children's cartoon", that's exactly what I said. That's not a contradiction. Two Fire Lords died and were succeeded by their heirs with the same mindset; that is not the same thing as Aang defeating the Fire Lord and thereby stopping the Fire Nation's war of conquest.
Many people are really rooting for the rebels but the inherent problem in revolutionary type media is that it is still made within the confines of the hegemonic structure, i.e. capitalism and neoliberalism Therefore, it has the hegemonic duty of letting people vicariously live out their rebellious fantasies instead of doing the dirty work of organizing or the dangerous task of actually rebelling. Look, I'm a rebel because I'm watching Andor, I don't actually have to go out and organise and take it to the streets. (no dis on Andor, it's fantastic). Rooting for rebels in real life though, not so much (as evidenced by Hamas' recent actions and the reactions to it by white liberals).
Just to be clear, and maybe I’m misinterpreting you, but are you saying you think Hamas is… good? And should be supported? Or… are you of the opinion that people DO like the idea of rebels against oppression, in the abstract - but the reality that they don’t think about is that sometimes (probably often tbh) genuine rebels end up committing horrible atrocities (that no (decent) person would like or support)?
Right. And I think all the revolutionary stuff that comes out conveniently never actually draws too close a parallel or lays out a rebellion that would actually affect the real world. It's always ~some chosen people fight Snoke or whatever~ and not ~did yall know fossil fuel execs have names and addresses and they fully intend to kill us all for profit if nobody stops them~ or anything too close to pointing out there's only one real party (the ruling class) and their platforms are as hollow as any other circus performance
I would urge you to look into stuff like this informed by the events in ww2 with for instance sudeten-germans or the forced relocation of poles to the west under the soviet union. It is interesting because in these cases we actually have concrete examples of the expulsion of settler enclaves where as in the americas there was no such thing.
I'm a little worried over how "settler colonialist" is a label applied by bloodline. If a mixed-race daughter of a colonizer and a non-colonizer is a colonizer, does that mean Trevor Noah was a colonizer in South Africa?
I think the answer is whether they benefit directly from the violence of that colonization. E.g. what side of the apartheid fence are they on? In Trevor's case, it didn't benefit him in a system of white people being privileged over non-white people. However in the example of the ATLA comic, the daughter did benefit as a Fire Nation citizen
@@SuperBreeybut in SA, apartheid had 3 groups not ‘white’ or ‘not white’ -that’s an American crazy divider system not a SA one. SA went with 3 categories. Trevor Noah grew up ‘colored’, the third category they created for all the mixed race people, whatever their parents. Coloreds were shunned by both ‘pure’ groups because of their liminal status and access to some privileges while being denied others. So I’m wondering at what point and with what eye would Trevor Noah be a ‘colonizer’ when his legal, financial and social status under the government in a nonamerican country is very specific ? A lighter Trevor Noah would still be ‘colored’.
Wow...😥.... Thanks for the explanation! I have a question, in which category were the Indian population of South Africa classified as? Cause they're dark skinned but not ethnically African, nor mixed race, nor white. I wonder what mental gymnastics the government applied 😅
I appreciate the challenge to not just critically interpreting media being enough, but to examine what our choices and actions are effectively doing... It's a tough statement, but important considering the stances on media we are trying to take.
Something so important in the books that you couldn't get in the movies was the internal lives of the main characters. In the original books, you can feel the motivations behind Katniss and Corio's actions. Katniss does most things to protect the people she loves, to fight for their lives. Corio does things because he believes that he is owed power and wealth. Even the way he looks at Lucy is a twist of those motivations. He justifies his attraction to her by thinking that the covey aren't district. They're separate in his mind.
I think Tom did well portraying his supremacist attitude and that some folks just missed it because like you’ve shared, just can’t stomach how similar some of these themes are for us. I think Suzanne Collins would enjoy this type of discourse honestly. I can see folks reacting and trying to pinpoint one moment that Snow turned bad and I knew then they missed it, 😅. Like it wasn’t one moment and reading the book, I don’t think Suzanne wrote it that way. I think folks just can’t or won’t digest the themes she puts in these books. She has stated that she hopes people look up the nature vs nurture debate after reading this book. I think in many ways, when I see people reacting or wanting more of the “games” to be in the movie or wanting a movie of “so and so’s” games, that I see how much of spectators we actually are and like you shared, we all want to think we’d be on the “good side” and don’t want to see how passively we wish to be entertained, which is what she wrote the books to address. It is our consumerism that hurting us from actually having discourse and sitting with these themes to recognize the shape we’re in. Anyways I could write all day but I enjoyed this synopsis because I find myself wanting to discuss these themes with folks and most can’t get past just basic “he’s hot” or “she broke his heart and that turned him bad” nonsense so I’m stuck wanting to discuss this stuff but not finding that space. 😅
i think its very interesting too the emphasis on his feelings over Lucy Gray amongst fans, because when I read the book my understanding was that while the perspective was through Snow, Lucy Gray was the protagonist. You arent supposed to root for snow you're supposed to root for Lucy Gray, because you see first hand what an awful person Snow is and while reading the only thing I kept thinking was 'girl run, run right now'. I keep seeing people blame Lucy for teasing Snow at the end of the movie when she makes the "no loose ends besides me" remark, and I think this just really goes to show how detached we are if we're honestly putting SNOW in this baby boy position of "Well if she didn't say that he wouldn't have tried shooting her" or "If she didn't break his heart he wouldn't be a dictator" or the misconception that Lucy Gray is responsible for Snow being the way he is. Like girl Snow made himself, he's been like this. I think when the grandma says to Tigris "She hasn't been a girl in a long time" when referring to Lucy Gray, it was a nod to this, Lucy gray is a 17 year old girl but shes at best treated as exotic, some kind of seductress by both he capitol and snow and at worst constantly dehumanized, compared to an animal (little song bird) repeatedly instead of a human being, sorry for the rant lol but all that to say Lucy Gray deserves the world and idc in my heart she escaped and lived her best life
@@midnightcity4691 yes! I agree, this dude was showing signs all throughout movie and book ( I’m working my way through part ii now) and so I think when people blame her, I’m like what?!? Who wouldn’t run?!? Besides the problematic things he said all throughout the movie, “you thought they’d be honest”, “no one will believe this was us” really too many to name, there were also his actual impulsive, violent actions, and honestly I’m so glad they showed her as the smart cunning character she was and not some love struck girl. She saw the signs and ran. I’d like to think she ran and led a great life, haunting Snow even during his “land on top era” that would be satisfying! That he was never truly free and in fear of her bringing it all down into his last breath. Like in the song she sang when Snow asked, “ What happened to [her], did she survive?” “It’s a mystery sweetheart, just like me” As far as protagonist, I don’t mind it being both Snow and Lucy Gray because I don’t believe people are just born evil. So part of what this writing can do is help us view people’s humanity even in a well-known disliked character. I saw him make small decisions that kept going across the line. I think that’s the other part I enjoy, that Suzanne doesn’t spell this out, but we get to determine when this shift occurred, so we have to return to how she starts the book, with the excerpts regarding nature vs nurture debate. Unfortunately I’m seeing too many people blame Lucy Gray as if to excuse every action beforehand that was motivated by self importance and self preservation but nonetheless, I think the point is to not have one moment that we can see, but rather see how a series of decisions leads to a person down a path that … well … we know the path he takes. Honestly I could write so much too because I love this writing! And now watching reactions after reading the book, I’m finding all types of gems about the other characters. I think Suzanne’s use of ballads and song lyrics in the book is brilliant! So many things to unpack and sit with!
Since we're on the topic of YA books and the new Percy Jackson series just came out, it would be interesting to see a video about the female characters in the Riordanverse. It would be cool to watch an hour and a half video dissecting characters like Annabeth, Piper, Hazel, Sadie, Samirah and others and see how Rick Riordan writes them and their evolution over the years.
Was going to leave a highly emotional Comment about living in the Empire but then the outro track came in and I started dancing around instead. Thank you for a great year princess, you are a bright spot in my reality. Happy New Year
I love how you started with that wild take of who should play Finnick, as if the whole point of the character isn’t that not everybody appears as they seem, and that actually being forced into a sex trafficking ring by Snow mainly because of your looks can really mess someone up.
It's not contradictory to support Indigenous rights and also to not want colonizers to be cleansed out of the place they were born or forced to "go back" to a place they've never been before and only have a historical geneological connection to (which gets even worse when you're not actually geneologically "from" one specific other country anyway). Framing these things as contradictory is what the right does to confuse and obfuscate the issue, make it "morally grey" like you said, in order to deny the fight for Indigenous rights. The right also frames colonialism as being "in the interests" of colonizers and their descendants, and pretend there is a unity between the average colonizer on the street and "their" government. The whole point of right-wing nationalism is to promote unity between you and "your" government. They are wrong about all of these points. Colonialism is in the interests of capitalism and big business, it is carried out for the ruling class, and involves the exploitation of colonisers, using them as tools in the theft of Indigenous resources for benefits that exists purely for the ruling class. Even if working class colonisers accrue benefits that is not the same as it being done "for" them, it's not done for them, it's done for the rich, and they are fooled into beleiving it is "for" them.
How can you say it's not done for them, when they were gifted homes on native land and still possess and pass down that wealth to this day. Please choke on your next meal, you're weak cuz
A question I’ve always wanted people in the land back debate to answer is “what makes land YOURS?” The answer that just about anyone would give you (to the point where I’d suspect an agenda behind any other answer) is “This is where I was born/this is where I grew up/this is where my culture is/this is my HOME”. And by that definition, every white person born in America today, every native person, and everyone of any other nationality who calls this country home has the same right to do so. That doesn’t mean we just leave the whole situation alone, I want to see native nations power restored to them, and I want EVERYONE who calls this country their home to decide how it will be run. No part of that involves kicking people out and expecting it to just work
@@Excelsior1937 Popular media also often oversimplifies the question of 'whose land is this?' by a lot. There, it is usually that one clearly defined group of people have lived in that one place since basically forever. On the other hand, in the real world, there are many cases where it is not clear which group of people lived there before the arrival of the empire, either because no sufficient records or archaeological evidence exists (especially, when we know there were a lot of different groups of people in the area, it is hard to tell which one of them was in control of any particular place), or because the group identities did not yet exist, back than, making it difficult to decide which modern day group the people back then would correspond to, now. Worse, it is often/usually the case that the people who lived there when the empire arrived were not the first people to inhabit that land, but already displaced an earlier group of people, so it is a good question how far you should go back to determine who the 'true' owners of that land are - just look at Syria, for example: it has been under the control of the Sumerians, Assyrians, Babylonians, Egyptians, Greeks, Persians, Romans, various caliphates, various crusader states, the Mamluks, the Timurid empire, the Ottoman empire, the French, and probably more empires I have missed.
I think the movie The Nightingale showcases the point you are trying to make. It set in the time of one of the many "Black Wars" in Australia. The lead characters are Irish and Aboriginal. The villain of the story is the empiral system that defines social status and human rights. Basically, if your a member of the British Empire your a person, if your Irish you are a person with no rights and are treating like property, and if Aboriginal you are animal or something lower than person and that can be killed without punishment. A colonizers can be a part of the system of control but in no way benefit from it. My thinking is that we should find solutions where every one can benefit. Any us vs them mentality will just lead to never ending conflict. That doesn't mean we erase other cultures or all try to have the same ideals. It just means that if you start drawing lines in the sand you should know that you are pushing people against each other
16:19 it's definitely more prevalent in the books since we're inside his head but he also majorly seperates the Covey from district 12 because of how they became dist 12 citizens. As soon as he finds out she has "no" district ties it's all good actually yeah she's ~different~ she's like ~me~. And while that doesn't change the fact he never really loved /her/ he also did everything in his arsenal to make sure he never had to think about the districts as humans. Especially when you compare his "love" for her versus his feelings for "Actual District Boy" Sejanis.
When I saw you posted this video I was immediately excited and after watching it, I was right to be. Some hard truths and things to ponder about. Am I a rebel, or am I a passive citizen of Empire? Oof
Off topic, but omg I never saw the Jesse Williams fan cast for Finnick and omg he would have been so good! Even tho I really like Sam Claflin, Finnick was described as having tan skin. Jesse has those gorgeous sea green eyes and looks more like how I pictured him
I missed that one too, but remember Naya Rivera being considered for Johanna, and unsurprisingly some fans campaigned hard for the white actress to get it instead. I was so disappointed.
Anyone else perpetually annoyed at the way finnick is treated in the Fandom in general? It's like the point isn't how good he looks half dressed. The point is he was a abused sexually objectified child who was sold by the very people who sent him to die.
It's such a weird movie, like, Snow just flips near the end of the movie and then the movie just expects us to get that's enough for him to go back and become the president???
I reread the hunger games recently for the first time since becoming an adult and a random moment that stuck out to me was in Mockingjay a capitol rebel writes one line on a piece of paper which is wrong then rips it out and throws it away while everyone from the districts is shocked. It sounds silly but that's the first time I really understood that I was capitol. I have the privilege of sitting and watching horrific things on the news and then turning it off, I could turn off the hunger games if it got too real for me. Still not entirely sure what to do with this information though.
Hey remember dragon prince? Remember when the whole conceit of the show was the humans being rounded up and marched off their land into a barren infertile wasteland that couldn't produce enough food for their population? And how humans were the bad guys for fighting back? Remember that time a dragon was blatantly trespassing into human territory threatening an attack, so humans fired a crossbow at it, so the dragon razed the city of innocent people to the ground? And how the narrative places the humans squarely in the wrong when it was the dragon who caused the destruction and was breaking the treaty? Dragon Prince is the show that made me fall out of love with avatar, even more than Korra. It revealed how clueless and callous the writers of the show was. because it goes out of its way repeatedly to show a group being dealt great injustices that parrellel actual real life atrocities while going out of its way to villainize the victims of said atrocities. I swear to God next season the elves are going to round humans into magic camps and funnel them one by one into magic gas chambers and the villain of the season is going to be some survivor of this magic final solution who didn't rebel politely enough.
Yeaaahhhhhhh I had to stop watching it even though I love dragons. Avatar is a great concept but personally I think anyone can write politics better than the vast majority of cis straight white men from middle class lol. They didn't even have people darker than me, I mean, the writing was on the wall lmao.
MAN i literally have no memory of this… then again i think my lack of understanding of the issue is partly because of the setting as well as the narrative. the humans’ enemy being dragons, which in recent media is often the victim of humanity’s cruelty (httyd for example) helps skewer our perception. dragons aren’t evil they’re animals, and we, humanity, must know better! (even though the dragons in dragon prince are fully intelligent) in addition we’re often conditioned to see humans as the majority in fantasy, or the normal ones. elves and dwarves and such are often the exotic side characters while we’re the “median”. meaning that in a setting with a human kingdom and elves as their enemies, this assumption happens even as elves are shown to have their own kingdoms. of course they’re the oppressed ones, they have to use a small team to infiltrate the caste! they can’t afford a big bad army like the evil humans can! point being this stuff really made it easy for me to ignore all you spoke of because in retrospect. yeah, the fuck was that?
As someone who is not on the Avatar hype train, I do think ATLA (the show) is way more competent than TDP and Korra and highlights the issues of one or two genius creators being behind its success. A bunch of people as well as luck and circumstance made ATLA come together, and it's not necessarily replicable. However I do think the series was shielded by its format and broadcast standards. It mostly manages to eek its way around bringing up the more complicated questions, where it's comics, Korra and TDP seemed keen to run into the bog without assessing exactly how they planned to move through it. Like if TDP has just been clear from the onset that it was going to be a Good vs Evil magic show, then I don't think there'd be half as much tonal inconsistencies as it ended up getting. Like don't have your hereditary monarch discuss unjust power structures if you're not going to follow up on it, no one asked. On the other hand in failing to justify unjust narratives, they do highlight the flaws of ones often carried out in the real world. So maybe there's a different kind of value to them.
@@nailinthefashiondidn't realize skin tone was such a key factor in a writer's ability to world build politics in a fantasy setting. I'll have to seek out the darkest African fantasy writers, who by your metrics would be inclined to be the greatest fantasy political world builders of our time.
This came at an opportune time. I was just developing a theory about why it's so prevalent that viewers of entertainment media want to empathize with the villains. The _immediate_ cause is, I think obviously, that the media themselves are making villains who are likable, relatable, empathetic, etc. But, beyond the obvious outer layer, what's going on? I think the last line of the video (essay portion) might be the answer: ...the best thing an oppressive force can do is teach you how to empathize with your oppressor. Or, as Malcom X put it: If you're not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed, and loving the people who are doing the oppressing. (He specifically referred to the news media, but the news media and the entertainment media are both propaganda tools controlled by our c*pitalist, col*nialist, imp*rialist ruling class. So, in this context, what's true of one is just as true of the other.)
Funny seeing Lucas and Cameron sit and talk about empires, colonialism, etc. 2 filmmakers who create progressive art but have fans based where the majority doesn't like progressive art.
This has been in my watch later for weeks bc I’ve been waiting for the right moment to sit down and watch; THISSSSSSS is the take we needed. This is everything I’ve been thinking put into the most eloquent words. Especially the stuff about breaking the chains and actually fighting against the empire.
6:05 But the only act of terrorism in the original Star Wars trilogy was the destruction of Alderaan by The Empire; The rebels never attack civilian targets.
Have you read Marge Piercy’s Woman on the Edge of Time? It’s not YA and could be described as both a dystopian and a utopian book. It’s not solely focused on the idea of just revolution itself but also presents two different versions of a possible future. It’s one of the few books I’ve read that discusses ‘what could be’, after the fact. It presents a really interesting version of society. It’s not perfect but there’s some great ideas in it. Would love to hear your take on it!
Twinkle transition to a sponsor segment after saying the words "we are living in the empire" just got me in some kind of chakra designed only for existential irony ... Does that make sense? Love the vid by the way!!
“They know it’s a lie, but not the lie you’re talking about. They know they have no power, and they know there’s nothing they can do about it. Not without risking their lives. Worse, without giving up what they have. They see people like you, living in filth, begging, delivering their stuff, being their property, and they know… if they ever step out of line, they’ll be like you. Their servants. And that, to them, is worse than death.”
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You made me feel stupid when you analyzed the subtext of that Avatar comic. Like, how did I not see that correlation! Your perspective is really refreshing, and thank you!
@@kaydgaming Is Princess_Weekes ONLY interested in YA genres? Has she reviewed shows about Police Procedurals/ Crime Fiction?
@@breadtunesshow up to things locally, see how you can help. Is there a native friendship center in your city? What do they need? Are there people fighting for migrants rights? What do they need? Are there people organizing for housing for all? How can you help that initiative? Who in your city is having the toughest time, and how can you help them?
Do you have access to disposable income? Do you have a vehicle that can transport people and things? Do you have special skills you can share or do special tasks with?
@@breadtunes the content around such discussions are growing by the day, so even if it seems oversimplified to "just look it up" it's not like there's an obstacle course
No one could come out of the theatre thinking Choreography Snow is in any way sympathetic just because he was sentenced to 20 years of being Eminem.
The Marshall Mathers sentence with no chance of parole 😭
The worse one so far for me has been Cornholio Snow
@@nailinthefashion I’m wheezing 😷
CHOREOGRAPHY
This is my first time engaging with the hunger games in ages and jesus chrst what even is that sentence
One of my favorite elements of the book is how Snow repeatedly has these big revelations about how evil the Capitol is (e.g. how they’ll gladly destroy anybody who opposes them, district or not; how they manufacture ‘war’ against the districts even after the war has ended, for no reason other than sadism and control; how district conditions are basically unlivable; etc), but he still knowingly helps them.
He knows that the system is evil, and even feels the repercussions of that on a personal level. But instead of fighting against it, he uses any means necessary to cement himself in a position of power and reinforce it.
Sure, he’s young and traumatized, but at the core of it, he’s still undeniably a bad person. He’s power hungry, openly manipulative, cruel. He views people from the districts as subhuman (even whilst living amongst them). Even his “love” for Lucy Gray is a blatant desire to own and control her.
While I think the themes are laid out pretty clearly in the movie, in the novel, Suzanne Collins takes every possible opportunity to remind the reader that Coriolanus’ circumstances don’t excuse what a horrible person he is.
Such a good point on the "love" displayed in the movie being about colonial dominance
He has ambitions and will do whatever it takes, no matter what the personal cost. Because that's what is most important.
Hell, a character who starts out licking The Man's boots for survival and becoming a True Believer and loyal follower can be compelling, sympathetic, and thus even more monstrous than any privileged group.
Also, he understands that he would be branded a rebel for simply knowing a rebel or being at the wrong place at the wrong time, but he still idolises the Capitol. Now I think about it more, he probably thinks the way of thinking the peacekeepers have is unfair to HIM, but not to the district people.
Yes! This! I wondered about how consensual a love story can be when one person (Snow) is free and the other (Lucy Gray) is a captive, literally in a cage for most of the “romance” Gives me Thomas Jefferson and Sally vibes. Can’t call it a love story with that type of power dynamic. Even after being a Victor, she was not really free.
I like the interpretation of Katniss and Lucy Gray both representing beauty in a society that doesn't have a lot of it; both in personality via their integrity, kindness and honesty, and also via their artistic skills (singing). Meanwhile, Peeta is inspired by Katniss and adores her because of what she means for him. But Snow wants to possess and control that kind of beauty, because he is aware of the danger that art and honesty can bring to an oppressive regime.
The movie adaptation of Ballad downplays the dehumanization of the District people. Aside from being kept in a zoo, the Tributes who fled had their bodies dragged through the streets and one girl died cuz they gave her a veterinarian instead of a human doctor. 2 people died from asthma & tuberculosis & a simple doctor's checkup might've saved them
Yeah the procession of the bodies of the tributes that fled was disturbing asf and it was weird that the movies cut it
Yeah, I agree. I mean, they kept the part about Marcus being hung and mercy killed, which did have a very emotional weight to it. But the directors not including more of the inhumane treatment the tributes lived was definitely a choice...I remember when I read the part about the procession of the tributes and dead bodies that tried to flee and wanted to throw up with how horribly they treated the districts. It also showed the stark contrast of how things were for Katniss and Peeta. A luxurious train with all the food and drinks they want. A lavish hotel. It's definitely shocking!
Yea
As someone who still adores the hunger games i disagree with your take on coin. And katniss. Katniss isnt doing a centrist take. Katniss, at her core, is a broken character. She isnt a Rebel. She spent most of the books being a pawn being placed on the chess board, even when she thought she was doing things herself. Her one motivation was her little sister. By the end of the series, Coin is heavily implied to have sent katniss's little sister to her death, she wants to keep the games around, is one thing katniss and Peter want to get rid off. District 13 has been portrayed as a highly militaristic district with a strict hierarchy. In that reality, Coin is on of just instating a new elite and exacting revenge, rather than build something new. Removing her shakes that up and opens the opportunity for someone new. but katniss, in the end, doesnt think about that. She is killing the person she thinks killed her sister
agreed. even when she join the rebel in the later book its not cause she believe in the revolution. In fact reading from the text you can tell she is just being use by the revolution to be a symbol without any real power. One of the reason at the end she is lifeless. A husk torn from a war she didn't want to be part of for a cause she was not truly embrace.
As for the trope of the good rebel. Recall that united state came from a rebellion so people growing up with those story tend favor rebel while ignoring that the confederate where also rebels in the eye of the federal government. Where one rebellion succeeded the other fail. As for the aftermath of a successful rebellion one can consider united state as one that manage it right but compare to france who had several rebellion after they depose the king leading to the rise of napoleon. Fact in most case after one rebellion topple the ruling elite another may form right afterward as the new class is develop.
another example is USSR who rebellion ended with a demoncrated only to be topple by the later communist leading the brutal vicious regine of Stalin
I agree with you. Coin wasn’t going to reconstruct anything and she was very explicit about that. Katniss was right to kill her. Reconstruction post-empire was never going to happen under Coin.
Exactly Katniss killed Coin because of Prim but also in the context of the plot... Like the way district 13 punished the capital people for stealing bread when they didn't understand why everything was rationed was horrendous. Coin was basically another authoritarian and her death enabled an election process and some amount of democracy. Where Coin kept herself out of it, the leader from 8 comes in and has actually seen the fighting and the casualties. It's real to her. That's why narratively it's needed and serves the plot to give her the hope to trust Panem and have children eventually.
Exactly
i agree! but i think the point is that we should be considering what biases collins has that subconsciously influenced her creation of coin as a character.
I guess controversial opinion but I think Katniss shooting Coin is the only good way to end that story. Coin is pretty clearly gearing up to be the next Snow and I think what we're supposed to take away is that it doesn't matter which side is "good" if both ultimately have the same goals dressed up in different wrapping. I'm not sure we're on the same page about this one but Coin as Hillary Clinton *is* how I think of her: someone whose idea of change is not to interrupt the overall system any more than is necessary to put herself and her people at the top of that system with any positive changes for those in need being either incidental or only something to pretend you care about when you need those people to support your campaign/rebellion.
My read from both the books and the movies is that we as audience are meant to question what ideas are really at odds here. Coin represents a liberal continuation of the status quo rather than a truly socialist re-imagining of what the state would look like. The idea to re-instate the games is a good signal that she wants to use the Capitol's own oppressive tools; this combined with the tactics used at the end of the war and Coin's mention that an election will be held at an indeterminate point in the future very much suggests that life under Coin may not be substantially different from life under Snow. This is in contrast to what the Rebellion promised to people *like* Katniss; the people struggling the most under the Capitol's rule are courted with the idea that the new system will be wholly different from the old specifically in regards to representation at the decision making level. Katniss shooting Coin is personal - this is the woman who used Katniss, essentially tried to discard her once she was no longer pliant, and may even have intentionally killed Prim - but it's also a literary symbol that average, struggling people will not be served by a mere change in leadership. The entire system needs to be toppled and that is ultimately what Katniss' actions achieve.
Side note on not shooting Snow: I want to say there was also a bit of "his death will be more painful if he dies from his illness" in the books. Execution can be a mercy and Katniss was not giving him that after everything he did. Plus she only had time for a single shot. She chose the active threat over the threat that would take care of itself.
Did she only have time for one shot? I thought that she might have shot snow next but changed her mind when the people rushed forward to attack him themselves.
@@Sheena000she was only given one arrow as it was a symbolic execution and it was like “the final arrow to end the war” and she had to choose which tyrant to kill. Killing Coin was the only way to get them both dead bc Snow was accessible to mob and kill him
I don't think the critique was aimed at Katniss' decision to kill coin in universe. The critique was about how all revolution stories seem to have the leader of the rebellion be a secret fascist and lie their way through the rebellion just to put themselves on top of the system instead of destroy it.
I find your choice to use Hillary Clinton as an analogous example kind of weird tbh.
Rather than literally any/every male politician and male president ever (with some exceptions like Bernie Sanders of course). Nor even a female politician actually blatantly like that-like Margaret Thatcher or any current female politicians in the Conservative Party.
I think I find it odd because imo she’s actually more of an example of…the dominant hierarchical social power system being stacked against her and all those like her?
Because being a woman in politics requires dancing SUCH a fine line already due to misogyny + male supremacy + patriarchy…I almost don’t see how it’s realistic to expect a female politician to be blatantly anti-status quo but also reach the highest positions of power possible.
Like she’d be *required* to play that game-and play it better and more convincingly than any man around her in order to compete (and/or even be “allowed” to compete).
Because any female politician (including Hillary Clinton) is literally already anti-status quo just by being a woman in politics + wielding power.
And *especially* Hillary Clinton, in fact, as she was the Democratic presidential candidate. Anything more anti-status quo than what she already represented and imo it’s unlikely she could have reached the candidacy for the highest position to enact any real societal change (so long as society still remains so pervasively sexist and patriarchal).
I mean…just look at her case: she had been the First Lady, a US senator, AND Secretary of State. She was literally the most *over* qualified presidential candidate to ever run, and yet her qualifications were *still* questioned constantly by so many freaking people, regardless of political affiliation.
Like she was *still* literally criticized as under qualified and not fit to be “leader of the free world” via extremely coded sexism and misogyny. Like being a “nagging hag” or a “bitter shrew.” Not to mention, the whole unhinged “she’s a criminal, lock her up” smear campaign.
When she was literally as status quo as possible, and had done absolutely nothing that any male politician and male president hadn’t done before.
And…then still lost to the most clownish embodiment of “patriarchal toxic masculinity” I’d ever seen-an idiotic, narcissistic, predatory conman who was so blatantly incompetent and has had so many endeavors and businesses go bankrupt that it’s not even funny.
I guess I just find your use of her as an example odd, since I find her case so insanely complicated and set up against her (and incredibly representative of the experiences and obstacles of an entire marginalized group of people…consisting of half the human population).
Because she literally could not have been more meticulous about being “perfect” and “qualified” to be president, at least as US presidents tend to go (ie. they’ve all + always have been absolutely about the status quo).
Though personally I’m still bitter about the sidelining of Bernie, lol
@@badkafka908 You are so correct!!!!
"Are you really with the rebels or are you passively part of the empire?"
Yep... a question we all have to ask ourselves
I am an US citizen. I am more than passively part of the empire. Every day I directly benefit from how my country has actively influenced the world. I know that if I buy a cell phone or an electric car I benefit from an African child working in mine to get Cobalt, a South American polluting their water to for Lithium, and Chinese person working inhumane conditions to build the battery and parts. The thing I am using to type this very response undoubtedly was cheaper because another person was exploited to make it. I benefit from the system. I am minority in this country but I still benefit. The question really should be would any of us be willing to give up our privilege (that includes the creature comforts of your society) to uplift someone who less fortunate. I think most most of us would chose our own stability and prosperity over social and economic equality throughout the world. You have to remember what your country considers poverty is probably nothing compared to poverty in a poor country. Would let the system die even if its death wouldn't benefit you? Would you give what meager piece you acquired just so someone else could have more? Eat the rich sounds good until you realize that there is someone who makes $0.60 a day and you are the meal they are looking at.
@@benjaminfletcher6632 No one who says "eat the rich" is talking about the American working class. Yes, undoing imperialism means reordering society to eliminate exploitation, but that doesn't mean lining up everyone from the global north in front of a firing squad. Dismantling capitalism is not a call for genocide, in fact it's the complete opposite.
@uuneya huh, I think you missed my point. The technology and society we have today is based on exploitation. Whatever you are typing this response on is made from ill gotten gains. You are the villain of this story, not its hero. Ending exploitation would also mean ending global production as we know it today. Since I can not live without the technology and privileges created by exploitation, I accept and support the system. My point was that I believe the choice becomes incredibly simple when you put it in those terms.
A question, that was solved for me during the backlash surrounding the Star Wars' prequel movies: the "mainstream" fans ARE unironically the Empire and they are proud of it. Then Gamergate happened and it solidified it all.
@@benjaminfletcher6632 I understood your point perfectly, I simply disagree. I am not the villain of this story because I did not choose this economic system, nor do I have any control over how it functions. Believe me, I have tried to consume ethically, but it's literally impossible. Because this system was not designed for me, it was designed for the capitalists. Trying to pass this off as being "for me" or caused by me is just like when the oil companies tried to guilt everyone into fussing over their "carbon footprint," when none of us among the lower classes get to choose how goods and services.
For those of us in the so-called "first world," we have a moral obligation to fight against this system even though we are currently stuck living in it. To capitulate and say you accept and support it is what makes you a villain.
I'm Mexican; and I remember that when I read the promise I thought "oh, they wanted to do something like Mexico"
Mexico's history, like all the other countries in the world is a complicated one. After the colonization there was a lot of mixing, specially between poor white people that came here from Spain trying to find a better life in New Spain, and indigenous people (Plus African slaves (yes there were African slaves in Mexico too, it's just that they were freed a lot earlier, that's why it wasn't such a big deal here))
And the thing is that when the government tried to make a national identity, they couldn't use the Spaniard identity for obvious reasons, but they also couldn't use the indigenous identity because the Spaniards already had injected the racist ideology. So they decided to reject the Hispanic identity and reject the indigenous identity to create a new identity. The Mexican identity.
Nowadays a lot of Mexicans, like myself, are some degree of mixed. And the thing is we don't have any real past, because at most we can just said we were the result of a very violent act that replaced the original population, but we are also the descendants of the original population?
Now we are racist to other descendants of the original population because they managed to keep some of their culture despite everything?
It's a messy business.
So when I hear gringos talk about land back, I'm always in conflict because, what, I'm a colonizer too? But my skin is brown and my facial features are more similar to indigenous people than white people.
But I also can't say I'm indigenous, that culture was uprooted and forgotten by my family generations ago. Plus my mom's side of the family looks very white.
I don't know. I guess I can only say that I'm Mexican, whatever that means.
But hey, the good news is that my European ancestors at least gave me lactose tolerance.
i'm happy to hear you say that, as a dominican. i mention latin america as a settler colonial project on par with the US but many hispanic people find offense, particularly mestizos. but i'm of black (primarily), white, and taino descent, and i understand the conflict you're describing completely.
Too much nuance, my guy. You got to pick a side and then other side becomes all that is wrong with the world. Come and bask in the beauty of black and white morality.
Yes, I am Brazilian. We have some of the same issues with colonization, national identity and racism
The process of mestizaje in Mexico is complicated but mostly tragic. On discussions about the dismantling of Isra3l and how they should go back to their countries there's always someone saying I'm not native enough to say that and that I should also go back to Spain. I am a light skinned Mexican which really means little, I know 3 of my great grandmothers were Mexican, I only knew one of them personally and I wasn't interested in my roots while she was alive, all we know is her family was from Texcoco which could mean something or not. I don't know if I am native enough, I don't know what does that mean at this point. If I were to take a test what percentage of native blood would be enough to make me fit to fight for native rights anyway? I know what's meant for our country to be "independent" while still being exploited by colonial powers (still including Spain), while still exploiting native people and their land, while still being fighting between the exaltation of original native cultures and racism towards their direct descendants, between the "you should be thankful Spaniards conquered you" and the complete rejection of their impositions. Or maybe because we know how it happened, we know the process, we know what's coming that we stand with the oppressed, that we want to fight colonialism, that we want a Free Palestine.
“my European ancestors at least gave me lactose tolerance” I’m Filipino and I felt this, especially since I love boba tea.
8:20 Then again, if you disband the Fire Nation monarchy, Zuko (one of Team Avatar’s only Fire Nation allies) loses all of his power & thus his ability to help end the war. Truth be told, Zuko becoming the Fire Lord is one of the ways that the tv show was able to believably get across that the war ended with the good guys winning. If Zuko’s not in charge, most of the power would probably go to the generals/heads of the Fire Nation economy (who might want to continue the war). Now in Korra’s time, it would be a great develop for the Fire Nation to dissolve their monarchy or at least become a constitutional monarchy.
It's more or less that world is so full of "power" conflict is just gonna snowball now. Unironically Korra made things worse, yet that might be by design, if they play into better. Yet from some of the comics... No so much.
I'm pretty sure we didn't see the Fire Nation even once in Legend of Korra
Agreed. Rarely does trying to immediately transition a government from a dictatorship to a democracy goes well. Transitional periods (such as a constitutional monarchy) are very necessary.
Yeah very true. When people see decolonization and overthrowing an oppressive government, they think its all or nothing and if you dont uproot everythiingggg you're a centrist. In reality, you often create a power gap that's filled by just as bad or worse people. This isn't to say the use of violence isn't vital in overthrowing oppression, but that violence is ultimately a tool to DISMANTLE, not build new better worlds. There's things like Lula's government creating a Ministry for indigenous folks is an example of decolonization, as well as many other examples I can't list off the top of my head. Avatar was radical in some ways but very not radical in others.
@@luciaeliade2224 I would argue that what is more important is the transition of mentality. If people in general don't want democracy or don't care enough, it will transform into some form of authoritarianism at a moment's notice. Some of the time (a lot of the time) it's just not the right moment to install democratic institutions.
Fullheartedly disagree with the statement of Katniss shooting Coin to be a read of “but the rebels are just as bad as the Capital!”
I used to think Katniss shooting Coin was centrist but as I thought about it more, I realised “yeah, Coin was the threat there. She wasn’t going to change anything, she was just reinstituting a power to further harm people (ie. remaking the games but for the Capital.)”
And I think that’s very important to consider. (Btw I’m saying this from an Indigenous perspective.)
I mean, it’s not even only that Lucy Gray is hot. It’s that (at least in the book, it was so so in the movie) he believes she’s SUPERIOR to other ppl from the District. Her Covey identity means she’s not from the districts, they were neutral, therefore she is more like the Capitol, therefore she is more deserving of his attention. Classicism is a key factor in his attraction to Lucy Gray (hard to portray in a movie bc you don’t see his thoughts). And even then, by spending more time with her, he eventually realizes that she doesn’t see the world the same way that he does. And that makes her inferior again in his eyes. And is part of the reason he was willing to kill her and destroy her family’s living and identity (banning music in District 12). There’s also a certain irony of Francis Lawrence making 4 hunger games movies (he didn’t do the first one) and also being a Zionist.
Well she saves him and he has to admit he can't act all high and mighty like a kind benefactor when she gave him his life and he's giving her cookies. By circumstance he's forced into realizing her personhood. Then he does whatever mental gymnastics he can to support his world view and the idea that a district person is just as much a person as he is.
Me: How can people not see that Snow is super white supremacist bootlicker coded? It's so obvious this character is a bad guy that we're not meant to empathize with, rather he's meant to be a reflection on how racist/totalitarian systems radicalize some people and dehumanize other people. This isn't that complicated, I'm sure media literacy will prevail.
Also me: *sees thirst trap videos about the character and comment sections filled with people defending his actions claiming he did nothing wrong/vaguely incel commentary about how women are bad and make men into monsters by breaking their hearts*
...oh... well, that's disappointing.
people can be very dense about certain topics. I had to explain someone that just because white supremacy isn't literally mentioned, doesn't mean the Capitol isn't.
I mean the "he did nothing wrong" is often a tongue-in-cheek, enjoying a bad guy character, fandom thing!
@@beckmannm Or maybe because Snow is super handsome and the pretty privilege can easily absolve any of his crimes
Snow in Mockingjay Pt. 2: 'Nothing says perfection like white.'
will say it was incredibly depressing to go into the tumblr tag looking for gifsets to reblog after watching the movie and instead being met with post after post of coriolanus x reader fics lol
How you gonna have an over 1 billion dollar franchise based off novels and films, and yet, despite the general audience members loving it, they misinterpret nearly ALL of the political analysis within your work? I'm truly befuddled 😅
Perhaps it is age they initially consumed the work, detachment, and marketing. If it was a piece seen as high educational value than people might seriously think of the themes and real life consequences.
@@MADEbySOUL You are giving people way too much credit. People see what they wanna see. They do not want to consider the idea that a piece of media or fiction is saying something about them.
@@MADEbySOULthey’ve been misinterpreting it since 2009.
People have lost touch with how to think about things since about September 1, 2001.
I say that as a 16 year old in that year.
I didn’t understand the specifics and nuances, but I understood more then, than what 25 year olds understand today.
Hot boy
It's just like Fight Club
I used to think the killing of Coin was a centrist thing, but definitely now think it's about the importance of Reconstruction after revolution, and not letting opportunitists use revolutionary language to steal power
Yup
I did a thesis on the hunger games and dystopia in YA broadly, I love the bread and circus aspect of Ballad so much, and the young Snow having genuine attachments and choosing to discard them, to be controlling, to watch and trim out what he finds weak: it's human and it's chilling. The capitol framing the rebels, how snow and everyone capitol sees them, I found that fascinating but also I might be more invested in the social theory of power in the hunger games than most
"if you do not nail reconstruction, you're kind of back to square one"
At this point, it's weirdly refreshing when people bring up ATLA _as a negative_ example.
True
Indigenous people are still fighting for what's left of their land and culture. They don't control the land they live on: the government pays to lease the land---and they barely get any of that money. All most Native Americans want is to control their own resources and make deals that will be honored. We're not being asked to give up our subdivisions.
Anyone who thinks colonialism is 'over' is...too uncomfortable to really think about it too much and hope for a buzzword or two to terminate those thoughts.
Having been around a Mr. Snow, I'd say guys like him are very common and do have those very short fuses to then act on violence so quick!
This! I’ve seen many a Mr. Snow.
So then you must agree that there gonna land grab Maui
The distortion of the legacies of MLK and Nelson Mandela should tell you everything you need to know about how most see the rebels.
Please can you elaborate - I am not sure what you mean by the distortion of the legacies of MLK and Mandela? Thank you. /genuineq
@nicolemusic2242 it's often the tempering of their actions and quoting them out of context; one would swear that MLK died giving the 'I have a dream' speech because people never quote his more progressive statements from after that. Nelson Mandela is often viewed as this docile and peaceful protester but he was actually a proponent of violent struggle. People who sanitise these men's actions to fit into neo-liberal ideals of today, would probably view them and any rebel faction of similar values as terrorists.
@@thatmessy132We need more people quoting King’s “Letters from Birmingham Jail,” especially what he says about the so-called moderates.
@animeotaku307 exactly what I'm saying!
@@thatmessy132 Yes, I think perhaps because Americans need an unambiguously good man to paint as a hero, MLK has become that hero for the Civil RIghts Movement. Whereas, Malcolm X has been portrayed as the radical (and sometimes violent) leader who doesn't fit in so well with clean-cut the historical narrative Thus, MLK's real role in history has been flattenened.
I feel like the point about Iroh is kind of unfair and unfortunately hints at once one of the more worrying things coming out of left discourse
That being the idea that people can't change
Yeah he tried to invade Ba Sing Se but that was at least over a decade ago
He then saved Ba Sing Se and proved that he had become a good person.
Without his guidance the war would have been lost.
Zuko would have never turned against his father and that city would have been destroyed.
I feel this is incredibly relevant and honestly quite disappointing to hear
Because when you write people off because of who they were rather than who they are
You end up leaving a lot of potential allies out of your cause
The best part of this video were the many different ways Princess Weekes pronounced "Coriolanus"
I think your point on how passivity is just as violent as those who actively engage in oppression is on point. Even when you look through history, especially from the last century, it's obvious how complacency has fed into both supporting and enabling brutal systems even if people don't necessarily mean to.
Isn’t everyone complicit in something tho? I don’t think it’s humanly possible to try to advocate for literally every single cause, all at once
That is true, I was more talking about in cases across history when blatant cruelty and injustice was being carried out and people chose to be complacent. Such as in cases like "First they came", even if that poem has been misinterpreted by people in recent history.
I don't think it's possible to advocate everything because our brains didn't evolve to consider and manage that much information at once. But still trying to be aware and do something about the causes you do know about is far better than choosing to do nothing at all.
Can you blame them? You're either going to some sort of Prison Camp or the "Killing Fields" if you speak out. That's if you just don't have your door kicked in middle of the night or explosives thrown at your home. Sometimes the oppression ramps up too quick and people get stuck, surrounded by murderious idiots
@@Sarixis its depressing honestly. Knowing you cannot give up comfort for this, that deep down with all your ideals, you're nothing but a coward.
It's constantly shocking how much terror people will tolerate as long as it won't really affect them.
I feel that's how populists are so successful, their supporters are fine to sacrifice any other group to get rid of that one they hate specifically.
I think the thing we forget about rebellions and revolutions as that most people who participate will suffer, torture, die and be forgotten. And the chances of said revolution working may not end up true. Its not a great sell when being passive gives you general "safety" I am not endorsing being passive I just think why its really hard for people to break out passitivity.
And very dangerous to break out of ... usually ends with imprisonment, torture and/or death unless you somehow have gotten to a point where the executors of state violence have become sympathetic to you (or aren't prepared to have a full-scale massacre on their hands)
Yeah, it isn't "fun" you HAVE to become a monster for a rebillion to work, there's no "softness" there only violence or subversion. Either way evil has to be brought forth because if one is forcing change people that don't want things to change have a right to fight. That's why this type of content is "Young Adult" it feeds on that immature drive to rebel when in hindsight one might have done some bad things and hurt people.
There’s also the fact that most people just straight up don’t know how to break out of being passive. If you don’t know much to start with it’s hard to find places to learn more so that you can create change. As you learn you’re also faced with the “safety” problem.
@@ExeErdnarebellion is not immature. There's a reason rebellion is often marked as a turning point for children transitioning to adulthood.
@@Alex_Barbosa Yes it is due to hindsight you realize the "rebellion" caused more problems than solved. You realize the parents were kinda right. They methods were most likely shit yet what they were trying to convey was right. Yet this isn't all parents of course. Yet when it comes to typical rebellion kids do, yeah it's immature.
Re: 12:18 -- The important part of that quote was what you left out: the model of settler colonialism used. The settler colonialism that creates a large indigenous displacement is the English/British model of settler colonialism (that we see in the USA, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand), but it is not the ONLY model of settler colonialism. The ATLA model of settler colonialism is the Spanish model of settler colonialism where territory and population are annexed and the settlers become a new power and authority coopting traditional power structures and without a significant exodus of population. Accordingly, there is no need to "bring back the exiles" since they are (1) few in number and (2) most of the indigenous population is already there. What needs to happen is a political reorganization so that the marginalized indigenous population has political agency and can eventually decide their fate in tandem with the settler colonials and their descendants. (In many ways, the story of Yu Dao could be cast as the story of Belfast in our world because British settler colonialism in the north of Ireland was much closer to the Spanish style of settler colonialism, the British had disproportionate power and the reorganization of Northern Ireland as a constituent devolved state within the United Kingdom served to give the indigenous Irish the political agency to decide their fate in tandem with the British settler colonials and their descendants.)
To the extent that we see refugees in ATLA (and we see plenty of them), they are either fleeing in fear of what Fire Nation control could bring or they are fleeing areas that are subject to battle between the Fire Nation and the Earth Kingdom, which is the outgrowth of war more generally and nothing to do with settler colonialism as a distinct phenomenon. Most cities that the Fire Nation has control of in the Earth Kingdom have Earth-Kingdom-ethnic majorities, which is NOT a hallmark of English/British settler colonialism where most towns and cities (even in their earliest periods when there was more intermixing) have over 90% settler populations. Conversely, places with Spanish settler colonialism have large scale ethnic mixing, which is why "Mestizos" or persons of mixed ancestry are so common in Latin-America, but there is no similar word in English.
Haven't seen that particular Lucas interview before, but he has always been clear that the rebels were based on the Vietcong. He considered Star Wars to be a follow up to American Graffiti. He passed on Apocalypse Now to make Star Wars and considered them basically to be saying the same thing in different ways.
You’re spot on. This why more people should read the prequel.
Suzanne Collins, the icon the legend, made DAMN SURE we knew Corona Snow never had pure intentions with Lucy Gray / The Games,
As a society, let’s de-normalize calling a white supremacist our “white boy of the month😩“
I'm so tired and jaded!!!
Fr even as a joke, snow is hot because suzzane wanted to show how he gets away with things
I agree with everything you say except for the idea that executing Coin is a rejection of the rebellion or adopting a centrist position. Katniss assassinates Coin because Snow has already been defeated and his reputation destroyed, but Coin has the potential to be another dictator. By proposing another Hunger Games with district children and having Katniss ceremonially execute her defeated enemy, Coin signals that justice doesn’t matter to her. Spectacle does. You can certainly make parallels to certain liberal politicians, but Katniss isn’t saying “both sides bad.”
I think what’s brilliant about the Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes is that by putting the reader in the mind of a young Snow she illustrates the reality that most people will fight and kill to grow their own power within a violent system rather than risk their lives to bring it down. It confronts the audience who identify with Katniss but don’t recognize the evil of the systems around them with their own complicity in violence. How well the author of the movies, a f*cking Zionist, understood that, is less certain.
EDIT: grammar
Yes, Coin's character is not meant to suggest that overthrowing the Capitol is bad. She shows that rebel leaders can also become dictators and/or become as ruthless as the people they're fighting, which any remotely honest look at history will show is true. In killing Coin, Katniss (hopefully) rescues the rebellion from this possibility.
I too must admit that I'm very puzzled by the comparison between Coin and Hillary Clinton. But what Princess is saying does make some sense, because Alma Coin can be read as a sort of Oliver Cromwell or Napoleon Bonaparte figure, someone who, by all accounts started out fighting for the ideals of the rebel movement they lead against the oppressors, but by the end got corrupted by power and became "just as bad" (although not really) as the tyrant they deposed. The reason why I'd disagree with her still is because I think even that interpretation I would say is inaccurate and gives Collins too much credit. Because, to me, Alma Coin seems to be most in line with a figure like King Henry VII, a wannabe pretender that won the crown of an absolute monarchy through open warfare and just became the new monarch in an identical system, albeit a slightly more benevolent one. The only difference is that Coin is also a lying demagogue, who also used the ideals of a rebellion, ideals that she most certainly didn't rellay believe in, to achieve her purpose, basically making it seem to everyone that she herself is a revolutionary and not just another power-hungry aristocrat climbing to the top of the unjust hierachy. I just don't know if this was intentional (case in which, kudos to the author) or if Suzanne Collins actually wanted Coin to be a sort of Cromwell/Napooleon figure and just screwed the pooch with the writing...which would be...pretty horrendous, because it implies that she used that "both sides bad" mentality that irks me (and Princess too, it seems) and also isn't very good at character writing, basically making it seem like this was her plan all along and it just took Katniss a while to figure it out (cause she's dense like that).
P.S. In case I didn't make myself clear already, although they can be called tyrants, Napoleon and Cromwell were nowhere near as bad as Louis XVI and Charles I, respectively, and definitely didn't reach the level of absolute psychopathy seen in Coin.
I always felt it was an acknowledgement that real rebellions are a loose coalition of factions that at worst have nothing in common except their opposition to the authoritarian regime, and might even hate each other almost as much as their oppressors. (Andor touches on this when Luthen goes to talk to Saw Gerrera,) But once the regime is gone, they turn their knives on each other. I thought it was a pretty mature pop-culture representation of revolution beyond the Star Wars-esque fantasy we usually get, especially in something targeted at that age group.
@@madsgrams2069 The Irish might disagree regarding Cromwell.
As far as who Coin represents, I think trying to apply a purely domestic political allegory to her doesn't work. She is the leader (elected, possibly? We don't really get a sense of how District 13's political system works) of what is effectively a sovereign state that has existed in stalemate with the Capitol for the preceding 75 years. The threat that the Capitol poses to her is very real, I don't see any reason to think she was underhanded or lying about finding it a threat, and she's probably sincere in wanting to help the other districts overthrow the Capitol.
But she's also vengeful in a way that mirrors the Capitol's own crimes (her planned retaliation Hunger Games), willing to order the commission of war crimes in furtherance of the rebellion, and seemingly using the platform of having led the rebellion to victory to amass more power for herself. That makes her both a war criminal and actively dangerous. It doesn't implicate her cause itself, which is also the cause of all the other main characters in the series.
@@ColonelGreenI always really wanted a sequel series. I'd like to see who comes into power, the how and why. I thought Coin's motivation for another Games was so good. She lost it all so why would she have empathy? It makes me wonder of the warning stuck and future leaders didn't ever question it again
In manga Dorohedoro, it is touched upon how to resolve long-standing conflict.
Humans in underground colonies were kidnapped by magicians for magical experiments like Guinea pigs.
In the end,some magicians realise they were wrong and try make amends by giving potions to treat magic victims (reparations) and decide to leave humans alone to recover (land back) rather than forcing their way in because they're 'good' now.
That's the issue with how it works IRL too many people want to "help" ignoring the fact people want to be left alone.
This just makes me even more sad that The Voice Referendum in Australia was defeated. We were given the option to take a step towards resolving some of these colonial tensions by giving Indigenous Australians more of a say in issues affecting them, but the majority of the country voted "No" after an intense campaign playing into exactly these sorts of narratives.
How do we force people to sit with the discomfort of our colonial history for long enough to actually begin the process of reconciliation? And how do we shut down harmful counter-narrative that "reconciliation" means "the government's gonna take your home" for long enough for a more nuanced conversation to take place?
It's becausse Australia was a raw deal for BOTH sides. Natives didn't know wtf was going on and the people left there were supposed to die. It makes sense they don't vibe with it due to it's UK's fault. If they didn't use a whole nation as prison colony. They nation might have been conquered by either the japanese, chinese, or spanish
From what I've read here in the U.S., indigenous people simply want the treaties honored and to have control of their land and communities. No more exploitation, no more withheld/stolen treaty payments, or any other BS.
If that's true elsewhere, hammer on that message. They want to control their own fates and to be treated as equals under the law, not as incompetents or dependents upon the Great White Whoever.
Your point about 'The Promise' is why I couldn’t finish another series from the Avatar creative team, The dragon Prince', Which starts the series by telling us out right that hundreds of thousands people had to under go a massive forced migration off their home lands as punishment for some people trying to find a way to be on more equal footing with the ruling class and it never affects anything in the series.
Bryke didn’t have anything to do with the dragon prince. I think you’re thinking of Aaron Gabriel Ehasz .
@@animasuperfreakgirl thanks, I knew someone who worked on Avatar worked on that show, I’ll edit my comment
To be fair, future seasons make it more clear that the humans really were oppressed and viewed as lesser than by the dragon ruling class. Haven’t caught up with the series, but I don’t think the idea is unacknowledged. Seemingly most of the conflict in the series originates from evil actions by the dragons, from vague spoilers I’ve seen.
Girl! I thought many of the things leaving this movie. The saddest thing was watching Lucy Gray realize that this man was dangerous and she was caught in a trap. Slowly, she began to see what the audience should have already seen by his obsession with her winning the game. Not necessarily to save her, but to further himself. He believed in the games. She was just a piece on the board. It was very disturbing. I actually liked the film very much.
What I will ALWAYS give Hunger Games credit for is that it shows that revolutions aren't quick struggles where only the heroes get hurt. Revolutions are messy, bloody, violent, and desparate wars that, by definition, are waged to destroy one power structure so it can be replaced with a new one. In real-life revolutions, people starve, innocents die, and the groups who are fighting institutionalized oppression may resort to unjust and unnecessary violence. The Hunger Games may only show very small glimpses of it, but revolutions, even just ones, leave an amount of trauma and instability in their wake.
I think your critique of avatar is too American centered. I'm from Lat.Am. and Colonialism basically blended the racial identities of 80 percent of the people. We don't even know how much of our blood is black or indigenous most of the time and only the people that stayed in the reservations and other closed communities preserved their native language. The stict racial segregation you see in the US is very particular. The process in Asia, Africa and Lat.Am were very very different.
Not really given the context. The fire nation colonies were very recent in the lore. Not at all comparable.
As an indigenous two spirit person, THANK YOU so much for this, especially on Killers of the Flower Moon and The Hunger Games!!
hmmm. i think i disagree with your point about snow and why he is written so sympathetically. i dont think its to absolve him in anyway for what he is, i think its to be able to more easily clock that kind of person. like you said its hard to recognize the USA as the Empire in star wars because they are so cartoonishly evil. you would never think oh the empire is 'me'. but its a lot easier to recognize someone who has a heart, whose heart can break, but still ultimately will chose ambition, comfort, selfishness and the state over radically changing their worldview. you can recognize that in yourself or in others and see that its a much closer allegory to the US.
completely agree with your point on reconstruction. i was so hoping the sequel trilogy would be about that when it was first announced but... we got what we got. and the ahsoka/mandolorain/other shows seem aggressively uninterested in post empire, new republic life. the post snap mcu could have done something like that but its really barely touched on. maybe they are out there and i just cant find them, but it seems like such a obvious hole in modern popculture media.
I listened to the hunger games trilogy audiobook on holiday with my mum around and she was asleep for the end and all she had to ask me was “so which one did she get with” as if the love triangle actually mattered over like the horrendous atrocities
agreed that aspect always annoyed me
even as a teen I didn't care for the love triangle and was dissapointed when the epilogue was about Peeta and Katniss having kids instead of showing us a rebuilt panem :/
@@dia.96 I always saw the ending as depicting Katniss and Peeta's personal reconstruction. It showed the personal emptiness, trauma and devastation but also that light was possible afterward. The rebuilt themselves.
But, like, actual question. What should those fire nation descendants do? The war went on for a long time, it's likely that many know absolutely nothing about the fire islands, most would have never been there and don't have any family there. I get that just saying "well we aren't changing" is just a justification of the fire nations invasion and colonization, but its still their home. I don't understand why leftists act like its a binary choice between: continue imperialism or commit genocide but against the "right" people this time. Like, fire nation descendants would have to do some introspection, would have to come to terms with what their presence means, but that doesn't mean a family that has never known the fire islands has to go live there now. They can find a way to equitably redress the harm brought to the earth kingdom people, there are peaceful equitable solutions provided the populace is actually progressive enough to not fall into reactionary politics that further punish the oppressed (conservative white Americans being a good example of that). Just saying they have to leave or die because they don't have a time machine to go back and stop the fire nation invasion isn't a solution and isn't even remotely a serious attempt to make any kind of point on the politics of descendants of colonists in colonized land.
My take is that Zuko could just return the colonies to the Earth Kingdom and use his influence over the colonists to make the transition amicable while opening the doors to any of them who would like to return to the Fire Nation.
This situation doesn't seem much like the United States case, Americans have no place to "return to", fire citizens still have the choice, but of course you can't just take them all out, that's just not feasible nor morally sound.
really painting people on the left with broad strokes aren't ya?
@@jennym3883 I can just about guarantee though that you agree with her argument though. If I'm wrong, please point out even a single prominent online leftist that wouldn't.
@@thumbhead3370 assuming you know what other people think is a good way to misunderstand people. (so strange of you to try to tell me what i think) i don't think displacing anyone is a good answer and I certainly think genocide is always wrong, and I don't know anyone online or otherwise who has said what you said leftist say. probably the reason you think leftists think that way is cause social media likes to show people extreme opposing views to keep them hate engaged even though those views are the minority. it's such a weird ask to point out an online leftist that doesn't advocate genocide, cause i cannot think of any that do, but here goes. Hank Green, cody from somemorenews, trevor noah, jon stewart. jon stewart made a video about palestine if you want proof
Re: 14:00 -- There are two major issues that I have when it comes to the argument about the descendants of the settler colonials not wanting to be displaced for an indigenous return being seen as hypocritical.
The first, and certainly most obvious is: any disruption of present society to the degree contemplated here is guaranteed to result in chaos, death, and destruction (just like the first time) and there may be a better way to integrate these populations that would be less injurious. It's the same level of ethical confusion that our ancestors who promoted the "eye for an eye" type of ethics around retribution had. It's better for one person to financially compensate the other for his wrongdoing than to put out his eye. Now, I am not sure what that looks like in the undoing of British settler colonialism, but it could be a greater economic incorporation of indigenous people, a more broad respect for indigenous academic self-interpretation, increased autonomous powers to indigenous governing councils, etc. but forcible eviction of the descendants of British settler colonials only seems like a recipe for further conflict and not wanting that seems rather sane.
The second is that we have already played out this story. Israel and Armenia are two countries that exist that were founded by ethnic groups (Jews and Armenians) with a specific homeland that they had been ejected from due to settler colonialist practices of a more powerful empire (Rome in the case of the Jews and Persia/Ottomans in the case of the Armenians) and then those minorities returned with the goal of creating majority-them states in their historic homelands (the Jews did this from 1900-1948 and the Armenians did this from 1826-1921). What they did was displacing the settler colonial populations (Arab Palestinians in the case of the Jews and the Persians and Azeri Turks in the case of the Armenians) to reclaim their historic homeland. It may come as a shocker, but Israel and Armenia both suffer from mass hatred from the communities they expelled in their undoing of the first instance of settler colonialism. It turns out that forcible eviction of a pre-existing population, even one that arrived in that location as a result of settler colonialism, is not the road to peace, reconciliation, or long-term positive neighborly relations.
thank you so much for saying this, as an indigenous person I sincerely appreciate it
LandBack and power to you
two things that stuck with me the most while watching the movie was 1) Coriolanus thru most of the movie was terrified of the very system that he will then rule. which explains all of his actions in the movie and his conversation with Katniss in Catching Fire 2)The parallels between Snow x Lucy and Katniss x peeta and it made me feel super sad seeing that the person Coriolanus could've been instead, but he had everything coming to him. Also in terms of Coin, she wasn't interested in the wellbeing of the citizens of Panem, but rather replacing Snow as leader which is complete misappropriation of the actual cause
2:32 are… are we positive ms collins didn’t name him Coriolanus because of the tragic Shakespeare character, Coriolanus, from the play Coriolanus, about the titular character’s political gamble for power and subsequent murder by his political rival?
She totally did, even if most of us are much less familiar with Shakespeare or Roman history's Coriolanus than we are with other Shakespearean tragic heroes or Roman historical figures.
Yes, because Dr Gaul’s name is Volumina…his violence demanding mommy in the play
She just doesn’t understand the reference and so misinterpreted it
i didn't realize Jesse Williams could have been Finnick, we were robbed 😭
Sorry, few seconds in, but what was that quote about Finnick?? The person says blonde and very tanned skin and then says Ian Somerhalder (!!!!!) would be perfect for the role? Ah sure, his very blonde hair and very tanned skin are indeed perfect 🤷♀️
“THERE were two “Reigns of Terror,” if we would but remember it and consider it; the one wrought murder in hot passion, the other in heartless cold blood; the one lasted mere months, the other had lasted a thousand years; the one inflicted death upon ten thousand persons, the other upon a hundred millions; but our shudders are all for the “horrors” of the minor Terror, the momentary Terror, so to speak; whereas, what is the horror of swift death by the axe, compared with lifelong death from hunger, cold, insult, cruelty, and heart-break? What is swift death by lightning compared with death by slow fire at the stake? A city cemetery could contain the coffins filled by that brief Terror which we have all been so diligently taught to shiver at and mourn over; but all France could hardly contain the coffins filled by that older and real Terror-that unspeakably bitter and awful Terror which none of us has been taught to see in its vastness or pity as it deserves.”
― Mark Twain
This was a really thought provoking analysis, I'll have to rewatch and share because I'm sure I need time to absorb this
We’re always rooting for the rebels because we think we are the rebels, even if we’re part the most fascist oppressor class. That’s why I’ve been cautious about the educational value of these media…
Is fascist an appropriate word here? Why fascist?
@@alexbennet4195fascism is often the way the most visibly and clearly oppressive elements of capitalist regimes are enforced. There’s this old quote: “Fascism is capitalism in decay.” In a story with a rebellion the oppressor will like 9/10 times have some sort of fascist politics - because they’re usually some sort of capitalist regime holding on to power.
No literally, we think we’re Katniss, but really we’re Snow’s granddaughter wearing Katniss’s braid.
@@malaizze no but how are WE part of the “fascist oppressor class”? I get “oppressor class”, but why “fascist”?
@@alexbennet4195you could make a point about looking away from stuff like migrants being treated like shit as well as underlying colonial aspects (multiple times I've read something in the news and gone "we've been having soldiers where now??? And they're being framed as having a right to be there (on foreign soil in a country that doesn't want them anymore) .. why?")
Lord of the Rings analogy is invalid. The Fellowship were not "rebels", they were a special op group formed by an alliance fighting against an invading power. Sauron never ruled over Gondor or Rivendell.
Exactement
I'd love to hear more about Reconstruction in media. You're 100% right that Teen Dystopian Fiction focuses much more on the 'destruction' part than the 'construction' afterwards... If someone was able to imagine, and put into words, ways that we could have a better world - then it'd be a lot easier to chart a course of political action TOWARDS something, towards a defined, positive goal, rather than just "away from harm" like we have now, which is what results in incrementalism and attempts to compromise with the right-wing that has paralyzed Congress.
I'm really limited in my imagination - I'm white, I was raised in majority-white, upper-middle-class suburbia, and read white author's fiction my whole life because my parents loved Shakespeare and JRR Tolkien and D&D. I'm learning to see where that education left gaps in my understanding of the world, but I can't design a solution - it wouldn't be holistic enough. That's got to come from someone else. That's why I want to support stories of building up, rather than tearing down. It's not good Action Movie(tm) fodder, of course, so, it's harder to find on TV, and might only be in books. I can't write that book, but I can buy it after it's written and make sure the author is justly compensated, at least!
This is such a good point. It makes me think that our media so thoroughly, ubiquitously, and I think rather inconspicuously, propagates and underscores this idea that justice-oriented or anticolonial social change is all about tearing sh** down. Not to say that the sh** doesn't need to be torn down and that it's not important to do so, but this totally negates all the intense 'building-up' work that so many people who work for liberation work so hard for
Check out _Socialist Reconstruction_ by the Party for Socialism and Liberation. I haven't read all of it, but what I've read so far is pretty compelling.
The good news is that no one person has to design the solution, and in fact no one person will. What will happen instead is that people will come together and build the solution cooperatively. And you have every reason to participate in that process.
If you want a real-life example of this, look at mutual aid networks, especially the ones that form in the wake of immense tragedies. This happened with COVID, this happens during natural disasters, and it happens whenever people are abandoned by the governments that claim to be responsible for their care. All these zombie/apocalypse movies in the media tell us a very pernicious lie: that in times of crisis people will become territorial and violent. In reality, we see time and time again that people team up to help each other.
@@uuneya “All these zombie/apocalypse movies in the media tell us a very pernicious lie: that in times of crisis people will become territorial and violent. In reality, we see time and time again that people team up to help each other.” THAT PART. This is such an incisive perspective. Incredibly written and undeniably true. I would argue, too, that that the theme we see over and over again of people in crisis just looking out for #1 reflects who gets to tell the stories that make up the foundation of mainstream popular culture’s canon. From my point of view, in times of crisis, it is the well-resourced that think primarily or exclusively of themselves (I saw this in my family during the pandemic)
@@uuneyaIn actual reality, you see both. Human nature is too complex to be boxed into whatever narrow-minded political system or label you might be championing. It’s not exactly like millennia of recorded history have pointed to a humanity bent on sharing and caring all the time.
"Should we all just go home and give the land back"
Those are two different things. Yes, the land that was taken should be given back. The power that was taken should be given back. People needn't literally move out, space was never actually the problem here. It's a question of whose rules govern the land, whose language is on the signs, who is in control of the resources and how they get used. Talking about the physical presence of certain people in certain places is a red herring: people move all the time for lots of entirely valid reasons. The real issue is power. It's not about who lives in the house, it's about whose house they are living in.
The only time I've ever been treated with respect by a doctor, was at a reservation clinic. The only time I've ever been treated with respect by a government official, it was a tribal chief. It's indigenous people who have shown time and again that they understand how to manage the land. The people who have most consistently stood up for my rights, were indigenous. White American greed and arrogance gave rise to the Nazis who slaughtered people like me by the thousands, and the cleverness of indigenous Americans created the code that defeated them. The legacy of Manifest Destiny was the dustbowl, and the displacement of white families. The ingenuity and determination of indigenous Americans is bringing back the bison and restoring the prairie: a prairie that is capable of sustaining the entire continent, and without which the continent cannot survive. White Canadian and American greed and arrogance is threatening one third of the whole world's fresh water; indigenous Canadians and Americans are leading the fight to protect it. So yes, give the land back. People keep trying to tell me I should make money, but I really don't see why. Making money would mean I need to pay taxes, and that's just one more way for the bad guys to make me support them. When I was a little kid, I learned that you shouldn't pay taxes to unjust governments. I learned that was the principle our nation was founded on. Land back doesn't mean I have to leave the place where I was born and my father was born and my grandfather was born. It would mean I pay taxes to a government that actually gives a f*ck about me, as a disabled queer person with a uterus. It would mean when I buy food, I'm not contributing to the earth's destruction but to it's healing. It would mean my stove and car and furnace run on renewable energy, because my government wants to keep the oil in the ground and the sacred places undisturbed. It would mean that when I go to the doctor and say I have no interest in ever being pregnant, they actually believe me. I've never been asked to give up my traditions or my language by an indigenous person, I've never been told to keep my identity a secret by an indigenous person. I speak English now because my ancestors were banned from speaking their language by white people. So yeah, give the land back.
People who argue against liberation movements are just telling on themselves. They are saying that if they could get revenge against everyone who has ever wronged them, they would. I wouldn't. I saw the cycle of revenge destroy Kosovo and Ireland. That's not what justice looks like. Justice looks like Nelson Mandela walking out of prison with his fist raised singing in Xhosa. We often frame that as a racial struggle, but that erases the fact that the Zulu were indigenous people and the Afrikaaners were not. That when the ANC won, what followed wasn't a massacre of white South Africans but a government that was more just for all (albeit far from perfect, for lots of reasons). Not that the Afrikaaners are grateful. Every interaction I've ever had with a white South African has thoroughly disgusted me, including a conversation where-in the year of our lord 2023- an Afrikaaner unironically said that in "civilized countries" they keep their megafauna in fenced reservations. yeah, okay, if that's "civilization" you can miss me with that sh*t m8🤮.
💯💯💯
Question:
How are you going to take care of yourself or convince anyone to change their mind if you don't have money? How do you connect to the internet to have discourse with those who don't believe in you or what you stand for? How can you advocate for people and their mental well-being if, like in my case, the medication you need to remain mentally sound is locked behind a paywall?
I hate playing the game, and I avoid playing it when I can. But tell me... does that do any good, in the long run, when I'm too distraught at the mere hint of fascistic or harmful mindsets that I am unable to articulate why I'm so angry in the first place? Or would you look at someone like me and think I'm not doing enough? That I'm simply weak.
Because at the end of the day, I AM weak. The people I love are enmeshed in the system. Even now, with what little rebelling I do, my rejections of consumerism, preoccupations with notions of justice, racism, animal welfare, and the environment... even now I get push back. "Buy nice things for yourself" my family tells me. "Stop reading about wars and conflicts that could trigger you", "you can't change these massive problems, so why do you torture yourself with them?" I can't convince my friends and family to see things from the perspectives of the oppressed or, more importantly, to take tangible steps that will cause a drop in their "quality of life"... what should I do then?
I'm agitated by your words, heartened by others, find myself agreeing and longing desperately to prove you wrong, or give voice to some discontent I barely understand. I am telling you all of this, here, now, because I am in earnest when I ask you: what should I do?
@@WhistleAndSnap to be clear, I don't have literally no money. I have enough to feed myself, and rent a room. I've occasionally earned money under the counter too. It's just not enough money to pay taxes on most of the time. That was just too complex to get into for my initial post.
Take care of yourself first. I was not saying everyone should, or can, do as I am doing. I have the privilege of being relatively healthy. Do what you need to do to access your medication. Your life is valuable, enmeshed in a system or not (and I am not off the grid by any means clearly, I do live in a major city). I only talked about what I am doing in order to share my feelings of frustration. I would not really even say I am somehow living more morally than others. I apologize for not making that clearer.
As for addressing the pushback from people in your life: you did exactly the right thing. You reached out to me, someone who shared your viewpoint. You're not alone🙂. Let's talk more! All of us are weak on our own. But we are stronger together than either of us is alone. For all my eloquent words, I can't do very much. I can't give land back, I don't own any in my own name. I can't do anything more than bring attention to what that really means, at least so far as I know. I'm just a fed up milennial procrastinating on my grad school application. I can't say I have all the answers, but here is what I do know: real rebellion will require building parallel infrastructure. Like you said: people need medecine, food, shelter etc and right now we are dependent on the system to get those things. This is what keeps it going. Infrastructure is what will turn protests into rebellions. Do I know what successful parallel infrastructure would look like? No, except to say that it needs to have revolutionary values built in from the drawing board. I believe it's possible to provide for everyone's needs without hurting anyone, and that's the principle that needs to guide our design. That's as far as I've ever been able to get, because that is usually when people tell me to shut up. No one wants to talk strategy, so I rant online.
@@golwenlothlindel
Have you ever watched Beau of the Fifth Column? He has a whole playlist on community building -- building that parallel structure -- that you might find helpful.
@@WhistleAndSnap
See above comment. Sorry -- I don't know how to tag multiple people in one comment.
I am a bit confused by the inclusion of The Lord of the Rings in this lot. The story there draws from many sources, but one of the main ones are Medieval narratives and epic poems, where there is no real space for revolutions as we understand them in modern times (mainly post-Enlightenment). The social structures are pre-colonial but if we want to draw simple comparisons for the sake of an argument, the fellowship consists of the status quo representatives - 8 members of the fellowship are upper class or aristocracy, apart from Sam who is a servant. They are not rebels! If you really want to humour the argument, it is Sauron's army is working class/differently abled bodied - they actually represent the 'ugly' industrial revolution, not the factory owners but the workers. I wouldn't apply easy comparisons of 'big evil empire bad - small rebel group good' to LOTR myself, but if you want to do it, I think the answers are not obvious in this case.
this has personally been haunting me about the Hunger Games series since middle school when lots of people missed the point of the series and I felt insane. experiencing this again after the prequel movie was so funny but sad too
Two of the best Star Wars books I've ever read were books that were VERY anti-war. "Rebel Rising" by Beth Revis is the story of Jyn Erso's upbringing in the Rebellion. It is so dark that the ending is basically pacifist. "Lost Stars" by Claudia Gray tells the story of two childhood best friends who end up on opposite sides of the Galactic Civil War. It really interrogates the moral responsibility of being a combatant. In this story, the Rebels aren't paragons of virtue and the explosion of the Death Star becomes a tragedy because you know the names of the officers on board. Still, unlike "Rebel Rising", "Lost Stars" recognizes the necessity of the Rebels' cause. Their side might not be perfect, but they are certainly better than the emperor.
*"Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes" spoiler below*
In terms of "The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes", the book is spectacular because it builds on three major themes: how wars' victors and societies can become so broken that another war is not only justified, but morally necessary, what kind of moral fortitude and choices are required of truly noble citizens and how they are punished for those choices, and finally, that as long as a human being has a choice, they are responsible for the outcomes of their choices. The movie flattens this a lot. In the book, it is clear that Sejanus knows right from wrong, but his idealism prevents him from making choices with positive outcomes. When he eventually chooses to side with the Rebels, he does so ineptly - he trusts the wrong people. Coriolanus Snow, on the other hand, may have starved during the war, and may have been brought up by elitist family, but the choices he makes are not about survival - they're about advancement. He maintains that elitist view - despite ample characters interrogating that view and offering him opportunities to be a better man- and that is his tragedy.
Yes I’m always enamoured by rogue one content, thanks for the suggestion
So we just accept all and any violence is the thing right? Everything is fair game right when it comes to liberation, no matter how horrible and brutal it is? I'm not trying to do a gotcha just trying to make sense of this logic, I'm sorry I'm just too white to understand clearly.
Korra deserves a live action reboot to fix its narrative with the villains more than the original. But I would fear for Korra's casting and the actress picked cuz you know the racist abuse trolls would hurl immediately
The kind of people who do live action remakes are not the same who are super interested in making them more progressive
10:10 because forced displacement of people based on their ethnicity is genocide and should be consistently opposed no matter who does it and for what justification?
Like you totally can fight the colonial power structure without ethnic cleansing.
"Remove the bad nation people" is not a radical action, it doesn't dismantle the power imbalances nor does it uplift the disadvantaged it just redirects the effort at "the enemy"
It's ethnonationalism.
Settler colonialism is when I'm not allowed to forcibly remove people from their homes (and yes those are their home, they've been living there for 100 years)
This video has made me rethink a number of practices in my daily life. Thank you for sharing.
It’s so funny because Cornelius Snow was named after Cornelius from Shakespeare’s play of the same name. The protagonist, a patrician, who defected from the Romans and led barbarians against Rome after he demanded overturning pro-plebeian reforms. And his mother was Voluminia (the woman who encouraged to lead the rebellion). Sejanus was also a historical figure who belonged to the equites class but still was able to rise the ranks to prefect of the praetorian guard and was executed for treason.
The book was much better about framing Snow as like a super shitty person. Having access to his inner monologue in which he is, the entire time, completely insufferably elitist - like at best in the book he finds sejanus tolerable, but broadly he despises the fact that this district born kid has money when he doesn’t. And it’s fairly clear that his “love” for lucy gray is more a projection of his ideal image of himself as a savior than any actual care for her. The worst crime of the movie - as an adaptation - to me is that it defanged snow and framed him as a likeable protagonist until right at the end
You can't forget the number of times when Lucy Gray is seen as property. He wants her to be "his" there's an ownership that he wants from her. I don't even think it's an ideal savior thing, she's a bauble, a beautiful thing he wants to own and control.
I don’t think Snow was more likeable from move per se. I’m reading book and find myself feeling for his character even with his inner thoughts. I can see fear and hunger (same things that were drivers for Katniss) and then I can see the turns and problematic thinking that helps him rationalize his decisions. It’s all there and it’s complex. But this is also aligned with my view of human nature being survival based and series of decisions stemming from that. You add in trauma and folks will do just anything to survive mentally, including adopting a supremacist attitude to delude yourself into thinking that you’ll survive because you deserve to 😬 which is very present if we look at how politics uses fear and supremacy to build a loyal base.
From the movie I think we’re meant to sympathize with Snow because we see him as a child being shaped by those around him and a desperation, but quickly we can see his motivations and I don’t think it’s hard at all to see how he portrayed some of the inner thoughts. For instance, notice his eyes when Lucy Gray sings, he is captivated not by her but how she impacts those in capital. Even at reaping his eyes go to classmates who are having a strong reaction to her, and that makes him smile. So reading the book after seeing the movie I can appreciate some of the subtle choices made to portray his inner thoughts. He becomes fixated on “getting her to sing again” and that isn’t because she moves him, but he sees the power of her moving others.
The only inner dialogue I think i am missing is his fear of capital. Rewatching, though, I can see fear on his face when things happened to his classmates (e.g., Clemmie, Arachne) where it seems he is surprised that the capital folks don’t step in, which is a subtle way to portray his realizations that the capital who he believes are civilized, wouldn’t help capital children. That he too could be used as a pawn. So while there could’ve been more to drive this home, I can see on my rewatch that this was done but not delivered with dialogue. But otherwise, all the other inner dialogue would be annoying and insulting to me as a reader to think I needed a voiceover throughout a movie when I can watch the actor portray the role through their craft. I think Tom being conventionally attractive actually brings many of Suzanne’s points to life - I think we are supposed to struggle with the dissonance that surfaces.
"The most pernicious image of all is the anarchist hero figure. A creation of commodity culture, he allows us to buy into an inauthentic simulation of revolutionary praxis' Grant Morrison, _the Invisibles_ Vol.2 #13
Original sin is a Christian concept. Maybe we should be trying to excise that from our moral vocabulary too. That might make it more complicated, but that shouldn't be too much of an ask for those of us who consider ourselves leftists and people of conscience.
THIS IS WHAT IVE BEEN SCREAMING1!!!
hearing someone else put it like this, we create in our own image.
it makes me feel a hole less crazy, love ur videos and this one was no dif than the others, fire
Who should play Finick? I'm not finicky.
"...when it comes down to it, we *are* living in the empire." 23:39
I’m not a hunger games fan so didn’t know about the discourse mentioned at the beginning of the video (although I did watch the rue video but don’t remember much about it) but the jesse williams thing is so stupid because the description they gave that they wanted for the character applies to him if he just wears a wig
The Ian somerholder addition just made it so much dumber he’s not remotely tanned and also doesn’t have long blonde hair
@@mothmanlol6263 "Ian Somerholder is so Finnick! If we put a wig on him, put color contacts in his eyes, and gave him a spray tan!"
it's funny cause Ian literally plays a vampire, known for the paleness 😂. The delusionality
As a mixed kid myself I know when I speak to other Indigenous Canadians about Land Back the majority of us aren’t saying “ship every not Native back to wherever they originated”… let’s be real, the Britts are not waiting for White North Americans to come home. They don’t even think of them as British anymore, if they even think about it at all. Same for many descendants of immigrants. Hell my own European side is either unaware I exist or they no longer exist themselves (my white is a blend of Britt and Austrian Ashki, my Native side is Ojiicree through Mum and her father)… land back more (among my circles at least) means equal and equitable access to land, its resources and its opportunities. It means not having to be caught in the Reservation poverty and isolation cycle by way of birth. It means being able to drink a clean glass of water whether ya be on a Rez, in town or city or rural boonies as a farmer… it means letting those that have kept the land for centuries lead the way for environmental issues with their knowledge of the land it’s climate and critters… it doesn’t mean “reverse colonialism but this time whites lose”… and same for many Palestinians, they do not want Jews to take on their suffering. They want said suffering to cease all round, some sort of cooperative and collective solution that respects the right to life of both sides children and innocent civs in the middle of this war zone
"She's biracial" took me out 😂😂😂
This video was exactly what I needed, thank you for making it! I started reading a new fantasy series over the holidays and it's been so frustrating because the villians and "good guys" are portrayed in such a black and white way (maybe that will change, I haven't finished the series yet).
16:21 I'm not sure if it's in the movie, but in the book, Coriolanus actively tries to convince himself and others that Lucy Gray isn't really district. Lucy Gray does so as well, but in a "the districts are BS" way, unlike Coriolanus' "Lucy Gray is okay for me to like because she isn't actually one of them" way.
I honestly think that part (emphasis on part) of the disconnect between the themes and the takeaways of movie viewers is that the movie doesn't provide the insight into Coriolanus' thought processes that the book does, and because the movie had to cut so much out.
I know it’s a kid show but the whole show feels it’s trying to emphasize the whole “balance” theme. So it makes perfect sense that it would be like “let’s remove all the fire nation colonies at once” because in the show that would be balance. But they don’t do that. Instead within the world they wrote they try to add “nuance” with what they think is choosing to be earth nation or fire nation citizens. But that begs the question. In the entirety of the past was there never any colonialism done by other countries? Hell the war is 100 years old, even if you want to ignore the fact that these nations existed before that and therefore would have people living along the borders who would meat and marry have children with dual nationality, you are telling me that none of these issues existed before or during the war?
As far as the world of _Avatar_ the worldbuilding is based on some broad strokes concepts that are very well-developed for its medium, but as with almost any such genre society it's easy to pick holes in how things would have played out in the real world (this extends to the very idea that every single Avatar in history has apparently been benevolent, which doesn't really seem all that likely given human psychology and effects of wielding that kind of power).
The whole anti-bending crusade in the first season of _Korra_ is a good example of the show's own writers asking questions that really should not be asked because there's no good answer to them that doesn't destroy the basic premise of a series with the Avatar as the hero.
@@ColonelGreenit didn't touch on racial stigma like what if there's a white avatar vs a black one so I won't get into that, but I think the avatar power never chose someone blatantly evil since it was connected to the sentient spirits of good and evil. It wasn't just energy but a collective consciousness that transcends time, so in my interpretation they had a lottery pull from all the neutral to good spirits each time they died. Whereas there's an evil equivalent to the avatar but since good is more powerful we never see a true mirror
@@ColonelGreen
'the worldbuilding is based on some broad strokes concepts that are very well-developed for its medium' not really there are huge holes in the story. But as it is a kid's story and doesn't try to tackle too nuanced topics, most people give it a pass. Because the very premise that if Aang kills the Fire Lord the war will end is contradicted within the story - during the 100 years war at least 2 Fire Lords have died and that changed exactly nothing.
'this extends to the very idea that every single Avatar in history has apparently been benevolent, which doesn't really seem all that likely given human psychology and effects of wielding that kind of power' they did. The Avatar is always the same person in their core, so they are always good. Or at least are not evil.
The reality that no one really wants to address is that the Earth Nation itself is a colonizer. All humans are. The world belonged to the spirits and the humans were relegated to the Dragon Turtles until they eventually warred with the spirits and then the Avatar closed the spirit portal and separated the worlds, essentially displacing the totality of the world’s spirit population. The Earth Kingdom, being the largest nation at the time of Avatar and Korra, is actually the largest colonizer in the history of the world.
Korra sorta addresses this quite well in fact, as she opens the portals again and, ironically, ends up opening a spirit portal in exactly the city this supposedly bad comic takes place in (as it becomes Republic City down the line).
Despite what this video claims, Avatar and Korra handle these topics with a great deal of nuance given their medium and target audience. Especially Korra, which also tackles the whole concept of a hero being able to fix complex issues with simple answers head on in S4. Spoilers, Korra learns that it isn’t that easy and that maybe she has to find a balanced and complex answer to a world with complex people and problems. That doesn’t fit the narrative of this video though, so… 🤷♂️
@@adapienkowska2605 Its medium is "children's cartoon", that's exactly what I said.
That's not a contradiction. Two Fire Lords died and were succeeded by their heirs with the same mindset; that is not the same thing as Aang defeating the Fire Lord and thereby stopping the Fire Nation's war of conquest.
10:33 "First of all Aang, you dont even wanna kill the firelord" I laughed out loud 😂
Many people are really rooting for the rebels but the inherent problem in revolutionary type media is that it is still made within the confines of the hegemonic structure, i.e. capitalism and neoliberalism Therefore, it has the hegemonic duty of letting people vicariously live out their rebellious fantasies instead of doing the dirty work of organizing or the dangerous task of actually rebelling. Look, I'm a rebel because I'm watching Andor, I don't actually have to go out and organise and take it to the streets. (no dis on Andor, it's fantastic).
Rooting for rebels in real life though, not so much (as evidenced by Hamas' recent actions and the reactions to it by white liberals).
Mark Fisher wrote all about this
That said, I am not sure if I like your last sentence
I don’t really see anyone rooting for Hamas, though.
Hamas isn’t even suppported by most Gazans even now.
Just to be clear, and maybe I’m misinterpreting you, but are you saying you think Hamas is… good? And should be supported?
Or… are you of the opinion that people DO like the idea of rebels against oppression, in the abstract - but the reality that they don’t think about is that sometimes (probably often tbh) genuine rebels end up committing horrible atrocities (that no (decent) person would like or support)?
Right. And I think all the revolutionary stuff that comes out conveniently never actually draws too close a parallel or lays out a rebellion that would actually affect the real world. It's always ~some chosen people fight Snoke or whatever~ and not ~did yall know fossil fuel execs have names and addresses and they fully intend to kill us all for profit if nobody stops them~ or anything too close to pointing out there's only one real party (the ruling class) and their platforms are as hollow as any other circus performance
I would urge you to look into stuff like this informed by the events in ww2 with for instance sudeten-germans or the forced relocation of poles to the west under the soviet union.
It is interesting because in these cases we actually have concrete examples of the expulsion of settler enclaves where as in the americas there was no such thing.
It makes me laugh everyone time I see people say “wala” when they mean voila
Fell down the stairs while holding my phone playing this video and just layed there in pain for a solid minute while you kept talking
I'm a little worried over how "settler colonialist" is a label applied by bloodline. If a mixed-race daughter of a colonizer and a non-colonizer is a colonizer, does that mean Trevor Noah was a colonizer in South Africa?
I think the answer is whether they benefit directly from the violence of that colonization. E.g. what side of the apartheid fence are they on? In Trevor's case, it didn't benefit him in a system of white people being privileged over non-white people. However in the example of the ATLA comic, the daughter did benefit as a Fire Nation citizen
@@SuperBreeybut in SA, apartheid had 3 groups not ‘white’ or ‘not white’ -that’s an American crazy divider system not a SA one. SA went with 3 categories.
Trevor Noah grew up ‘colored’, the third category they created for all the mixed race people, whatever their parents.
Coloreds were shunned by both ‘pure’ groups because of their liminal status and access to some privileges while being denied others.
So I’m wondering at what point and with what eye would Trevor Noah be a ‘colonizer’ when his legal, financial and social status under the government in a nonamerican country is very specific ?
A lighter Trevor Noah would still be ‘colored’.
Wow...😥.... Thanks for the explanation! I have a question, in which category were the Indian population of South Africa classified as?
Cause they're dark skinned but not ethnically African, nor mixed race, nor white. I wonder what mental gymnastics the government applied 😅
I appreciate the challenge to not just critically interpreting media being enough, but to examine what our choices and actions are effectively doing... It's a tough statement, but important considering the stances on media we are trying to take.
Something so important in the books that you couldn't get in the movies was the internal lives of the main characters. In the original books, you can feel the motivations behind Katniss and Corio's actions. Katniss does most things to protect the people she loves, to fight for their lives. Corio does things because he believes that he is owed power and wealth. Even the way he looks at Lucy is a twist of those motivations. He justifies his attraction to her by thinking that the covey aren't district. They're separate in his mind.
I think Tom did well portraying his supremacist attitude and that some folks just missed it because like you’ve shared, just can’t stomach how similar some of these themes are for us. I think Suzanne Collins would enjoy this type of discourse honestly. I can see folks reacting and trying to pinpoint one moment that Snow turned bad and I knew then they missed it, 😅. Like it wasn’t one moment and reading the book, I don’t think Suzanne wrote it that way. I think folks just can’t or won’t digest the themes she puts in these books. She has stated that she hopes people look up the nature vs nurture debate after reading this book. I think in many ways, when I see people reacting or wanting more of the “games” to be in the movie or wanting a movie of “so and so’s” games, that I see how much of spectators we actually are and like you shared, we all want to think we’d be on the “good side” and don’t want to see how passively we wish to be entertained, which is what she wrote the books to address. It is our consumerism that hurting us from actually having discourse and sitting with these themes to recognize the shape we’re in.
Anyways I could write all day but I enjoyed this synopsis because I find myself wanting to discuss these themes with folks and most can’t get past just basic “he’s hot” or “she broke his heart and that turned him bad” nonsense so I’m stuck wanting to discuss this stuff but not finding that space. 😅
i think its very interesting too the emphasis on his feelings over Lucy Gray amongst fans, because when I read the book my understanding was that while the perspective was through Snow, Lucy Gray was the protagonist. You arent supposed to root for snow you're supposed to root for Lucy Gray, because you see first hand what an awful person Snow is and while reading the only thing I kept thinking was 'girl run, run right now'. I keep seeing people blame Lucy for teasing Snow at the end of the movie when she makes the "no loose ends besides me" remark, and I think this just really goes to show how detached we are if we're honestly putting SNOW in this baby boy position of "Well if she didn't say that he wouldn't have tried shooting her" or "If she didn't break his heart he wouldn't be a dictator" or the misconception that Lucy Gray is responsible for Snow being the way he is. Like girl Snow made himself, he's been like this. I think when the grandma says to Tigris "She hasn't been a girl in a long time" when referring to Lucy Gray, it was a nod to this, Lucy gray is a 17 year old girl but shes at best treated as exotic, some kind of seductress by both he capitol and snow and at worst constantly dehumanized, compared to an animal (little song bird) repeatedly instead of a human being, sorry for the rant lol but all that to say Lucy Gray deserves the world and idc in my heart she escaped and lived her best life
@@midnightcity4691 yes! I agree, this dude was showing signs all throughout movie and book ( I’m working my way through part ii now) and so I think when people blame her, I’m like what?!? Who wouldn’t run?!? Besides the problematic things he said all throughout the movie, “you thought they’d be honest”, “no one will believe this was us” really too many to name, there were also his actual impulsive, violent actions, and honestly I’m so glad they showed her as the smart cunning character she was and not some love struck girl. She saw the signs and ran. I’d like to think she ran and led a great life, haunting Snow even during his “land on top era” that would be satisfying! That he was never truly free and in fear of her bringing it all down into his last breath. Like in the song she sang when Snow asked, “ What happened to [her], did she survive?” “It’s a mystery sweetheart, just like me”
As far as protagonist, I don’t mind it being both Snow and Lucy Gray because I don’t believe people are just born evil. So part of what this writing can do is help us view people’s humanity even in a well-known disliked character. I saw him make small decisions that kept going across the line. I think that’s the other part I enjoy, that Suzanne doesn’t spell this out, but we get to determine when this shift occurred, so we have to return to how she starts the book, with the excerpts regarding nature vs nurture debate. Unfortunately I’m seeing too many people blame Lucy Gray as if to excuse every action beforehand that was motivated by self importance and self preservation but nonetheless, I think the point is to not have one moment that we can see, but rather see how a series of decisions leads to a person down a path that … well … we know the path he takes.
Honestly I could write so much too because I love this writing! And now watching reactions after reading the book, I’m finding all types of gems about the other characters. I think Suzanne’s use of ballads and song lyrics in the book is brilliant! So many things to unpack and sit with!
@@DovesEyes623 I love your take its so well thought out omg!
Since we're on the topic of YA books and the new Percy Jackson series just came out, it would be interesting to see a video about the female characters in the Riordanverse. It would be cool to watch an hour and a half video dissecting characters like Annabeth, Piper, Hazel, Sadie, Samirah and others and see how Rick Riordan writes them and their evolution over the years.
omg i would love an analysis on Piper because i think her character was not well developed compared to other female characters
@@tiredpotatoes Me too! In the Trials of Apollo books she gets better, but in Heroes of Olympus is so sad how she is written
Was going to leave a highly emotional Comment about living in the Empire but then the outro track came in and I started dancing around instead. Thank you for a great year princess, you are a bright spot in my reality. Happy New Year
I already said this somewhere else but as a mixed kid myself, hater nation of ATLA: The Promise needs to stand together.
I love how you started with that wild take of who should play Finnick, as if the whole point of the character isn’t that not everybody appears as they seem, and that actually being forced into a sex trafficking ring by Snow mainly because of your looks can really mess someone up.
It's not contradictory to support Indigenous rights and also to not want colonizers to be cleansed out of the place they were born or forced to "go back" to a place they've never been before and only have a historical geneological connection to (which gets even worse when you're not actually geneologically "from" one specific other country anyway). Framing these things as contradictory is what the right does to confuse and obfuscate the issue, make it "morally grey" like you said, in order to deny the fight for Indigenous rights. The right also frames colonialism as being "in the interests" of colonizers and their descendants, and pretend there is a unity between the average colonizer on the street and "their" government. The whole point of right-wing nationalism is to promote unity between you and "your" government. They are wrong about all of these points. Colonialism is in the interests of capitalism and big business, it is carried out for the ruling class, and involves the exploitation of colonisers, using them as tools in the theft of Indigenous resources for benefits that exists purely for the ruling class. Even if working class colonisers accrue benefits that is not the same as it being done "for" them, it's not done for them, it's done for the rich, and they are fooled into beleiving it is "for" them.
How can you say it's not done for them, when they were gifted homes on native land and still possess and pass down that wealth to this day. Please choke on your next meal, you're weak cuz
Like when you're on the side of the Colonizer, you're making a bad point bruh
A question I’ve always wanted people in the land back debate to answer is “what makes land YOURS?” The answer that just about anyone would give you (to the point where I’d suspect an agenda behind any other answer) is “This is where I was born/this is where I grew up/this is where my culture is/this is my HOME”. And by that definition, every white person born in America today, every native person, and everyone of any other nationality who calls this country home has the same right to do so. That doesn’t mean we just leave the whole situation alone, I want to see native nations power restored to them, and I want EVERYONE who calls this country their home to decide how it will be run. No part of that involves kicking people out and expecting it to just work
@@Excelsior1937 Popular media also often oversimplifies the question of 'whose land is this?' by a lot. There, it is usually that one clearly defined group of people have lived in that one place since basically forever. On the other hand, in the real world, there are many cases where it is not clear which group of people lived there before the arrival of the empire, either because no sufficient records or archaeological evidence exists (especially, when we know there were a lot of different groups of people in the area, it is hard to tell which one of them was in control of any particular place), or because the group identities did not yet exist, back than, making it difficult to decide which modern day group the people back then would correspond to, now. Worse, it is often/usually the case that the people who lived there when the empire arrived were not the first people to inhabit that land, but already displaced an earlier group of people, so it is a good question how far you should go back to determine who the 'true' owners of that land are - just look at Syria, for example: it has been under the control of the Sumerians, Assyrians, Babylonians, Egyptians, Greeks, Persians, Romans, various caliphates, various crusader states, the Mamluks, the Timurid empire, the Ottoman empire, the French, and probably more empires I have missed.
I think the movie The Nightingale showcases the point you are trying to make. It set in the time of one of the many "Black Wars" in Australia. The lead characters are Irish and Aboriginal. The villain of the story is the empiral system that defines social status and human rights. Basically, if your a member of the British Empire your a person, if your Irish you are a person with no rights and are treating like property, and if Aboriginal you are animal or something lower than person and that can be killed without punishment. A colonizers can be a part of the system of control but in no way benefit from it. My thinking is that we should find solutions where every one can benefit. Any us vs them mentality will just lead to never ending conflict. That doesn't mean we erase other cultures or all try to have the same ideals. It just means that if you start drawing lines in the sand you should know that you are pushing people against each other
16:19 it's definitely more prevalent in the books since we're inside his head but he also majorly seperates the Covey from district 12 because of how they became dist 12 citizens. As soon as he finds out she has "no" district ties it's all good actually yeah she's ~different~ she's like ~me~. And while that doesn't change the fact he never really loved /her/ he also did everything in his arsenal to make sure he never had to think about the districts as humans. Especially when you compare his "love" for her versus his feelings for "Actual District Boy" Sejanis.
When I saw you posted this video I was immediately excited and after watching it, I was right to be. Some hard truths and things to ponder about. Am I a rebel, or am I a passive citizen of Empire? Oof
I've been meaning to say this for a while....
That closing theme goes hard.
Off topic, but omg I never saw the Jesse Williams fan cast for Finnick and omg he would have been so good! Even tho I really like Sam Claflin, Finnick was described as having tan skin. Jesse has those gorgeous sea green eyes and looks more like how I pictured him
I missed that one too, but remember Naya Rivera being considered for Johanna, and unsurprisingly some fans campaigned hard for the white actress to get it instead. I was so disappointed.
Anyone else perpetually annoyed at the way finnick is treated in the Fandom in general? It's like the point isn't how good he looks half dressed. The point is he was a abused sexually objectified child who was sold by the very people who sent him to die.
This struck a chord with me, thank you for the food for thought and action
It's such a weird movie,
like,
Snow just flips near the end of the movie and then the movie just expects us to get that's enough for him to go back and become the president???
I reread the hunger games recently for the first time since becoming an adult and a random moment that stuck out to me was in Mockingjay a capitol rebel writes one line on a piece of paper which is wrong then rips it out and throws it away while everyone from the districts is shocked.
It sounds silly but that's the first time I really understood that I was capitol. I have the privilege of sitting and watching horrific things on the news and then turning it off, I could turn off the hunger games if it got too real for me.
Still not entirely sure what to do with this information though.
Neutrality is choosing the status quo.
Hey remember dragon prince?
Remember when the whole conceit of the show was the humans being rounded up and marched off their land into a barren infertile wasteland that couldn't produce enough food for their population? And how humans were the bad guys for fighting back?
Remember that time a dragon was blatantly trespassing into human territory threatening an attack, so humans fired a crossbow at it, so the dragon razed the city of innocent people to the ground? And how the narrative places the humans squarely in the wrong when it was the dragon who caused the destruction and was breaking the treaty?
Dragon Prince is the show that made me fall out of love with avatar, even more than Korra. It revealed how clueless and callous the writers of the show was. because it goes out of its way repeatedly to show a group being dealt great injustices that parrellel actual real life atrocities while going out of its way to villainize the victims of said atrocities.
I swear to God next season the elves are going to round humans into magic camps and funnel them one by one into magic gas chambers and the villain of the season is going to be some survivor of this magic final solution who didn't rebel politely enough.
Yeaaahhhhhhh I had to stop watching it even though I love dragons.
Avatar is a great concept but personally I think anyone can write politics better than the vast majority of cis straight white men from middle class lol. They didn't even have people darker than me, I mean, the writing was on the wall lmao.
MAN i literally have no memory of this… then again i think my lack of understanding of the issue is partly because of the setting as well as the narrative. the humans’ enemy being dragons, which in recent media is often the victim of humanity’s cruelty (httyd for example) helps skewer our perception.
dragons aren’t evil they’re animals, and we, humanity, must know better! (even though the dragons in dragon prince are fully intelligent)
in addition we’re often conditioned to see humans as the majority in fantasy, or the normal ones. elves and dwarves and such are often the exotic side characters while we’re the “median”. meaning that in a setting with a human kingdom and elves as their enemies, this assumption happens even as elves are shown to have their own kingdoms. of course they’re the oppressed ones, they have to use a small team to infiltrate the caste! they can’t afford a big bad army like the evil humans can!
point being this stuff really made it easy for me to ignore all you spoke of because in retrospect. yeah, the fuck was that?
As someone who is not on the Avatar hype train, I do think ATLA (the show) is way more competent than TDP and Korra and highlights the issues of one or two genius creators being behind its success. A bunch of people as well as luck and circumstance made ATLA come together, and it's not necessarily replicable.
However I do think the series was shielded by its format and broadcast standards. It mostly manages to eek its way around bringing up the more complicated questions, where it's comics, Korra and TDP seemed keen to run into the bog without assessing exactly how they planned to move through it.
Like if TDP has just been clear from the onset that it was going to be a Good vs Evil magic show, then I don't think there'd be half as much tonal inconsistencies as it ended up getting. Like don't have your hereditary monarch discuss unjust power structures if you're not going to follow up on it, no one asked.
On the other hand in failing to justify unjust narratives, they do highlight the flaws of ones often carried out in the real world. So maybe there's a different kind of value to them.
@@nailinthefashiondidn't realize skin tone was such a key factor in a writer's ability to world build politics in a fantasy setting. I'll have to seek out the darkest African fantasy writers, who by your metrics would be inclined to be the greatest fantasy political world builders of our time.
This came at an opportune time. I was just developing a theory about why it's so prevalent that viewers of entertainment media want to empathize with the villains. The _immediate_ cause is, I think obviously, that the media themselves are making villains who are likable, relatable, empathetic, etc. But, beyond the obvious outer layer, what's going on? I think the last line of the video (essay portion) might be the answer: ...the best thing an oppressive force can do is teach you how to empathize with your oppressor.
Or, as Malcom X put it: If you're not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed, and loving the people who are doing the oppressing.
(He specifically referred to the news media, but the news media and the entertainment media are both propaganda tools controlled by our c*pitalist, col*nialist, imp*rialist ruling class. So, in this context, what's true of one is just as true of the other.)
So if I understand, dehumanizing the oppressor is good right? Genuine question.
I am obsessed with the Cats Don't Dance poster in the background
Funny seeing Lucas and Cameron sit and talk about empires, colonialism, etc. 2 filmmakers who create progressive art but have fans based where the majority doesn't like progressive art.
The disconnect is so fascinating. It’s not subtle at all and yet….
This has been in my watch later for weeks bc I’ve been waiting for the right moment to sit down and watch; THISSSSSSS is the take we needed. This is everything I’ve been thinking put into the most eloquent words. Especially the stuff about breaking the chains and actually fighting against the empire.
I subscribed ❤️
6:05 But the only act of terrorism in the original Star Wars trilogy was the destruction of Alderaan by The Empire; The rebels never attack civilian targets.
I wish you and I liked more of the same media because I absolutely love your analysis of the stuff I'm familiar with.
Have you read Marge Piercy’s Woman on the Edge of Time? It’s not YA and could be described as both a dystopian and a utopian book. It’s not solely focused on the idea of just revolution itself but also presents two different versions of a possible future. It’s one of the few books I’ve read that discusses ‘what could be’, after the fact. It presents a really interesting version of society. It’s not perfect but there’s some great ideas in it. Would love to hear your take on it!
Twinkle transition to a sponsor segment after saying the words "we are living in the empire" just got me in some kind of chakra designed only for existential irony ... Does that make sense?
Love the vid by the way!!
“They know it’s a lie, but not the lie you’re talking about. They know they have no power, and they know there’s nothing they can do about it. Not without risking their lives. Worse, without giving up what they have. They see people like you, living in filth, begging, delivering their stuff, being their property, and they know… if they ever step out of line, they’ll be like you. Their servants. And that, to them, is worse than death.”
May I ask where this is from?
@@sweetsummerwine It's from a novel I wrote. I quoted my own writing, which is a totally normal and healthy thing to do...
@@jaredmcdaris7370 I like it. Good job.