Zen Crib Notes

Ivy's Thoughts: more thinky thoughts, on korra and spirituality

fallingivy:

About Korra and her spirituality issues: since she’s basically the incarnation of the planet, is she affected by the changes on the planet? Her big problem is her lack of interest in spirituality, is that actually because the human population seems to be moving away from spirituality in bending?…

Basically Korra represents what probably most people in the Avatar world feel (at least in my opinion): that bending is utilized more as a tool and as an end to means. I wouldn’t say that people are no longer interested in spirituality in the Avatar world, but it could be that the lack of spirituality is starting to affect people. While Equalists could be swayed by the fact that Amon was bringing a militant way to rise up against benders as a way to fulfill a sense of empowerment, Amon didn’t have to use the Spirit world as a way to justify his ability to take away bending. He could have used a more practical and scientific approach to further emphasize that bending is not the best thing ever and that it can be taken away through blocking points in the physical body. 

But he did use the Spirit world as part of his rhetoric. It could mean that the growing lack of spirituality is starting to bother some people. Maybe even a lot of people. It could even be that some people may have thought that benders are using their power for granted, since bending is closely tied to the Spirit World. It could even be that was used as justification for why there’s unequal treatment between benders and non-benders: that benders could claim to be more naturally spiritual. 

I think it isn’t just natural talent that Korra can just bend three elements at about the same time but not airbending. The three elements that she could bend are the ones that still dominant the Avatar world, and the lack of airbending, which represents a people that are the most in-tune with spirituality, is probably the most visible way of showing that spiritual imbalance further tilts the world off-balance. One would think that all the other nations that represent their respective bending are still spiritual, since it’s not like the Air Nomads were the only nation that was/is the most spiritual, but it doesn’t seem to stick to a lot of people as much as it used to as a result of industrialization. 

What may happen in Book 2 is not just how Korra finds a balance between the Spirit World and the mundane world, but also finding out the effects that humanity has on a planet that relies on each other to bond together innately but that the bond is getting more strained by each Avatar cycle.