Avatar & The Myth of Powers Corrupting Influence

Disclaimer: Spoilers for All of Avatar: The Last Airbender. Also, I’ll be referring to it as an anime for convenience. Lastly, I will only be looking at the original TV show, not the comics or the sequel. Subscribe to Shonen Ronin because we have a video version of this post here: https://youtu.be/rxxr_3S5hJ0

“Worms can only grow in something rotten. ” -Su Dongpo

It can be difficult to return to a classic as you can never be sure if it will live up to the hype you’ve built in your head. If you’re lucky you might have tons of analysis videos you can watch of friends to vouch for the amazingness of the series, movie, or game. But there will always be that tiny bit of doubt until you see or play it for the first time, or perhaps again, with your own eyes. In a strange way, I would argue that wielding power is similar. You can read books about tyrants & saints but unless you wield it yourself I feel you miss a core aspect of what it’s like. One need not have control over a state or an audience of millions to grasp the concept either. I feel we all have stories of that guy or girl in a minor position who just completely abused their temporary position (perhaps that was even you). Seemly less noteworthy but just as important are those situations wherein someone you underestimated actually did a great job. All of this for me relates back to Avatar the Last Airbender and how it exposes the myth of powers corrupting influence.

Just How Shounen is: Avatar the Last Airbender

Avatar has to be the single most shounen show to come out of the west. This adheres, intentional or not, to the shounen aesthetic is very important to my point so I wish to briefly go over just how shounen it is like I did when I spoke about Black Panther.

The ultimate tendency & predisposition towards optimism: 95%

Avatar actually beats out Black Panther when it comes to the first principle. Aang’s former home gets destroyed? Well, disabled people live there now so it’s all good. Do any of the Main Characters die from facing an evil empire? Not a chance. You need guidance? No worries you can discuss your options with all the previous users of OfA (I mean the avatar state). Every situation in life has a flip side, but even with genuine tragedy being seen in the series from time to time it never fails to end on a note of hope for the future and gratitude for the past. Speaking of…

Passing the Torch/Continuity: 90%

As with any good shounen, this is one of the main themes of Avatar. The Avatar state in itself is the pinnacle example of this aesthetic embodied; all past users- people with the same job and position as you- give ALL their knowledge and technique for you to execute flawlessly and achieve the desired goal. It is one of the most broken abilities in fiction but that’s not even the only good example. The whole Avatar cycle which is akin to the changing of the seasons is like this. Outside of things directly related to the Avatar you have Katara & Saka taking the same roles their parents once had and doing it even better then they did. You have Iroh and passing on of his kind spirit and will to Zuko, who himself has to take the role of his father by force showing that the passing of the torch to the next generation will happen one way or another.

Characters like Azula or the fire lord who refuse or are incapable to take the torch or pass it on end up with the worst endings. Some may argue that Azula wanted to pick up the torch of fire lord but that’s not exactly true. Not only was it a position she was emotionally abused into wanting, but she also wanted it for reasons of validation rather than for the traits it embodied or the role itself. Power itself is not a behavioral trait so we can’t say it’s a way she wants to be in a personality sense. and we are shown that while she tends to be misguided Azula is not a naturally cruel and sadistic person but rather she believes that that is what she needs to be- or she does it to release emotions she was never taught to properly manage. Unlike Zuko, she took nothing from her mother believing her to be weak and not worth imitating in any way. As for the fire lord he wants to be a permanent blaze so to speak. Tyrants don’t see themselves as replaceable, they want to live forever and for everything to stay the say except for what they direct to change. This incredibly controlling attitude was a result of his lack of empathy you could say.

Teach Empathy: 91%

One of the biggest themes in Avatar is to stop fighting so hard for permanence, for impermanence itself is the only constant. What is revenge except for retributive justice which tries to somehow return the world to a moral equilibrium which never existed? Avatar’s message is that such Justice is not justice at all, but rather a lack of empathy. True justice is in recognizing that what will make you happy is mercy and rehabilitation, which the show posits is always possible. But there is one thing that is needed for it; the last part of the shounen aesthetic & where the myth of powers corrupting influence is exposed.

“Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely” is as Unshounen as it Gets

As we should all know the final principle of the shounen aesthetic, one of the 4 pieces needed for something to be considered shounen, is the understanding that all things are achievable through power. And that is why the phrase “absolute power corrupts absolutely” is as unshounen as it gets. Implying there is some outside force that we have to appease to by not seeking to much power lest our dreams turn to ashes in our mouth. To paraphrase from the manga “Kingdom”, it’s a line of thinking that will never push history forward because it has given up on intelligent life itself.

and yet ask anybody in the English speaking world and they’ll tell you they’ve heard or read this phrase many times before. looked at uncritically it may seem true. “Look at all the terrible things that people with power have done” some would say. But what is power? It has become a near-mystical term, evoking in mind the likes of wizards & witches who can destroy and bend reality to their whim. We say of such fantastic imaginary beings that they are powerful―full of power. A firebender has the power of fire, a blood bender has power over one’s own blood, kings and queens are powerful people. But power means simply the capacity to asset ones will.

If power is simply the capacity to do, the great myth that power corrupts & should not be sought falls apart. Power is a good thing and we should always want more power. We need to increase our capacities to do things. Your power of art-the capacity to create art- should be increased. Your power of charisma—the capacity to move people to “action” should be increased. Your power to know- the ability to recall and connect ideas should be increased. In our personal lives, we want power―all the power we can possibly get so that we can develop ourselves. So why does the phrase exist? It is because there are those who believe that in order to get more power they must take away the power of others, and it is those people whose power who needs to be taken away. That is the final lesson of Avatar.

The right action should always be to increase everyone’s power and wisdom because the only way for good to thrive is to increase its ability and stop that which limits it. Too much power is not a bad thing. Even the pursuit of too much power is not a bad thing. It is the fundamental flaw in the human character to be overly conservative that is the problem. So what can lead us to right action? Friendship. The bonds between others. Tribes will always form and clash, but there is almost always a way for everybody to win in the end without the annihilation of one group or the other. Rather then killings to protect your slice of the pie and steal others the way out is realizing that the pie can expand. Sometimes that will require taking away a tyrants power, but we shouldn’t then suggest anarchy. Katara, Zuko, Aang, all of “team avatar” in their own way learn the importance of gaining and using power correctly. They had chances to run away, to hurt people for their own gain, to get revenge, to mindlessly control with no will but for its own sake. But they surrounded themselves with allies instead of sycophants, they had empathy, they had gratitude, they had torches they needed to take up and chose to step forward to a brighter future. Power does not corrupt; it reveals who people really are.