2.14: "City of Walls and Secrets"

[lizbee]

Comments

[unjapanologist]

Of course Long Feng's rule is reprehensible in many ways, but I never got the idea that this should preclude him from allying with Team Avatar. We never find out much about how other high-placed allies like Arnook and Bumi govern their people, but since they're as much a product of their time and circumstances as anyone else in the Avatar world, they probably also condone or encourage a lot of practices that would sound horrible to us.

I don't mean to say that Long Feng is not very ruthless, or that he has the right idea, of course. Perhaps it's just that I'm assuming that Ba Sing Se-like arrangements would be pretty normal for cities that exist in the historical period that Avatar seems to gravitate in. But I have trouble seeing an automatic villain (in the "obvious adversary of the main characters" cartoon sense of "villain") in anyone who isn't depicted as a cruel and completely amoral person. The only characters that really struck me as villains in that sense were Ozai, maybe Zhao, and to a lesser extent Azula, who is so young and so obviously suffering from being under Ozai's care that I'm not sure what to make of her three quarters of the time.

[lizbee]

I see your point, but he's the one who chose not to ally himself with Team Avatar. From the moment they were within the city, he was blocking their efforts to do anything, and when mere obstruction proved inefficient, he uses Appa as blackmail. (And then outright kidnaps him. PETNAPPING IS NOT COOL!)

Alternative scenario: Team Avatar arrive, Joo Dee takes them straight to Long Feng, who tells them that the king's duties are primarily ceremonial, and it would be far more efficient if they dealt with him. He presumably has contact with the Council of Five and hence influence with the military. If he really wanted, he could have an invasion organised while still keeping Ba Sing Se blissfully unaware of the war, and teach Aang and co about realpolitik in the process.

Given who we're dealing with, it would probably still all end in the collapse of Long Feng's power and the Earth King's ignorance, but at least he hasn't committed outright treason in order to cement his own power.

I mean, the kids don't decide to depose Long Feng just for the hell of it. He's holding power to which he has no right. And probably they could have lived with that if he was a benevolent leader, but they've seen the culture of fear the Dai Li have created.

[unjapanologist]

Yeah, Long Feng did blow his own chances with his Appa-napping. I'm just sad because of the lost opportunities :/ I fell in love with the character a bit after seeing him troll Katara and Toph at that party.

[nam_jai]

That is true, we don't know how other allies govern, and I guess we see eye-to-eye in the sense that was what I was getting at in saying that having Long Feng as an ally could have led to interesting explorations of what you're willing to accept in order to have a powerful ally. The scenario lizbee describes in the comment above me could have been really fascinating. Unfortunately, as she points out, he's the one who cut off that avenue by never giving them a hearing and taking advantage of it. He wanted the power of running the government, but in the decision to put off Team Avatar, he was perhaps too focused on keeping them away from the king and too obsessed with maintaining the perfect order within the city that he passed on the chance to run the show when it came to the invasion.