Artistic Science

ganohidingfromcarl:

hauntedpamplemousse:

barrelsofdwarrows:

sign-of-innocence:

see-kevin:

World History in a nutshell. 

This is literally the best fucking metaphor for World History and you cannot tell me otherwise.

Except no, this is totally WRONG.

The Air Nomads are based on Tibetian monks, as well as other cultures with concepts of Buddhism. This is reflected in the practice of shaving their heads, meditation, and vegetarianism. Aang’s clothes are very similar to that of the Shaolin monks. Even the location and architecture of the air temples resembles those found in Tibet.

The Fire Nation is inspired by the government and politics of Imperialist and Maoist China (as well as Imperial Japan). There was a little thing called Free Tibet a few years back which was quite in vogue with you psuedo-social-justice types. Do you remember what that was about? In 1951, China invaded Tibet and claimed sovereignty over them. As with most wars, depending on whose views you share, stories can differ. The Chinese (*cough*fire nation*cough*) claim to have reduced taxes, unemployment and built schools. However they achieved this through extortion, torture, murder, and oppression of the Tibetan culture. Thus, Avatar’s Hundred Year War.

The Water tribes are based on Inuit people. This one is really obvious. They share the same visual coding of colour, use furs in the clothing, live in polar regions in igloos and yurts, and rely on fishing as their primary food source.

The Earth Kingdom is a mixing pot of various Asiatic cultures including China, India, Korea, Thailand and Japan. Each city/town will reflect some of these more strongly than the others. 

If you agree with the labelling in the above gifset, you’ve either completely missed the point of Avatar, or just don’t give a fuck about actual World History or anything outside of what’s popular with tumblr “social justice”. You all harp on about needing more representation in the media but as soon as you’re given something as beautiful as Avatar, with a huge diversity of non-Eurocentric cultures, you completely misconstrue it. What you’ve done is erased the importance of all these individual (and indigenous) cultures, and replaced it with your own (anti-white) political agenda.

(And honestly, who uses umbrella labels like “asians” and “white people”. That’s ignorant and racist as fuck)

I don’t even go here but am reblogging because barrels’s commentary is so good and important. 

^

^This guy

(Source: ruinedchildhood, via lucieniibi)